Borrowed Ground

FINALIST of New Zealand Nature Retreat: Antipodes Island

+ FINALIST

New Zealand Nature Retreat: Antipodes Island

[1627]

Borrowed Ground

Team

Name: Rachel Elbon

Instagram: rachelelbon

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-elbon/

Nationality: American

Name: Adam Smith

Instagram: adamjuicysmith

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjessesmith/

Nationality: American

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Borrowed Ground rejects permanence, ownership, and human-centered occupation. Ecological damage on Antipodes Island – sealing, shipwrecks, and the introduction of invasive mice – was the direct result of human presence. For that reason, the shelter exists only as a temporary observation device for a single researcher whose role is not to improve the island, but to verify that improvement is occurring without human intervention. The researcher may momentarily record local flora and fauna, but they remain a biological liability; a witness who cannot stay. 

Suspended between existing rock outcrops, the structure never touches soil. This refusal of ground contact limits disturbance and creates a minimal impact the ecosystem can tolerate. Tussock grasslands, megaherbs, ferns, and local birds continue their patterns uninterrupted. Any micro-shelters for flora and fauna that form over time are incidental side effects, not ecological interventions. The researcher occupies a niche for sleeping and recording.

Materials are intentionally sacrificial: wind etches textile walls, salt accumulates, moss colonizes over exposed wood. Over its brief lifespan, the shelter becomes a temporary climatic recorder rather than a lasting object. When it erodes, a future structure (if warranted by new ecological data) appears elsewhere on the island, never inherited, never permanent, always withdrawn.

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Jury Comments

– Maria Vittoria Delli Carri

I like the concept, concrete and poetic at the same time. I could have seen a bit more about accessibility and visuals from the inside.

– Olivia Bina

no detail of how the tent material is viable in context let alone how to survive