I’ve been to Royal Docks and I recall its vast empty spaces waiting for something to happen to them. I remember the Old Mills building well. It stands on the dock edge tall, strong and alone. Royal Docks are a difficult site. The process of change here has been initiated already but it will take long. In the Meantime: Matt has to come with some ideas.
From Matt’s presentation I most liked the use he gave to the Old Mills building and the idea behind it. He was talking about process. Already standing building can be a process. A building can train people, can be used and reused in a way that is contributing to the community. The question is whether it is a local community, or whether it is a new community. This can be a process to bring people into the area, give them a shelter and a period of training threw making, and hope they will than use those skills in Royal Docks. I guess it’s the best that can happen. Royal Docks desperately need people, they need a vibrant community. If threw his design Matt manages to create a community he will have achieved what all planners are aiming for. One building The Mill is maybe big enough to be magnet into the area. I suggest a strategy for wider area development and with that the training program for people to deliver this strategy. This can be Matts brief for the Mill or any other building he chooses to use as a training platform and area magnet.
Is it interesting to close down space, the docks are retained though they have little use apart from a rowing club and an area to park boats when the boat show is on at Excel. Wa there some fascination on the unit trip at the docks in Belfast and Birkenhead that were closed, not a lot happening but you could look through the fence and see. If there is no one there now, why impose it and encourage it?
ReplyDeleteI like the loneliness you describe Dorota of the big building, it's always been an area of big buildings, the former warehouses were immense, could you have a fenced corridor to the mill, I think the program is ace. A little-by-little solution to a big problem, in a big building, in a big landscape, when all the big solutions have failed so miserably.
There's a great model by a RCA student a few years ago from the docks who just celebrated the infrastructure, it would be interesting to compare the infrastructure that has been put in as a catalyst for development and somehow gauge it physically but not compare it to the political situation at the time, so the DLR is wonderful because it was built for specific need but the proposed road system at the time to open up other parts of the docks were disastrous and never finished, like the bridge to nowhere.... can't sleep, sorry