INSIDE MILLENNIUM MILLS.

Silvertown is an industrialised district on the north bank of the Thames in the London borough of Newham, it was named after Samuel Winkworth silver's former rubber factory which opened in 1852 and is now dominated by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the john knight abp animal rendering plant, Silvertown is a suburb of London between the River Thames and what used to be the three royal docks. All of Silvertown was severely damaged by bombing in world war i, but the central part of it suffered the worst damage. the loss of population in central Silvertown was so great that it is often called an abandoned community.

When I look at the interior and exterior of millennium mills, I see a lot of personality and nostalgia, everything has its own unique shape and purpose, and past visitors also leave their mark in this place. The peeling paint, the broken windows, the discarded electrical switches and the once used chutes all in one area. I could use some of the disused electrical and metal pieces from the chutes into my own building as recycled materials for sustainability and keep some of the brick walls for structure.

Here I compiled multiple images of views which are visible from millennium mills to gather an idea of where I would want the building to be positioned. The area faces the river Thames, looking left into central London where the city lights illuminate at night. The building also faces other parts of London but more of the residential areas which consist of the new architecture and lots of green spaces. When I design my space, I plan on facing the front towards the river and create spaces which looks into central London so users can experience the beauty of the night lights. I will also create elevated social areas which are almost 360, a view from every section of my plot so users do not miss out on the open view from where the leisure centre will be placed.

I used CAD mapper and inserted the local area surrounding my sight. This turned it into a 3d model in SketchUp of all the surrounding buildings which I colour coded to represent which type of buildings directly surround millennium mills. Whilst highlighting areas I noticed there were 3 schools in total, 2 primary and 1 secondary. There are also some local parks, but they aren't as architecturally aesthetic as Thames Barrier park which is further away to the right of my plot. The green homes are normal apartments and council homes while the purple represents high rise apartments, most of which are new. These buildings are highly visible from the top of millennium mills and it's also possible to see directly into central London from the top of millennium mills too. This will influence my design to be high rise too, to allow users optimal views into the city of London.

The orange represents tourist or historical areas, the large orange plot of the Excel exhibition centre, which you can see is directly across the river to millennium mills. To the left of the Excel, there are a collection of hotels, including one which is a yacht. These buildings are all visible from millennium mills and perhaps my building will face in this direction for the view. The other orange highlighted buildings are the old Silo, this is abandoned in part with millennium mills and sits across from it over the river.