In the UK there are approximately one million acres of peat soil, storing 584 million tonnes of carbon. Forming part of the Great Northern Bog, the moors found within Yorkshire contain 27% of the UK’s peat bog. This is thanks to active encouragement through a government subsidy scheme, requiring land to be in “agricultural condition”, but not actually worked in agricultural ways. For decades these lands have been burned, cut, and drained almost to a point of no return.

Proposed to be a new 7th division of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the new Institute acts as a site of research looking at how architecture can be an active participant in the conservation of damaged landscapes. The traditional role of nature and human has been exchanged. Nature is the primary occupant of the building and subsequently directly informs the design of the architecture – the human inhabitants are mere caretakers of the space. When the building has reached the end of its usable life, all reusable materials are dismantled, with the elements left behind becoming part of the landscape.