1. BLUEPRINTISSUE292
BLUEPRINT
July 2010 £4.99
THE LEADING MAGAZINE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
•JULY2010•£4.99
BEYOND
2012
•MARKWEBBER•RINTALAEGGERTSSON•CASEYFIERRO•CECILBALMOND•JEANETTEBARNES•SOUFUJIMOTO/RURALSTUDIO/HELENANDHARD/STUDIOMUMBAI/VAZIO•YII•TOMDIXON•KASPERSALTO•NACHOCARBONELL•ELIBOWES
LONDON'S MOST
AMBITIOUS
MASTER PLAN
CASEYFIERRO
JEANETTE BARNES
CECIL BALMOND
PLUS LONDON FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE
AND THE BEST OF MILAN SALONI
3. BLUEPRINT JULY 2010
39
AN AMBITIOUS 20-YEAR PLAN TO
RECONNECT THE DISPARATE POCKETS IN THE
EAST-LONDON BOROUGH HAS BEEN THE FRUIT
OF FIVE YEARS’ RESEARCH BY THE YOUNG
ARCHITECTURE PRACTICE. CONSIDERING
THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF DEVELOPMENT
AND PRIORITISING SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
OF RESIDENTS IN THE PROCESS, CASEYFIERRO
HAS DEVISED A MASTER PLAN FOR
BEYOND 2012. PETER KELLY REPORTS
Caseyfierro’s vivid graphic
style is an important
part of its communication
for the master plan
4. BLUEPRINT JULY 2010
40
Reshaping Poplar isn’t your typical master
plan. Caseyfierro’s extensive and long-term
proposal for the area of East London
sandwiched between the Stratford
London Olympic site to the north and
the high-rise commercial district Canary
Wharf to the south, it is a montage
of vibrant colours, legible maps, and
coherent diagrams. There are evocative
depictions of specific urban areas, yet they
eschew the unconvincing visual cliches
of other proposals on a similar scale.
The graphic language of the master plan
might seem a superficial reason to laud the
work of young, London-based architects.
Yet it is not just an indicator of the clarity
of the architects’ vision in reforming the
labyrinthine street plan and housing
provision of the area, but a fundamental
part of the project. Directors Michael Casey
and Victoria Fierro, has realised that
communication is not the endpoint
of an urban plan, but the foundation.
The architect’s involvement with
the Reshaping Poplar proposal had small
beginnings. Invited by the social landlord,
Poplar Harca, to look at improving and
developing the green space between two
buildings, Caseyfierro soon realised that
the problem was the organization of the
area as a whole. ‘The more we looked into
the project, the more we talked to residents
and asked if they’d thought about the issue
of housing as a whole,’ says Casey. Thanks
to the unusual ratio of land ownership
in the area, there was a clear opportunity
to do something much more extensive.
Poplar Harca (which stands for Housing
and Regeneration Community Association)
is a non-profit organization, which owns
and manages around 8,500 homes. These
properties were transferred from the London
Borough of Tower Hamlets between 1998
and 2009. Working in tandem with Leaside
Regeneration, which was established by
Tower Hamlets at the same time, its stated
role is to bring about the social, urban and
economic regeneration of the Poplar area,
including affordable housing: it owns around
30 per cent of the area, which amounts to
about five hectares. Rarely has a housing
association been the owner of such a large
amount of land in such a concentrated
location. And it is also unusual for such an
organisation to be so closely involved in the
comprehensive regeneration of a deprived
inner-London area. ‘The opportunity through
all this land ownership is to put in all the
missing elements,’ says Casey.
Reshaping Poplar is a proposal that
provides a framework for redevelopment
of the area over the course of the next
20 years: in terms of realistic, ambitious
planning it puts the London Olympic legacy
proposals to shame. Offering a bold approach
to transforming rundown estates through
a mixture of refurbishment and renewal,
it is the result of nearly five years’ work,
combining the efforts of Poplar Harca,
Leaside Regeneration and the local authority
of Tower Hamlets.
‘The residents had to buy in to it,’
says Fierro, ‘no-one was going to do
anything unless they did, and that’s very
rare.’ This imperative played to Caseyfierro’s
considerable strength as communicators.
Above: The area
under consideration
by Caseyfierro is almost
identical in size to the
Olympic site immediately
to the north
Top right: A still from
an animated film made
by Caseyfierro to depict
its vision of safer streets
for Poplar
Ω
5. BLUEPRINT JULY 2010
41
Left: The model of Poplar
made by Caseyfierro.
Different coloured
detachable models
depict real, planned and
possible developments
in the area
Below: The organic
appearance of the
architect’s visualisations
convey its idea of Poplar
as a coherent ‘body’
of connected villages
6. BLUEPRINT JULY 2010
42
Above: Caseyfierro’s
more detailed master
plan for the Aberfeldy
neighbourhood. It
involves both demolition
and refurbishment to
create a more diverse
tenure mix
//RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN
BROUGHT INTO EVERY STAGE
OF THE PROCESS, WITH
CASEYFIERRO PRESENTING
A VARIETY OF OPTIONS AND
WIDER POSSIBILITIES AND
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AREA//
At every stage, the residents have been
brought into the process, with Caseyfierro
presenting a variety of options and
explaining the wide possibilities and
implications for the area. ‘Many of them
were unaware just how much of the land
in the area is owned by the residents, and
therefore what could be achieved,’ says
Casey. The architects created a huge model
of Poplar, with detachable foam models
of all the existing buildings, as well as
Caseyfierro’s proposals for redevelopment
and other private construction projects
that the architects had identified. Residents
were encouraged to experiment with the
massing of the proposals, exploring their
own suggestions on the scheme.
