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The study records a group of similar sites in London that penetrate the city’s formal urban fabric. They are examples of a type of informal urban intervention that doesn’t fit a specific architectural category however they have common qualities. They can be found in your local high street and they exist largely unnoticed (eg. the ‘Hole in the Wall Café’ providing a welcome break to lorry drivers heading out of London, is in the middle of a suburban road and ‘Crispins Removals and Storage’ completes the terrace to a retail high street).
They all occupy disused land; they all have a strong marked boundary (eg. advertising hoarding, fence, underside of a bridge). The boundaries enclose a temporary activity (eg. flower shop, taxi station, cafe,). They are generally exposed to the elements yet might become partially sheltered. Spaces and rooms within these sites are formed by simple devices (eg. trestle table, lean-to corrugated roof, scaffolding poles, caravans, storage containers) and are constructed with materials and tools close-at-hand. They temporarily exploit the full potential of the site yet through non-architectural means.
These 'modest spaces', free of architectural contrivement, reveal a basal process of how to form space. The site starts as a blank canvas; a horizontal plane with site-specific parameters. Objects brought into the space begin to find places around the perimeter and develop architectural qualities (eg. a camper van within a camper van sales site, when located at the site entrance becomes the reception foyer and office). Through a process of order and regulation the space is transformed into a temporary inhabitable environment.
Seasonal Flower Shop
428 Caledonian Road, Islington (site C)
428 Caledonian Road was the site of a 4-storey Victorian terrace. It had a café at its ground floor, which caught fire causing serious structural damage and so the site was flattened. The tiled floor to the café remains.
The corner plot is screened off from both the adjacent roads along its boundary lines. The screening device performs as a multi-funcitonal structure and supports a shelving system as well as three advertising panels. A temporary roof structure to the rear provides shelter for the shop counter, seeds, garden tools and garden implements. The main space is devided into aisles and sub-aisle where plants are grouped into categories of size and type.
The site is open to the public for two periods of the year. Potted plants are sold during the spring and summer months and in December the space is used to sell Christmas trees.
Hole-in-the-wall café, Barnet.
"Barnet has little immediate appeal for the architectural traveler. Modern routes pass through seemingly interminable suburbs which mushroomed between the wars, transformed a landscape of scattered settlements among undulating farmland and wood-land."
(Pevsner, N&Cherry, B. The Buildings of England: London 4: North
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PROPOSAL
In UK cities approx. 70% of urban space is residential and planning authorities positively encourage residential-use over other activities. By taking advantage of the slowness of the planning process, areas of the city (i.e. unused sites, disused infrastructure, empty parking garages) could be used temporarily in this way.
This model can be developed in two directions:
1.
On a strategic level to encourage the temporary use of existing `unused‘ sites within cities. Activities within these sites can expand to encourage other uses for example: urban agriculture, educational facilities, office / workshop space, arts and entertainment, residential, etc.
2.
At a programmatic scale this model can be developed to see how it could influence the spatial and programmatic design of new mixed-use urban developments.
1. Un-used piece of land
2. Boundary element (eg. a hoarding can help pay the rent)
3. Recycling depository - materials and tools close-at-hand to build 2._enclosures and furniture.
A. An activity (Flower vendor, 428 Caledonian Road, London N1)
New Activities
B. Commerical/Business (e.g. office, studio) - Caravan
C. Arts/Entertainment (e.g. gallery, outdoor cinema, theatre)
D. Urban agriculture (e.g. allotments, greenhouse, park)
E. Educational facilities (e.g. classroom, workshop) - Storage