Spatial Armatures: places for interaction

Proctor spatial armatures: & Matthews places for Architects interaction

Places for Interaction

“The city is like a great house and the house in turn a small city”.

Leon Battista Alberti.

Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome represents the city’s public realm in a way never seen before. For the first time a figure-ground plan was used to illustrate the extensive interconnected network of city rooms inside and out - immediately making clear the importance these places play in supporting social interaction. This cartographic tour de force is the starting point for a continual dialogue within our studio. All architecture is focussed in one way or another on the design of places for interaction, yet when it comes to the design of city space - the external rooms of Alberti’s great house - it is challenging to find newly created spaces which are designed sympathetically to respond to the human scale, and which make places for the simple acts of human engagement.

These spaces often fall short of delivering environments which would traditionally have been characterised by a sense of shelter and protection, failing to create places with a memorable identity or character. There is often a dislocation in the way buildings relate to their neighbours and urban contexts. Repeatedly buildings developed within contemporary masterplans are invariably designed on a plot-by-plot basis, paying token attention to an holistic composition. Similarly, the thresholds between public, communal and private realms are rarely celebrated, eroding many of the subtle spatial transitions which exist within historic settlements, and which help to define what Gordon Cullen referred to as ‘Here and There’. A considered relationship between civic, public, communal and private space - both internal and external - often falls victim to the late twentieth century siloed dislocation between the disciplines of urban design, architecture and landscape architecture.

Over the last twenty years Proctor & Matthews Architects has been engaged in designs ranging from new neighbourhoods and city quarters to new villages and public buildings within pivotal urban locations. It is through this body of work that issues of scale, proportion, proximity, spatial containment and release, have all become areas for debate within the studio. When designing the moments in cities which encourage and nurture a sense of community, we look to a range of interventions from the small scale of the domestic stoop and communal stair to the wider cityscape gestures of parks and promenades.

In response to the creation of a new governmental Office for Place in 2022, this edition of & identifies eight suggestions for Places of Interaction within the built environment. These ideas are explored through descriptions of recent studio projects and interspersed by three diverse essays from a range of collaborators and friends. Paul Hyett, Past President of the RIBA and leading consultant in the design of international sports venues discusses the significance of the evolving integration of technology in delivering an immersive, real time, real place, interactive experience for sporting events. Through an explanation of one of her postgraduate design projects, one of our most recent studio collaborators, Johannah Fening, explains how public art could help to foster social integration and interaction amongst divided Brazilian communities in Rio De Janeiro.

Professor Stephen Willacy (Aarhus City Architect 2012-20) explains how walking enhances our sensory experience of the urban realm and why as architects we need to be attuned to the identification of edges boundaries and thresholds if we are to make true places for social engagement.

1

2

1: Extract from Pianta Grande di Roma, Giambattista Nolli, 1748 2: Extract from Saint Agnese Segni, Domenico Beccafumi, Siena, 1551

1

2

3 4

1: ‘Henman Hill’, All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, 2014 - Source Alamy 2: Source HKS Architects 3: Ticketless Rangers F.C. supporters in Seville for 2022 UEFA Final 4: AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, USA Source HKS Architects

Real or virtual, we crave evermore inter-action

Back in the 1950’s fans could watch the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in the UK at their local cinema - technology had thus distorted distance as spectators no longer had to be there to see the event unfold.

The ‘exchange’ was one-way and limited but normal inter-action with fellow spectators had been forever dislocated by technology’s new-found capacity to transmit experience to remote locations.

‘Virtual’ had commenced its assault on ‘real’ and hitherto unimagined forms of remote socialising would stream forth as new norms; inter-activity would forevermore be dynamic…

Whilst there were significant delays as pre-digital film reels had to be transported and then laboriously copied and distributed to movie houses around the country. The processes became ever faster and by the sixties we could watch the race live on our TV’s, broadcast direct to our homes - albeit only in ‘black and white’. In the seventies came good quality colour, and by the nineties we could record, ‘fast forward’ and replay our favorite sporting events all on our own.

Technology has since come a long way in a very short time.

We now even take for granted the experience of ‘riding’ in Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Maclaren, of augmented and virtual realities, and of immersive experience. But however real, we still crave actually ‘being there’. Why? All this was in my mind as I watched Liverpool beat Chelsea in the 2022 FA Cup at Wembley, all live-streamed to our local pub. Distance (I was 10 miles from Wembley) was distorted courtesy of the TV broadcast, but so was time and interval because the production team regularly showed replays of key moments….that foul, a near goal, those great ‘saves’, and the penalty shootout.

Until recently, sight of those replays was of course the privilege of only those viewing remotely by television.

Nowadays the experience of fans fortunate enough to attend a first-tier match is routinely enhanced because they can also watch the replays, courtesy of the huge end screens that have become an essential feature of all major stadiums.

Some screens also offer ‘virtual’ viewing simultaneous with the ‘real thing’. Real because fans are there ‘same place, same time’, but ‘virtual’ because for some the screen provides their principal viewing medium. Indeed, in the USA, as screens get ever bigger, they have progressively become the medium for viewing most of the action ‘live-stream’ as it happens, not just for watching the replays. Even when at the event, be it sports, theatre or a concert, seeing the action live-stream is much superior to watching ‘direct’: bigger images complement the frequent ‘action replays’. Time, interval, and distance have each been distorted.

But why do fans still go to watch sporting events real time, real place, at great expense and with much inconvenience in terms of travel? Why don’t they simply watch on the TV in the comfort and convenience of their home? The reason is, of course, the joy of being there: the experience is enhanced through real inter-action with others, be they friends or strangers. Fans create and crave atmosphere…that’s what

it’s all about: constant and real inter-action with others is the essential ingredient. And those shared moments together lay the foundations of shared memory. In this respect, nothing has changed since the Greeks and the Romans built their wonderful arenas and amphitheatres: virtual experience alone doesn’t do it for us; it can enhance our real-time/same place experience, but nothing supplants real, for when real surrenders entirely to virtual, inter-action is distanced and sharing is dislocated.

So, challenged by the attractions of remote viewing and its impact on attendances, sports architects now aim to design stadiums and arenas that far surpass the quality of home viewing, offering larger and better viewing screens. Indeed, such IT is now an integral part of the modern sports building.

Surpassing the home TV experience these ‘insertions’ also act as a ‘social leveler’: everyone gets a great view, wherever their seat. So, being there real time has been reinforced as the bonus, and even though home viewing once challenged, nothing can match the razzmatazz of event day.

And where now? How will the next generation of stadia further push this notion of ‘immersive real time, real place, environments’? Essentially, the genres of ‘stadium’ and ‘cinema’ will be ever more closely ‘fused’, and the technology will be increasingly embedded within, and intrinsic to (as opposed to applied to) the spectator environment.

The corollary of TV ‘stealing’ the audience to a myriad of small living rooms and leaving the stadium devoid of spectators is that we now see giant 100,000-seater living rooms built FOR the city, equipped with colossal screens that do all that home TV does, but with much more as well.

And here is the unfolding irony: so big are these buildings becoming that they could not function without IT – the ball is for many too small to see! But being there is everything and virtual viewing suffices.

What a lovely paradigm: TV, the opiate of the masses, and as per John Logie Baird’s first offering such a threat to social activity, has now become a catalyst for ‘assembly’ through its role in the new super stadium, and inter-active TV at the giant scale combines with architecture to facilitate and communicate live events in the bowl, on the concourses, within the lounges and across the precincts. Effectively, a total integration of technology and architecture that brings people together through the ultimate in distortions of time, interval and distance. Inter-action enriched to the point of sublime.