According to the architects, the key to
creating a realistic plan for the area involved
getting to grips with the mathematics. This
meant looking at the basics, understanding
the nature and economics of ownership, and
a realistic assessment of the need for profit
in any housing development. To make any
redevelopment work, any single residence
that gets knocked down has to be replaced
by three. This meant replacing a density
of around 250 inhabitants per hectare with
750. ‘The maths isn’t architecture, but it is
something that you have to do in order to
find the opportunities for architecture. It’s
like playing chess – you have to find the
right moment to make your move.’ They
made three proposals, of varying ambition,
which considered linking the surrounding
estates, providing more housing and allowing
for a consistent development of new areas.
It was the more ambitious approach that
caught the residents’ imagination.
The future development of Poplar
is going to be heavily influenced by the
growth of Canary Wharf and the Olympic
transformation of Stratford. In fact, the
area is almost identical in size to the 2012
Olympic Site: Paul Brickell of Leaside
Regeneration describes Poplar as being
1.41 minutes from the Olympic site,
a figure based on Sebastian Coe’s best time
for running 800m. Yet the complexity of
its problems and the need for a considered,
long-term plan make for a more challenging
proposition. Poplar, for the most part,
consists of disconnected estates, which are
near impossible to navigate in a car and
hardly less confusing on foot. It is divided
by two major commuter roads, the A12 and
A13, which cut through the area and have
few convenient crossing points.
In some ways, it is no stranger to
ambitious propositions: as part of the 1951
Festival of Britain, it was the site of the
pioneering Lansbury Estate. There are also
three vast housing estates – Balfron Tower,
Carradale House and Glenkerry House –
designed by Ernö Goldfinger. Poplar is also
the location of the Robin Hood Estate, the
troubles of which are well documented. Yet
it is the disjointed streetplan, and self-
contained layout of the more recent low-rise
housing project that Caseyfierro has
identified as the real source of the area’s
problem. Its proposal reimagines the estates
as small, interconnected villages, where
varied housing-block types can provide more
fulsome green spaces. Providing bridges and
footpaths that overcome the divisive road
layout is also essential. The overall vision of
Poplar as a single, connected ‘body’ can be
clearly read in the organic style of the
architects’ visualisations.
The overall area is divided in the plan
into smaller areas for more specific proposal:
some are being handed to developers, while
in others architects are being brought on
board directly by Poplar Harca. Caseyfierro is
working on a detailed plan for the Aberfeldy
neighbourhood, which it is approaching
7. BLUEPRINT JULY 2010
43
Above: Caseyfierro’s
vision for Aberfeldy
with a mix of high-end,
low-rise developments
that allow for more
open spaces
with characteristic rigour and lively
visualisations. According to Brickell, it is
likely that the architects will be heavily
involved in future developments in the area.
The situation in Poplar is made more
problematic by the lack of retail outlets
and other civic amenities. Residents have
to make long trips to the nearest
supermarket, part of Caseyfierro’s extensive
research process involved the plotting of
existing civic facilities and identifying areas
that lack sufficient provision. Planning for at
least the next 20 years, Reshaping Poplar
considers the integrated creation of improved
education and health facilities, as well
addressing the introduction of new open
space, leisure and community facilities, and
recommending additional infrastructure.
Not all of these, of course, fall under the
remit of Poplar Harca, Leaside Regeneration
or Caseyfierro. Yet the proposition they have
jointly put forward puts the onus on the
local authority to invest further in the area,
and seize these opportunities. It is one of the
more impressive facets of the plan that it
goes well beyond a limited parochial
viewpoint and considers how Poplar
connects with London as a whole.
Interestingly, considering they have
created such a coherent and considered
proposal, Casey and Fierro prefer not to call
the Reshaping Poplar proposition a master
plan. ‘It sounds too dictatorial,’ says Casey.
This is partly down to the pragmatism and
collegiate approach of the architects. It might
also have something to do with the relative
youth of the practice, which was only
established in 2006: they are not in the
position of established architects who can
win through on force of reputation. This is
not the first major London project that the
architects have worked on, though. Michael
Casey and Victoria Fierro were both senior
architects at Herzog and de Meuron (Casey
was a director at the London office) and
worked together on the new extension to
Tate Modern. Yet it remains a small practice
and the one completed project is a studio
for designer Jasper Morrison.
Working on a project at the scale of
Poplar, has required the involvement and
support of many different bodies and the
architects and developers have been skillful
and continually taking their requirements
into account. Reshaping Poplar feeds into
an existing, extensive programme by Poplar
Harca for housing stock refurbishment. It
has also taken into account the wider
planning aspirations of current Mayor
of London Boris Johnson, the plans put in
place by his predecessor Ken Livingstone,
as well as the specific targets of the local
authority. The Tower Hamlets 2020
Community Plan, which is being developed
by the Tower Hamlets partnership led by the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets, has been
a key influence in the proposal, as has The
Lower Lea Valley Opportunity Area Planning
Framework document of 2007. By 2016
the London Plan requires Tower Hamlets
to provide 52,200 additional homes: Poplar
Harca claims that the Reshaping Poplar
plan could achieve 21,860 in Poplar alone.
Of course all master plans are at the
mercy of economics, and it is difficult to
predict what will happen in the coming five
years, let alone two decades. Targets and
priorities shift, and a plan at this scale will
always be subject to change. Yet Caseyfierro’s
ability to identify the pragmatic
fundamentals of planning, and communicate
them in a way that engenders enthusiasm
among residents, developers and planning
authorities does give one hope for the
future of Poplar. It also marks them out
as architects who may achieve great things
in the near future .
