The work for the Distillery Pond Albany Gardens Estate in Colchester has reached the point where the consultation period has come to its end and the final designs have been created. At what point does a house become a home? The concept for the work came from the idea of carving a home out of the raw material of house. I thought of the idea of discovering home, almost like a form of archaeology and somehow this might mirror the works surroundings and people developing a community within Albany Gardens. This idea is linked to the history of the space. On the site of Albany Gardens there used to be a number of buildings. The function of the majority of the buildings was as a laundry; they included a warehouse and employee housing. The shapes of these buildings have been researched through talking to past employees and previous residents and members of the community who can remember the site before it was developed and researching old maps and photographs. The work will consist of two blocks of granite with roughly cut outside surfaces. The inside surface will be polished and the collected memories of previous residents and members of the community who can remember the site before it was developed will be cut into the surface.