Paul Hyett, Director, Vickery Hyett Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects

Vaux Quarter Riverside Sunderland The Vaux Quarter forms the first phase of the wider Riverside Sunderland masterplan (designed by Proctor & Matthews in collaboration with Faulkner Brown Architects) which proposes four new residential mixed-use neighbourhoods on the north and south sides of the River Wear together with a new central business district. Vaux has been designed as an exemplar for medium-density city living and working.

The neighbourhood (with architectural designs by both Proctor & Matthews and MawsonKerr) is inspired by the history, topography and rich cultural/ industrial heritage of Sunderland, while adopting a 21st Century Smart City infrastructure: a sustainable development model that will contribute to the city’s carbon-neutral ambition. Vaux will provide 91 houses and 41 apartments arranged in clusters on the edge of the dramatic River Wear gorge, creating a bold new silhouette inspired by Sunderland’s historic industrial skyline.

1

3

2

4

5 6

8 7

1: Riverside Sunderland masterplan, shadow plan 2: Riverside Sunderland aerial CGI 3: Vaux Quarter residential mews, sectional sketch perspective 4: Vaux Quarter, river gorge frontage and promenade 5: Farringdon Row neighbourhood CGI, mews street 6: Historic engraving, Sunderland industrial silhouette 7: Vaux Quarter, articulated profile and silhouette 8: Vaux Residential Quarter, ‘Nolli’ plan

Client:

Project team:

Sunderland City Council, Igloo

Proctor & Matthews Architects, MawsonKerr Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects, Cundall, Useful Projects, Cast Consult, Identity Consult, Argus Ecology, Proudlock Associates

The Vaux Quarter is located on the site of the nineteenth century Vaux brewery. The neighbourhood plan proposes a permeable spatial framework which connects the edge of the Wear gorge - a new promenade – back to the city centre via a series of shared surface public squares, streets, mews and courts. These are designed to provide a forum for events, areas for children to play, spaces for neighbourly interaction and a destination for panoramic views across the gorge. An existing high level pedestrian bridge crosses the newly configured Galley’s Gill park and productive garden and connects Vaux to the proposed new western neighbourhoods of Farringdon Row and Ayres Quay together with a parking ‘barn’ for cars – an innovation which will help to create a car free environment within Vaux. In addition, two new bridges (places for interaction in themselves) are proposed. A high-level pedestrian connection from Vaux and the city centre to the new neighbourhood of Sheepfolds and the Stadium of Light on the northern side of the river and a river level bridge completing a green chain pedestrian and cycle route from Galley’s Gill to the northside riverside walk and the eastern coastline of the North Sea beyond.

1

2

3

4

1: Ayres Quay neighbourhood promenade, CGI view along River Wear gorge 2: Historic Pele House 3: Vaux Quarter, composite concept cartoon of silhouette and promenade edge 4: Riverside Sunderland, sketch design model showing new neighbourhoods on both sides of the River Wear

A place to engage in city life

The 17th Century Plaza de la Corredera in the Spanish city of Cordoba has variously been the stage for bull fights, food markets, celebrations, and live performance, alongside its more frequent and prosaic use as the city’s ‘living room’. The desire for people places in our new neighbourhoods is as strong today as in centuries past. Witness the vibrant atmosphere in the old market squares of Shrewsbury, Kingston, and Saffron Walden. Scale, spatial containment and a mix of uses help create these places for city life. Gill Square at Vaux in Sunderland and Southmere Square in Thamesmead will both become the social heart of these new urban quarters.

Gill Square an external room with a view

LIGHTING CHARACTER

7

Gill square lies at the heart of the Vaux Quarter with dramatic views to the north across the River Wear gorge and back towards the city centre to the south. To the east, a residential cluster of new homes is arranged around a central community mews. To the west, an apartment building with a design inspired by the courtyard form of historic Pele houses- a fortified typology found across the counties of Durham and Northumberland. Shared workspace and a café is located here at ground level, opening out into the square, and together with the gorge-facing colonnade it marks the entry into the square from the west. An archway on the eastern flank of the square defines a threshold to the more domestic environment of a shared-surface mews: a place of neighbourly interaction and shelter from the exposed climate of the escarpment edge. A belvedere loggia commands the northern head of Gill square providing a sheltered place to sit and relax and to capture framed views of the river gorge, the historic Wearmouth bridge and the new Sheepfolds Quarter to the north.

Vaux lighting character - example courtyartd 1

Illustrative render

2

3 4

Vaux West

1: Shrewsbury Market Square, Gordon Cullen, 1961 2: Vaux Quarter, ground floor plan, Gill Square located top left 3: Gill Square, night-time study CGI 4: Gill Square with café and shared workspace to the right, CGI view

Duck Street Abbotts Ann, Hampshire Abbotts Ann is a quintessential English village of distinctive thatched and tiled cottages nestled into the rolling Hampshire landscape. Historically the village was structured around several radiating lanes to local farms and the neighbouring settlements of Monxton and Little Ann, and it is along the principal of these, Duck Street, where Abbotts Ann Community Land Trust (CLT) have decided to build a cluster of 25 new homes. The site lies on the southern edge of the village adjacent to the village school: a sloping field defined by a mature roadside hedgerow to the east and a young mixed - species shelterbelt of fruit trees, pines and hawthorn amongst others to the west.

In response to extensive consultation with village residents, stakeholders, the Parish Council and Test Valley Planning Authority, the CLT have focussed their aspirations on delivering a range of mixed tenure homes to suite the recognised varied housing need within the local community; from small dwellings for later living and downsizers, to larger family homes (two to four-bedroom houses) for younger village residents and families.

1

4

5 2

3

6

7 8

6 House type 2b4p

Pedestrian access to treebelt

Plot 07 House type 3b6p

Shared surface/Landscape

Carport

Shared surface/Landscape

Plot 09 House type 3b6p

Shared surface/Landscape

Carport

Shared surface/Lan

Site Boundary

See Detail Section 01

1: Shared surface lane perspective view 2: Sketch perspective view of gable frontages 3: Shared surface western lane 4: Typical house, exploded axonometric showing Plot 08 House type 3b6p Pedestrian access to treebelt entrance porch, stoop and gable 5: Western lane, street elevation 6: The woodland landscape permeates the new development, CGI view 7: Concept cartoon 8: Duck Street ‘Nolli’ plan

Plot 23 House type 2b4p

Shared surface/Landscape

Carport

Shared surface/Landscape

Plot 22 House type 3b5p

Shared surface

Site Boundary

Street Elevation 02b

Client: Carport

Project team:

Abbotts Ann Community Land Trust Proctor & Matthews Architects, Phillip Cave Associates, Awcock See Detail Section 04 Ward Partnership

Plot 03 House type 2b4p

From the early stages of the initial architectural competition submission, the focus was to ensure that any new development would be designed as an integrated extension of the village and not a detached suburban enclave of the kind all too common within illconsidered village expansions across the country. The design takes inspiration from the configuration of local vernacular forms and the structured courtyards of farms found within the local countryside. The new homes are aligned along the site contours where the topography is most challenging, presenting a frontage of gables to the principal neighbourhood lane: a reference to the traditional morphology of Abbotts Ann and Monxton.

