AA Housing and Urbanism, London Design Workshop Group 3 : Creative Lanes

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multiscalar reflections of chalk farm to kentish town

creative lanes

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CAMDENLOCK

NIGHT MARKET

Fuel 24 hours

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contents 1. Introduction

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2. Common Values, Divergent Propositions

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A project to project based approach

3. Supporting the Knowledge Economy Network

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4. Concentration as Stimulus

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5. Delivering Variation through Consistency

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6. Size and Organization

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7. Handling the Section

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Setting up a Food Ecology

contributors

Simran Singh Sebastian Montalvo Shukti Sahni Wen Wei Zainab Javed Polina Gladova Amreen Sheikh Jiang Xueli Naina Reddy

tutors

Morphology and Typology

Lawrence Barth Anna Shapiro Dominic Papa

8. New Grounds

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“Open-city planning attends to conflicts and possibilities in sequence; there’s problem-solving, but also problem-finding, discovery rather than merely clarity. All good narrative has the property of exploring the unforeseen, of discovery; the novelist's art is to shape the process of that exploration. The urban designer's art is akin.”

– Richard Sennett

a project to project based approach

chapter 1

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All development in London is done in compliance with the London Plan as a spatial development strategy.

All local plans developed by the Boroughs maintain this compliance through their Area Action Plans, Site Allocation Policies or Core Strategies documents. The hopes of redevelopment in London are fairly consistent with the need for housing without constraining workspace provision and are realized on various Opportunity and Intensification Areas all over the metropolitan. Most of these planning and redevelopment, however, are based on master plans and the appointment of key builders – a situation more constrained in its need to conform.

In the London Borough of Camden Local Plan 2016, the Kentish Town area has been recognized as one of the areas expected to deliver significant growth through development. The Chalk Farm site and Kentish Town site is taken up as grounds for this study have also been identified as Brownfield sites by the London Planning Authorities. With development plans underway, there are substantial debates around the future of these areas in the Camden Borough.

The train ride from Kings Cross to Kentish Town is a 7-minute journey via Thameslink.

You cannot but help register the contrast between the two points- boarding when you board from the buzz of food, culture, various big and small businesses and just immense activity arriving at the concentrated Kentish Town street, bogged down by its predominant industrial nature. A 15-minute walk down and you find yourself in Chalk Farm with the expanding food culture and gastronomy businesses.

Brownfield sites in the Camden Town area as identified by the London Planning Authorities.

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In the Morrisons site on the Chalk Farm road, Morrisons has partnered up with Barratt to deliver a mixeduse project. The proposal presents an ambition to achieve residences (with a small percentage of affordable housing), workspaces, amenities, a small community center and a retained branch of the existing Morrisons supermarket as well as the petrol station. While the developers believe they are making the most of this “brownfield site” (Carrier, 2017), there are contradicting opinions on the subject. A working group formed in response to the development plans to mobilize public and stakeholder opinions suggests there are several fallacies within the proposal.

Concerns raised range from issues like the lack of a “commercially-focused mixed-use transition zone, separating the market edge from the residentially-focused mixed-use accommodation elsewhere on the Camden Goods Yard”, to compromised access to the area, to an inadequate transport and highways strategy, to doubts in the provision of quality housing and public spaces. (Camden Goods Yard Working Group, 2017) The conservationists and locals have expressed the proposal to be a misfit for Chalk Farm and have raised concerns regarding issues of density and scale.

One of the artists’ impressions detailing how the new development will look at the Morrisons site in Chalk Farm

Multiple stakeholders, including the local community, local heritage groups, relevant landowners around the site, local businesses, etc. have had their concerns recognized through the workings of CGYWG. However, the developers believe they are only looking to address the provision of housing, affordable workspaces, and amenities as well as maintaining the existing functions of the petrol station and Morrisons supermarket on a somewhat underutilized site while managing its inherent qualities.

The case of Chalk Farm is similar to several large-scale developments across London where criticisms are fueled by a general mistrust in government-led development and the involvement of large-scale developers. This condition is representative of what is often the case in these large-scale developments and intensification projects in London. Opportunity areas identified within the London Plan are large sites that have significant capacity to be redeveloped. We have these very large areas like the Olympic Legacy Area, Kings Cross (53 hectares), Elephant and Castle (88 hectares) as past developments or more forthcoming ones like the Haringey Heartlands, Park Royal, Old Oak Common, etc. that end up often in the hands of a single large-scale developer or are developed by the Central Government. However they may be delivered, there are certain problems associated with this approach to redevelopment – most processes suffer from the tension between the ambition of the developer and the concerns of people.

Map of London’s 37 Opportunity Areas (turquoise) and Industrial Lands (yellow), as designated by the Greater London Authority.

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“If planning were easy you’d think someone would have got it right by now. Instead, the operation of the planning system remains stubbornly contentious and contested, a battleground for competing ideologies and pressure groups, a recipe for delivering delayed and second best projects, a cost and not a benefit to the economy and to society.”

The Rt Hon Sir Andrew Stunell OBE MP Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Communities and Local Government) (Local Government Information Unit, 2013)

“When I arrived in the job in the 1980s, the big banks were in control of London ... But now it’s the big house-builders. We’ve gone from being ruled by Barclay’s bank to being controlled by Berkeley homes.” (Wainwright, 2014)

The general understanding is that the developer does not have provision for the general public in mind and instead are more driven by the dazzling wealth of international investors. The authorities are often blamed for having enabled these developers and allowed for “planning policies to be continually flouted, affordable housing quotas to be waived, height limits breached, the interests of residents endlessly trampled.”

(Wainwright, 2014) This disrepute for the developer groups is rooted in precedent cases like Southwark, Elephant and Castle or the unmet expectations of affordable housing and public benefits from the Tottenham Hotspur’s £400m football stadium, where we have seen the affordable component of housing to be mysteriously waived or the priorities being opposed to the needs of a community.

The sheer “bigness” of opportunity areas in London and the general practice of developers aggravate this situation of distrust. People worry that these large-scale interventions will result in substantial amounts of disruption for long periods of time. The issue of phase-ability and management of this lag through meanwhile projects should lie on the developer’s radar. Furthermore, as per the established expectation, people continue to fear a loss of their homes and affordability in the aftermath of redevelopment in the city.

The issue with developments in London has also been that they tend to easily get caught up in the debates and the discourse is politicized eventually resulting in nothing coming out of the proposition and the discourse that followed. The Haringey Redevelopment Vehicle is one such instance where progress is thrown out the window because the process became too politicized. While the public criticizes that the developers are unreasonably enabled to shape the growth of the city, the communities have also been empowered to a point where nothing gets by without criticism. This results in the process being prolonged and the actual development being put off to no end. “For every new development that is denied planning permission, there are therefore many more that were never applied for in the first place.” (Sims & Bosetti, 2016) For all these reasons, the planning and redevelopment process in London suffers.

