A Pause in Space-Time

Sensory Assemblage to Embed Urban Contemplation

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Abstract

As London is expanding in population and emerging as a financial global city, the pace of the city is rising. Factors as temporality and the notion of time as an experiential dimension is getting lost. A more sensory approach to urban architecture has the potential to incite people to reside in other measures of time to contrast the dense intensive city of London. It has to be argued to what extent architecture cultivates these atmospheric moments in the urban conditions of the center Boroughs of London. The research stresses the notion of sensory and spatial experience formulated by architecture and its relation to urban conditions. A more sensory approach towards architecture is needed to balance out the reciprocity between space and time of the architectural fabric of the city. Through notions of smell, materiality, light/darkness, pace of movement and architectural configuration, the West India Dock is transformed to a public multifunctional food hub. The design bears defragmentation of the Isle of Dogs area and draws new potentials of contemplation and programmatic synergies as a quality to the ‘frontstage’ of this ever accelerating pace of city life in London.