Reflection by the River: An Urban Sanctuary for Renewal

Set beside the Lock Keeper’s Cottage in Newark, the project reinterprets the idea of an urban monastery as a civic place of retreat, using water, light and material to create moments of cleansing, stillness and release. Responding to the River Trent and the lock, the building treats water as both a physical and symbolic threshold. The scheme extends across the river through a colonnade, forming a guided journey.