We look at alternative approaches from elsewhere to understand the importance of enabling a conversation amongst stakeholder groups and the general public preceding the actual proposition of master plans and revealed ambitions for a site in the city. One such instance is the Birmingham Big City Plan. A non-statutory document that deters excessive criticism due to its very nature of not having any standing as a legal document. It can be characterized as being a visioning study that is meant to enable a conversation on the progress and growth of the city with the involvement of multiple stakeholder groups in order to reveal what are their needs and expectations. An approach like this begins to question what people really need – something lacking in conventional planning mechanisms.

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The Birmingham City Plan covers several aspects of the built environment to deliver a framework to direct future development and regeneration in the city. This includes addressing the provision of workspace and housing, enabling a walkable city that favors pedestrian and cyclist movement, supporting family life through the provision of necessary amenities and living conditions, effective design of public spaces, etc.

(Birmingham City Council, n.d.) This is a strategic way of uniting the ambitions of developments that may be led by differing groups, all striving towards a declared vision that has been established taking into consideration the interests and needs of all stakeholder groups.

As Nordic cities suffer from industrial transformation becoming post-industrial cities they have formed what is the Nordic City Network that is based on an identified set of shared values and ambitions for these cities and the exchange of knowledge these issues. As an institution, the Nordic City Network is “a Think Tank of urban and regional planners and others, dedicated to developing Nordic cities as attractive, innovative and democratic Knowledge Cities.” (Nordic City Network, n.d.) The fundamental logic of this institution is that there is a knowledge of what is excellence in planning and architecture that serves the transformation happening in these Nordic regions. Since there is a set of common values that have been identified and stakeholders on the subject are assembled, a process of value planning can be initiated based on listening to what people with acquired knowledge on relevant subjects have to say. The “450 Urban Projects” publication put together by the Nordic City Network compiles the various responses to a shared set of values and illustrates how differences emerge even so.

The nature of the exercise documented in this publication is somewhat similar as it is an investigation based on an established set of urban agendas with interchanging levels of importance for those across three different lines of action. The point however is not to define and fixate on a single master plan in response to the challenges of planning and housing and workspace provision in North London but to use a somewhat valid understanding of how the sites are to be populated and through this as a starting point begin to reveal further points of investigation to guide propositional thinking. The process is one based on defining where the priorities lie, as is done with the six urban agendas, and then building in a non-linear way investigations and explorations on relevant themes to come up with innovative responses to issues of co-living, integrating work in residential contexts, future mobility, servicing, etc. A master plan is not treated as the definite answer but a diagram to guide further investigations. The relativity between varying approaches adopted in the variant propositions allows for an argumentative discourse organized under themes that can be seen as almost the preoccupations architects tend to have with the built environment.

common values, divergent propositions

chapter 2

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What happens within the dwelling units with respect to the urban qualities of the area? How does the shared domain become programmed with respect to the user groups and their activities?

The area of study lies in the Borough of Camden spanning the Kentish Town and Chalk Farm sites.

Serviced by the over-ground, underground and National Rail, this area is highly accessible making it an important central city location with plans for redevelopment underway. Even with being in such proximity to a hub like King’s Cross it is worth asking why these two sites in the Camden Borough are locked in this cycle of low-value, low-quality provision.

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The repetitive issues of housing and workplace deficit plagues the site from becoming anything but a storage space of warehouses. Our investigations are structured around 6 urban agendas that collaborate to suggest a vision for the area materialized on two sites. Moreover, our six agendas set out a framework for architectural explorations on improved living, working and association, establishing synergies and broader ecologies, economizing through sharing and collectivizing and articulating well serviced environments, among other things. This series of common values or agendas help contemplate a vision for this part of North London. These ought to be accommodated in the propositions, having understood their implications as seen in certain existing projects or precedent studies.

These agendas are rooted in the key emerging trends observed in the area and they help predict the future of the area from Kentish Town to Chalk Farm. However fairly generic and consistent with the ambitions of development we see all over London, they are based on the trends and patterns observed in Kentish Town and Chalk Farm. There are opportunities for the area within each of these ambitions that are observed as you take the walk from Kentish Town Station all the way down to the Camden Market end of Chalk Farm Road. These drivers of change as a set are sensitive to the conditions of the site and the emerging priorities amongst the local population. Acknowledging these trends, the task is to focus on translating them into specific solutions, products and services.

These agendas are used as a foreground to develop the propositions at multiple scales from developing an overall approach through a morphological statement down to the scale of experimenting on the quality of the living units themselves with respect to orientation, depth and sectional articulations. The site is an opportunity to investigate diverse ways of life imagining that the user group could vary from the young professionals in the area looking for affordable living opportunities to the traditional family set up that is usually pushed to the life-long neighborhoods of peripheral London. Along the way we question the validity and socio-economic sustainability of these models. We use Architecture as a tool to develop possible ways of living, sharing, achieving differentiated spaces on site, elaborating the differentiation across functions, etc, revealing new points of investigations along like way.

How within our propositions can we capture value over time and what actors could appear in time to attribute to this value?

Two of projects developed over the course of the academic term look at opportunities of housing in conjunction with workspaces with two alternating approaches of how you negotiate working and living. The third project, works on the agenda of “many cooks, many kitchens� to feed the other propositional studies and transform the way we look at culinary activities, both domestic and commercial, into a broader set that overlaps with elements of the knowledge economy.

Site at Chalk Farm

Site at Kentish Town

Who could be possible stakeholders in this process of development and its delivery? Who could be the users and inhabitants that we cater to?

What are possible ecologies that could be cultivated when we look at these agendas as a set of relevant issues?

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many cooks, many kitchens With the Stables Market and Camden Market being the focal points of visitors to this area, the food culture is immediately evident as a growing phenomenon. The culinary activities and the gastronomy businesses are not just things amongst themselves but are very crucial to the urban environment. Can we reinterpret both the domestic and commercial aspect of this element into something that initiates or encourages an expansion of the food based economy?

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integrated workspaces As the divisions between the concepts of work, live and learn break down further, it is possible that workspace will no longer be an identifiable type or types of space –simply a set of locations or activity-based environments where work in all its forms happens.

If there is likely to be an increasing convergence between living and commercial space, one can expect the workspace itself to become a highly curated and managed concept. New ideas are emerging for the workspace of the next generation and the focus on integrated workplaces becomes very important. Different programs could provide a variety of different environments and a model for the future workspace.

Such integrated environments could begin to offer seamless living, working and learning experiences through efficient management of resources.

Housing threatens the need of affordable and inclusive workspaces required for the substantial presence of logistics, transport related industries and creative industries in this part of London.

More space is needed to accommodate this growing sector of the knowledge economy and hence, these priorities can potentially enable progressive interventions to retain work environments and improve and support growing residential neighborhoods through its presence. Some of the characteristics of generic work spaces are- large floor plates, non-active facades, complex transport and logistics needs, servicing, 24-hour lorry movements etc. and important clues can be revealed through an understanding of these parameters.

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collective living The re-evaluation of urban living is most clearly expressed in the repopulation of inner city areas across London, particularly in north London, where the creative industries predominate and the advanced service economy has grown. Many inner city areas and buildings have been transformed into high-density living areas with high-quality services and amenities. Demographic groups such as childless singles and couples between the ages of 25 and 45 dominate these new residential areas, often characterized by high disposable incomes and urban lifestyles.

