London Festival of ARchitecture History - 2010 - The Welcoming City

As part of the Nash Ramblas programme, Architecture Inside Out (The fore-runner of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project) and the Royal Engineers supported Matthew Lloyd Architects and disabled artist Tony Heaton to build a prototype access lift on the Duke of Marlborough steps in London, a key heritage and tourist site. Rather than make a separate access ramp that tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, the team decided to celebrate the act of inclusive moving up and down the steps (a very useful short-cut in this area). They did this by making a prototype water-powered structure on one of the landings, which aligned centrally with the column and statue at the top. The aim was to deliberately slow down, and make enjoyable, the process of vertical movement, so that this would appeal to everyone, not just disabled people.

For the third and final weekend of the Festival, Bankside was transformed into a haven of woodland and wildlife, culture and community - taking cues from Witherford Watson Mann Architect's Bankside Urban Forest framework, which encouraged the interaction between residents, workers, visitors and organisations. One of the interventions, The Union Street Urban Orchard, transformed a disused space into a community garden complete with seed swapping, bicycle-powered film screenings and cider-making. The project later won awards for being a leading example for meanwhile projects.  

Across London over 30 embassies and cultural institutes presented a series of exhibitions, installations, events and talks to highlight the dynamic architectural projects that are emerging from their respective countries and to address the theme of The Welcoming City. The projects varied from a moss-covered room by Norway at The Architecture Foundation, a film on Jan Kaplicky by Czechia, and an investigation into urban planning by Brazil. Out of the 39 projects, a winner was selected for the inaugural Silver Pigeon Award for the best IAS project, chosen by a panel of judges, including Tom Dyckhoff, Architecture Critic at The Times and Catherine Ince, Curator at the Barbican.

Bringing together building and landscape professionals with local communities, the programme aimed to pro-actively improve streets, spaces and places. Love Your Street showed how low budget, high impact events, installations and campaigns, which engage the community with their street, can bring a renewed feeling of ownership in the city. To demonstrate the Love Your Street objective, NLA transformed the car park outside LFA HQ into a temporary 'pocket' park for the last week of the Festival.

The park housed the Price & Myers' Hy-Pavilion, Ramboll's Carbon Cube and temporary planting by Pocket Habitat. The temporary space hosted dance workshops, tai chi, lunchtime talks and a temporary exhibition highlighting the past and future of Store Street. The highlight of the park was on the final Saturday when the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art staged three open-air Shakespeare performances where visitors could enjoy a picnic in the sun whilst watching the stars of the future in Macbeth, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

London’s Regent Street was hit with a new series of window installations during the Festival, led by the RIBA. The Project included 10 architect-led window installations that attempt to fuse architecture with innovations in retail design whilst working around the theme ‘cities of tomorrow’. Examples included Spacelab for fashion brand Cos and Nick Wood, How About Studio and Gillian Lambert for Hawes & Curtis.

The 2 kilometre stretch from Regent's Park to St James' Park flanked by architect John Nash's Georgian terraces - an area coined the Nash Ramblas by architect Terry Farrell - was animated by events and installations to guide visitors from one side to another during the 2010 programme. Following the route of one of London's earliest pieces of town planning, visitors found a temporary pavilion in Park Crescent which hosted a weekend of talks and debate on Nash, London and The Welcoming City' in Speakers' Crescent, and an innovative, solar and water powered lift, improving access  up the Duke of York Steps for the first time. En route, the public could admire installations by architects in the windows along Regent Street, stop to watch Will Alsop's latest view of London emerge in a hotel window, or explore the area with an expert guide right in their pocket using the Nash Ramblas iPhone app. The route encouraged new ways of navigating, and transforming the area.

As East London geared up towards the Olympic Games in 2012, the Festival focused on the area's dramatic regeneration with events concentrated around Aldgate in the west, Stratford in the east and the route in between - representing the last 6km of the 2012 marathon and forming the basis of a major development of the area called High Street 2012. Children, students and professionals envisioned the area's future with the Highway to 2012 Challenge at Discover Children's Story Centre, site specific installations from London and international universities along the route linked east and west with innovative design proposals, and Bus Tours travelled the length of the High Street and the periphery of the Olympic site, with artists, architects and critics providing the narration and a pop-up museum appeared in Stratford's old shopping centre.