Shallower gradients allow for more open forms- courts and linear wide-frontages. These forms help to create a community focal space on the northern edge of the site which will act as a southern spatial counterpoint to the crossroads of Duck Street, Monxton Road and Dunkirt Lane in the heart of the historic village.

Plot 05 House type 2b4p

Carport

Plot 06 Private amenity space

Plot 05 House type 2b4p

Plot 05 Private Amenity Space

A place to connect with nature

“Making visible the ecological processes that support life will be an important part of this emerging landscape. The child who grows up in a regenerative city of the 21st Century will know very well where the water she drinks comes from...“ John Tillman Lyle 1993. The intertwined relationship between built form and landscape that exists in many historic rural settlements - the long, thin weave of burgage plot yards, hedgerows and green lanes - can act as inspiration for a new urban morphology. In response to the climate crisis, it is important to explore opportunities for residents to re-engage with their natural environment.

A village walled garden a space to grow a community As part of the wider strategy of village integration, it is envisaged that the shelter belt to the west will become an accessible woodland park for the enjoyment of young residents and the wider community. With passing reference to the historic burgage-plot relationship between landscape and built form, threads of woodland are drawn into the heart of the new development bringing nature and ecology to the front door of each home. A productive garden of raised vegetable and herb beds and small apple orchard is located at the interface between the existing school and the new residential cluster. The distinctive traditional thatch and tile-topped, brick, flint, compacted earth and stucco garden walls of Abbotts Ann, Little Ann and Monxton have inspired the design of this walled enclosure. Hopefully this will become a well-used space by young and old and form an additional focus to village life.

1

2

4

3

5

6 8

7

1: Burgage plots, Thame ordinance survey map, 1881 2-4: Historic images of walled productive gardens 5: Duck Street aerial view showing walled garden 6: Monxton village street with distinctive thatch topped garden walls 7: Thatched linear houses, Abbotts Ann 8: Rood plan with arrival square and western boundary plantation

Makers and arts space is also included set around a new civic square that provides a pedestrian connection (for the first time) from Dale Side Road in the North to the Trent in the south.

Trent Basin Nottingham Trent Basin forms a significant part of Nottingham’s Waterside Regeneration Zone which stretches over one mile from Trent Lane in the east to Trent Bridge and the Nottingham Canal in the west. Now the subject of a Supplementary Planning Document the fifteen-year plan will see the complete transformation - of primarily ageing industrial land - into a vibrant sustainable residential quarter. This will include a continuous riverside promenade connecting to the city with significant green infrastructure and a public realm throughout that is to be ‘pedestrian friendly in character.’ Trent Basin is in many ways the jewel in the crown of the entire masterplan. It is the only site with a significant water dock onto the River Trent (which provides a focus to the site) and is to be the location of a new pedestrian bridge across the river to the sports grounds and significant green spaces that lie directly to the south. These final phases of Trent Basin will provide 200 new homes including riverside apartments, maisonettes, and houses, as well as a mobility hub and café, promoting sustainable transport modes.

1: Courtyard of a House in Delft, Pieter de Hooch, 1658 2: Mews space, CGI view 3: Historic image of industrial riverside, Trent Basin 4: Aerial CGI showing court and mews spaces 5: Aerial cartoon with shared surface mews and courts 6: Trent Basin, west side basin frontage 7: Trent Basin ‘Nolli’ plan

5 1

2

3 4

6 7

Client:

Project team:

Blueprint

Proctor & Matthews Architects, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, Turner Works Architects, BBUK Landscape Architecture, BWB Consulting, Gerald Eve, Focus Consultants, Dice Consulting, Faithful + Gould

The completion phases at Trent Basin occupy 3.7 hectares and have been master planned by Proctor & Matthews Architects with some of the homes designed in detail by Turner Works and Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. Trent basin was built in the 1930’s as a timber wharf and promoted as a centre of commerce connected to the areas significant network of navigable rivers and canals. The masterplan responds to the industrial scale of the dock (measuring 36 meters by 113) as well Nottingham’s historic character of yards and red brick housing. Waterside housing in Holland and the intricate relationship between the domestic yards and waterside promenades of Delft City, seen in the famous 17th Century paintings of Pieter de Hooch also inspired the masterplans structure.

A place for play

Contemporary planning legislation defines the precise requirements for play spaces, assigning strict areas for differing age groups depending on development size and number of inhabitants. This implied separation of play from all other parts of the public realm is a recent phenomenon. Perhaps the perceived lack of safety in the way new developments are designed is in part to blame.

Historic cities however, seemed to embrace all parts of the public realm as a child’s playground. Reclaiming the public realm for communities, rather than as arteries for traffic, is central to our new masterplans for Trent Basin in Nottingham and a new village extension to Abbots Ann in Hampshire.

Shared space everywhere a place to play The new housing at Trent Basin is primarily designed for families and an innovative masterplan that would maximise a public realm free of cars and entirely designed for the community was considered an essential part of the offer.

This is achieved with a ‘car barn’ where most cars are parked in a separate structure a short walk from the housing.

This allowed the masterplan to establish contrasting development scales with formal housing and larger landscapes fronting the river and basin promenades, while a more intricate network of courtyards and lanes provides sheltered spaces for the housing clusters that sit behind.

With no need for cars to park adjacent or in close proximity to the home, residents can extend their living environments into a safe public realm where neighbourly interaction and play can take place spontaneously in way that has often been neglected in most contemporary housing developments.

1

2

3 4

Car barn

1: Playground, Zaanhof, Amsterdam, Aldo van Eyck, 1948 2: Trent Basin, sketch view of shared court 3: Shared court CGI, active frontages provide natural surveillance of safe places for children’s play 4: Trent Basin roof plan

Wilkinsons Brook Tyrellstown, Fingal, Ireland Proctor & Matthews Architects is currently engaged as masterplanners and architects for the design of several new settlements and neighbourhood expansions across Ireland. These projects attempt to rethink the way residential developments can be developed using a new range of standardised house typologies. These are designed in response to changing 21st century living patterns, the cultural and historic specifics of context and a reaction to the car dominated residential streets of contemporary suburbia. These residential studies are also focussed on providing higher density family orientated neighbourhoods that use land more efficiently and provide a greater variety of dwelling types. When asked (in an Ireland-wide series of focus groups) to prioritise the key aspirations in future housing, respondents spoke of a return to the essence of communities and the traditional street: a place for children to play and for neighbours to meet.

The concept of clustering homes around public and communal neighbourhood spaces and the creation of streets and mews devoid of cars and of a scale which would nurture a sense of place and belonging was inspired by the historic rural forms of Clachans: traditional clusters of homes around a green yard.

1

2

4

3

5

7

6

8

1: Wilkinsons Brook, cartoon of eastern section with courtyard houses 2: Shared surface street with marker house terminating the view 3: Concept sketch of neighbourhood permeability and edge conditions 4: Neighbourhood ‘Clachan’ landscaped green 5: Typical vernacular window articulation 6: Traditional ‘Clachan’, Kilkeel, County Down, Ireland 7: Mews street with articulated terrace pergolas 8: Wilkinsons Brook ‘Nolli’ plan

Client:

Project team:

Glenveagh Properties PLC

Proctor & Matthews Architects, De Blacam and Meagher, Bernard Seymour Landscape Architects, DBFL, IN2 Engineering Design Partnership, Brady Shipman Martin

Wilkinsons Brook at Tyrellstown is located on the edge of an expanding suburban neighbourhood to the northwest of Dublin and comprises 69 two, three and four-bedroom family houses. The site is bounded by a parkland to the north and a sequence of neighbourhood landscapes to the south and southwest. The residential layout creates a strong edge to these green open spaces by the incorporation of dual entrance/aspect courtyard homes with in-curtilage parking. These typologies not only help to deliver a strong identity to the neighbourhood, create defined thresholds to other areas within the wider Tyrellstown plan, but also help to provide a contained sequence of shared-surface streets and community spaces at the heart of the new quarter. Contemporary clachans are created within the public realm at both the western and eastern extremities of the tapering layout, with a central enclosed court for productive landscapes and recreation use. These are connected by a shared surface streetscape in which street sections are approximately one third the width of a conventional suburban layout where perpendicular car parking to each house frontage is visually dominant. All spaces here provide a sheltered environment for neighbourly interaction.