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service orientation However, while many households, particularly families with children, still prefer the suburban model, trade-offs are made between high densities and qualities of urban residential amenity such as design, private outdoor space, public space, and proximity to public transport, goods and services. In the context of growing urban population pressure, there is an urgent need for innovative thinking in the approach to housing. It raises the question of how are we going to live together? This includes reevaluating the notion of collective living and innovating with the idea of collectivized resources, equipment, and spaces, seeking to lower costs and promote effective associational life.

“The new aspect of current developments consists above all of the ‘rediscovery’ of what it means to have a home near the inner city not only for households with one or two people, or specific lifestyle groups. Instead, the trend is involving people from every phase of life and every size of household, representing various lifestyles and habitspeople for whom the area near the inner city is becoming the residential location of choice.” – Hasso Brühl.

The vision is driven by the trend to migrate to flexible, high-quality, low maintenance and transparent serviced environments for work as well as residential developments. The idea is to work with these trends, thinking about many different ownership models, from collective ownership to a single dominant service provider. The key idea here is not simply the space that is built, but an organized place that links ownership, service, management, and collective use.

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future mobility Chalk Farm and Kentish Town areas are not thought about as part of an integrated district of employment, collaboration, service, and residential life. However, circulation, mobility, and integration should be improved through future projects for Camden. New ways of mobility, future possibilities and collective transport systems are considered as the opportunities to think about the ways this may change homes, workplaces, streets, and neighborhoods.

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long-term value Multifunctional residential environments, in a certain sense could not build value, but only deteriorate over time. There was no mechanism to support long-term value creation through the projects themselves, and consequently no opportunity for shared and collective improvements managed by the most immediate stakeholders. A few exemplars studied, such as the Transitlager in Basel and the Berlin Block offer integrated spatial systems that encourage long-term value creation and also improves the urban fabric. Learning from such case studies, the propositions aim to design for broad-based civic engagement rather than simple provision.

supporting the knowledge economy network

chapter 3

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Kentish Town Plan

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the future of Chalk Farm & Kentish Town

As post-industrial areas, the area has a strong context and an emerging knowledge-economy network. According to the agendas which have great impact on the area, the ways in which people eat, live, work and move around are rapidly changing.

However, the form of the city has evolved much in accordance to these trends.With the streets lined with row houses, the old factories and the railway lines on one hand, and the issues of future mobility, housing crisis, creative industries and food markets on the other hand, the question is: What is the future Chalk Farm and Kentish Town?

knowledge economy the growing network

There are two challenges to the redevelopment - firstly, to create an urban complex with integrated housing, workspace and service facility. Secondly, to find the balance between new development and the old urban grid and create a new kind of shared ground for movements and activities.

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22@Barcelona

from the old to the new

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What are the conditions necessary to hone a growing knowledge economy in post-industrial areas? What is our attitude to the rigid, car-based traditional urban grid?

22@Barcelona district is an old industrial area under redevelopment in Eastern Barcelona. The activities in this area are diverse; including new business, scientific, educational, cultural and residential activity. Different types of buildings work individually and also together to establish a coherent environment, such as the concentrated shopping environment, office buildings, university, museum, residential community, etc.

The similar morphology help achieved consistency and lowers the cost of development. More importantly, different kinds of buildings, in terms of size, type, activities, can be integrated in the area to support the growing knowledge economy.

Barcelona Housing Typology Barcelona Plan

Filmstrips of Barcelona

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the serviceoriented environment

A mixed-use city

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In order to improve the creative economy in Chalk Farm and Kentish Town area, it is important to create a high-quality and transparent serviced environment. Our vision starts at the scale of the building itself, trying to accommodate live, work, learn and play functions, and connect these activities on new grounds.

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two dominant housing typologies

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In the Chalk Farm and Kentish Town area, row houses and slab are the two constituents of the morphology and it expresses a strong identity as a residential area with a few workspaces, amenities and productive open space. The urban grid is structured by streets, which mainly services the movement of cars. These two kinds of urban housing work as group-form building to create not-too-delightful continuity between Chalk Farm and Kentish Town and the wider area. In order to envision the transformation of this area, the traditional urban block and street patterns ought to be reconsidered to accommodate these changing conditions. The development should provide new housing which not only enable the forthcoming trends in living, working, mobility and service orientation but also can be delivered within the existing urban grid.

the morphological starting point urban pattern

For such a large development, it is necessary to contemplate sustainable models to manage and lower the risks. The propositions should be examples to show the logic of the development, and how to achieve continuity in an area of this scale. Group-form building is a powerful tool to set up the urban pattern, which usually comes with urban housing. This document will explore different morphological starting points, such as the point block, linear block, perimeter block, etc. to enrich the conversation.

SIte Plan of mehr Als Women

Housing Typology

Site Photographs

Floor Plan of mehr Als Women

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Communal Space

Open Space

Communal Space

As point building, this project could combine the circulation space with collective space on each floor because of the proximity of units, which is divided into pocket spaces with different dimensions as living room.

The position of the linear blocks creates a sequence of movements and interactions between internal and external areas. The quality of the linear black, such as the dual orientation, creates possible synergies with the surroundings (Elesban Anadon Vargas’s thesis ‘Productive & Knowledge Hubs’). By giving generous width to corridor, putting storage room along with corridor and open toward it, and using light well which goes through the building, the circulation space can accommodate social interaction. One can imagine taking out skateboard from the storage room and having communication with neighbors in the corridor. The morphology can create more introvert and substantial collective space, with bigger amenities.

The depth of the building provides possibilities for varied units, from studio to two-bedroom flat, with dual orientation, and there is space working as buffer between the private dwelling space and collective space for every unit.

On urban scale, the morphology gives differetiation to open space, which can articulate different activities on ground and create hierarchy for public realm. Point building can establish shared environment in multi-scale and create variation on ground.

Cluster Plan of Codak Block

Apartment

Plan

concentration as stimulus: setting up a food ecology

chapter 4

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Allegory of the Effects of Good Government in the City and the Country (above); Food in city today (below)

A walk along Regents canal starting from the Granary Square in Kings’ Cross all the way to the KERB Market in Camden exhibits two very opposing qualities; people are strolling with families while a few other fitness enthusiasts jog along the quiet canal surrounded by some quirky housing. Approaching either ends of this path, however, gradually reveals a more convivial scene where groups of people sit with their backs against the wall, singing, chatting or just enjoying a beer. These leisurely environments are an outcome of a crossover between a node as concentration and food as a social glue.

During the ancient times, food was a lot more integrated with the city in a manner very different from the present times. There existed a very visible relationship between the countryside and the city center, where life in both was invested in the movement of food from one end to the other. A clear example of this scenery can be seen in the Allegory of the Effects of Good Government in the City and the Country, Siena, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti where one can see the farmers harvesting crops in countryside, an ancient city dweller bringing in pigs to the city for the meat market and women carrying grains in a basket. But the arrival of railways changed the way we live overnight pushing this complex process of producing, feeding and disposing of food in the backdrop. Geography was no longer a constraint, introducing us to live in ignorance of the effort it takes to feed the city, and thus pushing away its significance of social and physical impact on our lives.

