Vertical Project – work in collaboration with 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th years to study the peripheries of London –
Cross collaboration was one of the reasons that I choose Kingston University for my MArch. It is important to foster conversations and grow skills. Without it our thought processes are greatly narrowed and can foster either arrogance or ignorance (or both).
In all aspects of life our society has built hierarchy but I think we are most successful when work and learn alongside others. We are most productive in collaboration.
As a group we decided to look at London’s peripheries by looking at the marco scale of looking into the city of London from an elevation edge and visaversa alongside the micro scale of Londonium’s city walls. London’s peripheries are not just the suburban edges but the inbetween places and places of transition which are present in all parts of the city.
During our week I went out to High Barnet to visit somewhere unfamiliar to me which sits as the end of the Northern Line tube. It was an interesting ‘chocolate box’ place which felt so much more manicured and fabricated that the real countryside found in parts of the British Isles. Also, even in places where the city wasn’t visible, the city of London was everpresent. With its noise and bustle and the busyness of people London mentality seeped in as much as the distant skyline and city noise. Although London has distinct areas and traits there is a cohesion to be found in the city as a whole, edges and all, because there is a overarching commonality to the place.