Kilruddery Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland The site at Kilruddery for a new neighbourhood of 130 family homes, and maisonettes is located within the historic estate of Kilruddery House; a Tudor revival mansion with Sixteenth Century origins, located within the southern outskirts of Bray, County Wicklow, to the south of Dublin.

Proctor & Matthews Architects was commissioned to design 27 family homes and a community crèche as part a wider masterplan, creating a new arrival sequence at the entrance to the new neighbourhood and a defined neighbourhood edge on the western landscape boundary. The design concept references the historic formal, axial arrival approach to Kilruddery House and the Elizabethan Revival screen wall and gatehouse entrance sequence to the stable court beyond: a journey which begins in estate woodland and ends at the apsidal paterre of the formal arrival square to Kilruddery house, the stable court, gatehouse and clock.

CGI 4

Entry to the new development begins with a meandering lane through mature woodland to reveal a sunken tapering landscape garden and amenity space, framed by two articulated screen-wall terraces of family homes with a central apsidal single storey children’s crèche and walled external play area.

4

1

3

2

5

6

7

1: Aerial view, Kilruddery House and gardens 2: CGI showing screen wall of new homes 3: Analytical sequence cartoons of Kilruddery house and stables 4: Cartoon showing tapering neighbourhood arrival space and central crèche 5: Cartoon showing ‘screen’ wall terrace of new homes 6: Sectional elevations of saw tooth terrace and sunken landscape amenity space 7: Kilruddery neighbourhood ‘Nolli’ plan

1.

2.

3.

4.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Axial entrance route through dense estate woodland Arrival courtyard with apsidal parterre Clocktower archway and articulated screen wall Stable yard and farmers market ‘Mews’ court

Axial entrance route through dense estate woodland Arrival courtyard ‘clearing’ with apsidal parterre Perpendicular axis to clocktower archway and articulated screen wall ‘Contained stable yard court and farmers market

Client:

Project team:

Glenveagh Properties PLC

Proctor & Matthews Architects, Deady Gahan Architects, Bernard Seymour Landscape Architects, DBFL, John Spain Associates

Each home within the terrace is defined by a pronounced stepped gable: a reference to the architectural detail of the original stable block gatehouse within the historic estate. Similarly the versatility of the new house typologies helped to consider new cluster configurations from those explored at Wilkinsons Brook and assist on the creation of an axial termination to the arrival space in the form of a mews of four large houses contained between two arched portals. On the western boundary within the site a similar configuration of terrace and mews court helps to provide a strong edge to the neighbourhood and an active frontage to an adjacent linear amenity space and stream.

A place to meet your neighbour

The integrated stone bench of the Palazzo Communal designed

by Michelozzi in Montalpulciano has been a place to meet neighbours for over five centuries. While this bench is on a civic scale, the porch, stair, and balcony assemblies of Haarlemmer housing in Holland support multiple domestic meeting spaces that animate the public realm. The architect Hertzberger explains: ‘Provided we make the effort to incorporate the proper spatial suggestions in our design, the inhabitants will be more inclined to expand their sphere of influence into the public realm’.

Ground level courtyard

Communal orchard

Roof garden

Upper level terrace

Doorstep & Stoop a focus for neighbourly interaction The front door to any home is highly symbolic, representing the principal threshold between the public and secure private spaces within. This is particularly true in Ireland where otherwise simple vernacular dwellings still provide architectural elaboration at the entrance. If the entrance to a home is designed simply as a door, then both the public and private worlds are greatly impoverished, and design fails to realise the more elaborate transitional nature that this simple device can offer for human interaction. The reclaiming of our streets for people enables us to re visit the lost role of thresholds. Built in benches, planters, deep porches, lighting, and enriched details give animation and interest to the domestic street. These architectural devices invite the overlapping of the public and private worlds and in doing so support neighbourly engagement. A mere door becomes an address.

1

2

3 4 6

5

1: Haarlemmer Hoituinen Housing, Amsterdam, Herman Hertzberger, 1978-82 2: ‘Clachan’ concept cartoon 3: Wilkinsons Brook central productive courtyard 4: Typical vernacular entrance doorway, Ireland 5: Concept sketch of ‘clachan’ courts 6: Studies for home entrances with seating benches and recessed thresholds

James Riley Point Stratford, London Located within the Carpenters neighbourhood, in the London borough of Newham, James Riley Point (JRP) forms the first phase of a comprehensive masterplan to regenerate and restore this 1960’s estate. The Masterplan developed by both Proctor & Matthews Architects and Metropolitan Workshop covers ten hectares and proposes the delivery of 2,200 new and restored homes alongside extensive space for makers and retail businesses, a hotel, community facilities and a new Carpenters Craft College.

The townscape driven masterplan configures a spatial hierarchy of principle streets, mews, squares, and open space, which supports a variety of building heights and density. Based on London’s traditional neighbourhood structures the plan will deliver residents aspirations to see housing for all sectors of the community within a public realm designed for people.

4

1

3

2

5

6

7

1: Aerial view from north showing entrance to James Riley community facility 2: Axonometric cartoon with circulation armature uniting ground level activities 3: North elevation with ‘pavilion’ ground floor threaded beneath existing residential tower 4: View of central community landscaped square, looking north towards Stratford Station 5: James Riley Point, ground floor plan 6: Carpenters Estate masterplan, aerial view with central community landscaped square and JRP in foreground with sports hall in red 7: James Riley Point ‘Nolli’ plan

Client:

Project team:

Populo Living

Proctor & Matthews Architects, ECD Architects, Metropolitan Workshop, LDA Design, Campbell Reith, XC02, Mott MacDonald, Make Good, Velocity

JRP is one of three twenty-three storey residential slab blocks built on the Carpenters estate in the late 1960’s.

It occupies a pivotal location within the new masterplan framework and has been earmarked for retention and restoration. Raised above the surrounding street levels and set on eight large sculptural columns (pilotis) the typology is clearly inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité of the time, but with none of the iconic architectural expression, community facilities or connected ground plane that make the originals more successful. Nearly all the 132 apartments within the building are now empty and the raised podium entrance level feels remote and foreboding. Today the building stands semi derelict at the centre of a large triangular site, surrounded by poorly structured landscape and three existing streets: Carpenters Road to the South, Jupp Road to the east and the lower scaled residential Doran Walk to the north. The existing structure and site offer a unique opportunity to provide new facilities for Carpenter’s existing community and sports facilities as well as providing new homes within JRP’s concrete shell. This combination of facilities helps anchor the structure at the centre of the newly configured masterplan.

A place for an active life

The link between the current healthy living agenda and regular physical exercise is now well understood. As a result, we have seen legislation to encourage active lifestyles.

