Unit E Michele Roelofsma, Nasios Varanas
The unit aims to create a framework to study architecture based on the creative dialogue between a personal architectural idea and a given site. Unit E prefers to work in highly charged inner-city sites as we have done last academic year. Preoccupation with environmental, sustainable and social issues in a concerning highly-charged urban context necessitates and encourages the development of an intellectual platform to explore the year’s projects. The environment determines the quality of life and the sustainable desire a response of appreciation of this. For this Academic year, we chose to work on The Lower Marsh area, where we find one of London’s oldest and historic markets dating back to the late 1800. The Lower Marsh Market is a unique mix of shops, restaurants, theatres and galleries and welcomes handmade and craft trades to add diversification to the richness of this part of London. Our site is at 114 -118 Lower Marsh and Grandy Place behind Waterloo Station. Currently a building site with a planning application for a new retail space will open at the front of the Site towards Lower Marsh Street and contribute to the shopping area’s vitality and character. Granby Place will be developed into a public realm benefiting the local community, workers and visitors. In plan is the concept of opening a new path route from Granby Place to Launcelot Street and a pedestrian footpath between Lower Marsh and Waterloo Station, which would, in turn, bring the arches beneath the
LOWER MARSH, WATERLOO, LONDON
Station Approach Road to greater use. Currently, there is a proposal for this location with approved building applications. Students studied the Building application made for the Granby Place development, including the “The Camel and Artichoke and the Hotel at 100-108 Lower Marsh. Our site is located within the Waterloo Opportunity Area forms part of the Central Activities Zone frontage, defined by the London Plan. It also falls within the Lower Marsh conservation area and is a negative contributor to the street, and is appropriate for development. Lower Marsh serves as Waterloo’s primary shopping street. The introduction projects writing of a Haiku, the Mask and Micro Home competition were tools to explore a personal spatial interest used to develop the leading architectural project. The unit conducted several case studies related to the client brief that they formulated themselves, and scale comparison. The relatively small introduction projects, The Haiku and the Competition project, “Micro Home”, set the first point of the design discussion. From Micro Home Idea to Building on-site, developing the discussion of the competition to the next level.
“In contemplating the external world, we choose the site of subsequent culture.” Adrian Stokes
