Tammy Ohlson de Fine

GROUNDWORK locates architecture amid the environmental crisis and calls on architects to intervene in ways that protect or enhance the natural world. It is an architectural collaboration with nature in the Wolwekraal Nature Reserve in Prince Albert, South Africa, that refers to existing but siloed research to develop a cohesive approach for the insertion of buildings in sensitive environments. The research framework serves as the launchpad for a qualitative analysis that incorporates social, historical, economic and ecological data, ground truthing and multispectral imagery. The building aims to touch the ground lightly while still providing a state of the art, multi-functional biodiversity research facility that responds to the needs of the multiple communities it is serving. The work challenges the buildings relationship to humans, plants and animals; and aspires to work in harmony with nature by eliciting cues from the environment that point to an architectural intervention the land can tolerate.