While an active life is linked to improved ‘happiness,’ this is no doubt related to both the health benefits and opportunities to engage with the wider community. In new neighbourhoods we are seeing the positive impacts of this agenda, with significant percentages of the public realm assigned for sport. In our new community facilities in Newham a covered futstal pitch, a new gym and flexible studios for dance and judo are all included.

A built landscape of community interaction The new sports and community facilities at are central to Carpenters healthy living agenda. Conceived as a landscape of pavilions each configured to support its function, the building offers a multitude of different facilities including a gym, covered futsal pitch, flexible fitness studios and lettable workspace. The more fluid elements of the brief, the café, breakout spaces, workstations, circulation and new landscape court and square are the armatures that anchor the more defined sports activities. The glazed facades forming the cafe, community spaces and circulation provide a seamless visual connection between the new civic space in the west, beneath JRP, to the courtyard garden in the east. The design adopts curvilinear forms to respond to the surrounding public realm and as a counterpoint to the rigid geometry of JRP that hovers above. The design concept interprets the modernist preoccupation with a juxtaposition of plastic form and rigid geometries that gave expression to the public and private parts of a building programme. This approach is seen as an authentic way of respecting JRP’s historic legacy while giving it new life within the emerging masterplan.

1

2

3

4

1: James Riley Point sketch perspective of central north/south route linking all facilities within ground level 2: Concept diagram showing a fluid groundscape of community activities 3: Sunken covered all-weather futsal pitch 4: Carpenters Road pocket park at base of James Riley Point with western entrance to street front cafe and community facilities

Mosaic Place Purley, London Mosaic place occupies a focal site within Purely town centre in south London. Designated for a mix of uses in the local plan and as a location for a landmark structure that can signify the locations townscape importance (within the emerging development area) the site provides an important opportunity to regenerate this part of the town. It is however a complicated island site surrounded by a busy traffic gyratory and with a significant change in level from the north western end of the site to the prominent frontage onto Purley Cross. The site makes a threshold between the higher density Edwardian buildings of the town to the north east and the much lower scaled suburban housing that lies to the south. Currently partly occupied by the Purley Baptist Church the larger island site provides an opportunity to expand the existing church facilities, to be financed by realising the site’s potential to deliver new high-density housing.

Scots pine tree at the upper level to the tower

Deeply recessed tracery facade

Tracery window

Glazed curtain walling and recess balconies, deeply set behind tracery facade

1

4 2

6

7

8

3

5

9

1: Proposed focal space at the western end of Brighton Road high street at the base of Mosaic Place tower on Purley Way 2: Torre de Guinigi, Lucca, Italy, a precedent for our tree topped marker 3: East elevation of Mosaic Place tower 4: Concept cartoon of building components 5: View to the south along Banstead Road 6: View to the west along the Brighton Road high street 7: Diagrams of expressed townscape components 8: Elevation to Banstead Road with residential courtyard gardens 9: Mosaic Place ‘Nolli’ plan

Courtyard

Taller residential

Worship & community Island Site

South Site

Client: Project team:

Thornsett Group, The Purley Baptist Church Proctor & Matthews Architects, Capital Architecture, Philip Cave Landscape Architects, Nexus Planning, Geoff Noble & Hectic Electric, Price and Myers, Peter Brett, BDLA, Amec Foster, Fusion Fire, WYG

The new Purley Baptist Centre will create an enlarged community facility in the heart of the town. It will be a new agora, or meeting-place for all within the local Purley community. The ground floor is an extension of the public realm with open entrances to both the north east and south west. Facilities include exhibition space, community café, a multipurpose hall, youth centre and Purely Cross - a drop-in support centre. Sports facilities are provided at a semi basement level while at the first floor a 500seat auditorium is designed for worship, lectures, and concerts. Quiet meeting rooms, formal gathering spaces and classrooms are also incorporated at the first and second floors, while on the 5th floor a large community roof top garden overlooks Purley Town. A slender elegant seventeen storey residential landmark building sits over the community centre and alongside lower scaled courtyards that are arranged along Banstead Road to the north west, providing 114 new apartments.

A place for community support

Demand for new housing in cities is driving higher densities and as a result buildings that offer open access to communities are increasingly important.

Historically buildings open to the community were of single purpose - churches or meeting halls - but today hybrid buildings are required. These can include worship space, libraries, cafés and residential accommodation, all under one roof. These new typologies provide democratic space offering flexible overlapping activities and help to deliver the social infrastructure of our 21st century communities.

Void over first floor auditorium / hall

Lift and stair core

Purley Baptist Centre usable space

Wrap around seating gallery over first floor auditorium / hall

Residential accomodation Purley Baptist Centre useable space

Auditorium foyer

Lift and stair core

Purley Baptist Centre usable space Dedicated prayer room

Democratic space new forms for community support Mosaic Place is an example of the many hybrid projects being realised by the charitable sector to deliver much needed community support services. While many traditional community buildings still present barriers to entry, this project is designed as a fluid, permeable and transparent extension of the public realm. It will be a welcoming inclusive place where different forms of community interaction can take place in the various facilities on offer. The architectural expression reflects both the civic quality of the building programme and the democratic aspirations of the church.

Entrances are celebrated with sculptural architectural elements, as are the baptistry and prayer room at the first floor. Within the entrance sequence a double height foyer and large triple height stairwell become the armatures that link the public activities across all levels.

Main auditorium / hall Void to entrance hall at ground floor

1

1: Extract from Caring for the Sick, Domenico di Bartolo, 1440, Spedale di Santa Maria della Scala, Siena 2: First floor level with auditorium foyer 3: Upper level, Purley Baptist Church and auditorium 4: Ground level with access to new urban space at the termination of Brighton Road high street and Purley town centre

2

3 4

Purley Baptist Centre usable space

Stage

Baptistry

Lift and stair core

Ru el ss lH ill a Ro d

Mews entrance

Youth space Retail unit Entrance to retail unit

Principle entrance from Purley town centre

Kitchen Entrance foyer Reception

Multi purpose hall

d d

Purley Cross Centre

Ro a

dR oa

ton

tea

gh

ns

Bri

Ba

Cafe

Entrance to the Purley Cross Centre Entrance from Banstead Road

O Rio Samba: fostering social interaction through public art

Rio is often used as a canvas for public art, usually as an expression of political stances, memorials and Brazilian culture.

The edges of Rio have been characterised by the unofficial Favela squatter settlements and it is the juxtaposition of these areas with the more affluent quarters of Rio which provide the setting for this essay.

Favelas are informal, unofficial settlements built by communities of migrants from rural areas who have settled in the city in their search for work Favelas are known for being dangerous and lawless, due to crime and lack of infrastructure, but they also form tight-knit communities rich in diverse Brazilian culture.

Once the areas of unease and unrest within Rio society, the transitional spaces between these areas of poverty and relative affluence have become the location of new exciting initiatives by a range of artists, architects and designers working in consultation with local communities to explore the potential power of public art to bring society together. Unlike many other cities, public art has been legal in Rio since 2009 and as a result, the scale, quantity and quality of street art in Rio surpasses many other forms worldwide.

Dutch artists Haas & Hahn resided within Vila Cruzeiro in Rio for a year in 2008 to gain first-hand insights into life in a gang-led favela, enabling them to create potential solutions through meaningful and powerful street art while collaborating with residents within the community. Their project demonstrates the value of community participation and interaction, along with a cultural understanding from the artists themselves, to create a context-specific public display of art. In addition to focussing media attention on this favela, the public art contributed to the revitalisation of the neighbourhood, bringing back life, vibrancy and attractiveness to a once neglected and stigmatised neighbourhood. The ‘Favela Painting Project’ is still active today, and currently developing sustainable methods of retaining the artwork by using a combination of pigmented lime stucco and tiles in a mosaic tiling technique as opposed to high-maintenance paint.

