CIVIC WATER
STUDIO 1. THE CASS 2014-15 BRIEF 2. Civic Water
After having explored the unique spatial conditions of the Boundary Estate through sketching, Studio 01 will embark on a live design research project carried out with the friends of Arnold Circus. The challenge is to design a place for a public drinking fountain on the circus and to speculate on how this setting might evolve into a small inhabitable piece of architecture over time. It is important to understand how a small architectural intervention can influence and even hold a much larger public space. Until relatively recently there were many public drinking fountains dotted throughout the public spaces of our cities. Providing refreshment for people in the city is an act of civility that has become increasingly rare. Curious vestiges remain today in the form of occasional public pumps or water troughs - retained but no longer functioning. In London past, even livestock on their way to the central markets were catered for! Sources of water are often focal points for communities or found at the centre of divine gardens such as Eden or Islamic representations of Paradise. Fountains or wells continue to have profound associations with life, purity, wisdom and innocence. The relationship our proposal should have with the other architectural figures, benches and trees that make up the circus is important. How can our design contribute to this ensemble and enhance the existing qualities of the place?
SKETCHING IN ARNOLD CIRCUS
WHERE IS ARNOLD CIRCUS Arcold Circus is in the London area of Shoreditch, under the borough of Tower Hamlets. Between Shoreditch indeed and Bethnal Green it finds itself in a quite unique place, almost detached from the rest of the area surrounding it. HISTORY OF THE SITE Arnold Circusis an extraordinary grade II listed public space at the centre of the Boundary Estate in Tower Hamlets. Having historically been the hub of local social activity, Arnold Circus fell into disuse and disrepair over the last 20 years. Now that the space is on the verge of significant restoration works through planning gain, the Arnold Circus Conservation Strategy aims to ensure that the benefits of conservation are sustained within the local community, and that in turn the local community sustains the conservation of Arnold Circus. HISTORICAL DEVELOPEMENT Arnold Circus is at the centre of the Boundary Estate, London’s first publicly funded social housing built by the newly formed London County Council from 1890-1900. It was an experimental design that for the first time placed public space at the centre of working class housing to provide visual, physical and cultural unity, and a higher quality of life for the Estate’s inhabitants. The Boundary Estate replaced the ‘Old Nichol’; a maze of streets, alleyways, and slum housing, with a death rate four times as high as any other part of London. A common Old Nichol saying went ‘there can be no hell hereafter, we live in it already’. Only 11 of 5,719 residents moved into the new estate. T he architect-in-charge Owen Fleming planned the estate as a series of broad tree lined avenues radiating from a central circular open space. This is Arnold Circus, which the report takes to include both Boundary Gardens and its encircling road. The gardens are arranged over two terraces, surrounded by perimeter railings. A bandstand sits at the centre of the upper plateau, at 3.5 metres above street level. At the heart of Fleming’s radical urban plan is a belief in the importance of public, open space. There is an unmistakeable clarity to the design of the estate, with five storey red brick tenement housing and two schools defining the central circus. The plan is conceived as a series of public and semi public open spaces, based on a precise understanding of historic urban typologies. A sequence of avenues, mews, courtyards and pocket gardens, each with a distinct identity, lead to the unifying public ace of Arnold Circus; a focal point for the local community. The historical significance of Arnold Circus must be seen within the context of the Boundary Estate. The importance of the Estate as a unique and experimental example of philanthropic urban planning is recognised through its status as a Conservation Area. Arnold Circus is the integral nucleus of the plan. Not only does it spatially define the surrounding urban layout, it was also planned to perform a pioneering role in the social structure of the Estate. The gardens are listed on English Heritage’s Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest at Grade II. The bandstand, erected in 1910, perimeter railings, and wrought iron arched overthrows are listed as Grade II, and are therefore recognised as being of national importance. The continuing value of these architectural features lies in their integration with the unique form of the gardens, and in turn the gardens’ extraordinary integration with the character and social function of the surrounding estate. Taken from the Conservatory Strategy
SKETCHING The particularity of Arnold Circus is that of being the centre of a little area. From the circus it is possible to see that all the streets end here. The buildings surrounding the circus are probably what makes this site interesting: they all look very similar to each other, yet they are diverse and have different features such as windows, roofs or doors.
THE PROPOSAL
The spot for the fountain. I picked this space since I wanted to replace the missing tree in the circus with the proposed fountain. Eight trees were supposed to be on the circus but only seven are existing, leaving a spot which is easily visible once you stand in the circus. PRECEDENT STUDY For my fountain I tooki inspiration from the work of Alvaro Siza had done for the “sensing spaces exhibition. You walk along Piccadilly with all its traffic and find yourself in front of the big archway. Through it you see the courtyard, which comes as a surprise. The scale is domestic rather than monumental, but the building’s facade - with its porticos and columns, which are whiter than the rest of the stone - has a very strong presence. My first reaction as I wondered what to do was almost panic. Then the notion of the column lying emerged and I wondered if I could make an installation that referred to the birth of the column. I have placed one column lying down with its capital beside it, another standing, and a third with the capital in place. I hope that these three elements create an entity which also relates to the courtyard as a whole. For me, making architecture means starting with what is there. Unless you are building in a desert, there are always lots of things to consider, sometimes too many. Here I am introducing a new element inspired by the sensation I had the first time I entered the courtyard. From the courtyard, visitors climb the stairs to the beautiful octagonal room, and beyond it they move into the gallery where they find Souto de Moura’s installation. The sequence is more intense and richer because you cannot see both his and my installation at the same time. It requires visitors to activate their memories rather than just make visual comparisons.
PLAN OF THE PROPOSED FOUNTAIN. SCALE 1.100
THE KIOSK
Section woth the fountain and the kiosk Rendered view from the bandstand to the fountain-kiosk