This thesis addresses the dissonance between two islands in Bantry Bay through the speculative gaze of a key figure in local history; Violet Bryce. Our design methodology has emerged from extensive research of historical, environmental and dialectic interplays between Garnish and Whiddy Island, as well as fusing Violet Bryce’s attitudes with our own personal readings of the islands.

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Informed by the speculative gaze of Violet Bryce, this thesis rejects the current maltreatment of Bantry Bay, instead focusing on provoking a dialectic mediation between Garnish and Whiddy island through speculative interplay and environmental remediation. From this starting point, we manufactured a conjectured tale of lost legacy in the form of Violet Bryce’s ‘lost landscape’ of Bantry Bay, constantly interplaying between the ‘real’ and the ‘imagined’ within the confines of space, time and history. This interlude between the ‘real’ and the ‘imagined’ began to manifest throughout our studies in the form of residual architecture, lost authorship and the female gaze.

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The design project aims to reconcile the feminine power of Violet Bryce with the unfinished legacy of Bantry Bay and construct an environmental node between Garnish and Whiddy Island from the curiosities on her desk, which present themselves as delicate yet powerful symbols of legacy, the eternal feminine and reclaimed authorship. These items become the building blocks upon which our fantastical constructs are based, transposing the value of wealth into the value of the environment. Re-embodying Violet Bryce’s carefully gathered paraphernalia as structures breathes new life into the stagnant bay, reclaiming its former glory.