Sally J Morgan, a principal lecturer of fine art, states that “… cities, memory and identity are inextricably linked through […] the placing of monuments and memorials”. In response, Architect Flavio Janches has expanded this theory and through public participation has attempted to revitalise a run-down settlement in Buenos Aires called Villa Tranquilla.

His strategy included using games to gain youth involvement in the design of the new public space serving as a recreation and sports ground featuring a large mural painted in memory of those lost to violence in the community. These tragic events contribute to people’s memory of the place, creating a negative place identity through association. This shows how public art can be a tool to bring communities together through participation in a collective tribute.

Public art can also be used as a marketing tool that appeals to tourists in this context. The urban theorist Kevin Robins identifies the importance of engaging marketing agencies and the role they can play in focussing the gaze on specific aspects of the urban landscape and consequently harnessing these as ideas of city identity. Roberto Burle Marx, the great Brazilian landscape architect, for example, designed the iconic Copacabana paving which features large black curves that mirror the waves of the adjacent beach and ocean shoreline.

1

2

1: Copacabana paving designed by Roberto Burle Marx - source - dabldy, 2021 2: Samba party at Pedro do Sal - source Johannah Fening, 2019

The mosaic-tile style builds on precedents of traditional paving in historic Portuguese colonies. This iconic pattern is somewhat commercialised in Copacabana and features in clothing and accessories that are largely directed toward tourists. It has a photogenic and instagrammable appeal, making this distinctive pattern widely recognised and associated with the specific location of Copacabana.

Here public art strengthens the legibility of place and gives credence to statements by Bentley and Watson that “… public space detail can also support user choice by making the place more legible”.

These specific Brazilian examples demonstrate how public art can be a tool to redefine, enhance and revitalise neighbourhoods and cities, and is even more effective when communities participate through the creative and application process. Watson and Bentley point out that as designers, we need to be attentive to how we can connect cultural landscapes with human identities and community interaction in public art projects is clearly a way to do this.

Similarly, public art is notably an important aspect of urban regeneration. These examples were implemented in existing communities to ultimately increase the community’s quality of life. If a public space is visually attractive and stimulating, communities are more likely to use the space, increasing physical activity and social interaction with access to sunlight and vegetation. Jesus Pedro Lorente, an Art History teacher and author, suggests that urban regeneration is “… revitalis[ation] not just of dilapidated buildings but also a deteriorated quality of life”.

Although forms of public art are often accepted, it’s worth acknowledging the stigma of informal artistic expressions such as uncommissioned street art and graffiti with its connotations of vandalism. The main difference between muralism and graffiti is of course, that with murals permission is obtained beforehand, but despite this, street graffiti can often create similar results but this is clearly dependent on content and quality.

r Jai

do

o

inh

aqu Cav

ez

lan

il nM

Iva

e

d ran

zG Lui

co ava

C on Nilf

ca

No

Paving design incorporating a traditional African Samba quilt pattern

icio

r Fab

The proposed design intervention was based on the following eight design framework aspirations: 1. To be “rooted in the past but not being stuck in the past” (Watson and Bentley, 2007) 2. To be a reflection of the culture and identity of the BlackBrazilian community 3. To incorporate a colourful palette 4. To create a physical connection between my proposed wider masterplan and the adjacent favela, Morro da Providência

co ava C o

d

o

ira

ore

nM ilso

W

a

ir d

and Jur Me

Morro da

wider ma

sterplan b

Providên cia

egins

favela be gin

s

ra

uie

ng Ma ira

poe

Ca stre

Proposed

ro

uie

g Sal

ro d Dau

A Design Intervention Inspired by these precedents and my initial observations of public/street art in Rio De Janeiro, I created a design specification/framework to apply to a site-specific design intervention in Santo Cristo, Rio, as is part of a wider masterplan concept developed during my postgraduate studies in Architecture and Urban Design.

The intervention aims to enhance and unite the placeidentity of the Samba hub within Santo Cristo through large, connecting murals, empowering and celebrating Black Brazilians through their undeniable contributions to Samba culture. Through strategic placements of the mural, the intervention also aims to physically and socially integrate the favela communities with the traditionally developed areas of the city, fostering social interaction through music and dance within the public realm.

tela Por a d

Key Proposal location Public art routes Samba schools Masterplanned area Santo Cristo

5. To reflect the traditional Portuguese style for the paving 6. To provide legibility to the area and be seen from above and from a distance 7. To involve local participation in the design 8. To provide spatial orientation with the public realm.

The Samba River (O Rio Samba) Design Concept Santo Cristo consists of a morphological, social and economical divide between the residents of the Morro da Providência favela and the residents of the formally developed areas within Porto Maravilha. Additionally, this area is home to 14 Samba schools that rehearse and prepare all year round for the annual carnival - Carnaval do Brasil The Carnaval is the biggest event in the country, celebrated in many states, with Rio De Janeiro being the largest, most popular and most extravagant, complete with an extensive celebration of Samba dance and music. The Samba dance is derived from the Bantu word ‘Semba’ meaning ‘belly button’, and is considered one of the most valued cultural expressions in Brazil. However, reporter Carly Rodgers states that the Carnaval displays the “sanitised version of the AfroBrazilian experience for national consumption” as it profits off the cultural contributions of Black-Brazilians (the origins of Samba), while ignoring the oppression and racism that still exists in Brazil today.

My proposal - ‘O Rio Samba’ design consists of a large, vibrant mural featuring 30 iconic, Black-Brazilian Samba artists/musicians. These portraits were part of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ wall at the Museu De Arte Do Rio inside the ‘O Rio Samba Resistencia e erinvencao’ exhibition in 2019.

It is proposed that the colourful mural is painted on the road surface as opposed to adjacent walls, creating a visual and physical connection to the hills of the favela. The mural begins with specific existing roads within Morro da Providência leading into and engaging with my proposed

wider masterplan in an attempt to foster social integration between the divided communities within Santo Cristo Painted QR codes feature along The Samba Rivers. These can be scanned on devices to play the Samba music of the corresponding artist, as a way to incorporate digital media through art to physically bring communities together through the common culture of dance. Additionally, my intervention incorporates a proposed paving pattern based on the recognisable African Samba pattern, using a mosaictiled style which relates to the iconic paving in Copacabana.

The paving pattern further provides legibility to the area as it features only within public spaces parallel to the mural, making a clear distinction between public and private.

In conclusion, I envisage that this proposal would be created with full dialogue, and in collaboration with the residents of the divided communities. Through this act of working together to create something beautiful and long-lasting, we can hopefully begin to break down the barriers and stigmas that exist between divided communities and nurture a sense of collective aspiration and neighbourly interaction.

