Dead Letter Office and Museum in Hay-On-Wye

Undelivered post is sent to the National Return's Centre in Belfast, where it is opened and investigated by a postal worker to be returned to the sender or repatriated with the intended recipient. Historically, the office is colloquially called the Dead Letter Office and is shrouded in privacy. My proposal is a dead letter office in Hay-on-Wye and a public crypt preserving and displaying the 'dead' undelivered post, supported by a performance and exhibition space interplaying with the narratives of letters. The Cafe on the top floor replaces the existing cafe on the site.

Hay-on-Wye is the Welsh town of books so it has experience guarding and displaying narratives. It is also located on the Wales-England border giving it good distribution for repatriation and returning of the post.

I interrogated the physical layers of the site - the bridge, the road, the footpath, and the river; and the historical layers of the site - the toll house, the past bridges, and the railway. I sought to give the current concrete bridge context with the town and the landscape, having facades of stone and cast-in-situ concrete.

This project was successful in incorporating the history of the site into the function and strategy. Also, taking the traditionally private function of the National Returns Centre office and partnering that with public functions such as the dead letter crypt was interesting - creating a hierarchy of private and public within the building.