UNIT M

Down With The Tide

The Thames is the largest open space in London. With its waterways linking every

London borough; and London to Oxford, the river offers a lesser used connection

through the city. The unit will use this year to understand how the river has changed

over time, how it relates to the contemporary city, and how we can design to make

more use of it today.

The river is unique within the city in that it lies relatively unchanged, yet is flanked by

the areas often most subject to revision of function and development. This abstraction

of the river from the city and the tension this creates is not currently being questioned

by the public, meaning the construction of privately funded housing developments are

rising at the expense of public space, and of access to the river - metaphorically the

thread which connects the city.

The unit this year has followed the river eastwards through London to study and interrogate littoral sites throughout the city. Following a period of research, the students were asked to design a series of publicly accessible buildings that could house a suitable use to connect the public to the river in order to become part of a new littoral side of the city.