Johannah Fening, Architectural Designer, Proctor & Matthews Architects 3

4

3: O Rio Samba design proposal 4: Site plan of Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro

Little Impney Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire Little Impney is a new mixed-use village of 125 homes and business space to be located within the grounds of the historic nineteenth century country estate of Impney Hall, once the family home of the industrialist John Corbett and designed in the flamboyant Louis XIII style by the French architect Auguste Tronquois and the English architect Richard Phene Spiers. An existing disused yet large Conference centre built in the 1970’s will be demolished as part of a wider strategy by LDA to improve the setting of the original Hall and its potential future use as a boutique hotel. The village is configured partially on the site of the conference centre and its predecessor - an extensive walled productive garden, demolished in the early twentieth century - and on an open field to the east of the existing bridleway, John Corbett Way. As a result, the village is configured in two contrasting halves: a formal geometric ‘parterre’ of courtyard homes (with green roofs) and public gardens to the west

arranged across two distinct terraced levels, and a more relaxed geometry of housing clusters twisted in response to the folding topography of the eastern field.

1

3

2

Client:

Project team:

Impney Ltd

Proctor & Matthews Architects, LDA Design, Copperfield, Stantec, Oliver Architecture, Alan Baxter Associates, Worcestershire Archaeology, Aspect, BSG Ecolofy, Energist, SLR, DPA

The boundaries of the new settlement are clearly defined: marked by an existing line of protected Wellingtonia trees to the west of the Walled Garden Quarter, while to the east the courtyard houses are arranged in short stepping terraces, framing threshold gateways to the landscape spaces beyond. The footprint of the historic walled garden is revealed and reinforced through the perimeter configuration of terraced courtyard homes.

Here the sloping topography is retained by a continuous village wall of red brick with an articulated upper sawtooth arrangement of house gables creating a distinctive village silhouette. A focal square is located adjacent to the steep gradient of the John Corbett bridleway at the interface between the two twisting geometries of the neighbourhood morphology. The space is unified with a perimeter arched colonnade which provides thresholds to town house entrances and to the adjacent workshops and showrooms. The enclosing southern edge to the square is interrupted by a belvedere: a framed vantage point from which to view the historic eighteenth century Hadzor Hall and landscaped estate across the valley.

4

5

6

7

8

1: Little Impney masterplan 2: Aerial view of Impney Hall with existing conference centre and wellingtonia trees top right 3: View looking west along principal village street towards village square 4: Central village square, view from John Corbett Way 5: Concept diagram of a village of two halves 6: View from walled garden quarter to central village square 7: Initial cartoon of formal ‘walled garden’ quarter 8: Little Impney ‘Nolli’ plan

1: Little Impney cartoon 2,3,6: Sarteano, Tuscany, Italy, a precedent for central square: sloping entry sequence and framed view 4: Little Impney initial concept plan 5: Uzès, France, market square with colonnade

1

2 3

4

5 6

A place to promenade

The town edge of Pienza and the Placa in Dubrovnik are linear spaces for gathering and procession. Their spatial importance and configuration make them ‘promenades’: places to be seen, to observe or to rest and enjoy a view. Boundaries, be they landscape edges to new settlements or river edge escarpments locked within formerly privatised industrial lands, offer unique opportunities for 21st Century promenades. New ‘promenades’ are explored across recent projects; at Vaux in Sunderland, within the Trent Basin masterplan in Nottingham and in a new village on the Impney Hall Estate in Worcestershire.

Village street & belvedere edge a promenade stitch unites village life On the eastern façade of the focal square, a generous two storey arch announces the beginning of the principal village street which, running along the contours, connects the neighbourhood hub to the productive gardens located in defined ‘clearings’ within the perimeter eastern landscape.

This promenade is bisected by a ‘green lane’ which, meandering across the contours, unites the arrival treelined landscape of the northern approach with a controlled walled edge to the sustainable drainage swale which defines the southern village boundary. To the west of the central square the edge to the upper terrace of the Walled Garden Quarter is negotiated via a long, structured ramp which doubles back on itself providing an upper vantage point to view back towards the square and principal village street. This is covered with a glazed canopy and trellises of grape vines: a reference to the historic glass houses which once occupied the walled estate garden.

1

2

3 4

1: Vicolo di Cieco, Pienza - an escarpment promenade 2: Little Impney concept cartoons of stepped terraces of the ‘walled garden’ quarter and belvedere promenades within 3: Promenade vinery and long, structured ramp 4: Principal village shared surface street with ‘green lane’ intersection

Southmere Quarter Thamesmead, London

The design concept focused on strengthening a linear connection between the new station and Southmere with a new meandering ‘lane’ forming an enlivened sequence of streets, squares, and active frontages, improving the areas sense of place whilst offering a safe and logical route for pedestrians and cyclists. The plans include detailed proposals for a new civic quarter as the first phase of the masterplan. This will contain 525 mixed-tenure homes alongside a library and commercial facilities around a new public square, changing perceptions of Thamesmead by creating a significantly improved built environment and public realm.

Southmere forms part of the wider Thamesmead estate located within the Plumstead and Erith marshlands on the banks of the Thames. The entire area is characterised by an abundance of green open spaces and connected creeks and lakes that create the setting for the 1960’s and 70’s horizontal concrete megastructures; the housing typologies of the day. Southmere is the civic heart of Peabody’s ambitious plans to regenerate the South Thamesmead estate and Proctor & Matthews were chosen to lead the team, that included Dutch firm Meccano, to design 1,500 new homes that stretch from the new Elizabeth Line station at Abbey Wood in the south, down to the banks of Southmere Lake in the north.

1 4

2

3

5

6 7

8

Central Square

Library 1: Thamesmead library (Proctor & Matthews design) model study 2: Thamesmead library pivotal location, townscape diagram 3: Thamesmead library 4: Southmere central square under construction 5: Southmere quarter under construction viewed from across Southmere Lake 6: Aerial montage with meandering lane from Abbey Wood (right) to Southmere Lake (left) 7: Timber model of Southmere Quarter 8: Southmere Quarter ‘Nolli’ plan

Southmere Lake

Client:

Project team:

Peabody

Proctor & Matthews Architects, Mecanoo Architecten, Turkington Martin, Peter Brett Associates, Max Fordham, Silver, CBRE, Savills

Southmere quarter is the first phase of the wider masterplan (Proctor & Matthews and Mecanoo) and proposes a new Civic Square alongside 525 homes, a library, and commercial uses. A new housing typology consisting of building ‘ensembles’ arranged around a shared raised garden divides the wider scheme into a number of smaller communities. At ground level each ‘ensemble’ enlivens the public realm with commercial and retail uses, entry lobbies and embedded courtyard spaces that provide glimpses into the raised gardens set within. A sequence of new public spaces leads to a much larger Civic Square adjacent to Southmere Lake and a new civic building houses a library, nursery, and gym.

The new square is framed by a double height colonnade providing covered thresholds to the shops, restaurants, cafés and workspace to provide sheltered spaces for commercial exchange and public interaction.

A place for commercial exchange

“...also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it...Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much part of what solidifies a community“. Stanley Tucci.

The COVID pandemic has brought into focus the importance of local facilities. Suburbia is invariably designed around car use with zones for work, retail, and leisure. The new neighbourhood must be a mixed-use environment with places of exchange at its heart.

Southmere Square a contemporary marketplace Thamesmead has a very vibrant existing community with a calendar of festivals and markets that have established a strong identity. The new civic square is designed to support and extend these activities with a size, proportion and scale that delivers the containment necessary to host a variety of events. A colonnade surrounds the space and is given a uniformity that ties the work of both architects (Proctor & Matthews and Mecanoo) together. This provides commercial frontage and shelter, encouraging the occupation of the public realm as place to display goods or sit out. The Square is inspired by the traditional ‘market squares’ that despite the growth internet shopping still form places of gathering and commercial exchange for communities across Britain.

