Folkestone was the location for our first major project as undergraduates, and you can get an idea of what the area used to look like in these blog posts back in Jan/March 2017. Since then, the long drawn out redevelopment of the harbour area has begun to bare some fruit – namely the landscaping and public realm development of the beachfront, restoration of the old railway station on the harbour (stretching to creating a micro-‘highline’ along the old viaduct), along with the expansion and formalisation of the “temporary” market zone adjacent to the Customs House. In addition, the first new residential complex is nearing completion, under the direction of aisfor_.

I possibly wrote about this at the time, but best that I remember, the masterplan was originally developed by Farrell’s (which is what we discovered as undergrads), before being passed to ACME, and elements of the proposal then being brought forward by aisfor_. From my (very) limited experience, it is not uncommon for a major redevelopment project to pass through many different hands/firms before the public actually sees anything physical, and that’s before the time for demolition & construction is taken into account (although demolition can happen concurrently, depending on how planning has been arranged). Saying this, my hunch from memory is that the Rocksalt restaurant was in fact the very first element of construction as part of the redevelopment – a trial balloon perhaps. Either way, my parents and I happen to enjoy a lovely lunch there this weekend, which is how I ended up visiting Folkestone, taking a trip down memory lane.

Before anyone asks, yes I seem to have fallen in love with monochrome photography, and no, I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. I most certainly want to get better at it. I don’t ever expect photography to become my profession instead of architectural practice, but that isn’t going to stop me from having fun when I can.