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Tom Badger: Architecture of the Street

Folio

London is a world city. It is simultaneously expanding and contracting, growing ever-outwards – and upwards – yet on the brink of divorce from the neighbouring continent. The next generation of designers must deliver fresh thinking to tackle issues that range from the scale of the street to global climate change. We asked pioneering graduates from the LSA how they’d adapt London to ensure that it is inclusive of its citizens, integrated with nature and fit for the future

The existing landscape is redesigned, exploring the potential of typical London conditions if car use was radically reduced. Small modular buildings are added to the streetscape to provide social infrastructure. Existing buildings are extended and improved, altering their relationship to the street. A new landscape blurs the boundaries between street and garden.
The infrastructure for the new landscape is provided by a grid. Plugged-in structures transform streets into libraries, leisure centres and theatres. Each plays with familiar forms and materials associated with the street, encouraging us the re-read the intended use and activity of the street.
The once tarmacked spaces surrounding the Pelican Estate housing are turned into an undulating landscape, with old garages repurposed as community spaces attached to the neighbouring theatre.
The proposal uses the materials associated with the conventional build up of the street but subverts their use. The kerb stone is turned on its axis to create a grid. At the meeting point of kerb stones a socket provides power and footing for buildings and furniture above ground.
Infill sites are used to create cultural spaces that blur the boundaries between inside and out, architecture and street. Here the facade of a theatre is treated like a large door, opening the performance space out to the Peckham road and creating a second auditorium space.
Buildings appear in the street providing social infrastructure and amenity space for local residents. Here, a cafe spaces takes reference from the old cabbies shelters of London.
The boundaries between street and nature are blurred. Gardens and planters spill out on to the grid turning into grass filled paving allowing the street to take on some of the magical qualities of the back garden.

Throughout the 20th century the automobile was used as a catalyst for change, reflecting the mechanical and efficient world that architects and urbanists wished to create. It became the symbol of modernist thinking, promising a new age of social and physical mobility. However, it has ultimately failed in these promises, leaving our streets filled with pollution.

The 21st century allows us to rethink these ideals and create new ways of living and operating in the city – with the street being the central forum of this discussion. This project investigates Peckham Road and its surrounding residential streets in South London – an area that contains typical London conditions to be redesigned: housing estate, residential street, and cultural space.

The project is addressed from the perspectives of policy-makers, activists and designers. A design guide has been produced for how to adapt the street to contemporary demands, while the project also proposes redesigning kerbs and road surfaces to be better suited for pedestrianisation along with a series of modular buildings in the street which provide social infrastructure. The scheme also looks at existing housing and infill sites, exploring their relationship with the street.

This vigorous interrogation of our streets strives to provide a compelling alternative to current societal behaviour in relation to the city’s roads.