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London’s Quarry

Part 2 Project 2022
Rosie Raven Nicolson
 RIBA Studio | UK
There are 10 stone-clad buildings in the City of London earmarked for demolition. This project treats stone on these buildings as London’s Quarry: a pre-extracted resource which currently amounts to roughly 700m3 of stone.

The proposal is a landscape strategy and a series of public realm interventions, which uses reclaimed stone to retain and improve access to the Thames foreshore - a vital public space in Central London.

The Thames riverbed is the property of the crown estate: a public asset. This allows it a freedom which most of the privately owned riverside developments, and their so called ‘public’ realms, lack. The tide rises twice a day, changing the spatial experience of the foreshore and washing away any individual, temporary claims to it. The Northbank beaches need safeguarding, but rising sea levels put them at risk.

The project takes an approach to flood management which invites water into the City edge, expanding the foreshore boundary. Stone deposits sit between the high and low water marks, and are designed according to basic SUDs principles with no mortared joints. In all of the proposals stone is the primary structural material, used to its full potential as a more carbon efficient, cost effective and beautiful alternative to concrete and steel.

Through building out from, cutting into and leaning against the existing river wall, the proposals bring Londoners to their water’s edge, and to the shingle and mud fringes which they have a right to access.

Tutor(s)
2022
Excavate: Sections are cut away from the embankment and a series of sunken pits are set into the riverside walk. Sitting between the high and low tide marks, these spaces make shallow pools at high tide, and shingle-filled play spaces at low tide.
London’s Quarry: a catalogue of stone currently available for reclamation in the City of London.
The Masterplan: The Northbank beaches play host to a number of different uses and communities, but they are under threat from rising sea levels. The proposed landscape strategy uses reclaimed stone as a series of public realm interventions intended to ret
Access: Several stone ramps are proposed along the length of the foreshore, replacing steep slippery steps with level access routes down to the beach from the higher riverside embankment.
Threshold: Large stone pieces are set into the existing pavement, marking the entrances to a network of existing privately owned ground floor toilets which are brought into public use.
Infill: There are areas of lost Northbank beach where the river was historically dredged to make way for boats to land goods. Deposits of crushed stone shingle fill these gaps making a continuous walking route at beach level from Blackfriars to Tower Brid
Structural stone: All proposals use stone as the primary structural material, making use of the natural structural qualities of flat cladding stone, and challenging the use of materials with high embodied carbon like concrete and steel which are so common
Platform: A series of level platforms are built out beyond the river wall, designed as public squares with relationships to custodian waterfront institutions. These institutions each have use of a platform space in return for its maintenance.
Tide: The platforms are programmed according to their position in relation to the tide - those nearer the high tide mark are exposed for up to 10 hours and can be used for longer than those positioned close to the low tide mark. This example at Southwark
Place - Material - Time: The project lays the cladding of the City’s “obsolete” buildings flat - stripping them of their status and returning them to the ground plane. It proposes an ecological engagement with the fabric of the city which spans geological
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