Micheas Ferlito

The Beacon

Micheas Ferlito is a final year Architecture student whose project, The Beacon, hopes to memorialise buildings of Birmingham's past. 

Give us a brief overview of your project 

The Beacon is a memorial to Birmingham's lost buildings. It calls all to pay remembrance to significant buildings which were abandoned or destroyed over the years in Birmingham. 

Its exhibition halls showcase visual tapes of the lost buildings and their significant events alongside physical remnants creating an alive and tactile reminder of their history and culture. Every aspect of the memorial aims to create a reflective and poetic experience. Light, circulation and structure is carefully manipulated to create an air of remembrance, collision and thought.

Why did you choose this concept?

Upon the first site visit to North Edgbaston the area revealed various dereliction. The same dereliction was also evident on a wider scale throughout Birmingham. This austerity strips away the urban fabric, history and culture of the city. 

This is an important issue for Birmingham, so choosing this concept which explores a novel way of causing change through reflection became an interesting topic for me. 

What processes have you been using?

I started my project by exploring the site of North Edgbaston which alongside building surveys, ethnographic observations and primary interviews the concept of my project started to develop. Then after countless sketches, digital models and physical massing the form and location for my memorial came to be. 

What do you hope to achieve with your project?

This projects concept is that this building could be a blueprint of how to prevent further dereliction from happening. The memorial aims to show the value of the culture and architecture which is taken from a city when a building comes down. When this importance is seen by enough people, I hope that it will inspires us to value these buildings and prevent Birmingham from losing other historic sections of its fabric.

How has your course helped you to prepare for working on your project?

Weekly tutorials and class interim reviews would expand and develop my concept and design further. Each review would critique a certain aspect of the project improving it on a weekly basis.