While We Wait

Type: Research
Client: Becoming X
Location: South London
Status: 2019

Ferrier Estate is the epitome of this century’s obsession with rapid demolition and redevelopment of former post-war estates. Becoming X has been developing an alternative strategy for the area that is currently undergoing a Tabula Rasa type of redevelopment, where an entire town centre has been flatironed to welcome a developer driven masterplan – not due to be finished until 2030.

This has left the area barren, with the demolition of all the local services such as a Café, Church, GP Surgery, library, pharmacy, supermarket all formerly located in the heart of the estate. The original masterplan of the area was heavily designed around a motorway meaning most residents have a car and drive to work and shops located 3 miles away and results in a complete lack of street life.

Becoming X embarked on a yearlong research project into the area. Using the rules developed from the reoccupation of the former youth club and mapping other empty buildings in the area that can be transformed into affordable live/work spaces and creating a connection between them – a triangle of buildings with different programs within walking distance from the station, that will put more people on the empty streets. What if the shops could be temporarily moved into one of these properties, looking at relocating businesses locally rather than removing them altogether? Can small interventions in the form of urban furniture placed at strategic sites make a community presence known?

The project critically deconstructs contemporary methods of redeveloping former post war estates in the city and aims to inform future projects of a similar scope with a strategy that engages locals and provides alternative services, not leaving the area on pause for the interim period.

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Reg: 11195409