project’s new public space as a ‘community focus’.The moment not only celebrated architectural vision, but the culmination of local regeneration efforts dating back to the mid 1980s. However, this effusive display slowly unravelled in the years to follow. At the end of 2005 the site facing Barking’s Town Hall remained untouched and the entire original team had left the project and been replaced. Yet in spite of these drawbacks, the project narrowly escaped the scrap heap and construction finally began in 2006. For the last year and a half I have been studying the Town Square project in its context. During that time I interviewed participants involved in the project and local residents and also stayed in one of the development’s new residential blocks. What emerges from this research is that given the ten years it took for the project to come to fruition, three significant aspect of identity come into crisis: first is the authorship of the designers, second the architecture itself, and last the conception of ‘the public’ associated with the project.
In the fall of 2010, the third and final phase of the Barking Town Square was completed. The Town Square is a mixed-use development by developer Redrow with buildings designed by AHMM Architects and a major new public space by MUF Architecture/Art.The project is situated in the east London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and has been celebrated by officials as the centre piece to a vast project of urban regeneration in the struggling post-industrial suburb. But this is, of course, not the whole story. Going back ten years, the story of the Town Square is one that raises critical issues about the very notion of identity. In March 2000, the team led by developers Urban Catalyst and Avery Architects was declared winner of the Barking Town Square competition. Both local media and the UK architectural press were effusive. The Barking and Dagenham Post reported on a ‘new heart for Barking’, transforming it’s ‘bleak town square’ with ‘Barbican style’ buildings.The Architect’s Journal clamoured that Avery had ‘triumphed’ and ‘struck gold’ in Barking, describing the
barking town square shifting identities in east London
urbanism | ownership by thomas - bernard kenniff
Authorship Although the original competition winning scheme and the built project differ substantially, elements of the design can be traced through the decade of ‘projecting’ the Town Square.Whether through the original project brief or the pass over from the changing architects (Avery to AHMM) some elements are seen to have carried through. This raises the issue that in the end, the project cannot be essentially attributed to a single author. We should also see a firm like AHMM not as a singular entity but as an assemblage of relations with other participants in the project.That is, most design decisions taken during their involvement in the project should be situated in their context;AHMM designing in 2003 is not AHMM designing in 2008. In other words, it is impossible to conceive of their identity outside of the relations that link them to others in the project, developers, public realm consultants and council representatives.
16
16
The Barking and Dagenham Post front page, March 15, 2000. Winning scheme by developer Urban Catalyst and Avery Architects.
Thomas-Bernard Kenniff
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator