Lower Lea Valley Group 3

Workspace Neighbourhood

Workspace Neighbourhood Lower Lea Valley

Lower Lea Valley AA H+U 2010/11

Architectural Association Housing and Urbanism

2010/11

Workspace Neighbourhood

Lower Lea Valley

Contents

CONTENTS Introduction Chapter 1

4 Lower Lea Valley

Workspace Neighbourhood

Architectural Association School of Architecture Graduate School Program Program: Housing and Urbanism Term: Spring 2010/11 Tutors: Lawrence Barth & Dominic Papa Published in London on June 17, 2011

Design Workshop Group: Nii An Yaniv Lenman Yulia Malysheva Marianela Castro de la Borda Chantal Martinelli Lucie Senesiova Philipp Stumhofer

8

Redefining the Urban Condition

16

Primary Elements

24

The Urban Quarter

32

Architecture is the Engine of Urbanity

40

Chapter 2

48

Sheds

Sheds

48

Potential

58

Supershed

62

The Valley

63

Chapter 3

Workspace neighborhood / Lower Lea Valley

6

Enclosures

68

Learning from Colleges

70

Colleges Research

72

Sugar House Lane

74

Twelve Trees

82

Conclusion

86

Bibliography

88

4

Workspace Neighbourhood

Introduction

Introduction Peripheral industrial sites have new opportunity to be transformed. In a context largely composed of patchwork grids in the underutilized area, it seems crucial to explore and establish generative architectures and organisational specificities that can deal with deep plot and non-street based system as drivers for regeneration of the area. The problems of the periphery are; lack of critical mass, over-fragmentation and poor relationship between infrastructures, leading to lack of synergistic environment attractive to both industries and residents.

In order to deal with the challenge mentioned above, we had to manifest new approaches to deploy under the conditions of the industrial periphery. While responding to varied influences of the surrounding contexts, architectures are conceived as dynamic elements capable of transforming the urban structure of Lower Lea Valley (LLV) to generate synergies in the industrial fabric. Two typologies; sheds and enclosures are chosen to be tested as part of a strategy in exploiting generative architectures as driving force in creating more intensive and synergistic urban quarters.

Clark Center, Stanford

Three main sites in LLV were chosen to test these ideas; a) The Valley b) Sugar House Lane c) Twelve Trees This booklet describes the methodology of our work throughout the project.

Lower Lea Valley

5

6

Workspace Neighbourhood

Lower Lea Valley

7

8

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Workspace Neighbourhood Nothing can be harder to imagine than the highest value of technology centre to be integrated into the LLV since it seems like there is no way of generating the creative quality in Clark Centre to be realized in the peripheral site such as LLV. However, it is not impossible today, after the introduction of new kind of synergies and networks that were not expected 20 years ago, with rich pattern of industrial fragmentation retained with knowledge economy.

New kinds of synergies and networks in emerging industrial environments such as high-value manufacturing and the knowledge-based economy requires new urban patterns linking design and research with manufacturing in both spatial and organizational terms. The existing fractured environment can be brought into a spatial system of economic synergies, with an understanding a concept of patterns of cluster formation, adaptable to the economics of change: a “workspace neighbourhood�.

The concept of workspace neighbourhood informs that rich mixture of businesses we find in successful urban and industrial areas can also be created in LLV with new planning instruments. By overcoming the system based on land use in the past, the underutilized remnants of the industrial fabric can be transformed into a quarter where multiple disciplines can cross-fertilize each other to grow ideas and imagination in combination with manufacturing. LLV can have a mixture of creative and productive environment that is capable of embracing the new economy to a fuller extent by serving greater stakeholders.

Water and landscape also have role in enriching recreational environments and high quality housing while injecting hierarchy to the urban fabric and creating differentiated quarters. By integrating water, landscape and spatial development, the Lower Lea Valley can become a synergistic environment with strong identity, attractive for both living and working.

Opposite Page: Clark Center, Stanford

9

10

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

The new working environment Working environments are changing! The power of networks in the innovation economy is changing the way we use workspaces. Assembly plants are becoming features of the civic environment as they incorporate exhibition and learning space.

Creative industries form new ecologies inside disused factories while manufacturing itself becomes increasingly creative and service-oriented. All these changes are transforming the urban role of the industrial periphery, making them more intensive and multi-functional learning environments.

An Open Office Space Inside an Industrial Shed

Distribution

Industrial Urbanity Transforms LLV, as part of the industrial area, has a mixture of creative industries, logistics, small scale business parks and light industries already established and operating in relatively successful manner. However, these industries are yet to reach their full potential due to the self-contained, mono-functional form of operation under the old, fragmented fabric which is in addition to that disconnected from the residential areas.

A set of tools are investigated to bring the underutilized remnants of the industrial fabric into a creative and productive quarters integrated with living environment into realization in LLV, based on the concept of workspace neighbourhood. Hackney Wick and Sugar House Lane have creative industries that give force to the creative economy of LLV, though they are series of enclaves that are not networked in yet.

In order to retain the creative industries with understandings of their vulnerable (unprofitable, dependent on low cost of the site) nature, series of evolving use of existing structures, such as sheds, can be exploited for unfolding incremental processes. This re-use of structures together with intelligent co-location, will be spatial tools to be exploited further to achieve cross-subsidization to transform the industrial environment.

VW Glass Factory, Dresden

Differentiation

MFO Park in Zurich

Micro-urbanity Shed: Potential of Interiority

Basketball Court Inside an Industrial Shed

Library Inside an Industrial Shed

11

12

Workspace Neighbourhood

Rethinking the Diagram The lack of vision embedded in the fabric of LLV makes it challenging to create an attractive environment in the area, thus requiring an innovative spatial development. Bringing knowledge economy into LLV requires re-thinking the industrial fabric.

One wants to draw strings to bring certain elements and qualities together. A lot of open spaces, landscape and waterfronts attractive to recreational activities existing in the site have qualities that can contribute to the knowledge economy.

In Clarence Perry’s diagram, one sees what is important to avoid, clear hierarchy was given without any ambiguity by positioning the church and school in the centre. Therefore, the Corbusian plan suggests much richer understanding of how clear hierarchy can be established while ambiguity is being kept, so that relationships to different spatial systems can emerge in layers. Such kind of conceptualization is seen as the potential for re-thinking the neighbourhood in peripheral environment of LLV. It is time to make a new kind of neighbourhood with seamlessly integrated production based industries and high value added sectors and living as a system, in order to intensify the urbanity of the LLV so that consequently, we might call this a workspace neighbourhood.

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Chicago’s City Center Diagram

Intensification Along the Waterfront

Le Corbusier’s Radiant City

Enclosed Synergies in the Peripheral Pattern

13

14

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

The Creative industry Many people have been thinking that the industrial economy has been giving way to the creative economy in recent years, forcing industries and businesses to engage with strong forces of change. The contribution of creative industries, such as film, fashion or music, to the economy of the 21st century is significant, especially in the UK. Ideas and imagination are becoming understood as the greatest assets of the country.

Moreover, in recent years, creative industry and manufacture has been in closer relationships than we have ever witnessed before. Higher value segments of industrial ecology has research in close relationship to the manufacturing processes, and even manufacturing is becoming more service orientated with products changing rapidly and flexibly. This is not only in response to the end users but also for its critical role in the new industrial process. This can be seen as a starting point for a new logic of integration between different creative industries and manufacturing, developing a productivity that has never been achieved before.

Stakeholders: Architects of Social change In the book ‘Industrial Buildings: a Design Manual’, Adam, Hausmann and Jüttner claim that when enterprises join forces with an existing town and integrate themselves care-fully and sensitively into its living structure; the end result is a genuinely commingling corporate and public structure. On the basis of this symbiosis, the enterprise visibly takes on a responsible social role and hence also becomes the driving force behind a large part of urban development. In this manner, cities will have adequate public spaces in which control functions, global markets, and the production facilities of cutting edge enterprises are concentrated.

What we envision for LLV is to assemble small, different groups of stakeholders to multiply stakeholders for the success of the plan. Currently, approach to the LLV completely separates ProLogis from the concept of LLV, although they have the resource to help generate the change in the area.

We have to find a planning process that can bring these key components of the industrial areas into synergies together.

If we accept the fact that buildings can create more than just floor spaces, as they can determine social behavior through their organization of space, stakeholders should be asked to share their interest in the social conditions which are implied by the building messages. We no longer live in a context of unconscious cultural values, but instead, we consciously design this context anew each time.

In such a view, stakeholders are indeed “the architects of social change” (Adam, Hausmann and Jüttner, 2004).

The Creative Industry as an Urban Event

The Recycling Industry is Located in LLV

ProLogis - One of Lower Lea Valley Main Stakeholders

15

16

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

REDEFINING THE URBAN CONDITION Located in East London, along the River Lea and the Canal, the particular importance of the area in terms of its location makes the ground of the Lower Lea Valley highly valuable. It is well connected to the financial district of the Docklands and the major regeneration areas associated with Olympics while its proximity to Stratford makes it highly connected to Europe: though it is not well connected yet locally to the locations mentioned above. With influences of the eastward shift of the London metropolis, the Lower Lea Valley holds huge potential for the future development, though series of strategies need to be found and put into place to make full use of the potential advantages associated with its location.

The Lower Lea Valley has a fractured industrial fabric with diffused low-rise sheds inside deep plot, and the movement systems predominantly determined by the logistic need to serve as good distribution paths for trucks, creating non-street based system. Two distinctive industrial patterns can be identified from LLV: a left over from the industrial era with divergent system, and a dispersed system which has emerged recently. And our approaches will be responsive to these distinctive conditions.

Hackney Wick

24min to King’s Cross Station

2012 Olympic Park Stratford

Changing patterns in working environments are affecting the way we read peripheral sites like the Lower Lea Valley. In place of the mono-functional enclaves of the past, future strategies will call for well-integrated clusters of collaborative practice.

The fractured and dissonant mobility systems we see today will call for extensive re-engineering as the district assumes its role articulating the highspeed infrastructure of Stratford with the burgeoning financial services district at the Docklands.

Bromley-By-Bow

Canary Wharf

LLV Location

Primary Elements

Potential of Interiorities

Projective Field of New Synergies

Field Conditions: Conceptual Perception of the Site

LLV Conditions

17

18

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 /1Industrial Periphery Chapter / Lower Lea Valley

The River Lea

Industrial Character

Waterfront Intersect with Transportation Systems

Urbanity to Create Clusters/Quarters in LLV

The Waterfront

Incorporating Creative Sectors Such as the Film Industry

Industrial Buildings Address the Waterfront

The A12 Highway Divide the Urban Fabric

Unsuitable Typologies

Noncommercial Based Street System

19

20

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

The challenges of Industrial Periphery The term periphery often describes physical, social, historical or geographical conditions that are disengaged from a centre. Sites of a periphery usually consist of rural environments, brown fields, neglected plots of land, and natural landscape. The “edge conditions� associated with the periphery and its discontinuity from the intensive city dynamics is usually characterized by the lack of critical mass. Such peripheral conditions are considered incapable of generating an environment that can sustain streets with commercial functions.

The challenge of industrial periphery such as LLV is to generalize an approach to inject urbanity in non-commercial based street systems in the absence of the critical mass witnessed in the city centre. We tend to see the centre of the city as a place where we have the intensity to have higher critical mass over peripheral conditions based on production based industries. Today however, we see a cross over between high intensity of service based sectors in the city and production based industrial sectors that requires new patterns of living and new kind of synergy to emerge. This requires mobility systems and spatial organisations that can put them in place.

The periphery holds a potential for another kind of intensification and urbanity, thus requiring a strategy that considers its specific qualities as an opportunity rather than a set of unmanageable problems. In dealing with the legacy of mono-functionality in periphery, one should not try to assume or recreate urban conditions of the city centre, though we believe that there is nevertheless a potential to introduce and sustain multi-functionality and diversity usually associated with urban centres.

Firzrovia

The Urban Grain

Spatial Legibility is Formed by Grids and Clusters

Lack of Spatial Legibility, Articulation and Organization

The Urban Blocks Occupies the Dense Urban Fabric

Sheds Occupies the Site-less Environment

Streets Are Based on Commercial + High Critical Mass

Streets Cannot be Supported by Commercial Functions

Morphology

Grids Firzrovia

Lower Lea Valley

Lower Lea Valley

Street Performance

Orthogonal Grid with Small Plots

Deep Plots

21

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

A legacy of mono-functionality There are numerous examples of peripheral industrial estates and technological parks which are characterized by spatial organisations characterized by simple requirements of dealing with one use. These sites often hold similar landscape and systems without particular qualities; mobility systems with single use patterns, circulation space and landscapes that are completely neutral other than supporting buildings with particular functions such as distributions for the logistics, and these systems are hardly integrated. There are two examples to learn from; Park Royal and Cambridge Science Park. These, although quite successful, face the limits of mono-functionality.

Park Royal, Europe’s largest industrial estate park presents us a great deal of ambitions regarding the performance of creative/industrial parks in polycentric cities. Attempts are being made to revitalize the space through redefining circulation systems, gateways and public spaces, though the ambition is highly challenging due to the legacy of circulation system embedded within it.

The Character of LLV Industrial Periphery

Cambridge Science Park is an economically successful but urbanistically poor example, now looking for ways of urbanizing the area rather than becoming a techno park, as a result of new crossovers wanted between industries in accommodating multiple uses. Attempts are made to treat circulation and landscape to support the growth of buildings for technological research. Such kind of ambition for intensification through importing number of uses with increasing integration with the urban process could be there right from the start.

Moreover, residential estates tend have similarly limited landscape and circulation system, comparable to that of the industrial estates. New patterns of living and new kinds of synergies have emerged though there is still no planning tools or mobility systems that can support these to the full extent.

These existing conditions are investigated in order to understand the challenges and start differently in LLV in mind from the beginning, as the existing plan is strongly dominated by structures that are in need of appropriate approaches to overcome the legacy of mono-functionality.

Site-Less Environment The neglected, site-less conditions with no clear organisation of spaces and systems of movement spread across LLV in fragments, promoting further disorder to the site. These territories do not carry any particular pattern of growth, and are characterized by the lack of readable hierarchy capable of giving logic for spatial organization of the territory, such as the former gas towers around the area of Limehouse Cut.

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

Cambridge Science Park

The Shed - a Dominant Typology Lower Lea Valley is dominated by sheds which perform well in industrial areas. They are used as storage facilities for the logistic industry such as ProLogis, which can easily be assembled and disassembled, cheap to construct, and are very flexible.

The Shed is a Dominant Typology in the Industrial Area of LLV

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT

22

Site-less Conditions

Fields of Boxes Low-rise sheds tend to occupy industrial sites without giving high urban qualities, crating monofunctional spaces and systems, leaving hostile environments. LLV’s sheds are organized along transportation routes in order to allow good logistic services. Their location on the site is usually an outcome of consideration of trucks turning radiuses, thus there is no spatial quality or an alternative logic for their organization in the field.

“Sea” of Sheds

23

24

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Primary elements Primary elements are defined as ‘elements capable of accelerating the process of spatial transformation in an area…’ (Rossi, 1982) In Aldo Rossi’s words, architecture emerges from the complex structure that primary elements can create. In this sense, primary elements play an important role in the dynamic of a city.

The water and the mobility system are considered as primary elements while the true potentials and qualities of these elements have long been forgotten in LLV and instead, they have been working as barriers, thus not propelling the growth.

The waterway runs from North to South with two ramifications; one created by the bed of the River Lea and the other by the Lea Canal. The waterway has huge potential to be reconsidered into a qualitative element of LLV for recreation and injecting hierarchy to the organisation of the environment to attract people in well housed locations.

The A11, A12, A13, and B142 that are crossing the site from both West to East and North to South are the major roads forming part of the mobility system. LLV is a highly connected part of the city, particularly to distant locations due to the presence of these major roads, but it is also this connectivity that is creating barriers inside the area.

If primary elements are said to create a platform for architectures to be developed, these elements are currently creating a fractionated platform. While it is an inevitable fact that these two elements are creating divisions within the site at the moment, there is a potential to treat them as more than just mediators, capable of transforming some areas of LLV into a more integrated part of the city.

Opposite Page: LLV Waterfront and Transportation System as Primary Elements

25

26

Workspace Neighbourhood

The Waterfront The presence of water defines the landscape of LLV and it can be regarded as the primary element, together with the very logic of industrial system that is already embedded in the ground. More than just good living conditions can be gained through having urban conditions and natural landscape in close proximity to each other, as they prove to be a catalyst for urban integration and social life.

We see the site holds potential for efficient utilization of its environments and successful urban regeneration as an opportunity to renew its uniqueness; the water of the Lea and the canal, still neglected at the moment. The redefinition of the canal side buildings can alter the performance of the water, changing the segmented conditions often associated with canal districts. For instance, through high quality housing, effective recreation and public functions along the water’s edge, water can integrate into the fabric of LLV. Water can also be used for transport, leisure, and promenades to list a few; and by exploring with distance and incorporating sequence of spaces along the waterway, it could become part of the qualitative landscape and experience of LLV. By integrating water, landscape and urbanity, LLV can become an environment with strong identity, at-tractive for both living and working.

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

a

b c

d

e

f

a) Living

b) Reflections

c) Water as Mediator

d) Different Water-edges

e) Spatial Sequences

f) Movements

Low Lea Valley Water System

Workspace Cluster at the River Front

Innovative Cluster at the Canal Front

27

28

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

In the bed of the Lea River, the water creates an unstable condition due to the increase in the volume of the river from time to time, which is subject to flooding. In the Lea Canal the water is a controlled, stable system with consistent level of water at almost all the time, though the closed gates often create breakages in the longitudinal flow of the river.

The differences in behaviors of the waterways create differentiation within the system, making certain conditions more suitable for a particular activity over the others. By playing with distances to and from the water, how each built form can be oriented in relation to the water in distinctive yet sensible manner, and the aesthetic quality the water can bring into the landscape etc., the water can be exploited to make the rich environment in LLV. Different qualities associated with the Canal and the River Lea allows the exploitation of distinctive characters associated with each part of the waterways. The waterfront creates perturbation into the system and helps generate highly differentiated urban quarters. (i.e. HafenCity).

Section 1

1 Section 2

2

4

Section 3

3 5 Section 4

6 7

Section 5

Unstable System Stable System

Section 6

Low Lea Valley Bridge and Water System

...\LLV new\LLV autocad 2000.dgn 20/05/2011 16:16:17

Section 7 ...\LLV new\LLV autocad 2000.dgn 20/05/2011 16:16:17

Condition 1: High Tide

Condition 2: Low Tide

Soft Edge

Accessibility

Tidal Movements

29

30

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

The Mobility System Superposition and overlapping of different mobility paths, differentiated by speed and continuity, are distinctive features of an existing environment in LLV. It is well served by relatively high speed system of roads meeting the requirement of highly sophisticated logistic system. However, where these begin to parse out to the local environment, different kind of isolation, fragmentation and lack of movement emerges. This happen even in case of water system when one would expect it to serve as a mediator.

Therefore the ambition is to achieve a pattern of mobility systems that can rearrange the existing grid and to open and improve multi-layered systems that will, at the same time, not over burden the current working systems. The aim is to establish a set of conditions underlined below; Differentiation of the system of movement for different speeds and distances with the help of three-dimensionality within the existing environment; levitation of A12 above the ground, the difference between the ground and the surface of the water, etc.

Creating continuous loops of communication between innovative and productive industries on every level of mobility.

The A12 Highway Connects Between North and South

LLV - Lack of Connectivity between East/West

Park de la Villete - Layered Secondary Movement System

Model of Road System and Bridges

LLV - Main Mobility Systems

31

32

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

The Urban Quarter Bernard Tschumi’s graphic approach to the planning of Parc de la Villette showed larger environments composed of points, lines, and surfaces, conceptualizing the urban field in a layered environment to understand about complex unities. LLV can also be reinterpreted and represented in such way.

The underutilized industrial areas in the Lower Lea Valley has potential to be transformed into differentiated urban quarters with spatial conditions that can promote synergies between industries, allowing them to work in overlapping clusters. Variety of sizes and multiplicity of types are necessary for successful synergetic cluster formations.

Lower Lea Valley already has this mixture for the interplay of large and small companies, though there is a lack of synergistic organization. Different patterns of cluster formations can be carried out based on two strategies; one is be the adaptation and reuse of sheds, rethinking their envelope and the way they can cluster, and the other one will be the understanding of colleges in which the enclosure gives organization, sequence, hierarchy and balance.

Opposite Page: Conceptual Perception of Quarters and Clusters needs dominant hierarchy

33

34

Workspace Neighbourhood

Grids A grid enables orientation, multi-directionality, hierarchy and differentiation in both two dimensional and three dimensional ways. Lack of clear sense of grid, strong presence of sheds as a dominant architectural type, and non-street based systems are some of the main features of the current industrial quarters of LLV, with patterns of isolation by the industrial systems. Fragmented by large scale infrastructures, indiscriminate use of industrial warehouses and canals, the grid in LLV lacks differentiation and hierarchy in balance with ambiguity; it does not support the formation of urban structure in the site. “[‌] whilst good accessibilities for lorries and vans are crucial for the day-to-day operation of many businesses, sometimes their presence can severely affect quality of life as well as street safety for other usersâ€? (2006 p.64) The lack of urban organization created by spaces emphasizing truck movements leaves neglected open spaces around industries, increasing the sense of disorganization, putting the human aspect aside.

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Formation of grids needs to be reconsidered in order to create urbanity and be able to include not only spaces for industries and their processes but also multi-scalar spaces for richer range of activities and synergies in certain part of LLV. However, since the urban qualities and intensities equal to that of the city centre cannot be easily generated under the peripheral environment, more emphasis will be put on testing architectures with spatial organizations that can work with the existing performance which is not based on the street, with weight on the interiority.

Experimenting with Grid Dimensions

Existing Grids Around the Site

Implementing a 300x300 Grid

Existing Mobility System Enforces Grids

35

36

Workspace Neighbourhood

Quarters On one hand, divergent systems in Three Mills area holds remnant of older systems where roads, sheds and canal runs in parallel so that the system can load efficiently. Twelve Trees quarter, on the other hand, is made up of dispersed system, mainly defined by the logistic and the amount of sheds it could house. This kind of quarter is created by single-story sheds that try to claim themselves as independent entities in their own site. Each industry locates itself in a manner similar to that of a roman camp where lack of the sense of order and structures are reinforcing the isolation of industries.

One can treat these two different constellations of elements in overall LLV as different qualities in each area. The ways in which these sheds tend to

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Stacking Sheds

Voids of Synergy

Existing Fabric - Twelve Trees Transforming the Density of Clusters

Built Mass

agglomerate allow to investigate the strategy of an “industrial void� as one of the ways to approach the development of the workspace neighbourhood.

Understandings of the organisation of urban field and relationships to different surfaces are necessary in developing a strategy for industries to be able to share knowledge and experiences beyond the limitation of the advanced logistic system.

The main phases of this strategy consist of; defi-

Clusters based on Voids River + Transportation

Urban Fabric

Using Voids to Define Quarters Voids

Quarters Based on Logistic System

Isolation of Clusters

Definition on New Industrial Quarters

nition, consolidation, and transformation. Once the main voids for the formation of sheds are defined, the following steps are to consolidate the voids through modification of architectures accordingly.

The new relationships between the sheds and the open spaces between these industries will eventually inform a new pattern of grid for the urban quarter. The strategy of the void is intended to promote multi-scalar transformation over time.

37

38

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Cluster Formation Industrial ecologies, systems, spaces, economic processes and urban processes can all be in layers together to form a cluster. If cluster emerges under certain specific conditions (such as path dependency of film industry requiring companies to cluster and cooperate for specific reasons), spatial conditions and policies need to be created to support collective formations which can overlap and establish differentiations amongst themselves to avoid mono-functionality.

Film, food and logistics industry in LLV has low level of economic synergies. Therefore one needs to seek for the potential cluster formation for colocation synergies in spatial terms and collaboration synergies in economic terms.

Variety of sizes and multiplicity of types are necessary for successful synergetic cluster formations. LLV already has this mixture for the interplay of large and small companies, though there is a lack of synergistic organisation. Different patterns of cluster formations can be carried out based on two strategies; one is be the adaptation and reuse of sheds, rethinking their envelope and the way they can cluster, and the other one will be the understanding of colleges in which the enclosure gives organization, sequence, hierarchy and balance. They can offer logic for the cluster formations explored in later chapters.

Collective form / Fomhiko Maki “We must now see our urban society as a dynamic field of interrelated forces. It is a set of mutually independent variables in a rapidly expanding infinite serious. Any order introduced within the pattern of forces contributes to a state of dynamic equilibrium – an equilibrium that will change the character as time passes” (Maki F., Nurturing Dreams, 1928, p.44)

Compositional - Compositional Form The elements that comprise a collective form are conceived and determined separately and are often individually tailored buildings. Proper functional, visual, and spatial (sometimes symbolic) relationships are established on a two-

dimensional plane.

Most contemporary large-scale urban design fall into this category.

Cluster Configuration

Structural - Megastructure/Megaform Inherent in the megastructure concept, along with a certain static nature, is the suggestion that multiple and diverse functions may be beneficially concentrated in one place. A large frame implies some utility in combination and concentration of functions. This concept offers a legitimate way to order massive grouped functions.

1. Field’s Special Conditions

2 .Differences Reinforce Each Other

3. Configurations Development

4. Configuration Organization

Sequential - Group Form Group form is form that evolves from a system of generative elements in space.

They appear to be useful and suggest examples for making large-scale forms.

Group form enables sequential development of basic elements such as dwelling, open spaces between houses, and the re-

1. Entities and Fragments of Shattered Entities in a Field

2. Parts Appearing as Solids as Ground to Build Upon

3. Ground Emerges as a Part of the Field

4. Frame Reference to Order the Initial Void

petitive use of visual elements such as walls, gates, towers, open water, and so forth.

39

40

Workspace Neighbourhood

41

Architecture The project attempts to address transformation of urban quarter through generative architectures.

While responding to varied influences of the surrounding contexts, architectures are conceived as dynamic elements capable of transforming the urban structure of LLV to generate synergies without relying on street-based system and other factors specific to the industrial fabric.

The role of architectures and the importance of their appropriateness in relation to the urban context are investigated through typological reasoning.

Opposite Page: The Nolli Plan

42

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Learning From HafenCity The relevance of HafenCity as a case study is based on the importance of the water as elements defining the architecture and the urban field of the area. The waterway, regarded as primary element, helps generating differentiated urban quarters within the area in a sequence, and at the same time, the city is designed in response to the flood risk.

Different Phases Having the Water as a Mediator

Group of Quarters Surrounded by the Water

Continuity of the Water

The Public Space is Placed as an Extension of the Water The Section is Taking in Considering the Behavior of the Water

Connection Between Roads that Links Different Quarters

Continuity of the Water

The Importance of the Water in the Formation of the Grids and the Morphology of Buildings

HafenCity Master Plan

HafenCity - First Phase of the Project

43

44

Workspace Neighbourhood

HafenCity Analysis

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Platforms generating different levels of engagement with the water and also as a way to solve the flooding problems.

Above: Movement Between Urban Quarters Depending on the Courtyards Right: The Use of Platforms to Avoid Flooding and as Defining Levels Below: Platforms are used to Allow Connection with the Water

Typological variations using the courtyards to create degrees of permeability and define a sequence in each urban quarter.

45

46

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 1 / Lower Lea Valley

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Strategy Today, the major problem facing LLV is the intensification of urban periphery.

In order to generate the critical mass for an urban situation in a context largely composed of patchwork grid in the underutilized area, it seems crucial to explore spatial instruments that can deal with the existing fabric of LLV. By responding to two distinctive industrial patterns: a left over from the industrial era with divergent system, and a dispersed system which has emerged recently, generative architectures and organisational specificities based on interiority that can deal with deep plot and non-street based system can be exploited as driving force for effective urban quarters to emerge in the industrial ecology.

Mill Meads

Sugar house Lane

TWELVE TREES

Sheds

Enclosures

47

48

Workspace Neighbourhood

Sheds

Chapter 2 / Sheds

49

50

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

The shed The landscape of the Lower Lea Valley is still dominated by sheds. As sheds have been suitable to the peripheral environment in its ability to offer introverted spaces under non-street based system, we ask if they have potential to play a key role in forming a new urban quarter with the intensity we want to create. This landscape can be reused for the future of the area through series of evolving uses of the existing structures. Though advanced economies have witnessed a shift away from heavy industries towards high-value added segments, advantages can be gained through retaining both and pulling them together to have richer sets of ecologies within the industrial value chain, instead of totally shifting away from heavy industries into knowledge economy. The periphery, with industrial characteristics embedded in the plan, allows this to happen.

However, the true potentials of sheds will be neglected while importance of network in the new economy will be undermined if each industry continues to remain self-sufficient inside highly selfcontained sheds. Therefore organisational logics to the ways in which these sheds can cluster have to be found. There are two patterns of spatial organization of sheds existing in LLV; divergent systems in the Sugar House Lane and a more dispersed system on the park controlled by ProLogis (as we have mentioned earlier). By seeing these as two distinctive conditions within a larger context of LLV, we will also need to consider organisational specificity of sheds in relation to the existing surrounding landscapes and the interiority accordingly.

Based on the deep plot grid of industrial areas and surrounded by walls, sheds often create inaccessible, hostile and highly privatized inner environment in LLV, while existing streets along the sheds are predominantly determined by the need to serve as good distribution paths. Other forms of organisational systems are dedicated to specific uses inside the plot, often hidden behind walls or an envelope without any attempt to interact with the outer world. This underlines its emphasis on the inner system over the outer space. But the difficulty lies within the fact that the ground around these sheds tends to be devalued as these spaces are heavily dedicated to the infrastructure such as turning radiuses of tracks and parking plots.

