A Cafe for Scopophobic Psychiatrist

The site is located in southeast London, Slade Green, Crayford Marshes, a derelict AntiAirforce Battery area used in WWII, the last defensive air raid fort in London. The project aims to create a hideout place for people who have scopophobia, enabling them to retreat away from people’s sight and relationships with people. Scopophobia is described as “a fear of being stared at or watched by someone”.

Here, the project closely links the relationship with nature, specifically to birds, ‘House
Sparrow’, present in the site and ‘Quentin Blake’ in relation to the site, subject of war, and
methods to protect from the war. The main user of the building is the popular psychiatrist, Quentin Blake Nephew, who has scopophobia created by the patient due to the high popularity. The birds will be the co-users of the building, as the site will soon be managed by Wildlife Trust. The birds are described in the ‘Humanimal’ concept, where the birds can mimic human behaviours; witness, repair and replace materials and respond to environmental changes, observing the change in marsh and agriculture.

The proposed building is a café where people with scopophobia can be cured by spending their time in an invisible condition with a pleasant acoustic coffee roasting smell spreading along the building. To remain unobserved, the building uses thatch material to blend into the surrounding environment. The building design imitates the fort design by ‘Bernardo
Bountalenti’, who is an architect, stage designer, theatrical and military engineer, referencing
‘Renaissance Fun’, theatrically linking the inner building devices to manipulate the building
condition referencing and substituting the window into the periscope design for invisibility