Gathering in the Shadows of Progress

This project looks at the forgotten infrastructures of the UK: the logistical circuits, abandoned sites, and digital shadows that quietly shape daily life.

While innovation is often framed in terms of new technologies, Gathering in the Shadows of Progress argues that the UK’s real intelligence lies in the systems already in place. Supply chains, distribution hubs, digital twins, and abandoned projects are not just remnants of the past. They are active engines of imagination, organisation, and possibility.

The Architecture of Logistics

Since Peter Hall’s vision of the “zone,” logistics has become the invisible architecture of UK life. It does not only move goods. It organises cities, governs consumption patterns, and choreographs social and economic rhythms.

Today, AI accelerates this logistical hold, embedding itself into communication networks, energy flows, and predictive models. Instead of seeing this as a closed system, the project treats it as an opportunity: a way to learn from existing infrastructures and to invite manufacturers, distributors, designers, and communities into new conversations about the futures these systems are already producing.

Ghosts of Modernity

The UK is full of abandoned sites: nuclear facilities, industrial corridors, extraction landscapes. These are not just ruins. They are repositories of intelligence.

Each carries lessons about ambition, collapse, climate impact, and technological hubris. Studying them reveals both risks and opportunities and opens up ways to design with responsibility and foresight.

Reading the Shadows

Gathering in the Shadows of Progress sets up localised observation nodes that collect and translate knowledge from forgotten circuits. These nodes work with manufacturers and distributors to surface hidden logistical patterns, enable designers to collaborate with stakeholders on the ground, and translate peripheral intelligence into actionable strategies for adaptation and resilience.

Peripheral Engines

Mainstream narratives of innovation often overlook the peripheral engines of change: the workers, infrastructures, and imaginaries that sustain logistics.

By paying attention to these overlooked systems, the project helps partners anticipate systemic risks, identify new opportunities, and reimagine innovation as negotiation rather than top-down progress.

Toward Energy-Aware Futures

This project is about learning from the shadows and using what has been abandoned, ignored, or hidden to open new pathways.

By stepping into conversations across supply chains, infrastructures, and communities, Gathering in the Shadows of Progress offers a model for innovation that is complex, energy-aware, and grounded in real-world systems.