Changes to the inner system, the performance of the envelope, and improvement on the ground level are taken into consideration as starting points for the exploration of the potential of the shed.

Floor 1: Spaces for Production

Floor 2: Open Office Plan

shed space for open office plans

Shed Typology and Interiority for Deep Industrial Plots

The Gira Giersiepen Company Shed, Radevormwald

51

52

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

1.

Generic Shed 2.

3.

4.

5.

Culver City Shed

Potential of the Shed’s Facade

Culver City What we can learn from the case of Culver City is in the ways in which re-conceptualization of a cluster is done through detailed work on a shed.

Although Culver City, where Eric Owen Moss’s redevelopment of old film sheds has taken place, is not situated in the periphery of Los Angeles, it has some interesting specificities that can be useful for peripheral areas. Instead of simple refurbishment of the sheds which often end up leaving its plot for storage and parking places, he has played with interiority of the large plot, shed’s facades (not only in terms of materiality, but also in terms of its radiation beyond the borders) and its relationship to the ground, resulting in the emergence of complex creative district.

Similarly to the LLV, it has the street based on cars, underlining the importance of interiority. Formation of transformed sheds becomes the workspace neighborhood with possibilities of clustering to generate new synergies that goes beyond the building form. However, one feels the need to implement another layer of mobility system based on pedestrian and leisure activities such as partially elevated paths that can change its form from park, to bridge, to office etc., suggested in the proposal of SPARCITY by Moss.

Here, the large grids start to work with the emerging tartan created by layered mobility systems.

Culver City Grid

SPARCITY curve as a new proposed layer

Cedric Price’s Fun Palace

Eric Owen Moss Culver City Plan

53

54

Workspace Neighbourhood

Industrial Buildings While transition can serve as a strategy for the transformation of the neighbourhood, next generation design also holds some potential. An analysis of different types of industrial buildings shows that the morphological characteristic of this genre has changed from a single standing building. Industrial buildings are now more than one storey shed and the next generation design can include concepts of addition, separation, extension, retraction and intersection.

Chapter 2 / Sheds

IBW Storage Building

ABB Power Tower

Mors Distribution Center

Morphologically: Addition/Separation

Morphologically: Retracting

Morphologically: Intersection

Performative Space: Plan

Performative Space: Plan

Performative Space: Plan

Performative Space: Section

Performative Space: Section

Performative Space: Section

What if We Create a New Level?

What if We Stack Around it?

What if We Extend it?

55

56

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

The potential of the Shed

Potential of the Skin and the Shed as an Envelope

Diversity of the Floor plan with Different Uses/Open and Deep Floor Plan

Combination of Types Allow Mix of Uses

Potential of Vertical Extension

Spatial Diversity of the Interiority/Relation Towards Exteriority

57

58

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

Flexibility The changing nature of the workplace in an urban, networked and highly mobile complex society requires flexible spaces that are capable of adapting to changes in time. Sheds are massive building type with a completely flexible organizational system of the inner space. It could be used for various purposes from factory, logistics, storage, film production, sports, museum, and gallery to knowledge industries, to list a few. Existing shed structures can be reused for unfolding incremental processes while cross-subsidization can be achieved through thoughtful co-location, to embrace the multiple dimensions and complexity associated with creative economy, and also in offering attractive and adaptable working environments across industries.

Potential of Interiority The urban qualities and intensities equal to that of the city centre cannot be easily generated under the non-street based, peripheral environment of Lower Lea Valley. This turns emphasis on reusing sheds and spatial organisations that can work with the existing condition with more weight on the interiority. The simplicity of a shed makes it flexible enough to accommodate multiple spaces inside a single envelope. It has the potential to accommodate highly differentiated environments such as dark areas that can be used for activities which do not require natural lighting in the core of the building. The interiority gives the potential for retrofitting balanced mixture of programs, creating micro urbanity that allows intensification.

Conceptual Propositions - A Collage

1. General Scheme

2. Circulations System

Service The potential of horizontality of the shed Shown through its plan

The potential of verticality of the shed Shown through its section

Film Industry Film Industry

a Hub

Recording Recording

The potential of horizontality of the shed shown through its section

3. Functions

4. Permeability

59

60

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

The Legibility of the Shed’s Facade Buildings can learn to communicate and the façade can perform as an “exposing” media display as anticipated from the Centre Pompidou, or to find another way of articulating the “border” as Moss was using in Culver City. The sample reveals the potential for new technology to serve as incredible tools of expression at the same time as illustrating the potential of the generic skin that act as a mediator between the inner and outer space; by performing as a field of exchange and communication, revealing the inner space into the outer space, or relating to the surrounding context, etc.

Living Skin

Playing with Transparency

Center Pompidou Facade

The Facade as a Screen

61

62

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 2 / Sheds

The Supershed Super shed acts as framework for managing more intensified environment which is also capable of containing continuous reorientation of activities and programs within itself. It encompasses the idea of the megaform from Maki (Maki, 2008), involving the creation of large horizontal fabric that is capable of affecting local transformations in the peripheral landscape with its expanse as well as highly differentiated spaces both inside and outside its envelope. The mega-form defines the landscape of the Lower Lea Valley: each part of the structures touches the ground in different manner and orients itself in reaction to the distinct qualities associated with waterways.

The super shed can be described as a piece of infrastructure that brings series of sheds and a variety of activities together. It tries to connect and transform the two parts of the LLV; from the residential side of the A12 to the East side of the valley, while joining other mobility systems along the way.

The idea of sheds can be exaggerated or even reversed at some point by the introduction of the super shed. As a strategy to handle the problems of the LLV, it attempts to intensify the use by joining series of activities and spaces together, while freeing up some spaces for recreation. Nature of

Supershed: The Valley The landscape of the Lower Lea Valley is still dominated by sheds. Currently they read as large, blank, entirely inward-looking structures describing a legacy of mono-functionality. Nevertheless, we notice their potential in a rapidly evolving innovation economy that links manufacturing, research, and creative industries in high-value ecologies. We expect to see them absorb new functions and also to form the foundational morphology in a transformative development of the type serving of new patterns of cluster formation.

