‘Regeneration’ has recently become a pervasive metaphor for urban change in London. Yet evocative as it might be, this is by no means a straightforward concept.

Campkin, B. 2013. Remaking London. I.B.Taurus

 

Context:

London, East of Greenwich, is a landscape of continual spatial transformations, shifting infrastructures and unexpected adjacencies. It is a loosely planned patchwork of declining industries, vast distribution centres, residential neighbourhoods, resistant ecologies and individual narratives. This landscape unfolds eastwards along the Thames River, from Greenwich towards the limits of Greater London. It has long been a marginal part of the city, where individual lives and public acts have been overshadowed by a momentum to serve the city through energy, water and waste infrastructures and networks of military power, international trade and regional distribution. London, East of Greenwich, is downstream from the city of which it is a part but has been far-removed from the image of London, as a global capital and tourist destination.

 

Projects:

The aim of the project is to reimagine this disparate landscape of South East London, from Greenwich to Woolwich. Projects will speculate on future infrastructures, formed through actions and processes, and which will redefine the relationships between people and the city. Site-specific projects will explore the regional rail networks, distribution centres, super-sewers, nature reserves, pedestrian streets and river networks which compose this landscape, in the context of historic highways, river crossings, sewage works and military barracks. Through investigating the spaces and processes which constitute this edge of London, propositions for new actions, interventions and infrastructures will be formed.

 

Proposals will consider the interrelation between individual sites of social, ecological and spatial acts and the larger infrastructural networks. They will repurpose existing, deteriorating or defunct networks or they will set out new strategic actions to form new urban infrastructures. Inventive ways of working will be employed to project futures that consider the unstable processes designing and making urban landscapes. Projects will enquire: how can small social, spatial and ecological actions find presence in and inform this vast landscape? What is the purpose of infrastructures in today’s London? Can emerging infrastructures be aggregated from the scale of these actions? And will these futures be planned as permanent and material forms or will they be spontaneous and fleeting events?

 

DOWNSTREAM: ACTIONS, INTERVENTIONS, INFRASTRUCTURES

The Advanced Landscape and Urbanism (ALU) workshop is a 10-day design studio (21-30 November, 2014) at the University of Greenwich, London. It brings together students, academics and researchers from Politecnico di Milano (DIAP) and the Department of Architecture and Landscape (ALS) at the University of Greenwich with international practitioners, strategists and theorists.

 

Dates: Friday 21 November to Sunday 30 November

Location: Crit Pit and Lecture Theatre 11_0004, Stockwell Street Building, London SE10 8EY

Schedule:

 

Friday 21 November:

10:00: Welcome at reception of Stockwell Street Building, University of Greenwich

10:00 – 12:00: Tour of Stockwell Street, Greenwich Park and Old Royal Naval College

14:00 – 15:00: East of Eden, by Nic Clear (University of Greenwich), in Crit Pit

15:00 – 18:00: Downstream, by Ed Wall (University of Greenwich) and Antonella Contin (Politecnico di Milano), in Crit Pit

18:00 – : Retire to the Trafalgar Tavern

 

Saturday 22 November:

10:00 – 12:00: Mapping Infrastructure and Interstice by Christoph Lueder (Kingston University) in Crit Pit

14:00 – 17:00: Walk through East of Eden, by Tim Waterman (Writtle School of Design) leaving from Crit Pit

 

Sunday 23 November:

10:00 – 17:00: Workshop tutorials with academic teams in Crit Pit

 

Monday 24 November:

10:00 – 14:00: Walking the Fleet River, with D. Grahame Shane (Columbia), meeting location: Sir John Soane’s Tomb in St Pancras Old Church Yard

18:00 – 21:00: Public lecture: London Discussion I with D. Grahame Shane (Columbia); Pedro Ortiz (World Bank); Jonathan Kendall (Fletcher Priest/UCL); 3 x 30 minute presentations then discussion with Antonella Contin in Lecture Theatre 11_0004

Guests: Mark Garcia (Greenwich); Frosso Pimenides (UCL);

Tuesday 25 November

10:00 – 13:00: Tutorial discussions with D. Grahame Shane (Columbia) and Pedro Ortiz (World Bank) in Crit Pit

14:00 – 17:00: London Discussion II with Peter Massini (GLA); Tom Armour (Arup); Joris van de Starre and Jane Briginshaw (Homes and Communities Agency); 3 x 30 minute presentations then discussion with Honore van Rijswijk in Crit Pit

 

Wednesday 26 November

10:00 – 17:00: Workshop tutorials with academic teams in Crit Pit

18:00 – 21:00: Public lecture: Landscape Discussion with Antonia Chiesa (PoliMi); Shaun Murray (Greenwich); Doug Spencer (AA); 3 x 30 minute presentations then discussion with Ed Wall in Lecture Theatre 11_0004

 

Thursday 27 November

10:00 – 13:00: Workshop tutorials with academic teams in Crit Pit

14:00 – 18:00: Mid-workshop jury presentations with George Wade (ALL Design); Helena Rivera (A Small Studio); Paolo Vimercati (Grimshaw Architects) in Crit Pit

18:30 – 21:00: The Hawksmoor International Open Lecture Series: Public Lecture: Andy Bow, Senior Partner at Fosters and Partners, in Lecture Theatre 11_0003

 

Friday 28 November

10:00 – 14:00: Workshop tutorials with academic teams

14:30 – 17:00: Development discussion with Antonella Contin (Polimi); Adriana Allen and Rita Lambert (UCL) in Crit Pit

 

Saturday 29 November

10:00 – 17:00: Workshop tutorials with academic teams in Crit Pit

 

Sunday 30 November

10:00 – 14:00: Final jury presentations with Rahesh Ram (Greenwich); George Wade (ALL Design); Helena Rivera (Small Studio); Christoph Lueder (Kingston University); Tim Waterman (Writtle School of Design); and others in Crit Pit

14:00: Lunch in Crit Pit

 

For information:

Directions to Stockwell Street, London SE10 8EY

Opening times of Stockwell Street Academic Building:

Monday – Friday: 08:00 – 21:00

Saturday – Sunday: 08:00 – 17:00