Building ramps and patterns in Thames Barrier Park

Two children from Britannia Village assisted us in the session for local residents. We set up ramp building equipment and materials for making drawings to influence the supergraphic designs of the new playable landscape. We spent time interviewing users of the cafe in Thames Barrier Park and some families engaged with us to build and draw.
A woman and her two sons made a variety of ramps and tested them for speed, they said they live locally and would be likely to use the new playable landscape.




Walking in Barrier Park East with the two children, they revealed the place in their terms, what they most wanted to do was explore the dense shrubbery. This was carried out and resulted in a little mild fear, getting dirty and being out of the view of the other park users. Afterwards the children said we’d ‘had an adventure.’



The children began to take ownership of the design and the future play space during this session by explaining the plans to strangers, measuring a variety of structures to get a sense of how the 20cm ramps will be, measuring, gradients, steps and the columns under the DLR.

Some interesting things we found in Thames Barrier Park

Some elements in and near Thames Barrier Park have undergone adhoc repairs, adjustments and synthesise.

For example the netting in the single goal post is replaced by a barrier which has a rubbish bag tied to it, and lightweight signage for the pavilion café is held in place by a broken chair. While a sign nearby indicates that a galvanized steel fencing has no scrap value, these
creative solutions, are precious and inspiring.

Other elements such as the defunct, much loved water features and out of date
updates, indicate that costly, complex or continual maintence should be avoided.

Things that go bump in the night

On the evening of Thursday 10th March at Britannia Village Hall, responding to the proposal for mounds (max 200mm high under DLR) in the new play landscape, 10 young people produced 200mm high bumps, mounds and ramps. Lottie's baby bump isn't quite 200mm yet!

Testing out different gradients and surfaces we raced wind up toys, rolls of tape and tennis balls down the ramps to see which went furthest and fastest!

We caught air in bags to make balloons and tried to keep them up as high as possible without using our hands

Riding Modern Art

On Monday 28th February Ashley went to hear artist Raphael Zarka in conversation with Iain Borden, Professor of Architecture and Urban culture at UCL. Raphael's film montage Riding Modern Art is an exploration of skateboarders' interplay with found spaces and structures. The film shows how the geometry of public sculpture can shape the skateboarders' movement. 


Could the art features proposed for East Barrier Park accommodate this sort of interaction?