Studio Continuity’s ethos encourages a theoretical approach to working within existing buildings, to allow for thoughtful interventions that are connected to the history, character and ambience of the site. This thesis project builds on this, exploring three key ideas inspired by nature and gardening: grafting new structure onto old, reappropriating old and waste materials, and the use of armature as an intervention, to develop an ecological model for working within existing buildings.

Wapping Hydraulic Power Station is used to develop these ideas through design, transforming what was once an unused industrial building into Wapping Wall Gardens, a community garden and education centre, comprising a series of external rooms and internal gardens. New timber frame structures are grafted onto the existing, or combined with materials harvested from site during selective demolition (aggregate used in rammed earth walls, cobbles and brick reclaimed and relaid elsewhere), to transform the existing building, creating a new cyclical architectural language/aesthetic.