BBC - CANVEY FLOOD 1953

A very short BBC film about the Canvey and the flood of 1953... my favourite line: "Canvey's safe...but for how long?You've got to be vigilant.. with global warming you've always got to be vigilant."

Refining the Masterplan

Some sketch developments of the conceptual master plan for canvey, examining networks and organising structures in plan view.

 Canvey Wick- wetland/ salt-marsh with built structure extending into the Estuary

...Thorney Bay as high-density development 



...Sea Front

Masterplanning Canvey

We begin with the site and its context: 7.2 square miles of alluvial island on the South Essex coast:

Most of the island sits below sea level:

Some quick zoning. for some reason this image is horizontally flipped:

The beginnings of a context board with satellite image...

Sketch ideas for landscape features...

The workspace...

A work in progress...

Layer one...

Layer two...

The two drawings combined in Photoshop...

Just a sketch design, lots of work to do... the main issue being that my chosen site is over 100ha in size. The idea is to create 4,000 new homes in South Canvey that are sensitive to the unique environmental and cultural issues facing the island.

Much more to follow. Stay tuned.

Canvey: Oil City

Oil Refining at Coryton glimpsed from across the  West Canvey Marsh

Yesterday residents of coastal towns throughout the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of North Sea Flood of 1953. Of the 307 people killed on land in the United Kingdom 58 died during flooding at Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary. Canvey Island is the site of my final student project for the University of Greenwich.

This alluvial island- separated from the mainland by a network of narrow, tidal creeks- has been occupied since pre-Roman times and has an average elevation approximately three metres below mean high water level.. 

The marina  at low tide

Presently it is home to some 34,000 people, with 14 miles of sea defences and a weekly flood alarm protecting them from the rising tide.  A concrete wall surrounds the entire island: though it is only separated from the South Essex mainland by less than 100 metres, this structure (and the fact that it only two roads connect the land mass to the South Essex coat) reinforce the sense of separateness and isolation.

...the sea defence: a 3 metre high wall surrounding the island's perimeter

Video/ Radio Selecter

Owing to other commitments I am unable to post this week so I thought I would share my radio highlights with you. They might not be on I-Player for too long so hurry!

My opinion of Will Self (for what it's worth) fluctuates wildly. Following his most recent broadcast on Radio 4 I find that the pendulum has swung in his favour: his position on London's urban planning (such that it is) and the recent proliferation of skyscrapers (spear headed, aptly, by that most hastate of structures, the Shard) is one with which I sympathise entirely. There is a wonderful remark towards the end of this programme in which he considers the inter-relationship between the sordidness and the beauty of the city... but I 'm paraphrasing and it would be best for you to hear it for yourself:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pw5vp/A_Point_of_View_Urban_Designs/

Following a similar psychogeographic bent is Reimagining the City: Istanbul. Here writer Elif Shafak sketches an intriguing portrait of a place that is both familiar and alien to me. The writer has been living in Istanbul since her early twenties and the city is central to much of her literary output. On more than one occasion in this programme Shafak refers to the city as a "liquid city"; she perceives the fluidity of Istanbul's history, architecture and demographics as integral to its contemporary character. To outsiders, Istanbul's romance is tied to its apparently uncomfortable position, straddling the diametrically opposed worlds of the occident and the orient, two irreconcilable entities, oil and water. Shafak questions the oil-water trope, instead perceiving Europe and Asia as "two different kinds of water... mix[ing] all the time":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pz4tg/Reimagining_the_City_Istanbul/

Finally, David Bowie needs know help in promoting his first single in... well, in ever but I'm going to anyway. It is its own psychogeography: a journey through a city that is no longer with us, a Berlin of a bygone era recollected by a man entering his elder years... walking the dead indeed...