03.05.2019
Up until the Georgian era the vast majority of London was contained within the physical boundary of its old Roman walls. Beyond which lay idyllic villages before they were swallowed up by an expanding metropolis that has become the sprawling capital of today.⠀
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For London Festival of Architecture this year, we're hosting a guided tour of our Greenwich Millennium Village scheme, a thriving modern-day example of London's legacy as a City of Villages. We'll be starting off our tour at the Royal Docks and taking to the air on the Emirates Air Line, the cost inclusive, to explore our bounded community development creating 1746 high-quality sustainable homes.
We're updating and completing the award-winning Masterplan for Greenwich Millennium Village initiated by architect Ralph Erskine in the late 90s. Bounded on three sides by the River Thames, a noisy aggregates wharf and busy main roads, the design challenge confronts these physical boundaries. Calling to mind Erskine’s pioneering work on Byker Wall, a housing estate designed to shield the site from an intended motorway in Newcastle, we aren’t alone in designing with acoustic barriers in mind. Our 11-storey building on the scheme acts as an acoustic barrier to protect the heart of the community, demonstrating how, sometimes, physical barriers can work for good.
Our guided tour will enjoy views of the O2 to the west, verdant parks to the south and the Thames Barrier and beyond to the east. On foot, we'll go past Erskine’s earlier phases, through Southern Park and finally down towards our continuing work on Greenwich Millennium Village.