Swan Yard
Studio 3.6 has looked upon preserving the mixed use and intensely used inclusive London. Looking at small scale public areas by focusing on the informal and accidental spaces we find in the city. Our walks to work, the shortcuts we use, the seat we sit on in the intimate squares to drink our coffees. These are the places where normal life in the city occurs but they are also the moments that we take for granted. Moments that are perhaps unique to a city where layers upon layers of history have allowed for accidental enticing spaces.
Swan Yard is an opportunity to re-establish and produce something that brings these moments back into the city because it is with London’s growth that we are losing this. Where intimacy is lost over the need for an ever growing city. Growth is inevitable but it does not mean that we can lose the essence of what makes a ‘good city’. But this good city is not without bad language. A language 3.6 has continuously looked upon, one that is unique to architecture where one school of thought is not necessarily the right way but just one way. We are not limited to just having just one language within architecture, we can have it all.
Swan Yard is a youth centre in Whitechapel, allowing for a safe place to learn and socialise off the streets of London. It is also a place for the community, with the entire ground floor accessible to the public providing access to a cafe, retail space, community hall, training kitchen, allotments and a multi function outdoor space. Swan Yard will act as a hub within Whitechapel, to encourage young people to engage and to help grow as members of society and as individuals. Providing events and activities which will encourage and give everyone an opportunity. Through the architecture, intimate spaces will allow for those moments of calm from the city and create a space of normality from an ever growing hectic city.