The accentuation of the shed morphology suggests their potential in defining a built landscape commensurate with the Lea waterways. In this amplified form the shed takes on some of the characteristics attributed to the megaform and can be used to strengthen the east-west integration of key urban districts in the Bromley-by-Bow area. At the same time, the flexibility of the structure acts as framework for managing a more intensified environment capable of continuous reorientation of activities and functions within itself. Rethinking the shed envelope and its relation to the ground provide directions for design research serving urban intensification.

LLV is respected at certain parts while the contrast between the city and the landscape is sharpened by this mega-form. Each part of the structure touches the ground in different manner and reacts differently according to the conditions of the ground. In order to react to the water, an open space is created along one side of the waterfront, allowing physical connectivity and interaction with the water. The others are placed directly on the waterfront thus creating differentiated conditions from the previous one.

As a shed that contains sheds, it tests the reaction of sheds placed in the existing neighbourhood in a huge scale; the scale and radicalism is tested to see it’s appropriateness to be the driver to instigate the process of regeneration and transformation of the LLV.

Supershed Conceptual Diagram

Supershed Potential of Interiority - a Collage

The Supershed Concept: Mediating/Dividing the Valley

63

64

Workspace Neighbourhood

3Dimentionality of Mobility System

Supershed Diagrammatic Section

Chapter 2 / Sheds

Schematic Plan of the Shed’s Qualities

Perspective View

65

66

Workspace Neighbourhood

Continuity Over the Landscape The super shed attempts to act as a mediator which connects these fragmented east-west areas without erasing the distinctive character of each, at the same time as dividing and isolating certain elements from the surrounding Neighbourhood.

The role of super shed on the site, therefore, can be described using the term “cleaving�; something that cuts apart at the same time as sticking together.

Chapter 2 / Sheds

67

68

Workspace Neighbourhood

Enclosures

Right: Colleges in Cambridge.

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

69

70

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Learning from Colleges Spatial organisation of colleges based on the idea of interiority and enclosure can be used to deal with the deep plot and non-street based system.

The formation of the college is based on their ability to cluster and create sequence of spaces: they can create privileged environments with orientation, hierarchy, sequences inside any given city fabric. The complex internal organisation can be used to achieve high degree of critical mass in a fairly limited space, pulling more functions and populations that can consequently lead to an economically sustainable development of the Lower Lea Valley, while overcoming the fractured characters associated with the site.

Looking over Cambridge, one can see a constellation of colleges come together to form highly organized sequence of spaces inside the protected area with hierarchy and broad range of social functions, which can be uses to deal with the problem of the critical mass in a large, fractured and

dispersed environment in the periphery. The logics missing from LLV; consistent footfall, legibility and critical mass, can be found in the spatial organisation based on enclosures.

Their distinct character between inner and outer spaces, front and back side, opening and sequencing of elements gives privileged character to the inner space. This approach is highly suitable for engaging with peripheral sites since it allows permeability in dealing with edge conditions of the periphery while it offers an internal variation of integrated, layered system of movement.

Based on the concept of workspace neighbourhood, one can imagine a research cluster with shared facilities that cross over between living and working with this logic of spatial organisation.

Water and landscape also have a role in enriching recreational environments and high quality housing while injecting hierarchy to the urban fabric and creating differentiated quarters. By integrat-

ing water, landscape and spatial development, the Lower Lea Valley can become a synergistic environment with strong identity, attractive for both living and working.

In doing so, college is capable of attracting more functions and populations that can consequently lead to the creation of an economically sustainable platform for further development. The ad-vantage of this platform is in its ability to scale up urban development by clustering, while creating a sequence of spaces which will occupy the area beyond the actual footprint of the morphology.

Hierarchy Enables Legibility of the Space through Architecture

Defined Entrances Establish Hierarchy: Primary & Secondary

The Waterfront Serves as a Mediator or a Border Allowing Privileged Access Only

Creating Sequence of Spaces Through Clustering

The Edge - Materialisation of the Wall

71

72

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

College Analysis The organization of sheds in the periphery lacks the intensification and richer interiority. Compared to sheds, colleges can accommodate richer clustering and sequencing of voids (such as courtyards and gardens) which serve as secondary mobility systems. These sequences have gradient articulated by architectural genres: from library, dining room, offices, to rooms, and so on.

Legend Primary entrance

Secondary entrance Gradient of ‘voids’

Shed Plot, Sugar House Lane

Trinity College, Cambridge

Jesus College, Cambridge

Magdalen’s College, Oxford

Queen’s College, Oxford

King’s College, Cambridge

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

S. John’s College, Cambridge

The Main Hierarchy of Interiority

Finer Gradient of The Void Tissue

Clustering of the Type

Single use of courtyard, servicing shed or group of sheds

Although surrounded by one wall, the inner performance is much richer and multi-used

Wall could separate spaces of different importance, still keeping interiority of spaces

Permeability between I. And II. Articulated A) convex

Permeability between I. And II. Articulated Permeability between I. And II. Articulated b)concave

c)by water - mediator with articulated entrances through bridging elements

Doubled I. Or even II. Space as two different accesses towards the inner depth of the plot

Variegated spaces with different status could even bridge the water

73

74

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Enclosures: Sugar House Lane The spatial organisation of colleges, based on the ideas of interiority, enclosure, hierarchy, and sequence, can be used to deal with the deep plots and sparse street life of the Lea Valley. Their complex internal organisation can be used to achieve a high degree of critical mass and functional richness in a fairly limited space, presenting effective building blocks for a phased and textured approach to the fragmentation of the district.

Oriented toward the concept of the workspace neighbourhood, one can imagine within this spatial organisation new research clusters with shared facilities that integrate living, working, and learning environments. Water and landscape also have a role in enriching recreational environments and high quality housing while injecting hierarchy to the urban fabric and creating differentiated quarters. By integrating water, landscape and spatial development, the Lower Lea Valley can become a synergistic environment with strong identity, attractive for both living and working.

