Architecture has a considerable impact on the environment, accounting for a large portion of carbon emissions in every country. Due to economic reasons, each year thousands of demolished to give their space to new structures, creating a waste of materials and resources, but what if instead of creating something from a blank slate, we used an existing shell to create something new?
This project proposes the re-purposing of a category-A building that has been abandoned for the last thirty years. The Cambusnethan Priory is set in an abandoned orchard within the Clyde Valley, an area that used to produce a large percentage of fruits in Scotland but that has seen its fall due to the competition of imports. This project aims not only to retrofit the Priory into a habitable building that could be enjoyed by the community but also to bring back to life the orchard and its production, creating a sustainable cycle of production and consumption between the building and the land.