David Kohn Architects
511 Highgate Studios
53-79 Highgate Road
London NW5 1TL
+44 (0)207 4248596 tel
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The Arts Council and RIBA London launched a competition to explore the Arts Space of the Future. Our proposal, called Heterotopia, was conceived as a place in which to question our everyday reality, once removed from contemporary metropolitan lifestyles, where other lives could be imagined and enacted. Taking the form of a park in the Thames Gateway, newly planted forests would be coppiced to provide fuel to run new arts facilities. This in turn would create a changing network of forest clearings in which to host temporary arts events to fire imaginations.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the Thames Gateway was London’s pleasure ground. Pubs and teahouses served those who came in search of hunting, shooting, fishing and boating. Such escapes remained well into the C20th century when a combination of development economics, flood risks and poor transport lead to the gradual industrialisation of the area. The current redevelopment of the Gateway is an opportunity to once again shift the place’s identity to a balance between utility and pleasure.
