Hackney Wick Bottega

 

This project reflects upon the hybrid workshop and market spaces that characterise many Italian cities, and indeed were found on our study trip to Istanbul. There is scope for such complex economic and urban spaces to emerge in Hackney Wick, although the dominant logics of property development will certainly certainly dictate otherwise at present. There are then two aspects to the research of this project: economic and poetic.

At a spatial level, this project aims for a surrounding that has an inherent poetic power, which can excite and disorientate a person by blurring the boundaries between the exterior, interior, the hidden and the exposed. Shown here are some formal explorations and variations in the narrative of the Bottega where materials (fabric formed concrete and leather) communicate and influence each other. These are the elements of an artisan architecture, an urban (re)generation which re appropriates space through body and movement to establish a new community of makers in London. In parallel with material and formal exploration, the project explores what planning and economic policy changes might be required to enable the growth of such a space