Forest of Time: Christopher Briggs’ Vision for Ecological Architecture in Glen Affric
Rewilding Reimagined: A Radical Prototype for Our Changing Climate
Sandwiched between mountains and lochs in the Scottish Highlands lies Glen Affric, a landscape celebrated for its pristine beauty, inviolable silence, and rare pockets of ancient woodland. For Christopher Briggs—an MArch graduate from the University of Westminster and recipient of the RIBA Part II Scholarship—Glen Affric became the site for a bold thesis that stands at the intersection of architectural innovation and ecological urgency. His project, Coille an Àm (Forest of Time), reframes the traditional boundaries of architectural intervention, proposing not just a structure within nature but an architectural process grown from it.
A Scholar Rooted in Practice and Ambition
Briggs’ academic credentials are matched only by his professional accomplishments. His design ethos—which allies rigorous technical proficiency with ecological sensitivity—was honed both at the University of Westminster and on the ground with BGY. There, he contributed to the landmark retrofit of YY London in Canary Wharf, embracing ambitious sustainability standards and heritage renewal at an urban scale. This blending of academic inquiry and real-world experience enriches his creative approach, informing the speculative yet grounded vision of Coille an Àm.
Glen Affric as Living Laboratory
At the heart of Coille an Àm is the idea that rewilding—the restoration and expansion of natural habitats—should be more than a passive undoing of human impact. Briggs proposes an “anthropogenic forest,” an environment where architecture emerges in active, ongoing dialogue with evolving ecologies. The design is not a fixed artifact but a framework for participation with time, place, and climate.
On paper and through evocative drawings, Briggs details a forest where timber structures are cultivated alongside their host landscape, using species selected for their resilience to a warming world. The architectural elements are not imported but grown, harvested, and replaced in cycles, rendering the built environment as temporary as a forest clearing, as mutable as the seasons. “Architecture,” he writes, “must learn to negotiate mutable ecologies—not simply resist them.”
A Material Strategy Grown from Place
Key to the project’s innovation is its materially integrated strategy. Coille an Àm leverages the reintroduction and management of native species such as Scots pine, birch, and hazel, weaving timber fabrication and regenerative silviculture into a single, continuous process. Structures are designed to be dismantled, composted, and replaced, ensuring that interventions are reversible and their material impact is ultimately restorative.
Briggs’ designs respond not only to site-specific ecology but also to climate adaptation. By treating the forest as a carbon sink and a living construction site, the project models a form of climate-positive development—a prototype whose principles could translate to degraded landscapes worldwide.
Scripting a New Narrative for Rewilding
‘Active collaboration with time’ is not just a poetic turn in Briggs’ project narrative, but a methodological challenge. The project repositions the architect as steward and facilitator, shaping environments that thrive on gradual transformation rather than sudden, monumental change. In this way, Coille an Àm stands apart from the nostalgic or hands-off approaches that often accompany rewilding debates.
The proposal includes phased interventions, where meadows and thickets are managed as experimental nurseries, and built elements become “scaffolds” for natural succession. Over decades, interventions recede, and the forest’s agency is allowed to dominate—a choreography of management, relinquishment, and renewal.
Acknowledgement and Ambition: A Growing Reputation
Briggs’ work on Coille an Àm has already attracted attention. As a RIBA Part II Scholar, his thesis was recognized for its theoretical depth and practical potential. His earlier involvement with BGY’s YY London retrofit further underscores his technical capability and design maturity, as he navigated the complexities of urban sustainability and adaptive reuse. This unique blend of skills is evident throughout Coille an Àm.
Connecting with Christopher Briggs
For those inspired by integrated ecological thinking, or for practices seeking to push the boundaries of sustainable design, Christopher Briggs remains an approachable and engaged advocate for innovative architectural futures. Readers are invited to explore the depth of Coille an Àm—including drawings, research, and speculative models—at designstudio18.com/Christopher-Briggs.
To connect directly, admirers and collaborators can reach Christopher via LinkedIn, Instagram (@cbriggs_arch), or at cbriggs.arch@outlook.com. These platforms host not only his academic and professional portfolio but also an ongoing conversation about architecture’s responsibilities—and its remarkable opportunities—in a rapidly changing natural world.
Towards an Architecture of Stewardship
‘Forest of Time’ is, at its core, an invitation to rethink the role of the architect as one who not only designs buildings but cultivates landscapes—where place, ecology, and culture intertwine. Briggs’ thesis urges us to understand buildings as living, breathing participants in ecological cycles: born, adapted, and ultimately returned to the soil.
As the climate crisis reshapes both landscapes and professions, Coille an Àm stands as a timely and evocative vision—one that dares to ask what architecture becomes when it sets its roots deep into the forest floor, and its ambitions even deeper into the future.
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