Thamesmead Open

Shortlisted | 2020

Our bid for the Thamesmead Open, developed with associate artist Marc Rees and independent creative director Sud Basu sought to create a new artistic focal point for Thamesmead to cultivate culture, support resilience and nurture transformation.

We were shortlisted at stage 1 and our subsequent research and proposal functioned as a mini residency in the heart of the pandemic that yielded a range of concepts that we are currently developing such as Cromen and [O].

[O] is a framework for nurturing the creative talent of a community. It is a dedicated outdoor civic space, one which has been built collectively with and for the community in which its located. The sculptural, cultural and social [O] enables communal living around the void. It recasts a new focal point for an area – one which builds curiosity, with a sense of familiarity and spectacle.

The architectural concepts for this proposal are ‘edge, affordance and communality’. We are currently exploring these through the lens of a whole life carbon assessment and thorough research into audience engagement and development.