However, an increasing agglomeration of food industries throughout the city could not be kept hidden for long; with food halls, cafes and supermarkets springing up on every street and business districts, this discussion kept leading us to the arguments of food as a tool for urban vitality. As an approach to a vibrant city center, we undertook this tool for our site at Kentish Town.

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As one of the least accessible areas to the public in Camden borough, it is hard to imagine this area of existing industrial sheds and struggling creative industries just a mere 15-minute walk from the Camden market.

Its ambitions for the future has mostly been an urgent intervention through the means of new housing and opportunistic employment that would directly engage with the public. However, its potential of being a place in London where people can come to pursue new businesses, knowledge and experiment with cultural fusion, to then form a part of a shared community, lead to a multi-direction investigation of current means for aiding this development.

“Live, Learn, Work and Play” We understood many development projects outlined its structure through the mass housing, office blocks and other infrastructure, with the attempt to binding it all together through intermediate open spaces. It surprised us that food was never discussed as centrally on an urban scale because “feeding cities takes a gigantic effort; one that arguably has a greater social and physical impact on our lives and planet than anything else.” To understand the relationship of food and cities, we decided to address food as the fundamental backdrop to our urban life.

“Eat, Live, Learn, Work and Play” We might start our mornings with an English breakfast which aids us to energetically move through the day.

Lunchtime is spent at an Italian restaurant with colleagues and acquaintances, while winding down in the evening involves some beer and tapas. Daily, we have the option of eating a variety of cuisines with diverse people in different settings. This expanding culture of food depicts dynamic trends in collective urbanity, which questions where people eat their meals, what is being cooked and who sits around the table. We want to explore how the taste, smells and colours on the table transforms the way people shop, prepare, cook and eat their meals. We further question how this process demonstrates a spirit of collective life and to what extent collaborates with services and the changing mobility patterns.

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We believe that food-drive economy could be achieved through the insertion of the marketplace in the centre, historically the glue of binding public spaces, the node of vibrancy of a city centre. Then, this contemporary food industry would place Kentish Town on the map of London as a gastronomy centre where cross-overs between culinary arts and creative workspaces would encourage the development of an emerging knowledge economy.

To investigate the numerous elements through which food culture has been responsible in reshaping of the city, we approached the current trends through multiple scales of viewpoint. The most dominant example responsible for the death of public space is the supermarket. While they might bring cash to struggling local authorities, they offer no less of a destruction compared to the traditional townhall. However, since supermarket fit with our hectic lifestyle, it has a changing role to play in our lives.

The Brief

Spaces merging vertically as well as horizontaly on ground

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De Citadel, Rotterdam

Moving beyond its conventional big box structure in the centre or outskirts of the neighbourhood with its introverted nature and dead street frontality is the Waitrose at Granary square. More than a passive box of aisles, this Waitrose consists of a café, juice bar, bakery and a wine bar which on weekends converts into a centre of learning through expansive cookery classes. Moreover, the plaza it shares with adjacent Central Saint Martin’s participates actively with the setting up of ‘Canopy Market’ monthly, bringing together food artisans, artists and other creative professionals, providing them with a platform. On a larger scale, The Commons in Bangkok moves beyond the typical typology of a small retail development to a vertical openair public space that opens to the upper levels. Landscaped with ramps and steps, all kiosks and cafes are integrated throughout the building giving a sense of continuity and visibility even though the building is multi-level, thus converting circulation space into an event space.

Santa Caterina, Barcelona

While traditional market halls have dominated major historic city centre with its mixed-used grain of dense shops, trades and businesses, contemporary market halls are altering the city centre by its hybrid nature of clustering with new housing typologies. Santa Caterina, a renovated historical food market in Barcelona hosts more than 100 stalls of fresh fruits, vegetables, poultry and dairy along with a food hall offering its visitors an opportunity to eat on the spot. Opening to a vast plaza with an enclosed arm, the fairly negative natured market hall overlaps with clusters of residential point blocks, with its core fronting onto the street rather than inside the market. Meanwhile, De Citadel in Rotterdam consists of retail on the edges with housing on top all throughout the block, which create a hierarchy of spaces through the shared rooftop and four streets cutting across the block, making the project more integrated with the surrounding fabric.

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Integrating the existing grid with the new food model

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Our proposition then aims to concentrate the elements of food hall, supermarket and the cookery institute into one cluster that would promote our ambition of “Eat, Live, Learn, Work and Play�, by not only remaining introverted but extending more than its boundaries towards the entire site and beyond. Approaching food as a daily experience, central to the cluster is the morphology of a market hall, however not traditional in typology.

Exploded axonometric of the food industry with its supporting events

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Responding to its surrounding typologies, the market hall is multistoried, visually open to its surroundings, it seamlessly orients the various elements of food within it. From the south of the site of the creative industries, an event space in form of a plaza flows into one of the various entrance of the hall leading into a wholesale display of fruits, vegetables and dairy. Parallel to these stalls would be an open food hall, where cooks everyday produce fresh food, buying their products in the morning from the wholesale market.

Unique to the site, the food hall supports the new way of kitchen-less living, a future of living for young professionals and students. The food hall then becomes the center for healthy and freshly prepared food from morning to night, attracting professionals from surrounding workspaces not just for eating, but as a space for bumping into other professionals or carrying on with work over a shared meal.

Market of the future

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A hierarchy of mixed environments is more successful as space. Therefore, a periphery of chain restaurants, cafes, cars and coffee-shops will host everyone leading from professionals with a quieter agenda of work, tourists for new experiments of food or families coming over for dinner. This periphery of restaurants opens towards the other three sides on the market hall into the residential environments with shifting facades breaking the monotony of a continuous surface into smaller event spaces where the chances of interaction are higher. This transparent box encourages a continuous movement through a provision of multiple entrances, with the restriction of only one exit from the supermarket placed in the level below the ground.

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The food industry, however, doesn’t limit itself in trade, business and social instigator but further moves into the second category of education of food. The traders and cooks at various food stalls love sharing their passion of food with the consumers so much so that it was decided to extend this knowledge further into a cross-over of a culinary institute, research centers, library and exhibition rooms. Open to everyone for cookery classes, symposiums on health and nutrition as well as research carried on by stakeholders and partners of nutrition such as the Wellcome Trust, NHS and Britain Nutrition Foundation, the education in the industry would contribute to the community and the awareness of good food nationally as supported by various government initiatives as well.

