NORD Architecture

Considering the effects that this ‘in-between’ state has on people, we came to the conclusion that it isolates, and that people have a strange feeling of not belonging in one place or the other and of actually being socially distant.”

NORD’s search for an answer to the ongoing breakdown of the traditional ‘community’ looked back to St. Kilda, a place so entirely remote that close proximity in work and play was not only desirable, it was unavoidable. In other words, in a bygone time the island presented a different ideal of community structure.

“ St. Kilda was a model of self-sufficiency in its isolation but then something happened that made this theoretically perfect society break down. Devoid of mobility, through the lack of transport and communication systems, it failed. Perhaps this lack of connectivity in some way epitomises the fractured societies we live in today, and tells us something about to feel connected.”

The St. Kilda story also reflects the problems faced by other peripheral communities. Small countries like Scotland, that exist on the boundaries of the European Community, struggle to be significant and influential in a way that those central to the EC do not. It is only by endeavouring to be connected that we remain part of the bigger picture.