Kevin Wang

Ecotone

Based on the ecological term of the same name, the Ecotone Living Project approaches co-living through graduality. Ecotones are conventionally defined as transitory spaces between two biomes.

Preston will be subject to stages of urbanisation and densification in the years coming, leaving questions for housing and urban development.

This project seeks to adapt this dynamic of ecotones to sets of dualities: natural and the artifice, individual and communal, regulated, and free as opposites which need to be reconciled.

In an ecological sense, rewilding, softening biome boundaries to create literal ecotones are central goals of the project to reinvigorate the site. Spatially, Ecotone seeks to treat and celebrate transient spaces by making them operative, passively encouraging a dynamic neighbourhood ethos without encroaching on privacy with a mixture of unit types. Architecturally, Ecotone seeks to reconcile with the urban fabric of Preston by absorbing and reflecting both built forms and materiality.

Ecotone is a project suspended in flux, growing with its residents, securely aware of its legacy yet eagerly looking toward the future.