Samuel Nugba

A TALE OF TWO CITIES | HULL’S PAST AND HULL’S FUTURE

Hull faces an increasingly flooded future, with sea levels predicted to rise. Threat becomes an opportunity, and experimental designs move between scales, allowing floodwater management strategies and carefully detailed architectural proposals to inform one another. If we encourage recycling of waste marine infrastructure in order to build a new urban waterfront along the Humber estuary, this would enable Hull to develop a new connection with water, incorporating it then starting to relocate buildings into floating or stilt structures. The 'attack' proposition challenges our aspirations for threatened cities and advances thinking. This tale of two cities celebrates the heritage of Hull’s fishing industry. The scheme encourages visitor participation in the whole process, from catching to cooking, fish to fork. The project serves as a hub for local industry where products are harvested for food, medical, cosmetic and oil production. Another fundamental theme in the scheme is water. Water is much more than a means for hydrating the body; water mediates between life and death, between being and not being, between health and sickness. My thesis design-research proposes a methodology for living with water. Economic, ecological and social. Cleansing/Cleaning, Submersion/Spiritual, Fishing/Food.