Walworth Dreams. in Between Utopias. Walworth Is Not a Proud Or Precious Place. Situated in Between What Southwark Council Claim

Unit 2: Walworth and Elephant Dreams. In between utopias.

MVDRV: Pavillion, Netherlands. Nexus: by Rem Koolhaas [OMA]

Walworth Dreams. In between utopias. Walworth is not a proud or precious place. Situated in between what Southwark Council claim are two huge, failed modernist visions: the Heygate Estate to the north (being rebuilt) and the stalled re-development of the Aylesbury Estate to the south.

A walk through Walworth reveals, sitting cheek by jowl, Victorian terraces next to many smaller scale pre- and post-war social housing experiments which house the bulk of the population, with the majority still living on affordable social rents. There are Georgian fragments of housing and notable pleasure gardens. Productive orchards and flower nurseries refer to its more gentrified and prosperous history. Until the middle of the 18th century Walworth was “famous for its peaches and its gardens.” However, by 1880 Walworth was “packed with streets of working- class houses. Shops and factories were built over the gardens and the brutal insertion of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, running parallel to the Walworth Road, added to “the jumble of bricks and mortar which Walworth had become”. ref: The 1955 Survey of London

As before, the future of E&C and Walworth rides on its proximity to the same five bridges and in the rising value of land that’s so close to the City. Large scale developers are working in partnership with the Council to deliver ‘not so brave visions’ at a time of severe ‘housing crisis’. No matter that up to 80% of the new housing will be sold off-plan to overseas private buyers. Unit 2 projects will seek to demonstrate far more sensitivity, invention, flexibility, humour and ingenuity through the origination of their narratives, and for subsequent design interventions for new mixed-use communities in the Elephant & Castle and Walworth. The best is yet to come.

Site 1: Hughes house and Newington Gardens

Site 2: Crampton Primary School and playground Unit 2: Walworth and Elephant Dreams. In between utopias.

Nexus: by Rem Koolhaas [OMA]

Term 1: Create a manifesto and prototype design In term 1 you worked incrementally: building up your portfolio through a series of projects by way of: • Research projects conducted into chosen utopias. • Site visits and investigations into precedent housing and community projects around London and in Amsterdam. • Forming a research question by taking a phenomenological position on what social mobility could mean for Generation Z. In so doing you attempted to address current social cultural issues, reflected on contemporary ideology and formulated new spatial ideas for your chosen community. • Produced both a drawn visual and 3-dimensional (modelled) manifesto to inform who you are designing for in term 2 and what spaces, forms and relationships might be appropriate for them. This work aimed at developing your knowledge about making homes and communities, giving you the confidence to develop your own personal thesis, presented via the manifesto and prototype design project.

Term 2: Create a community in the context of E&C for Generation Z Semester 2 will concentrate on the development of a design narrative for a range of larger sites in E&C that will include housing and other unrelated functions. A phenomenological approach to community dwelling will be encouraged – emerging not only from the user experience, but from the ability to create a prototypical zero carbon place and a desire to make sculptural and legible urban interventions.

Part 1: DESIGN Wk 13 -17 (5 weeks for tutorials (all) / 3 tech tutorials (5th) Wk 18 Reading week Wk 19 Crit

Wk 14 (23/1) - site specific mapping & specific research (context info/ environmental/ zero carbon/ solar) & model (scale tbc) 1. Site: Produce mappings, drawings, data to discuss: existing use, context, vistas and views, townscape, scale and massing, orientation, noise, solar, wind, land use. 2. Model: make an existing site model details tbc (group or individual) 3. What zero carbon means for the site: research ideas. 4. Initial diagrams: Produce masterplan diagrams re: GenZ housing, public and private space, routes and movement. Prove innovation. wk 15 (30/1) - zero carbon intro (find a precedent relevant to programme & site) wk 16 (6/2) - design diagrams / spatial brief wk 17 (13/2) & 18 (rw) - proposed design drawings & model & manifesto drawing wk 19 (27/2) CRIT

Part 2: DESIGN, PREPARE FINAL DRAWINGS & TECH Wk 20-22 (3 weeks for tutorials (all) / 4 tech tutorials (5th) Wk 23 Reading week Wk 24 Intercrit (final crit before Easter)

Part 3: FINISH FINAL DRAWINGS/ MODEL/ PORTFOLIO Easter: 4 weeks Easter break with 2 tutorials (all) / 2 tech tutorials (5th) Wk 25 (8/5) Final tutorial for design (all) and tech (5th)

Wk 26 (15/5) - EXAM 4th Yr final presentation(4th year help 5th year for 1 week) Wk 27 (25/5) - EXAM 5th Yr final presentation (then all to prepare for the unit exhibition) Unit 2: Walworth and Elephant Dreams. In between utopias. Term 2 Sites

SITE 1: HUGHES HOUSE (old people’s home & open space)

SITE 2: CRAMPTON SCHOOL (school & open space) SITE 4: SORTING OFFICE (police station, sorting office, rehearsal studios & high street)

SITE 3: MANOR PLACE (housing and sheltered housing & open space)

SITE 5: MORRISONS (supermarket & high street)

Term 2: Sites