New Urban Park for Bankside/E&C

Is everyone as thrilled about this as I am?

No.

Given they used the phrase "Urban Realm" and the image is a pile of rubbish, I suspect this is a triumph of spin over likely actual delivery.

Call me cynical if you like.

Regards,

Loafer

I would agree. There are no clear images or details of timescales. Like much of the regeneration around E&C there seems to be many claims made but at the end of the day action is very slow in materialising.

To be fair, the reason that there are no "clear images" is that the architects have only just been appointed to begin the planning!

The only images available at this stage are the ones that were in the winning firm's submission and are illustrations rather than actual detailed proposals.

For the sake of Friday humour, I did a translation:

ORIGINAL: Witherford Watson Mann Architects have been selected by Better Bankside to develop a vision and framework for the Bankside Urban Park. The practice was one of eleven invited to make submissions.

TRANSLATION: We've decided to spend £15k of your money on getting someone to think about how lovely it would be to live in the country. Lots of people wanted the money, but they wanted it most.

ORIGINAL: "The expectations from the brief are complex and reflect the number of interests which are party to the study," explains Donald Hyslop, chair of Better Bankside and Tate's head of regeneration and community partnerships.

TRANSLATION: We've no idea what we are doing yet, said Donald Hyslop head of lots of quangos.

ORIGINAL: "WWM produced a considered approach that addressed the challenges and opportunities that exist."

TRANSLATION: WWM were more desparate for the work and did more than the other people to get it.

ORIGINAL: The plan is to create an urban park extending from Tate Modern southwards towards the Elephant and Castle between Blackfriars Road and Borough High Street.

TRANSLATION: We'd love to lay some grass on the south side of the Tate, you know, the side facing E&C. It's a shame all the buildings are in the way, otherwise we could lay grass for miles.

ORIGINAL: The urban park will connect newly landscaped areas around Tate Modern to open spaces across Southwark...

TRANSLATION: We are going to get our colouring pens out, shade anything resembling trees, gardens and parks green, and then join the dots to make it look like a strategy...

ORIGINAL: ...involving the improvement of the urban realm through the creation of pocket parks and other small-scale developments.

TRANSLATION: I have no idea what this means.

And if it's lovely? If it brings just a little space and light to our 'urban realm'? I'm with Jackie.

I want to be a believer, but I have yet to see the promised land.


I do like Loafer's translation of the gobbledy gook, though

loafer wrote:

For the sake of Friday humour, I did a translation:
ORIGINAL: ...involving the improvement of the urban realm through the creation of pocket parks and other small-scale developments.

TRANSLATION: I have no idea what this means.

Loafer, you got this bit right in your statement above ie

"We are going to get our colouring pens out, shade anything resembling trees, gardens and parks green, and then join the dots to make it look like a strategy..."

it's regeneration speak for "there'll be lots of little tiny weeny flower beds and tree stumps with only about 20 feet of concrete between them so it almost passes for a park....if you squint a bit...and wear rose colour spectacles!"

I agree. Anyway, SE1 is not the area of London you would choose to live in if you wanted to be surrounded by green space. They should just keep it as what it is. The idea is just plain weird.

Jackie do you have any more details than are available to the rest of us that might throw light on why you are so excited. This does seem a very tentative scheme.