A cross-section of the food model: inserting an event generator on the site of Kentish Town

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A way of life: coming together around one table for food

Street life and heirarchy through visual connections

Clearly, the food industry has an expanding future in city planning. Discussing only one aspect of it opens various other doors for speculation and implementation so much so that we can start seeing its integration with every other industry. Thus, it is not surprising to see technology play a role in its development as well. With the rising options of food delivery applications online, there is a simultaneous increase of small kitchens for such services known as “dark kitchens.� Introduced with the intention of convenience, they are in turn becoming an inconvenience in terms of social interaction. Nutrition and quality of life take a downfall with this move, because of which we believe the model of having a gastronomy center as a part of various neighborhoods could help with this. By being in close proximity to such food centers, the need for services such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats will reduce to a point where we can see a shift from eating out in cars to eating around a table within a community.

Integreated workspaces overlooking the market-spaces

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Common ground: shared space under the market roof

Interactive roof with the model and surroudning housings

When we look at the knowledge industry, the model of the organization of the cookery school is changing, they look forward to sharing knowledge with other industries as well as with the public to contribute to the learning environment and get more public cooperation. By accommodating such spaces in a deep plan, the introvert learning models of different kitchens and offices can share knowledge within themselves but can also expand to the public by opening the ground of the market hall for learning through the event space.

Sectionally, the marketspace on the ground is combined with the cookery school on the upper levels, the organization working vertically and independently. The interlocked rooftop becomes usable with different uses expanding beyond the walls and thus allowing for accidental interactions to take place.

A view of the hybrid food ecology: institigateing event spaces

When we look at the workspace of the food incubator, they are trying to be closer to the consumer directly as well as other interrelated industries of advertising agencies, graphics design for packaging and decomposing waste products.

Moreover, the workspaces are co-working spaces, encouraging collaboration amongst the cluster of event spaces and retail spaces.

delivering variation through consistency: morphology and typology

chapter 5

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In order to accommodate diversity, from the point of view of different actors, emerging cultures, we often end up with environments that look quite fragmented. Looking around North London, there are extreme variations in the buildings from industrial buildings to social housing to terraced housing etc. It’s a mix of variations in the buildings, that doesn’t account to any coherence. It is important to understand if this mix of variations have an effect on the urban process?

From one point of view it might not really be important as one knows how to use the environments but when looked from another point of view, it is necessary to have a sense of what is shaping the culture, hierarchy, feel, tone and spatial organization of a place.

It is necessary to look forward to what kinds of community and culture will be symbolized through construction. How to protect that quality the place while we stay there, by avoiding to create greater fragmentation. Consistency and coherence are important in trying to maintain the transparency of the way in which urban development is governed. It allows the city to be aware of kind of building will be allowed to be built in urban development to maintain trust.

Fig 1- Waldorf Astoria

By promoting coherence, the city stands in a position to assure its people to have control over what is built and how it can be done?

One way to maintain consistency and coherence is to have a statutory plan that controls density, land use, heights, massing, but this causes great difficulties getting both the transformation and the kind of densities that are required to be achieved. It offers a lot of drawbacks by creating compact buildings with low heights and provides no successful space for recreation and well-being. Statutory plans are required but aren’t enough to provide a vision. Another way to gain coherence is development through London vernacular style under governmental control. These ways cost a lot to accommodate new types of living and working environments. In order to overcome these problems, it gives us an opportunity to explore new approaches of plan that work on basis of regularized variation in pattern and grain. Hafen City is one such example, which supports the approach to pattern and grain. It opens an opportunity to handle different kinds of floor plans in such a way that there is a kind of morphological coherence, that seems to be a part of the neighbourhood, with the virtue of pattern and grain in large complex master plan.

Fig 1- Waldorf Astoria

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This encourages a relatively limited morphological palette that would offer a degree of typological variation through Kentish town plan that looks at morphological driven plans as opposed to land use plans.

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When we look at Kentish town, From the city level, the extension and combination of existed roads make sure the project integrates with the larger urban environment which creates the foundation of continuity and inclusion for this former relative abandoned area. Also, with the development of urban mobility, it becomes possible to accommodate high dense population and minimize the transport digestion of this area, which would bring opportunities for local business.

Within the consistent morphology, the hierarchies of the grids are clear. The roads of city level divided the land into five areas, each of which has a unique size, geometry and surroundings. The project would be easy to be divided into phases, which would be helpful to maintain capital chain and control the risks. Moreover, it would encourage various developers to get involved in.

While the secondary grids are laid down crossover the areas. Together with main roads, these grids create frequent movements and naturally form shared environment, which become the articulation of parts.

Fig 1- Waldorf Astoria

While the chalk farm site with a mega form offers a version of how to deliver consistency and variation.

It can achieves topographic and landscape driven coherence, with a significant degree of variation inside justified size.

Fig 1- Waldorf Astoria

Fig 1- Waldorf Astoria

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Fig.5: Main road and Five area

Fig.5: Various neighbourhoods

Fig.5: Grid and Shared environment

Fig.5: Different neighbourhoods

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Some of the portions are alternative; also, the secondary grids are not compulsive roads, which provide possibilities for various sizes. These characters allow further development, which is totally different from statutory plans.

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As Durkheim pointed out that: “the diversity of occupations is greater, and individuals depend on each other more, resulting in greater benefits to society as a whole�. we have recognized the values of inclusive association, collaboration and partnership, On one hand, London has been successful, inclusive and absorptive and so on.

Nevertheless, the housing could have been much better. When we look around, there are a few kinds of housing available. When we look at the traditional forms of housing, the terrace house, the mansion block, new urban housing and so on, we mainly have three choices: normal flats for families like Corner House, one-bedroom flats like Pocket and dormitory-like The Collective. Obviously, they are not the best option for young professionals, which is one of the main target groups in Camden town, nor for non-family people, which has become the majority of the country.

It may lead us to have some discussion that is associated with larger question. How we might think about city building? What kind approach to housing do we want to see if we value shared living?

We have got quite a lot point blocks with limited depth. If we work on this kind traditional type, whether it is possible for us to form good partnership, as well as delivery good quality? We learn from a set of buildings and see the potential of multi-orientation units, which bring good light and view condition. Also, the potential of gaps between units could bring sufficient light into the circulation space, which improve the quality of shared environment. We can see Songpa micro housing as a typical example. The balconies between the gaps create new connections, which create other possibilities of movements in the building. The composition of balconies, patio, hall and unite makes spatial permeation and a sense of transparency.

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We absorb these kinds of advantage in a more efficient way. For example, uniting two units would not lose the high-quality feature when each of them has other two orientations. When the units are big, gaps could no longer promise good quality, we can get shearing of outline to locate more than two units in one direction.

Not every gap must be transparency to keep the shared space in good quality.

We explored our hypothesis with 5 units on each floor and from the drawings, we can see that they still have possibilities to form good collective environment even within a floor plate. The main shared spaces, service spaces and private units set along one another, which promise an efficient way of sharing and the respect of privacy.

Generated typical floor plan of point block

Hypothesis of shared environment among floor plate within limited depth

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Then what if we go a step further? how will it perform as groups to be the fabric of the city? We can see that point blocks have the potential to form linear blocks and groups of clusters. However, when we group them, it becomes problematic with the light, view and the simple large shared yard. We shear the units in plan and height, which maximizes the quality and form a series of shared spaces, which in different size and surrounding features.

