Like the majority of lectures Harris Westminster offers, “Changing Places, Making Spaces” was a highly interesting and unexpected one delivered by an architect from AHMM, having worked on a regeneration project called 1 Finsbury Avenue, and is set to finish another 10-year project called Broadgate in the heart of our city by 2025.
Architect Tom Wells, his team of colleagues, a wacky artist, and a classroom of UEL students transformed the small, derelict office block 1 Finsbury Avenue into a social space with an “Instagram moment”, aimed to give 24-7 use to what was once a space used just 8 hours a day for business purposes.
What’s interesting about the space is that in a city so expensive with limited real estate, the project aimed, and perhaps achieved, to bring life to what would otherwise be a boring set of tall buildings, creating a cinema, outdoor seating with gardens and other social spaces. Not only is the use of space in this area sustainable, but so is the fact that the derelict building was repurposed, reducing carbon footprint where demolition and building up a new structure would be astronomically worse. The UEL students even recycled old materials around the construction – for example, they turned old doors into tables and seats in the dining hall.
Perhaps the same cannot be said about their other project, Broadgate, which has not been built in such a sustainable manner as it’s completely new.
What’s more interesting to me, however, is the location of this renewed space.
1 Finsbury Avenue borders Islington, Hackney, and Tower Hamlets. It is in close proxemics to Brick Lane, Whitechapel, and Shadwell, which historically housed immigrants. They’re areas that are already undoubtedly victims of gentrification, but still is home to a vibrant South Asian, African, and Caribbean culture that is facing erasure due to projects like featured in the lecture, that purposely attract these hipsters to rewrite what the East London community looks like, and ultimately raise rent prices.
In fact, another guest speaker likened the project to the Canary Wharf regeneration, and Battersea Power Station, so if ideas on gentrification are unclear, this statement speaks for itself.
When faced with the question of what does the project aim to do to involve the community in the long term to counter the affect of potential gentrification, after making it clear that I noted that 1 Finsbury Park has been said to be on par with other attempts at gentrification, and that the speaker talked about trying to attract a “new social group” to the area, the response was underwhelming to say the least.
Before another representative at the back chimed in, I was told that this has been going on since the 80s anyway, and this project is possibly better than what the alternative was, since they involved UEL students and are providing a space for the community. I was then told that you cannot improve an area without big clients creating these spaces, and pumping money back into an area, and that it’s actually on the city and the developers to involve the local communities and develop the surrounding areas.
I’ve never been a believer in trickle-down economics, and I certainly don’t think it extends to gentrification – I have many doubts that it actually helps surrounding communities, which is why so many people suffer at the hands of these projects (more on this here). It is simply a contradiction to argue that the purpose of the project is to attract other types of people to an area, to live in, or for leisure, and then argue that the space will be used by the local communities, especially considering that their “luxury cinema” prices adult tickets for over £16, and a regular high street cinema, like Vue, sell for less than half. The working-class community is clearly not going to put the area to use. Not to mention that whilst the project is a mere 10-minute walk from Shoreditch High Street, it’s still in a completely separate borough.
All in all, I look forward to attending the next lecture on Elephant Park, where we’ll learn about the plans to “develop” and “build up” the area of elephant and castle – where they sustainably utilise the zone 1/2 space to attract trendy hipsters, and in turn boot local residents out their homes (but don’t let me put you off).