How can architecture slow down urban everyday life?
And how can slowing-down support wellbeing, climate resilience and adaptation?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals challenges cities to make urban living more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Yet, London continues to be built and rebuilt at an alarming pace perpetuating the endless chase for progress and investment, for the new, the “bigger, faster, and more”. But with the rapid advance of a changing climate, there is an urgency to critically question the socio-ecological impact of this approach and propose alternative spatial and environmental practices which can slow down or oppose this dynamic and reconnect us with the present, with people and the planet.
But how can architecture slow down urban everyday life? Can existing communities, existing buildings and green spaces support and promote a counter-movement to slow things down? Copenhagen’s Architecture Biennale theme for 2025 invites us to “Slow Down to a deeper, slower and more long-term form of reflection” that proclaims a new critical attitude to architectural practice and re-examines relationships and care working with people, places, nature and infrastructure.
This year, Unit A will explore ideas of ‘Slow Architecture’ which, drawing from the “slow food” movement, promotes an architecture that uses and celebrates local and sustainable ingredients. We will engage with London Borough of Hackney (LBH) and with their Parks and Green Spaces Strategy 2021-31, to respond to the councils aims to radically redefine the role of parks and green spaces in the borough as spaces for learning, volunteering, well-being and biodiversity.
Springfield Park and Lea Valley Regional Park will become our study area for the year and through hands-on engagement with people, nature and the site, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of the broader context and investigate how new practices of design can foster dialogue, build new relationships, and reimagine parks and green spaces as community anchor points where urban life can unfold in a more human and ecological pace.
Students’ project briefs and design proposals will bring local communities and ecologies together and explore the site as a Space for Learning, Meeting and Exchange. Working with a live-project situation and engagement with stakeholders and Hackney Council, we set out to explore how design and design thinking can help to move us towards a more sustainable future, also supporting the building of a strong set of skills in readiness for students’ future architectural and professional life.