London Festival of Architecture (LFA) has partnered with the City of London BIDs – Cheapside Business Alliance, Fleet Street Quarter, EC BID and Aldgate Connect – for a series of installations across the City in June 2023, as part of LFA2023.
The City of London BIDs champion innovation in the public realm through urban interventions, making it the perfect partner for LFA, whose installations are integrated with real city-making strategies. LFA and each BID worked closely together to identify priorities within their current public realm strategies, and to set briefs for projects with test out solutions. The aim of the projects ranges from increasing green spaces in the City to providing more welcoming and playful spaces for families.
In line with LFA’s continued commitment to commissioning exciting emerging designers who bring fresh ideas to public realm, LFA commissioned designers, architects and artists who matched the vision of each BID. The installations will be in place throughout June, July and August 2023.
Based around the theme of ‘In Common’, LFA runs throughout June and features a diverse and engaging series of public events and installations, aimed at anyone with an interest in London’s architecture and spaces that surround us. The Festival invites residents and visitors of London to explore its public spaces and encourage people working in and visiting the area to come together to enjoy, celebrate and learn about architecture and city making.
The four installations are:
Urban Playground by McCloy + Muchemwa, commissioned in partnership with EC BID
The non-traditional playground brings an element of unexpected play into Fen Court. Inspired by wooden children’s toys which contain multiple elements which slot together, the design for ‘Urban Playground’ starts with a block, from which the various shapes are ‘carved’ from. The pieces created from the block make up the modular installation, each with a unique shape that creates the opportunity for seating, play or wonder.
The urban playground forms a ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ to lead visitors to the City on a journey, encountering intriguing sculptural elements.
By looking at design in the City of London from an unusual perspective – that of a child’s – designers McCloy + Muchemwa saw the opportunity for bringing in a more playful or even contemplative atmosphere to the spaces in the Eastern Cluster which can engage families, visitors and city-workers alike.
Location: Fen Court, Fenchurch Street | 1 Jun – 31 Aug 2023
The Herbalist’s Plant Press – a Garden by Fleet Street Quarter by Wayward, commissioned in partnership with Fleet Street Quarter
Fleet Street Quarter wanted an intervention to counter the lack of green space within the footprint, while also desiring something that would promote ecology and create an open space.
As a result, ‘The Herbalist’s Plant Press – a Garden by Fleet Street Quarter’ was designed and brought to the footprint by Wayward. The sensory garden is a greening installation of evergreen, scented and medicinal plants inspired by 16th century herbalist John Gerard and the area’s history of printing.
Wayward, a London-based landscape, art and architecture collective of designers, created an urban garden that brings together the history of the area with ambitions for a sustainable future of the area. John Gerard was an English herbalist with a prominent garden in Holborn. Gerard created his Herbal, or “Generall Historie of Plantes”, printed in 1597, also in Holborn area, near the Old Bailey. His catalogues are the source for the plants, and his woodblock prints are a key visual element in the design for this installation.
Location: Holborn Circus, Fleet Street Quarter | 1 Jun – 31 Aug 2023
Common Ground by Urban Radicals and Saqqra, commissioned in partnership with Cheapside Business Alliance
‘Common Ground’ considers sustainable use of finite resources as well as the question of how accessible our urban environment is, while also celebrating the history of St Mary-le-Bow in Bow Churchyard.
The team used recycled materials salvaged from nearby sites of manufacture, building on the church’s legacy of layered re-construction and re-use. After its destruction, Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt St Mary-le-Bow in 1680, with a tower that used the Roman gravel roadway as its foundations. The project highlights Wren’s 300-year anniversary this year, drawing attention to the ethos of architecture and re-use.
The installation presents an assemblage of various salvaged components: crushed aggregates from ceramic building elements and brick ‘rejects’ are salvaged and cast in lime to form seat surfaces; ceramic cornices, coping blocks and other traditional building elements which have been discarded during recent restoration works; and surplus facade cladding tiles used for the colour tiles produced during a large manufacturing run for a project by Feilden Fowles.
The ramps have been cast with the intention of being donated to St Mary-le-Bow after the project is complete; ensuring wheelchair access to the central aisle of the church.
As conveyed in ‘Common Ground’, the intervention takes the common motifs of accessible design, often latent in our everyday public realm, and raises these to a level that users can see and engage with through physical touch.
Location: Bow Churchyard, Cheapside | 11 Jun – 31 Aug 2023
On Tenterground by Ciaociao Design, commissioned in partnership with Aldgate Connect
An installation by Ciaociao Design taking inspiration from tenterground to celebrate Aldgate and its garment industry, launching in July. Established in the 17th-century by Flemish weavers, Aldgate’s tenterground was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was stretched taut using “tenter hooks”, so that it would dry flat and square.
Using everyday materials such as scaffold and nylon fabrics which will be repurposed and recycled, the tenterground will be used as a common ground to host workshops and performances by London Metropolitan University MA Public Art and Performance students throughout July. The diverse programme will include storytelling sessions, pop-ups, and performances to accompany the exhibition of works co-produced with the community.
The site and a specially commissioned design-installation serve as a rich point of germination to explore themes of belonging, identity, and personal histories in the cultural fabric of the neighbourhood around Mallon Gardens, Toynbee Hall and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, while also addressing sustainability and ecological concerns within this garden-in-a-city setting.
Rather than conventional techniques for exhibition, the intervention aims to engage the community in conversations to develop work together that captures the spirit of the neighborhood, cultivating an open space to express the complexities of individual and communal urban life. The unique collaboration tests out new scenarios for improving Aldgate’s public realm, prioritising spaces for art, culture and social exchange and promoting Aldgate as a cultural hub.
Location: Toynbee Hall, Commercial Street | 7 Jul – 31 Jul
