Edgelands - Inhabiting the fringe on Barking Riverside LARC7201

Edgelands - Inhabiting the fringe on Barking Riverside

Studio Description

The thesis project (MLA) and Portfolio 01&02 (MALU) of the 2024/25 academic year will span across both Teaching Block 1 (TB1) & Teaching Block 2 (TB2).

The studio will take up the task of understanding, documenting, and proposing design interventions in the open spaces of Barking Riverside in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

This inquiry will be studied, on the one hand, in its cultural/anthropic (related to human beings) dimensions, and on the other hand through the ecological and material metabolic processes that are intrinsic to landscape and its transformation.

The Studio will explore the site utilising the principles of landscape ecology (which includes patches, edges and boundaries, corridors and connectivity and mosaics: Dramstad et al 1996). The Studios agenda is to unveil, through the lens of Edgelands and Edge Effects, the strong connections between these two analytical categories (culture and material metabolic processes) and use these as a basis for landscape design.

The Studio offers a range of scales and topics that could be explored through this lens including:

• A study of the edge between housing and other built forms and open space as a typological question of interface.

• A study of the waterfront as a typological question of edges (an ecology-driven question)

• The edge/boundary as a corridor that connects different forms of centrality that are shaping in the broader area (a master planning project)

Further research questions will emerge over time as initial analysis is synthesised into final individual project briefs in Teaching Block 2.

2024 Studio Programme (A detailed programme of the studio is included at the end of this brief.) Teaching Block (TB) 1 September - December

Teaching Weeks 1- 6

• Introduction to the Brief

• Site visit

• Assignment 1: Case Study Review

• Assigment 2: Analysis and Mapping of the Edge conditions in Barking Riverside

Teaching Week 7 Mid-term Pin up Review

Teaching Weeks 8-11

• Revision of work in light of Mid-term review feedback

• Assignment 3 - Formulating design concepts and identification of sites for thesis project

• Teaching Week 12 End of Term Review

Edgelands and the Edge Effects

The Landscape Architecture and Landscape and Urbanism Studios will explore the notion of edgeland and the possibility of the edge condition to serve as a paradigm of contemporary development, using Barking Riverside Opportunity Area and its environs as their site

The concept of Edgelands was introduced by Marion Shoard in 2002, to cover the disorganised but often fertile hinterland between planned town and over-managed country.

In ecology, edge effects are changes in population or community structures that occur at the boundary of two or more habitats.

The Site: Barking Riverside London

Focussing on Barking Riverside (one of the Mayor of Londons Opportunity Areas), the edge condition and edgelands will be examined, documented and analysed, working at a range of scales and utilising a range of methods and media throughout the first teaching block (TB1).

From this analysis, students will begin to focus their interests and inform a design thesis / project for a site of their choosing, which will be developed in greater detail in teaching block two (TB2)

In a borough of London with a long history that spans centuries, many of the citys open spaces are paradoxically presented as empty voids with seemingly no attachment to collective memory and the citys rich cultural heritage. Equally, these sites do not respond to contemporary ecologic concerns that our urban environments are currently facing.

In Teaching Block 1, the first task for the studio module will be to excavate the ties between the citys open spaces and its historical and social fabric. The shaping of and engagement with the landscape has always reflected cultural and socio-political phenomena. As a cultural product that evolves in time, landscape can be understood as a register of collective memory and local identity.

We will interrogate these aspects of the landscape as they are embodied in materiality, in particular architectural forms, in tectonics; but also in metabolic processes (the processes of landscape transformation, its erasure, re-shaping and its rebuilding).

While this investigation can offer various outputs, our aim is specific and twofold:

1. to identify sites that present an untapped potential, and

1. to produce a projective mapping of the landscape that will spark ideas for meaningful intervention - that is to formulate a brief for our work in Term 2.

ASSIGNMENT 1: Case Study Review

The purpose of the Case Study Review is to research and explore a relevant precedent project to help broaden your knowledge and awareness of what makes a successful landscape project. The Case Study Review will help you develop a body of research on an exemplar landscape project that will help you develop your own informed proposals for your design project.

In this exercise you are asked to research and analyse through drawings, diagrams and text two case studies each.

The aim of your analysis is:

1. To understand and represent in drawing the design principles of these projects

1. To expose the way these projects relate to the social, historical and material context they are situated

1. To explore how the edge condition is manifest in these

List of Case studies:

MALU

1. Gallaratese Quarter, Aldo Rossi and Carlo Aymonino

1. Islamabad Masterplan, Doxiadis and Associates

Sources: https://www.doxiadis.org/Downloads/Islamabad_project_publ.pdf

3. Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier this is both as a critique but also as an source of good elements

3. Agriculture City, Kisho Kurokawa 1960-1 / compare with the Barbican Estate (London)

Sources: Zonaga, A., Anthropotopia.; https://socks-studio.com/2015/02/24/agricultural-city-by- kisho-kurokawa-1960/ ; Kurokawa, K., & Dobney, S. (1995). Kish? Kurokawa : selected and current works. Images Pub. Group. (available in library) ; Kurokawa, K. (1991). Intercultural architecture : the philosophy of symbiosis. Academy Editions. (available in library); Kurokawa, K., 1977. Metabolism in architecture. London: Studio Vista.