Then how about another step further? What if we no longer stick to the mid-rise building? London already has a lot of high-rise buildings, but there is still the preference for mid-rise buildings, especially for dwellings. If we keep good quality and economic in high-rise buildings, whether it would turn up this attitude?

Especially when it is under the big urban background of London housing crisis. At the same time, our site is located between two railways, where would be a good place for the hypothesis. If the building plan is for highrise buildings and we want to keep it to be economic, then it would be more units. On the other hand, there are typical critiques for high-rise buildings, which said that they are untouchable to the ground and isolated.

These characters are definitely opposed with better association. We learn from a set of buildings, like Wohnprojekt Wien, Duplex Architekten Building A. We see the potential of shared space within floor plate in point blocks with broad depth, which makes it possible for high-rise buildings to be great for forming partnership.

We absorb this benefit and combine it with good features which we have explored in point block with limited depth. We can see from a typical plan that private units are located around the outline, which promises the best light, view and privacy to maintain personal autonomy. While the main shared space is located in the central, which, on one hand, makes the shared environment efficiency. On the other hand, it is a response to a typical critique for collective living. The main reason to cause the failure of much collective living is that since common spaces are for everyone, no one feels responsible for that. Consequently, conflicts come along. This leads us to think about service. To central located shared space would be a benefit in service aspect. However, residences do not just have the monotonous shared space, between the units, they get different depth and size of shared spaces, which could be interior, external or gray space. As it is possible for each unit to be a group of smaller units, the secondary circulation and inner faces of units could be formed. So, various of shared environment for different groups and numbers of people, along with multi specular sights and views and a series of gardens are all possible. We can see some of the varieties in terms of the organizations, types of private units.

There are light and view problems when point blocks try to form a typical shared court yard.

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Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner

Hypothesis of shared environment among floor plate within deepen depth

Scanned by CamScanner

Generate mid-rise point block into high-rise building

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Scanned by CamScanner

First building of Wohnturm Theresienhรถhe

Except for the variation within floor plate, we know from Koolhaas that high-rise buildings have great potential in vertical direction and see the project of Wohnturm Theresienhรถhe as a typical example. The project includes two buildings; the floor plates of the first building are relatively repetitive, while from the elevation we can see the different locations of balconies, protruded and cutting.

When we look at the section of the second building, the differentiation is affected by the continuity of the space in different floor plates.

We learn from this project and generate a rich elevation accompanied with relatively repetitive floor plates. While we think about services and associations for this kind of building, partial sectional continuity is applied. For example, on the ground floor, there is space could serve the whole building or contribute to horizontal synergy across buildings. In other levels, there may be some facilities shared among several floors.

Second building of Wohnturm Theresienhรถhe

Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner

Scanned by CamScanner

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Variation through the organization of collective space and circulation and different areas in each groups of units

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The good association and quality within the building could be sensed from some perspective drawings. One can also see that this kind of building is not just about itself, but also the performances from outside of the buildings, which bring life to the architecture of the city.

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Inner views of co-living spaces, encouraging interaction

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This proposition also explores point block with atrium, which is typical, and the outstanding point is the similarity with office building. We can see it from the examples-Residential Buildings KNSM, DIENER & DIENER ARCHITEKTEN and Yellow Building. It deliveries the variation through the morphology. On the other hand, we cut the typical floor plan into U shape, which would bring better quality for private units and provide the shared environment.

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Grid and Shared environment

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Different levels of front door and road

Multi-relationship of internal room, balcony and the street

Double orientation windows with spectacular views

Front door

Tower as a stage of performance

Soft coner creates a sense of transparency

Bike storage Entrance of a cluster of buildings

Tower as a stage of performance

Perimeter courtyard form a sense of community

Gray space between the enverlopes of buildings

Intimate interaction in internal courtyard

Void between clusters

Relationship between buildings and the main street

The site with its neighbourhoods: showing a variety of spaces, suggesting from exemplary precedents

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Ariel view of the proposition: interlocking of spaces

The understanding of a large building as a megaform allows the creation of groupings and subgroupings of both public and private spaces. There is a fundamental difference between the conception of a building as a megaform and the understanding of simple the repetition of the same structure over and over, where variation is nowhere to be found. Moreover, it is precisely the large size of a single building, where the same group of actors is making the decisions, what allows the creation of more complex sets of grouping of spaces, activities and programs. Rather than the monotony of a mega structure in which complex networks can hardly be accommodated. Furthermore, it is because of this ability to create positive sets of groupings and subgroupings within a megaform that hierarchies can be hosted successfully.

Division of spaces: sitting and merging within the isolated site, bridging the two islands

This means that these groups of activities and spaces can actually be hosted in different groups in according to their importance and/or requirements, thus creating a greater variation in the system. It is necessary to control coherence and variation in central city, in order to have rich environments and to build trust among its people through a transparent governance. This encourages people to support new developments in a plan, and establish belief in coherence and consistency. Kentish town and chalk farm show these two different approaches that are radically different from one and another, but each of them offers opportunities and ways to control variation and coherence.

size and organization

chapter 6

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By looking at the sheer size of both urban areas the question of size is naturally presented. Two different approaches are explored in the proposition. One consists of extending the existing urban fabric and creating a set of buildings within a consistent morphological logic, the other, relying on the use of a mega form.

Due to a number of economic and political factors, it has been the case that in most large cities concentration of capital has been a growing trend. This opens up a series of questions about how different actors can take place in developing a megaform in which there is only one main developer. Authors like Framphon and Colqhoun have argued about the representational meaning of large buildings in the city since decades ago. The discussions are still ongoing in the field, however, there is no doubt that buildings are getting bigger, and this opens a set of possibilities for both the city and the building themselves these possibilities are explored in both propositions.

The importance of the megaform was best put by K. Frampton (1991) whom defined them using five main characteristics, these were: 1. A large form extending horizontally rather than vertically.

2. A complex form which, unlike the mega structure is not necessarily articulated into a series of structural and mechanical subsets, as we find for example in the Centre Pompidou.

3. A form capable of inflecting on the urban landscape.

4. A form that is not freestanding but rather insinuates itself as a continuation of the surrounding topography.

5. A form that is oriented towards a densification of the urban fabric.�

Site at Chalk Farm

Site at Kentish Town

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In relation to the superblock, Colquhoun (1978) points out two main problems, the first is the relation of the individual dwelling to the superblock to which it may be a part. The second is the implications of the superblock as a representational part of the city. Moreover, the design propositions presented in this booklet aim to investigate how collectivizing the living structures and creating well serviced and more integrated workspaces can not only minimize the impact of the first problem presented by Colquhoun but actually both the living and commercial realms can be improved by being part of what might be best understood as a Megaform rather than a superblock.

Various views of the megaform from around the site

Regarding the representational role of a mega structure in the city, while is true that in the past decades there has been a strong line of criticism at the modern city regarding the fattening of the city fabric and the loss of meaning in relation to the size, the advantages that the megaform can bring to the general urban fabric are brought to light trough design reasoning and the realization that many of the modern needs of a city are better fit in deeper floor plates and shed like structures, which have important advantages such as integrating light-industrial areas to the city centers. Furthermore, the megaform can act as a tool to address the constrained condition of the site from the railways. It allows addressing each side of the site in a preferred manner, whilst selecting the most appropriate typologies for each condition regarding orientation and external factors such as noise.

