Factory

Working in Hackney Wick & Fish Island

Alongside dwelling, the making and selling of things have always been intrinsic to urban communities and unavoidably shaped both urban economies and the urban fabric. Sometimes integrated within the city, other times defined pockets of something else; these places for making offer other sounds and smells, another pace perhaps.

We will be working in Hackney Wick & Fish Island, an area already filled with artists and industry; where residents, artisans  and businesses trade and live side by side. Bounded by A12 to the west, the Hackney Cut canal to the east and the Greenway to the south, these artificial boundaries have given some isolation to Hackney Wick & Fish Island. With the development of the 2012 Olympic Games this area is now facing radical changes in terms of programme, zoning, density and inevitably to its character. From being a fringe area of Hackney and Tower Hamlet and now to the Olympic site, Hackney Wick & Fish Island will be the future link between the old neighbourhoods in the west and the new Olympic Legacy Park in the east. Our work will investigate this in-betweenness condition as well as ways of ensuring Hackney Wick & Fish Island maintains the quality of a destination in its own right.

We will seek to propose routes, buildings and spaces celebrating the proximities of living and making within the city. The aim is to draw on the inherent character of the area, enabling a thriving but sensitive community to survive, coexist and together with proposed new employment programmes, develop as one neighbourhood. The studies will aim to integrate a subjective approach to space, structure and material, considering the delicate nature of the existing community, with strategic urban and building proposals defining the specificity of this place.

The idea of the shared city, as opposed to the segregated city, will be considered throughout the year. As will the qualities of a conglomerate organisation of buildings and spaces. Investigations will be made into the Factory typology, the yards, mews and streets of a factory complex, as well as the broader concept of Factory in regards to programme, robustness, reuse and social and environmental sustainability. Tectonic as well as sensual investigations will seek to establish a convergent way of thinking about place, construction, material and detail.

Image: Charbonnage du Gouffre, Charleroi, Belgium