Rory Browne



Rory is a London based architectural designer. 
He completed his Bsc and MArch in Architecture at 
The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. 


The works presented are a result of a thesis project Towards Slow Heritage investigating alternative approaches to ecological and architectural heritage through the lens of rhythm, temporality and slowness. 






































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Towards Slow Heritage
Pantalica, Sicily


The Necropolis of Pantalica in Sicily is one of Europe’s largest pre-historic burial grounds. ‘Towards Slow Heritage’ proposes a minimal landscape infrastructure on a boundary condition of the site’s UNESCO buffer zone. Instead of freezing the effects of time through preservation and restorative practices, the project supports a respectful and dynamic contemporary relationship to the Necropolis.

A programme of gathering and finding shade in the landscape facilitates enhanced experiences during visits to Pantalica. Enabling the hosting of rituals and events. Small-scale archaeological, film, and music festivities activate the site seasonally, viewing the landscape as a temporal space to be inhabited throughout the year in organised and improvised scenarios. 

The phased and periodic proposal over many years nurtures a slower, more appreciative connection to the land. This counter-proposal to conventional heritage practice offers a temporal understanding of the site and the dynamic rhythms that drive it.


2024

Collaborative Drawing Practice
London


A collaborative drawing with Basil Babichev investigating and speculating how geometry can react to a prehistoric Necropolis and an incomplete modernist infrastructure project in rural Sicily. The drawing responds to our respective sites and building projects on the island. The work is speculative, exploratory and procedural rather than strictly representational. The drawing illustrates a dynamic and enjoyable design process questioning the role of authorship within the profession. Resting on historic methods to compose rhythm and geometric proportion; we alternate between each other's thoughts, sites and drawing tools. This results in a sensitive heritage-focused design process based on interaction, collaboration and intuition. 

Pencil and Pen on A0 Cartridge Paper


2024

Platforms and other events
Pantalica, Sicily


Design methods investigate scoring, performance and the sequencing of events in the landscape. A practice of large-format drawing is developed collaboratively to generate a series of minimal architectural typologies. This way of drawing celebrates layering, re-drawing and reconstruction drives the development and an interest in plinths, platforms, and clearings. This analogous drawing method is accompanied by processes of digital modelling, image making, scoring, and sequencing events.

Pencil and Pen on A0 and A1 Cartridge Paper

2023

Slow Heritage - An approach to ecological and architectural heritage through the lens of rhythm, temporality and slowness
London

Principles of ‘slowness’ are explored to expand and question pre-conceived notions of heritage practice. An application of slowness within heritage discourse is not to call for a literal slowing down of methods in conservation and preservation,⁴ rather these principles can encourage alternative ways of perceiving the world around us.⁵ Slow principles, as evident in their application across many fields (food, tourism, transport), promote a greater awareness of the multiple temporal processes at play in cultural, ecological and urban landscapes. This theoretical approach subscribes to the view that landscapes are a product of the work conducted by many humans and more-than-human participants over time.⁶ Subsequently, this thesis argues for an approach to heritage that moves beyond UNESCO’s definition while respecting the procedural, rhythmic processes that construct cultural and ecological landscapes. A ‘slow’ conception of heritage opens the possibilities of what is considered as heritage practice. Current states of ecological breakdown, crisis and cultural uniformity highlight “the need to develop more sustainable and resilient future-making practices.”⁷

See full thesis
2023

Funerary Landscapes
Pantalica, Sicily


A series of speculative drawings responding to the Necropolis of Pantalica. A method of drawing that reconstructs, codifies and interprets the prehistoric traces in the Sicilian landscape. 

Pencil and Pen on A1 Cartridge Paper
2023

Threshing in the Ground
Sicily


A archetypal vocabulary is produced and then integrated across the site. Phasing the structures and their construction over time. Leaving space for adaptation, future re-use or re-programming. The project does not propose a finished project, or series of objects, rather a template for future inhabitation to be worked on collectively and through groups and rituals of building.


2023