When we look at the plans presented, we can start to realize how the collectivization of the living brings a set of advantages to the living units themselves, allowing to make far more efficient.

Proposed co-living following various precedents

Exploded axonometric of a block, showing heirarchy of activities

Proposition of various housing typologies

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Living typologies can also take advantage of the possibilities of the deepened floorplates, and typologies can be strategically used to respond to specific site conditions as well as taking part in collectivizing the living structures. Furthermore, the advantages of collectivizing the living realm are not exclusively found in the living units themselves. Taking part in a bigger building brings advantages also in the collective public spaces, such as elevated terraces, common kitchens and bike storages, which not only elevate the quality of living of the dwellers but aim to boost the future mobility in the city and well-serviced environments.

From the building point of view, it clarifies a distinct vertical and horizontal separation of workspaces and communal residential spaces. It offers large collective spaces at the residential level for collective services, outdoor usable and leisure spaces. It carries an advantage of progression of spaces of different sizes. This understanding of separation of large shared spaces at one level can cater to different sects of residential populations.

The bigger size of the buildings also allows the workspaces to be able to have far deeper floor plates. This dimension allows the workspace to be rethought. The introduction of Co-working spaces and goal-oriented teamwork can be better hosted in larger and deeper floor plates. Furthermore, the size of the ground floor spaces, both in plan and section, allow the introduction of light business and retail.

A detailed look into one of the blocks of the megaform, where mulitplicty of uses are provided for.

handling the section

chapter 7

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This chapter expands on the premise of why it is necessary to understand the Section in the discipline of architecture and urbanism. We tend to think like Aldo Rossi about the city as a field of coherence, inculcating a meaning in the organization and order of the city and the way in which we inhabit it. This understanding is embodied in plans, figure-grounds and perspectives in terms of urbanism. As a counter argument, Koolhaas conceives a contrasting perspecttive in Delirious New York as to the importance of a section in urbanism through “Manhattanism”.

This contradicts and builds upon Rossi’s understanding of urban areas which is insistent on geography and context. Sectional studies reveal opportunities for articulation, patterns of association and help manage progressions from the outside-in and vice-versa. Koolhaas states that an infinite number of things and activities can take place within a building which is evident from the Waldorf Astoria hotel and the downtown athletic club. These precedents are metropolitan types that can through their porosity and capacity manage people and varying activities in a single building.

learning from history

Waldorf Astoria is no different from a city - the city is replicated within the building. It is a commercial reality where one can live, work, shop, entertain and provide just as a city does with all its density. It creates a diagram of multiplication and articulation made possible through an understanding of the section. It describes a situation where a city can be interiorized within the building.

While the downtown athletic club has a special focus on sport-related activities, it critically manages the relationship between sports and elements of social life to achieve a very specific organization that is unique, distinctive and singular. The downtown athletic club shows various kinds of spatial configurations, with a mix of things of various sizes in a vigorous structure with remarkable variation. The section captures this refined degree of articulation and differentiation.

Koolhaas suggests that under conditions of “Manhattanism”, the Athletic downtown club shows how things concentrate in the metropolitan areas. Both these precedent studies describe one way of looking at environments of concentration and the management of opposed elements in a single context.

It opens up a discourse of what are two different ways in which the section affects the nature of the city. Section drawings help reveal diverse opportunities in how different activities come together, forming partnerships across. The issue of density creates an impulse to stack things but as we explore on the Kentish town site, these environments are known to have compromised levels of engagement especially in the case of housing.

Downtown Athlethic Club

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rockfeller centre as an urban area

To effectively compose an urbanity we must consolidate the concept of an urban area.

There ought to be an accumulation of things over a scale or territory. With regard to this, Koolhaas suggests that there is no reason thinking about an urban area while calling into question the limits of all that can be accommodated in a single building. He opens up an argument of urban area through the Rockefeller Centre in Manhattan and which demands a multi-scalar understanding.

The Rockefeller Centre is an assemblage on a wider territory - It is large building that with its complexity and number of differentiated elements allows for a conversation on multiple scales, connections, assemblages and stimulations.

The idea of is to free up the ground to manage circulation for the city in transition and establish new connections diagonally. The Rockefeller Centre is just not a block alone but a set of buildings that are self-differentiated and begin to define an urban area through the section, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is evident from the Rockefeller Centre that sections enable us to think about the accumulation and differentiation of functions. Within an example like this the section becomes invaluable as it allows us to describe the life layered within the building and the relativity between distinct elements within a larger organization.

Rockefeller Centre

Given the exercise at hand and the need to come up with ways to better associate live and work functions, sectional studies become important tools of investigation and help reveal the opportunities in this cross over. While each sectional study represents a preconceived logic it also reveals constraints and further points of investigation.

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hybridity as a type opposed to monofunctional-block stacking & dimension of floorplate

Section showing varying grounds and floor depths can lead to hybridity

This sectional proposition for the Chalk Farm Site opens a discourse on the tripartite division of the building -the ground, the middle and the top. The ground is continuous and distinctive from the above. The manipulation of the section with varying depths of the floor plates provides interesting approaches to how work and live functions can be put in proximity. By changing depths along the height of the form a broad spectrum of varying depths is achieved. This enables deep and large floor plates for light industrial production spaces as well as co-working spaces for larger corporations. The mixed function building with juxtaposed varying depths of floor plates create complex environments of live and work with an attitude of well-serviced environments that cater to new sorts of collective environments.

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association and engagement

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While the common impulse is stack functions in conditions of hybridity, the Kentish Town site questions why it is necessary for each building component to work hard in intermixing these distinct functions. Instead the ambition is to maintain mono-functional blocks and attempt to synergistically negotiate the live and work functions across.

interstices

Once we start setting up a section like this, you achieve a clear series of differentiated environments in alignment and it enables you to articulate the interfaces and qualities of each of these managing their relationships. In the case of a single block with a central public space at one edge and a secondary circulatory space on the other, you can reveal a bias or qualities in façade as a response to these distinct border conditions.

You can begin to achieve richness as you resolve each interstitial condition, border and interface.

As a strategy opposed to the megaform condition, it enables a more flexible and phase-able morphology while simplifying the issue of stacking. Within itself then each block strives to achieve significant quality in living and working conditions without the servicing and provision for each of them interfering as they would in cases of immediate stacking.

treatment on ground

Point blocks and the life around it

Synergy can be achieved with integration through event structures. Instead of leaving the in-between space for no purpose, this section uses food to fill the gap, but the food culture is only one example of what can populate these interstices. Using the connective space as productive spaces can change how we conceive the interstitial spaces.

