Ambiguous Lines
Architectures for/of Urban Interstitial Ecologies
H. Kim (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
AS Alkan – Mentor (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
F.J. Speksnijder – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / AE+T)
R Cavallo – Coach (TU Delft - Theory, Territories & Transitions)
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Abstract
The project can be defined at the intersection of urban landscape, architecture and infrastructure as a resolution of not only social flows but also the systems and elements of the material flows, which once shaped London. It aims to formulate new social urban programs where the distinction between the site, the architectural edifice or the urban space blurs.
The project is located in Abbey Mills, near River Lea in East London, which once an industrialized territory with the contaminated and neglected nature of interstices to supply central London. It aims to transform this contaminated space into a new public space, ecological land for Londoners. This required careful detection of the elements of artificially crafted land form, both evident and hidden, in order to weave continuity by the intervention of linear infrastructures as a new connective tissue between the contexts, and between its past and future for urban resilience.
The 150-metre-long linear apparatus traverses the site from the underground to the river, resonating with subterranean and superterranean conditions, allowing people to enjoy nature. Therefore, this apparatus becomes an ecological corridor that induces various experiences from functional programs to education and leisure activities. For the material choices and materiality, materials such as soil, stones, and steel sheet piles are collected and reused for rammed earth, gabions, and retaining walls to ensure sustainability in the process of topographic transformation and phytoremediation for purification work.
In this respect, the infrastructure lines become the life lines of the city, and the ambiguous conditions produced by the intersections, overlaps, juxtaposition become lines of urban life. Thus, it aims to formulate new formal and material language addressing the pressing issues in the new urban age.