Spring 2022

Harvard University STU-1318 Eco Folly

Professor: Grace La & Erika Naginski

Rising above the shifting dunes of Crane Beach and referencing the historic lighthouse that occupied the site until 1939, the folly is a luminous marker of a rapidly eroding seascape. Vertical turbines display wind intensity and power the illumination of a Fresnel lens mounted at the apex of the tower. The folly relies on a light timber structure to frame a shroud of glass lenses refracting light across the surrounding dunes. Recording the moving sands, these lenses develop a visible patina as they weather. The assemblage of the turbines, glass, and wooden screen render legible the temporality of the beach. With the erosion over time of the threshold between sand and sea, the folly is destined to remain as a monument to an elided landscape. The dramatically unstable topography of the site is continually revealed, as is our responsibility to steward the environment.