The Last House

Abstract

The Carteret Islands are a small atoll chain 86km northeast of the mainland of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It is believed the small island community will become the world’s first climate change refugees.

The small islands are facing a number of climate related issues. As a low-lying atoll chain, they are especially vulnerable to the effects of slow-onset sea level rise, and they have already begun to witness the threat this presents to their homeland.

Such small and low-lying islands leave few alternatives when faced with rising sea levels, and the Carteret Islands have already begun to feel the effects of migration, with more than a third of the population now relocated onto the mainland of Bougainville Province. However, for many the resettlement proved to be challenging. The new landscape was unfamiliar and harsh, the sea out of sight. Many of the older islanders only spoke their native tongue, finding it difficult to communicate and assimilate in their new context. It has also been shown from previous forced relocations that people are likely to be affected by severe economic, social, and environmental hardship, specifically in the wake of climate-induced displacement. To flee the islands is to lose their identity, and they fear it would mark the end of the Carteret people. The draw of the sea, despite its risks and vulnerabilities, has endured.

The aim of this design-led research is to critically consider the notion that buildings are necessarily impermanent, and to explore the implications of accepting the condemnation of site and architecture through design interventions that address the salient issues of the place and its people.

The principal aim of this design-led research investigation is to critically consider in the current era of climate change, how architecture can address the future of low-lying island nations that will no longer exist once sea levels rise.

The principal research questions are:

- How can architecture help people continue to safely inhabit low-lying island homelands during the transition period prior to complete loss due to rising sea levels? - How can architecture help people continue to remember and honour their homeland even after complete loss, especially ancestors that remain behind in sacred burial grounds?

The principal objectives of the thesis are to develop a contemporary architectural approach to impending loss of homeland that:

- lengthens the period in which the people can continue to inhabit their homeland; - recognises and reinforces the cultural heritage and relationships of the people and their traditional architecture; - provides a permanent memorial that enables the lost homeland to be remembered and honoured by future generations.