This above is a 24-hour design competition I participated in, in 2017 and won. It was run by the Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation. My entry was titled “a place for listening”.

The brief came in an excerpt from JC Hollman’s “The Sky’s Things”, |Xam Bushman “Astrological Mythology”. 

– “When the water first came from my body, the color of red sand, I felt all the world come into me, all things breathing with me. Far away from my family, I had to make a place for myself to wait for the magic to pass. Outside my hut, an Early Race family of rock-rabbit people (Rock hyrax) were eating together, Lonely by myself, the family of rock-rabbit people made me sad. I gathered them up in my hands together with their house of branches and threw them into the sky. That evening the rock-rabbit people seemed lost in the sky, I felt regretful for what I have done. I scooped up a handful of red and white left-over roots with the ashes of my old fire and flung it all up next to the family in the sky. Today, the new people call the rock-rabbit people and their house of branches in the sky, the Corona Australis; the ashes and white and red roots, they named the Milky Way. But the |Xam know it was me that moved the earth and its people-things into the heavens, which mixed the horizons and made mortals celestial bodies. Whenever the |Xam are lost in the dark, they follow my glowing path of ashes and roots to find their family. “

a place for listening description 

‘The Apollonian forces of astronomy, the observatory as a place of scientific observation and telescopes as the mechanical tools to foster such observation are currently the most imposing, dominating aspects of the site. The Dionysian aspects of the ancient cosmic landscape are only briefly felt on the approach to the site, but when on site they form a vague forgotten background to the astronomy. To achieve a dynamic state of equilibrium these concepts need to be more present and felt at all scales in a way that does not subdue the scientific nature of the place, but rather places both rational and the poetic into a harmonious balance which enriches the sense of place. This proposal celebrates the oppressed voices to create a synergistic relationship of collective value, far greater than the sum of marginalized invisible and the tangible present.’