One of the most significant innovations in eighteenth-century leisure was the pleasure garden: a dedicated outdoor space for entertainment. London’s pleasure gardens defined the city’s nightlife in the 18th and 19th centuries...

They were sites for music, dancing, eating and drinking, regular fireworks, operas, masquerades and illuminations.  Approaching Vauxhall, Unit K was seeking to unearth the layers of the lost city as well as the living one, and re-establish a space for public celebration, starting by collectively designing structures for an open-air performance, and later developing it into a new kind of cultural or performance venue or institution. The design process was informed by the idea of reuse, where students surveyed a number of nearby buildings scheduled for demolition, using their elements and components to revive the idea of the pleasure garden.