Kathryn Findlay: 1953-2014

摘要

Field~noun: An area of open land, especially one planted with crops or pasture, typically bounded by hedges or fences. verb: A particular branch of study or sphere of activity or interest. Fieldwork~noun: Practical work conducted by a researcher in the natural environment, rather than in a laboratory or office. (Oxford English Dictionary). Kathryn Findlay's untimely death has left us bereft not only of one of the world's most poetic architects of recent times but also a beacon of research-led practice as conducted through her 'fieldwork'. That these two descriptions can sit side-by-side is testament to the extraordinary capacity she had for continually unearthing new ideas from her fertile imagination and always testing and grounding them through disciplined and rigorous inquiry. Her 'field' began in the rugged glacier scoured hills of her birthplace on 26 January 1953, in Finavon on the east side of Scotland, where she was raised as a sheep farmer's daughter. Her approach to architecture as 'movement through landscape' was the green fuse that renewed itself in each of her projects - deeply informed by the very stuff of nature from which she herself was formed.