Anna Williams
Dis / Replacement: Processes Of Displacement And Replacement During Periods of Transformation At The Barrington Recovery Site
The Barrington Recovery Site, a former Cambridgeshire Clunch quarry and cement works within the ancient Parish of Barrington, is currently being infilled and developed with 220 new suburban homes.This essay examines the instances and practices of simultaneous re-placements, uncovering what new compositions are constituted through periods of transformation.
The Barrington Recovery Site, a former Cambridgeshire Clunch quarry and cement works within the ancient Parish of Barrington, is currently being developed into a country park and 220 homes. Material from HS2 excavation is arriving between the half-finished houses and is levelling the quarry, blurring the lines of the rural and the urban, the geological and infrastructural and the natural and artificial. This process of extraction, infilling and redevelopment can be seen as a series of displacements and re-placements, abstracting the landscape from its previous identities. This case study raises questions about how lives are influenced by processes of displacement and, therefore, how architects and developers should view the relationship between people and territory for the future development of sites of dis/re-placement. This essay uses these ideas to investigate instances and practices of displacement, historically, during the extraction of minerals at the quarry (1920-2008), and recently, during the infilling of the quarry (2008-present). This essay will go on to examine the instances and practices of simultaneous re-placement for both timeframes, uncovering what new compositions are constituted through periods of transformation. Finally, this essay will argue for an architecture which examines practices of territorialisation from its conception. It will argue that in scenarios where either the material or immaterial status of a place has shifted fundamentally, restoration of one without the other, is meaningless. Instead, in designing with an awareness of territory, and the opportunities and challenges it presents, one can avoid attempts at re-constituting landscape that are superficial.
Image 1: The Barrington Recovery Site Image
2: Redrow Development (220 Suburban Homes)Image
3: Barrington Parish and Village Green
Dominic Nunn
Euston Town: retaking the city in the wake of HS2
A delay in the HS2 redevelopment of Euston and the premature demolitions has left local resident communities awaiting a new urban centre which has an indeterminable delivery date. This essay is an exploration of how to enact a democratic right to the city by assessing activist strategies to reclaim derelict, redevelopment-bound land.
In London, marginal spaces are frequently pushed further into the periphery or demolished in favour of capital-oriented land uses. I argue the Euston regeneration is an example of capital-oriented urbanization seizing land from marginalized communities. This essay's focus is the demolition site left behind by the High-Speed Rail 2(HS2), ahigh-speed railway line that was planned to connect the major cities of the north and south of the UK.
In order to complete HS2, much of Euston Town, the area west of Euston Station, was compulsorily purchased and demolished to make way for an area-wide regeneration. Residents were promised new connections to the cities of the Midlands and North, and access to a circulatory network of people: a creative destruction. Earlier examples of this phenomena include the Olympics regeneration or the Docklands-Canary Wharf transformation. Both projects destroyed local space to create new nodes within capital circulation networks. While these processes inflicted a series of erasures and social isolation, Euston Town is suffering a different trauma. The communities around Euston have not, and will not, be embedded into a circulatory network for an indefinite period of time, delaying any benefits and extending and exacerbating the harm.
1: essay cover page / poster
2: aerial image of the Euston demolition area
3: community feedback forum responses
4: a projection installation which speculates on the re-taking of the halted construction site
Hanna Eriksson Södergren
Order and Dis-Order Within the London Food Landscape: Exploring the Street Party and Structures of Social Eating
Social eating in public space is a convivial action that has been limited in the modern London high street. This essay looks at an alternative social eating practice, the street party, and how its structure challenges the currently limiting ideals of social eating on the high street.
This essay looks at social eating in public space as a convivial action, through how social eating has been limited in gentrified high streets in London today, as well as through an alternative process of social eating; the street party. Street parties at two points in time and within socially different contexts are investigated, one being in relation to the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Birkenhead and the other a 2016 street party in Archway, London. They are explored as possibly having an impact on boundaries of security placed upon social life through the ‘adolescent mindset,’ Richard Sennett’s theories on urban life from his work The Uses of Disorder 1970, challenging the limiting ideals that are developing on the high street through the human need for security within self-imposed illusion of knowledge.
Order and Dis-Order Within the London Food Landscape
Photograph by Nigel Henderson.
Hansen Wang
Pamphlet for a Humanized Architectural Future Conserving and Celebrating Local Communities through Relicfication
Our Local community is unique and important! And it is crucial that we strive to protect it. In this pamphlet, the importance of the local community will be discussed and reaffirmed, followed by some emerging methods that can be implicated in our community’s conservation and celebration. To ensure a humanized vision of architectural future, the diverse building blocks of our urban fabric must be preserved!