Ground based fountains can transform the square on some summer days into a place of entertainment, while on others the design allows for market day.

1

2

3 4

1: Locanda del Melo, Bermondsey - the best Italian restaurant and deli in London!

2: Southmere Square, Thamesmead - a carefully proportioned colonnade for commercial exchange and social interaction 3: Plaza Mayor de Banyoles, Girona, Spain precedent image 4: Southmere Square, an animated townscape of colonnades and new library (Proctor & Matthews design) with water clock tower, left

Places for Interaction: Grounded

I have been a keen walker all my life, perhaps it’s because I’m from the Lake District, a region inspiring the likes of William Wordsworth.

He walked to gather his thoughts to think and write. This is my starting point for this little piece, the importance of walking and experiencing our environments, whether it is in the countryside or indeed in a city. During the Pandemic lockdown, walking became a daily ritual, somehow helping to keep me sane.

Søren Kirkegaard famously said; “Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” He needed to mingle with people. The pandemic has made us more aware than ever the importance of the public realm where we want and need to be together with other people. This theme “Places for Interaction” has never been more relevant.

Sense Experiencing One of the first books relating to architecture, recommended to me as teenager was “Experiencing Architecture” written by the Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen. I remember vividly the chapter on Hearing Architecture. He introduced me to experiencing our different senses, and becoming more attuned to our environment. On a similar note, Yvonne Farrell co-founder of Grafton Architects writes “Listening to one city helps us hear another. Feeling the culture on one city helps us absorb another. Walking in one city helps us to understand the scale and nature of another.” and ”As architects, we love the opportunity to spend time evaluating a new place, its territory, its form, its formation, its culture, its colours, texture, scale and character”.

Representation-notation Public Spaces Outside-Inside One of my first architectural urban experiences was as a student visiting Rome. Here I bought Giovanni Battista Nolli’s map (1748). The map, in modern terms is a classical figure-ground architectural representation. Nolli’s map is in my mind, the first truly creative spatial architectural representation of a city. He made an abstract notation, representing socio and cultural dimensions integrated into urban morphology as a clear legible rendering. Urban – public spaces are illustrated as white, whilst the surrounding urban mass of buildings, mostly private residential space, are rendered black. Nolli, for the first time, extended the white, courtyards and church spaces with different degrees of publicly accessible spaces into the darker ‘private’ urban blocks. One of the most beautiful examples of this is the Pantheon, with its 16 massive columns standing either on or in the square, they create a porous edge to the square, an in-between space and a place of interaction. An impressive series of spaces preparing us in the act of entering the most magical circular domed rotunda with its central oculus opening (dotted on the Nolli plan) admitting light and rain inside. A whole series of subtle thresholds prepare us for entering and leaving this building.

Walking and Cities for People Another famous Dane, Urbanist Professor Jan Gehl has spent 50 year’s researching the human dimension of cities, coining the famous Cities for People phrase. In his work he digs deeper into the relationship between our senses, human scale and walking. He argues that at speeds greater than “walking and running reduces the possibility to see and perceive, drastically”. One of Gehl’s main critiques of modernist architecture and urban planning has been the monotonous nature of street design with long closed walls lacking in variation and interesting activities. There is no reason to dawdle, stop-up or interact with other people.

Gehl’s studies demonstrates to us, examples of small units with 15-20 doors per 100m façade are conducive to an ‘active’ façade; relatively small units with 10-14 doors per 10m façade are ‘friendly’3. It is recognised that active facades combined with soft edge zones, are key thresholds between inside and outside situations, whether we are talking about commercial spaces or in relationship semiprivate spaces between one’s home and street. Ralph Erskine remarked;

1

1

1: The Pantheon and Piazza della Rontonda, Rome - source Stephen Proctor 2: Extract from Nolli plan, 1748, showing the 16 columns of the Pantheon Portico

“If the development is interesting and exciting at eye level, the whole area will be interesting. Use your energies to make edge zones (thresholds) inviting and rich in details..”

Percement and Soft Edge Zones An example of such a combination of percement, and soft edge zones can be seen in Gellerup, a new town area on the outskirts of Aarhus, Denmark. Built in the late 1960’s early 70’s, primarily a social housing estate, it is currently undergoing transformation. A series of actions have transformed the modernist, separated, functionally determined estate by removing the pedestrian access decks, opening up the monotonous closed concrete walls.

Soft landscaped edge zones with small semi-public raised terraces have been introduced at ground level with clearly identifiable main entrances and built-in-seating: all actions to encourage possibilities for interaction and people friendly thresholds at street level.

Lincolns Inn Fields - The Marshall Building Recently a new addition has been completed to the London School of Economic campus in central London, located on the southwest corner of Lincolns Inn Fields. An important planned 17th Century square joins three boroughs; The City of London, Westminster and Camden. The 18,000 m2 Marshal Building designed by the Pritzker Prize winning Dublin based Grafton Architects fits within this complex urban context. The building sits with its ‘front’, facing onto Lincolns Inn Fields and presenting a formal grand scale, whilst the two remaining façades relate more to the tightknit street scale of Portugal Street, John Watkins Plaza and Portsmouth Street. Just across Portsmouth Street on Sheffield Street, The Marshall Building looks onto Saw Swee Hock Student Centre designed by Irish architects and RIBA Gold Medalists, O’Donnell + Tuomey.

In relation to the themes presented here, the Marshall building is described as a shoreline by Grafton Architects.

What do the architects mean by this?

5

1

2 3

4

1:The Marshall Building (Grafton Architects) at the intersection of Portsmouth Street and Portugal Street, London - source Stephen Proctor 2: Gellerup, Aarhus, Denmark - transformation of 1970’s housing 3-4: Gellerup before transformation 5: Pantheon Portico, Rome - source Stephen Proctor

Further Reading Continuity, Integration, Integrity Grafton Architects Studio, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2010 Grafton Architects : Inspiration and Process in Architecture, Moleskin, 2014 Dialogue and Translation, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara ,2014 Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett, 2019

The façade composition and building volume signify an important building with a strong presence. This echoes other prominent institutions around Lincolns Inn Fields, in particular its immediate neighbour to the east, the Royal College of Surgeons and provides scale, texture and detail, enhancing the edge condition onto Lincolns Inn Fields. In contrast the ground floor façades open up to a doubleheight Great-Hall: a public space for gathering. The urban floor invites people inside connecting the Fields’ to the north and the lower tight-knit urban tissue to the south with a topographical gently sloping floor. The building is a shoreline or a porous membrane, which Richard Sennett (a professor at LSE), says works well within an “open city” consisting of many borders,“These borders function like cell membranes, with a dynamic tension between porosity and resistance.

Membranes can be made as edges of places, by percements of solid walls, by the crinkling of street fabric...” In this instance the ground floor, called the great hall, is open to the general public and connects the fields to the north and the tight-knit urban tissue to the south with its ‘topographical’ gently sloping floor. Grafton Architects see their architecture as a new geography where “The section…is the new world between ground and sky – the new modulation between gravity and light...Ground is where we walk, where we cling to the earth, where we move into and over and through; we are held to the earth” and “gravity asks us to think about what we do as architects, how we anchor buildings to the earth”.

Stephen Willacy, Director, Stephen Willacy Architecture + Urbanism Former Chief City Architect at Aarhus City Council Honorary Professor, University of Dundee

Proctor & Matthews Architects 7 Blue Lion Place 237 Long Lane London SE1 4PU +44 (0)20 7378 6695 www.proctorandmatthews.com