Plot performs inwards

Non-differentiated voids between sheds

Voids are gated

Undifferentiated Permeability

No street performance Just wall

Performance and Spatial Characteristics of the site is determined by its street performance.

0

100

200

300m

Rail road A12 Canal River Main road Local road

0

50

100

200m

Gated plot Gated road Private road

75

76

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Interiority The contemporary pattern needs be improved through the introduction of the void (defining pochĂŠs, courts etc.) and its sequence in very local scale, with effects going beyond the actual boundary of the site, enriching the cluster by not only pushing the shed type further but also through its interaction with other typologies as one sees in colleges. The infrastructural loops of the roads also have to be transformed in order to support the emergence of new synergies to go beyond the actual site itself.

Cluster with Shed at the Riverfront

Permeability of the Ground Floor

Re-definition of the Court in the Workspace Neighbourhood

77

78

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Synergies over Edges Since colleges are always part of the enclosed environment, they need to be redefined into more fluid and transformative spatial organisation in order to be part of a larger urban structure while respecting the non-street based system at the same time.

The richness of interiorities will not resonate if there is no consideration of larger system of voids and articulation of the sequence throughout the site. Furthermore, it is equally important to define, articulate and distinguish the edges with differentiated dominant characteristics; the highway, street (loading), river (leisure) and canal (transport).

Basic Mobility Across the Edges Phases 2

Propositional Richness of Workspace Neighbourhood

Massing Distinguishing Inner and Outer Edge

Legend

“Tartan� of Inner Voids

Canal on the west serves as a long-distance mobility system (delivery of goods, water-taxi, small ferries) whereas river on the east serves mainly for recreation Strictly pedestrian interiorities that starts to emerge will allow new synergies and richer environment inside the deep plot Small vehicles (service) and bicycles (recreation) access beyond the roads The road system changes into loops and enhance tartan-like performance of the mobility system

79

80

Workspace Neighbourhood

Tartan The deep plot may suggest hostile and exclusive environments present in the existing site of Sugar House Lane. However, with introduction of permeable and rich interiority it is expected to trigger further transformation of the peripheral area, together with gradation of voids, the final grain of tartan-like tissue which can operate three dimensionally (not only streets, alleys and pathways but also lifted or sunken ground, terraces with different levels of accessibility) will eventually allow the deep plot to perform inclusively.

By keeping the performance of streets in the peripheries in mind, the main focus of transformation suggested in here is to orient it inwards; and of course it needs to be developed and expanded into sequenced and continuous (thickened) ground.

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

81

82

Workspace Neighbourhood

Enclosures: Twelve Trees When enterprises join forces with the urban process and integrate themselves carefully and sensitively into the city’s living structure, the end result is a genuine commingling of corporate and public structure: they visibly take on a responsible social role and become a driving force behind urban development. Emerging urban quarters then take on the character of a civic landscape based on productivity, innovation, and social learning.

Forward looking plans today emphasize social synergy and the multiplication of stakeholders.

Currently and by contrast, the official approach to the Lower Lea Valley completely separates the ProLogis industrial park from the strategic planning of the Lower Lea Valley. Instead, we would mobilize their corporate interest in serving higher value industrial networks by incorporating their vision into the search for more intensively urban industrial systems. We see the spatial pattern derived from the idea of colleges as providing one possible logic for the emergence of industrial innovation environments for a polycentric metropolis.

Working Within the Grids

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Site Overview

COL1: Housing / Secondary Movement System inside

COL 2: Housing / Creative Industry Workshops / Mobility System Inside / Secondary Movement System Inside

COL 3: Housing / Creative Industry Workshops / Culture / Mobility system Outside / Secondary Movement System Inside

COL 4: Housing / Waterfront / Creative Industry Workshops / Mobility System above / Secondary Movement System Inside

83

84

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Mobility

Enclosures Along the Waterfront

Enclosures

Enclosures in a Shed Based Environment

Section Through Twelve Trees Site

Twelve Trees Site

85

86

Workspace Neighbourhood

Chapter 3 / Enclosures

Implementing Enclosures Strategy

87

88

Workspace Neighbourhood

Conclusion

Conclusion ‘A town is no longer understood as being just a physical and spatial environment, but also a complex system of relationships’ (Chatelet, 2007)

The vision is a creative and productive workspace neighbourhood that is capable of embracing the new economy to a fuller extent through transformation of industrial fabric of LLV. The experiments carried out in LLV based on the concept of the workspace neighbourhood starts a research that needs to be continued in order to improve the conditions of industrial urbanities developing in our days. And we acknowledge the need for the suggested strategies to be pushed further and thoroughly articulated. In order to further encompass the idea and configurations of differentiated urban quarters and districts, it would be worthwhile to see how these three areas can be put in such a way to be in dialogue with one another as well as with the surrounding contexts in multiple layers.

89

90

Workspace Neighbourhood

Bibliography 1.

Willis, R., Architectural history of the University of Cambridge, and of the Colleges of Cambridge and Eton Vol. 1-5, 1886, Cambridge University Press

2.

Vallance, A., Old colleges of Oxford : their architectural history illustrated and described, 1912, Batsford

3.

Maki, F., Nurturing Dreams, London, MIT Press, 2008

4.

Chatelet, V., Interactive cities, Editions HYX, 2007, Orléans

5.

Allen, S., Points + lines : diagrams and projects for the city, Princeton Architectural Press, 1999, New York

6.

Allen, S., Practice: Architecture Technique + Representation, Routledge, Abingdon, 2009

7.

Darley, G., Factory, Reaktion Books, Hong Kong, 2003

8.

Adam, J., Hausmann, K. & Jüttner, F., Industrial buildings: a design manuel, Birkhäuser, 2004

9.

Rossi, A., The Architecture of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1982

10.

‘Architecture and modification, the work of Eric Owen Moss’ / article by Luca Rivalta and others in Industria delle Costruzioni vol.35 no.2 February 2001 / p.4-61

11.

‘Eric Owen Moss e Culver City’ / article by Luca Molinari In Lotus international (109) 2001 / p.80-84

Bibliography

91