The Folly Building Workshop is a self-build initiative. It focuses on community and collaboration above proaction and functionality. The workshop aims to design structures in a totally organic, bottom-up and sustainable way. Using the “folly” (defined as “an ornamental structure with no specific purpose”) as a symbolic aim, the process focusses on collective discussion to generate ideas. A collaborating individual with certain needs, or a community with shared ideas or a shared identity are given the lead on designing a structure with locally sourced up cycled material, they need not have ay artistic or architectural experience. Prompts, model making materials and possibly walks around the local area can be used to get conversation started, but as much as possible the facilitation of the workshop should remain non-interventionist, it should suggest and support the collaborators or community rather than instruct.
