. Two Kinds of Wild

A teaching study and exhibition at the Architectural Association [UK] by students of Diploma Unit Two. The fabrication of large‑scale timber models was the chosen method of study of two distinct buildings; Alison and Peter Smithson's Arts Barn at Bath University, and Giovanni Michelucci's Chiesa dell'Autostrada.

Projected view showing original state of the exhibition hall

. Harvard Forest

The Fisher Museum at Harvard Forest was built to house a sequence of dioramas describing changing conditions of the forest landscape over time. Originally conceived as a two storey hall, in the nineteen-sixties a new floor was inserted. This study, commissioned by Harvard Forest, reconstructs the original form of the museum interior.

Members of the Royal Aeronautical Society with a radio controlled boat on Dagenham Breach in about 1909.

. Slack Nature and the Working Wild

The East London Green Grid was a groundbreaking planning study now embedded in the London Plan. Original documentation included a catalogue of supporting essays. One of those essays, Slack Nature and the Working Wild, explores issues of historic land use, biodiversity, and what it means to map nature.

Thames view from the top of the Darent flood barrier

. Estuarine Landscape

Essay on the wider Thames estuary, originally published in the landscape journal Topos. Starting with a consideration of the historic landscape, the essay explores how policies driven by the need for new forms of flood management, will affect the estuary over future years.

Detail of industrial development at Fuxing island

. Industrial Landscapes in Transition

A documentary research project using photography to record contemporary conditions of industrial settlement. The images describe a range of urban morphologies, including abandoned land, mixed patterns of agriculture and industry, major infrastructure projects, and newly emerging industrial developments.

On-site earthwork RAF Upper Heyford Spring 1997.

. Constructing Beyond Use

Constructing Beyond Use: Memory and Threat in Post‑military Space, was first published in AA Files 42. The essay considers the place that military buildings and landscapes hold in our collective memory, and how these attitudes affect our decision making in relation to future use.

Detail of one of Tycho Brahe's astronomical instruments | woodcut view

. Tycho Brahe at Hveen

From his observatory on the island of Hveen Tycho Brahe amassed the astronomical readings that would form the basis of Kepler's revolutionary model of planetary motion. The island included its own publishing house, and the woodcuts made there, together with Tycho's own descriptions, present a unique picture of the science of his time.

Portrait photograph of Peter Charles Beard

. about

An architect by training, Peter Beard has created a body of work marked by a sensitivity to places ‘as found’. His project for the nature reserve on the Thames marshes at Rainham was awarded a special mention in the European Prize for Urban Public Space [2014]. Based in Piedmont, Italy, his current work combines documentary photography with independant design and research.