Like many remote agricultural towns across the UK, Axminster’s distinct rural character has come under threat in recent years, diluted by a succession of developer-led housing schemes around its once picturesque outskirts, with their homogeneous forms and imported materials paying little attention to the old town vernacular or the agrarian landscapes being displaced.

Through a reactionary proposal for the town’s expansion masterplan, the project questions contemporary modes of development used across much of rural Britain today, asking how new buildings could be reframed as a sympathetic extension of the site’s physical and ecological landscapes rather than a man-made imposition serving only human occupants.

The alternative proposal looks to the hills and the hedgerows, drawing upon the historic built technologies of Axminster and its surrounding countryside to derive a more culturally and ecologically responsive vernacular for the town’s expansion. The project culminates in the design of a seasonally determined craft primary school, framing the scheme as a prototypical test bed for the material and constructional principles to be applied across the rest of the development.