As the homogenization and commercialization of our built environment is increasingly prevalent, the world is in dire need of a sustainable alternative architectural future where human individuality and uniqueness are prioritized. The conservation and celebration of local communities not only preserve the plethora of unique architectural realities, but also ensure the continued growth of the exceptional breadth of human traditions fundamental to cities and our civilization.
Through relicfying sites of local community value, my research attempts to preserve and celebrate neglected local communities by mythologizing them. From mythmaking to extracting symbols, the essay seeks to revive the communities by revoking interest and appreciation towards the communities, proposing to rekindle the forgotten value of preserving their diversity and individuality.
The Livingroom
The Livingroom is an outdoor congress of benches surrounding a coffee table at the centre, proudly sitting in the front garden of a ground-level flat, facing the courtyard of the estate. The living room is elevated on a platform, so one sitting within could participate in the events unfolding in the estate at eye level, facilitating democratic communications between the community members. Although quiet, the courtyard and the ring of gardens framing it has an engaging atmosphere. Spaces such as the Livingroom are common across the estate, while residents can often be seen visiting each other’s gardens.
The Livingroom Abstracted
I see the living room as a piece of a puzzle to the overall composition of the communal courtyard. Therefore, the relic made from the Livingroom is also imagined to be a part that can participate in a larger conversation. This relic focuses on the environment of gathering and communication.
The Garden
Tucked away and overgrown with vegetation, the garden provides a quiet retreat for the residents of its corresponding flat. In the inner corner, a simple red chair is placed, and the well-kept trainers underneath hint at the care and love the resident has for the place. However, the garden is never far from the outer world. Peeking over the side wall and looking beyond, the bustle of the canal and its enjoyers are within instant reach.
The Garden Abstracted
The garden is a retreat that is still very much connected to the outer world. In the abstracted relic, I wish to capture the duality of the site and the choice it offers. Interacting with the piece, one is able to define their own relationship with the outer world.
The Pitch
The Pitch is a community football pitch at Sufford Estate, hidden on the backside of the Broadway Market. Although no more than 50 meters away from the market, the pitch is a whole other world. An atmosphere of passion and joy when the local kids play in it, an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity when it is left empty.
The Pitch Abstracted
The Abstraction of the pitch focuses on the original football pitch’s ability to facilitate immersive atmospheres. The wall of the pitch creates an enclosure that prevents the sound on the outside while focusing and multiplies the energy within. A place of concentration and meditation.
The Stall
The stall is a local pottery shop at Broadway Market. Many people from outside of the area come to the market to set up their stalls, but it is also a place for local vendors. The owners have been running the stall for seven years, and it has been getting busier every year. Huge flows of people pass through the market, but seldom do they stop by and see what the stall has to offer.
The Stall Abstracted
The abstracted stall is a medium for exchange and communication. While both sides of the relic could be engaged from, the middle could be inhabited by a mediator that facilitates the conversion. Much like how the original stalls are run by their vendors, the mood and tone of the relic would be defined by their mediators.
The Billboard
A vibrant house site at the corner of the neighbourhood, not far from London Fields. The walls of the houses are decorated with the various signs, banners, objects, and colours the owner found. No further information is found on the reasons behind the decorations, but the house has become a mode of expression. A similar method is used across the neighbourhood, but it is crystallized as the billboard here.
The Billboard Abstracted
The relic abstracted from the billboard is straightforward in its function: to advertise. The two walls of the relic project their contents to the spectators beyond, drawing attention and intrigue to the community it strives to celebrate. The StoreThe Store is a café nestled between the football pitch and the swimming pool at London Fields. The café is open to both sides of the park, at once facing the parkgoers and the swimmers. From the dry side of the park, one can peek in
Ismail Mir
Reimagining Solidarities and Spaces in the Era of Industry 4.0 : Exploring the case study of Battersea as a Microcosm for a New Industrial Urbanism
This essay explores the profound impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on urban spaces and the nature of work. Drawing from Battersea, London as a case study, it highlights the evolving dynamics of Industry 4.0 and suggests strategies for optimizing city life and workspaces in this rapidly changing technological landscape.
Since the onset of the first industrial revolution, urban development has evolved alongside industry, necessitating continual re-evaluation of the relationship between industry and the city by architects. Klaus Schwab, Founder of the World Economic Forum, notes that we are now in the midst of a distinct Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterized by the rapid advancement of digital technologies. This revolution, often referred to as Industry 4.0, is marked by the integration of machine learning and artificial intelligence, blurring the boundaries between physical, digital, and biological realms. This paper examines the implications of Industry 4.0 on urban organization and the spaces for living and working within it. It delves into the evolving nature of work and its societal impacts, particularly on workers' social conditions. Using Battersea, London as a case study, it analyzes the spatial dynamics of these changes and speculates on the types of spaces required to optimize life and work in cities under the influence of Industry 4.0.
