Summer Assembly: Earth Stations - Architectures of Land and Learning, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, July 2026

Invited speaker for Architectures of Land and Learning, a public talk and panel discussion as part of Architecture Fringe’s Earth Station Summer School at Hospitalfield, alongside Sara Almodovar Pereira and Hannah Lu and Garance Maurer of Floating University Berlin.

My talk, The Common Ground of Our Earthly Relationships, explored the relationships between ecological restoration, cultural memory, community stewardship and learning through the lens of human ecology. At the heart of the talk was the idea of convivial learning: learning that emerges through participation, shared activity and relationship rather than formal instruction. Drawing on a recent community gathering at Abriachan’s reconstructed shieling, I explored how walking, noticing, naming plants and birds, making butter, singing, making art and sharing local knowledge created a temporary, multigenerational community of learning – with knowledge distributed between participants and the land itself becoming one of the teachers. I connected this contemporary practice with the shieling’s historic role as a place of intergenerational learning, where ecological knowledge, songs, stories and practical skills were kept alive through participation and everyday life. I proposed a radical school of learning rooted in place: one in which reciprocal restoration, repair and stewardship become part of the rhythm of belonging, and learning grows through relationship with land, community and the more-than-human world.

The talk concluded by asking what architecture and design might learn from these practices – creating conditions for relationships, knowledge and care to emerge and flourish.

Read more here