The City of London, situated in the very heart of the capital, serves as the financial centre of the United Kingdom. Informally referred to as the City or the Square Mile, it maintains a distinct identity that sets it apart from its immediate surroundings. As outsiders, our understanding of the City of London remains shrouded in mystery and myth, entwined with an image that has been, whether deliberately or inadvertently, constructed by the place itself, its character, its people and its pursuits.

The project is situated within the context of the Square Mile, building upon the City of London Corporation’s plan to enhance its public realm and become more inclusive. The work established a perspective on what an accessible layer of architecture could entail in the City. It emphasised the importance of unconventional spaces within the Square Mile, alleyways, rooftops or other, and recognising their potential value. Within this project the alleys and roofs proved essential for integrating the new proposed interventions at a chosen site, addressing issues of both inaccessibility and privateness on the horizontal and vertical plane. Passageways were transformed into entrances, while rooftops provided the largest areas of open space suitable for development. The new structures form a gradient of public spaces that mark the beginning of a new public realm.

Although the work does not extend beyond the boundaries of the City of London, it is worth asking a fundamental question; what truly defines the essence of an urban environment? There is only one City of London, yet its distinctly neoliberal character is increasingly found in other urban places around the world. In these places, what was once public space is becoming private and inaccessible. Within a time when urban living and its spatial qualities have become more of a privilege than a right, it remains up to the architect, positioned between competing social, political and economic forces, to mediate their impact on the city.

Bedford Square Garden is but one of many garden squares scattered throughout London. While some have been opened to the public and now play an active role in city life, others remain privately owned and enclosed. This piece centres on Bedford Square Garden; a secluded green space situated in front of the Architectural Association, just behind Tottenham Court Road.

With every second going by, another operation is automated. Even occurring in the field of architecture, mostly through parametric design, writing of computational scripts and mathematics. The latter being one of the first methodologies to be used for automating the process of designing. One of its pre-computer era pioneers, Luigi Walter Moretti (1907-1973), wrote extensively about parametric design and defined it as a new architecture that emerges through the rigorous use of mathematics, operational research and computation design. In 1960 at the Twelfth Milan Triennial Moretti presented a stadium design, which was completely constructed from mathematical equations. While Moretti advocated much for the automation and usage of mathematics, his written work on diverging from them is sparse. Even though creative interventions in a rigorous organisation are pivotal design elements. I would even argue that breaking or diverging a self-imposed set of rules, like equations, from time to time is vital for good architecture. Therefore, the rigorous methodology of Moretti can be questioned if the mathematical equations even allow these kinds of interventions and changes.

The impact and relation of creative interventions on the mathematical equations from Luigi Moretti’s Stadium are questioned, by asking the following research question; How does the outcome of the mathematical design of Luigi Moretti’s Stadium and its formulas, presented at the Twelfth Milan Triennial in 1960, respond to creative interference? The examination of Moretti’s views, methodology and football stadium entry for the 1960 Milan Triennial will be used as a point of departure within the first chapter. After the focus of the research will shift to recreating Moretti’s design for the stadium using the same mathematical methodology that he used. With which numerous creative interventions (changing variables, reformulating the equations or breaking the chain of equations) can be made at different stages of the calculation, to create differences in the outcome. The variations will be ordered and analysed as a whole. The results will be significant because they shed new light on the relationship between architectural automation and creative interference.