Newhaven, Place of Disappearance — a study in light and form

Newhaven is a port town in East Sussex, on the English Channel coast. Overlooked by planners, marked by its industrial character and ageing urban fabric — an ideal subject for research into revitalisation possibilities.

The Place of Disappearance project is a 2016 study in which the geometry of light served as the starting point. The sun path — precisely calculated for Newhaven's latitude — defined the form of the proposed building: its angles, cuts and shading elements. The building was not a response to a programme. It was a response to light.

From form to city

The strategic placement of the building on the site followed the same logic. The shadow cast by the form at particular times of year and day became the generator of the spatial layout of the entire master plan — pedestrian axes, squares, activity zones. The building and its shadow literally drew the urban structure of the surroundings.

This way of thinking — from physical phenomenon (light) to form (building) to spatial layout (city) — inverts the typical design logic, in which a city is planned from above and the building fills the grid. Here, a single object and its relationship with the sun became the catalytic element of the whole.

Context: revitalisation through presence

Newhaven as a town is clearly marked by absence. Industrial buildings, a freight port, a fading town centre — a place that seems to "disappear" from the regional consciousness. Hence the title: Place of Disappearance. The project does not propose a drastic intervention — it proposes a gesture that gives the place a new orientation and a new identity through a conscious presence in the light landscape.