The section is a tool that helps study conditions at ground level as a continuation of the surrounding context and conditions at higher levels in comparison to another. In conditions of density, the section reveals qualities of integration and engagement. This drawing tool helps evaluate conditions of extension, continuities and disjuncture’s.Section is a tool that helps us to understand how workspaces can be integrated into residential environments and how more serviced environments can be created. It helps us to look for how much variation and consistency is required inside the building with different sorts of actors to achieve coherent rich environments through various ways. Relation to this koolhass says how things can happen inside the building creating worlds on their own. It opens Architecture that is transparent and can be self-governed. It shows the positive outcome of the inside-out approach to urbanism.

Section of a model of a hyrbid food industry

new grounds

chapter 8

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If urbanism still has to hold on to the concept of urban area, in this way it is important to be able to tie up these 2 different areas: Kentish Town and Chalk Farm, as being part of the district to emerge. In order to be able to imagine why this could be the pattern of collaborative activities, because if one does not see the reason to have 15 min walk to somewhere in that area that means it’s something wrong with this part of the city. What kind of environment should be created, what sorts of interactions, partnerships, networks, collaborations would be liked to see emerge? How to work with the 6 agendas (“Many Cooks, Many Kitchens”, “Integrated Workplaces”, “Collective Living”, “Service Orientation”, “Future Mobility” and “Long-term Value”)? What activities can be experienced in the walking distance between two sites?

When one walks from Chalk Farm to Kentish town he can discover a small island of paradise – the “Talacre gardens” with sports centre. This oasis seems so weird because nothing else near the area seems one would like to go and see at all. It is just a lack of quality. If Jeffrey Kipnis’s “A Question of Qualities: Essays in Architecture “, what architects should be able to do is to create a quality that makes people want to be in these places, be walking back and fore. Everyone wants to walk down to Embankment, Waterloo or Kings Cross and it looks quite reasonable and normal to have even longer than 15 min walk. The main reason why we don’t do the same in Kentish Town and Chalk Farm is an indication of the absence of quality that creates rich, differentiation, collaborate environment that will be a sigh of certain success because it’s all about people.

A few examples of how the agendas can bring a change in the city

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But what tools, indicators and criteria do we have in order to reach the certain level of urban quality?

And how such interventions could affect the existing fabric. In particular, in urban proposals more emphasis should be given to 4 points that affect areas: • • • •

improving the quality of life providing better services to the citizens safety and belonging to the neighborhood creating an environment that fosters new jobs

We know that all urban spaces impact on quality of life and well-being; it is the use and functionality of these spaces that are relevant. All urban spaces, from the courtyard square to the green urban park, from the residential street to the highway, play their role and make their impact. These are the spaces glue the city together; they enable flow through the city and deliver amenity value. Access to varied urban spaces and green infrastructure for citizens has also a huge importance. So, it means that on the way from Kentish Town to Chalk Farm should be a set of public realm (nor only “Talacre gardens”) that are available for everyone: affordances of green infrastructure and the availability of private-public spaces themselves. Not everyone has access to private spaces like gardens, rooftops, or balconies, and therefore the provision of green space in the public realm is necessary to compensate for this.

Better accessibility also means a pattern of future mobility: availability and organization of bike and car-sharing parking, separated and safe paths for pedestrians and different types of “micro-mobility (motorbikes, segway, skateboard, etc.) and providing sustainable transport networks urban design.

The two sites: just a mere 15-minute walk from each other. Its vision could help it connect beyond to other boroughs.

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Feeling of safety and belonging to the neighborhood are major criteria in achieving urban quality.

Creation of social relationships in a community is one of the most important indicators in order to achieve high-quality environment. In particular, children’s happiness, health, and education are affected by the quality of social infrastructure which decides that whether children can play outside and walk to school safely or not. By creating safe spaces for communities to engage and get to know each other, planners and designers can support and promote strong community engagement when establishing new quality.

Plans of mehr Als Women

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That’s why one of the propositions is a bigger block with an atrium and inside gallery that could be potential for creating cultural and community diversity that improve the quality of life. A quite wide gallery makes it possible not only to pass freely from the elevator to each apartment, but also to create a pattern of collective activities, like in “diener and diener” project, where people put out chairs and tables. Just imagine that neighbors could friendly chat inside a calm gallery in contrast to a busy city outside. A rotation of “U shape” form organizes double floor communal zones inside the building and create a view connection within the cluster.

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A section through the site showing hierarchy of acitvities taking place

How could these collective spaces look like? There are many options: from a reading or living room and a flower orangery to a common dining room and children’s play areas. On the ground floor, storage for bicycles and buggies, common laundry and extra storages for each flat are placed. Also, some studios and classes for the community are located. Using of shared space, different collective resources, equipment, and spaces, seeking to lower costs and promote effective associational life, that helps each person to feel being part of the community and creating a favorable environment for the life and grown upping of children.

When we look at organization and circulation inside a typical floor plan, a variation of living units is proposed: from small studio for 1-2 young professions or students to a big 2-3 bedrooms apartment for a family. Architecture is a powerful tool for building and strengthening family ties. Through the planning decisions of large two or three-bedroom apartments, we can create different life scenarios for each family. For example, dividing a sleeping area of children from parents through a large living room combined with a kitchen has a reason: parents have an opportunity to spend more time together. Double orientation gives great advantages for the apartment: more natural light and a fresh air circulation.

Balconies and terraces bring even more open space and help people feel part of the neighborhood.

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In order to establish a better service to the citizens, we could start to observe a modern culture of service living environments through neighborhood infrastructure across the site or collectivized resources across the clusters. When we look at a residential cluster we can develop an ecology of ground floor sharing based on the part to whole relationships between collectivized resources, such as storage, and shared amenities such as a nursery.

A view of convivial spaces generated between and around the points blocks in one of the neighbourhoods

Is there a way to associate these elements to create richer combinations that create value? If one looks at these amenities as either being local to a cluster or extended to the larger site, these elements of neighborhood resources become pushed to the periphery of each cluster, articulating the edges between clusters and deepening this interface. This overlap begins to establish scenes of horizontal synergies across clusters within this consistent morphology.

For successful development of both urban areas an environment that fosters new jobs should be established.

In Kentish Town and Chalk Farm a lot of young and talented professions are looking for a job. Camden has become an important area for the creative industries, and more space is needed to accommodate this growing sector of the knowledge economy. For Kentish Town monofunctional blocks that have the same type are proposed, because it provides residences with an opportunity to accommodate both residential and working needs, as they could work as good as the project “diener and diener” and the “yellow building”, or even better, in terms of the composition. In this case, a horizontal synergy has appeared. In Chalk Farm, a megaform structure accumulates both functions inside it in the way of stacking. A market that is proposed inside the Kentish town side will definitely become a new center of gravity of people from the whole city.

A lot of food start-ups will give many job opportunities which attract young people.

Quality of life in urban areas is becoming a strategic issue for city planners. In fact, cities can have excellent tools for the implementation of urban planning policies in terms of smartness, sustainability, in order to move toward a smart and sustainable urbanism. Assessments of the quality of urban life represent a multidisciplinary concept that encompasses environmental, social, and urban planning features, and a subjective estimation.

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