Casting Care: The Walls of Walmer Yard

Through words and castings, I explore the walls of Walmer Yard — a housing scheme in Notting Hill designed by Peter Salter and turned into a house museum upon its completion in 2018.These casts and the words that accompany them explore the significance of unintended moments within Walmer Yard which, as Keeper and Resident of Walmer Yard, I saw every day.They act to reinforce the experience of caring for the building — of cleaning walls, tending to space, and curating — and sit it aside that of caring for the building through the designing and making of the architectural space.This paper explores in greater depths how the building, the casting of it, and the words placed aside these casts, can act to record the care of myself as caretaker, curator, and resident in the experience of these moments in the walls of Walmer Yard. As I progress through the paper each cast is accompanied by a series of poetic words which begin to evoke memories of the spaces’ enclosure and recollections associated with my roles within the houses.