Giving Memory New Material Life
Deniz Beck Partners is the practice of Turkish-born, Portsmouth-based conservation architect and cultural producer Deniz Beck, whose work explores the relationship between heritage, material, memory and contemporary design. Through sensitive architectural regeneration, adaptive reuse and creative collaboration, Beck works with historic buildings and underused heritage places as evolving spaces shaped by use, loss, repair and reinvention. Her work brings together architects, artists, craftspeople and communities to find new ways of understanding and caring for the built environment.
At Material Matters London, Deniz Beck Partners will present The Shape of Memory, developed through the year-long R&D project Stories You Can Hold at Fort Gilkicker, a Victorian sea fort in Gosport. Working with artist Sally Tyrie and metal spinner Craig Palmer, Beck has transformed fragments including iron nails, stone shavings, burnt timber and flakes of old green paint, alongside LiDAR scans of the fort, into contemporary collectible designs. The exhibition includes a light fitting in etched brass, coloured by fire, demonstrating how the material traces of a place can be given new life without losing their cultural meaning.