5. Rural Urbanism, Aldo Cibic

Library source: Kelly, P. (2010). Rural urbanism: Aldo Cibic. In Blueprint (Number 296, pp. 46 54). Compelo.

6. Lafayette Park, Detroit, Mies Van Der

7. Melun Senart, OMA

8. Park de la Vilette, OMA

8. Rejuvenation Project for the City Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium , Toyo Ito 1992 See: https://burning.farm/essays/the-tenement-of-the-purest-form

MLA

1. Fresh Kills, New York, USA Field Operations

1. Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany Latz + Partners

1. Wheatfields for Manhattan, Agnes Denes

Sources: Agnes Denes. (2019). In Art in America (1939) (Vol. 107, Number 7, pp. 30-). Brant Publications, Incorporated. ; Zuber, D. (2006). Flnerie at Ground Zero: Aesthetic Countermemories in Lower Manhattan. American Quarterly, 58(2), 269299. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2006.0053

4. London Olympic Park, UK - Allies and Morrison

4. Living Breakwaters, New York, USA Scape Studio

https://www.scapestudio.com/projects/living-breakwaters/

6. Xuhui Runway Park Shanghai, China - Sasaki

7. Qianhais Guiwan Park, China James Corner/Field Operations

Assignment 1 Deliverables:

Deliverable 1: one drawing, A1 square, following the provided layout. Your analysis will be structured on the following analytical categories:

Guidelines:

• This is an exercise that relies on line drawing entirely. Color and hatches can be used as annotations. Beyond this critical use of color, you should be able to analyze projects only with line drawings.

• suggested software: a combination of Rhino, AutoCAD and .

• All drawings MUST be produced by the

• All drawings will strictly follow a specific format and graphic style that will be provided to

• Each deliverable will be submitted in an A1 square (see template)

• Each drawing must include a graphic scale and legend whe

ASSIGNMENT 2: Analysis and Mapping (of the Edge conditions in Barking)

Understanding site context and conditions is a key skill required in the profession to help shape and ground proposals for intervention.

In this assignment you will research and analyse the physical, social and environmental edge conditions in Barking Riverside to help deepen your understanding of the site.

For this you will utilise a range of publicly available data sources, combined with deep on-site investigation working at a variety of scales from 1:1 to 1: 10,000.

Assignment 2 Deliverables

1. Working in groups, each group will be working on one analytical category applied to the

1. Individually please produce the following:

• Produce a 800 word text summary of your analysis of the edge condition recorded on This can include a summary of key information that is collected to help define and explore the edge conditions in Barking Riverside.

• Keep a notebook/sketchbook of work to show creative process that led to the outputs outlined

• Produce a photographic portfolio capturing the different characteristics of the edge condition. (Format for portfolio to be A3 landscape with up to three photographs per page). (A mini-brief will be issued for this as small assignment during the site visit on 30 October 2024)

ASSIGNMENT 3 Site identification/brief definition and strategic approach to design

The culmination of this Teaching Block 1 assignments is the formulation of your own studio project brief / thesis.

This document will form the structure of your design proposal for the duration of the academic year. You will use the information gathered through Assignments 1 and 2 to inform your approach to defining your final thesis project.

You will be required to present a draft of this document at the mid review for discussion and a refined version is expected by the final review.

However, this is a formative document and can evolve and be refined as your project takes shape. It will be composed by a short statement of intent (around 1000 words) where you will identify a question through which you will approach your studio project / design intervention.

This statement will be supported by a number of analytical maps, drawings, models etc (exercise 1 and 2) that explain how your analysis can be used projectively as a basis for a design intervention.

Assignment 3 Deliverables:

• Draft Thesis statement of

• Key Drawing that shows the problematique , supported by partial drawings and

Module Reading List

This is listed on the Canvas reading list page for the Module.

TB1 Detailed Schedule:

Module Aims

• To explore and communicate the critical issues and priorities of landscape and urbanism, in relation to the design and making of local place(s) in the urban context

• To identify the particular priorities and issues of the space/s

• To review precedent and the application of principles of urban and landscape design

• To arrive at a detailed resolution of the design

Learning Outcomes

• Communicate the rationale, concept and spatial and aesthetic qualities of the design proposition of significant space(s) in the urban /landscape public realm;

• Make critical reference to appropriate precedent and local distinctiveness;

• Demonstrate a knowledge of relevant urban and landscape design issues and themes;

• Engage creatively in the design and detail resolution of a local place;

• Illustrate in 3D, plan, section and sequentially, the detailed spatial, material and experiential qualities of the designed space;

• Describe change and managementthrough time of the local place.