Saunders Architecture’s new Fogo Island Shed expands the remit of the artistic and creative community on Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Starting with the opening of the award-winning Fogo Island Inn in 2013, Saunders Architecture has been the creative force behind the work of Shorefast, a charity established in 2003 by Zita, Anthony, and Alan Cobb to revitalize the Fogo Island economy.

The Inn is a 100% social business, constructed using philanthropic funds with proceeds returning to Shorefast for reinvestment in the community. Saunders Architecture has been involved from the outset, designing the Inn along with a series of unique artists’ studios that are scattered across the island’s dramatic landscape. Throughout this ongoing project, architectural inspiration has been drawn from the vernacular forms of the region’s traditional fishermen’s huts and houses. The Fogo Island Shed builds on this tradition.

The new building combines contemporary forms with traditional techniques, evoking a strong sense of place through the simplicity and porosity of its interior and exterior volumes. Essentially a simple timber shed, the structure uses the studio’s trademark tilted and twisted geometry to create visual drama, as part of the wild Fogo landscape and from within the building itself. This architectural typology is an essential component of the island’s life over centuries, housing not just the fishing boats and nets, but also the construction of the boats themselves and the processing of the catch. Whether anchored to the land or set on stilts above the shoreline, the hut is a fundamental part of Fogo’s heritage.

Designed around the notion of ‘slow eating’, the space is intended to foster a social approach to dining, with a long table set alongside an open plan kitchen. Guests and chefs are in the same space, creating an intimate dining space that brings the ingredients, techniques, smells, and flavors to life. The architecture forges a physical connection between community and landscape.

The building has no electricity—a deliberate throwback to a simpler age that has the effect of focusing the mind, increasing awareness of the seasons, the light, and even the flavor of the food. Lit by kerosene lamps, and with food cooked over a stove or open fire, it is strongly reminiscent of the cabins occupied by the majority of the islanders until very recently. ‘It has a strong atmosphere, like the cabin I grew up in as a kid,’ Todd Saunders explains, ‘we had kerosene lamps and when it got dark outside, you went over to candlelight. It slowed things down.’

Like all Saunders Architecture’s projects on Fogo Island, from the Inn to the artist’s studios, the Fogo Island Shed takes a local archetype—the traditional pitched roof house—and then pares back the form, using a combination of old and new materials and construction techniques to achieve a balanced, geometric simplicity. Confident in its simplicity, it extends the foundation’s work out into the community, a strong symbol of continuity, community, and the positive power of design.

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