Canada Water... and other developments
The last two weeks in London found us fully immersed in our site at Canada Water. We spent one week housed in the historic Dock Office building, where we were given presentations from a range of people involved in the master planning process. This was kicked off by British Land’s Head of Canada Water Development - Roger Madelin - who previously worked with Argent to spearhead the development at King’s Cross which we visited in our first week. We were given a bird’s eye view of our site and the broad strokes of British Land’s vision for the project. Throughout the week we got different angles on the project, touching on everything from affordable housing to sustainability. We were tasked with spending the next week putting together our own observations and attitudes towards the site and its context in booklet form.
In the mean time, we managed to get in a few other visits. We spent a Sunday afternoon at Tony Fretton’s office in Kentish Town with our seminar instructor Irénée Scalbert, where we discussed some of his early works. We also went for a special tour led by the director of Sir John Soane’s Museum - a truly delightful architectural pilgrimage.
As part of our ongoing project visits, we toured the new Bloomberg headquarters designed by Foster + Partners with two of the project engineers from AKTII. It was, needless to say, an incredibly fancy building. We enjoyed their sweet view of St. Paul’s, their ample snack selection, and perhaps most of all the scaled model of the building on the top floor. We also gained a new appreciation of the engineering challenges brought about by clients who may or may not require massive fish tanks on the upper levels of their buildings.
Finally, we also received an insightful walking tour and background info on London’s ongoing ‘tech transformation’ from Juliette Morgan, a key advisor to public and private sector efforts to establish the area around Old Street station as a thriving hub for tech-enterprises.
At the end of the week we presented our individual booklets on Canada Water. With a wide array of attitudes and observations presented, we seem in good position to produce a diverse collection of building proposals within our shared site. The work begins in earnest!