Having hoped to learn more about the Thames Gateway developments, I was slightly disappointed when leaving the lecture still relatively unenlightened, and not quite sure where the ‘rip it up’ of the scheme was. This first half of the lecture series is all about critiquing schemes and analysing some of the problems faced, before the ‘start again’ of next term’s series. Considering there were members of the audience who have worked on, and have knowledge about the scheme, I felt hard done by. The first half/three quarters of the lecture instead were more biographical, mapping the developments of DFL, which though interesting, we had already heard a lot about in a previous lecture. Nevertheless, some of the theories touched upon, and graphics by DFL started to evoke the ideas of the northward expansion of development from the Thames that is currently underway. Perhaps searching for specific information about a case study for an area that is so large in scope is difficult to summarise in an hour long lecture.
I did find the idea of the propositional document ‘river places’ an interesting one, setting a ‘design code’ or framework for future developments on a large scale area. A tool for developing my own site in Tottenham/Odessa perhaps?
The second half of the lecture by Geoff Shearcroft veered to a large scale depiction of the whole Thames Valley (clarified as the area in which any drop of rain that falls on the surrounding hills and down to the river touches) and proceeded to talk rather generally about the city’s layout around its main waterway.
It also became evident how much an architect’s past influences their design approach during their career, as Geoff’s affinity to suburbia and car park use dominated the latter half of his lecture. Ideas of sustainability were challenged and hierarchy of scale in terms of grandeur of buildings to create a diverse architectural environment, which oddly is quite different to the norm of suburbia.
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