Fish Island Village. London, E3
Good architects (Haworth Tompkins), decent clients (Peabody), unavoidable “creative campus” provided by third-party (The Trampery). 1-bedroom flats starting at below-London-average (yet still utterly insane) prices of £432,500.
As far as new London developments go, it’s all relatively inoffensive. But because this new development is in Hackney Wick – with its recently revamped and enlarged overground station, soon to be followed by many more bland developments (plans for new buildings on Dace Road and Berkshire Road have all been approved) – it feels as wrong as the crassest, priciest developments elsewhere in the city.
Alongside local residents and industrial estates, for at least the last 20 years, Hackney Wick has been home to artists and their studios. With over 600 studio spaces, the Wick has even been crowned area of Europe with the highest density of artist studios.
Things started to come undone for the area back in 2005, when the 2012 Olympics were awarded to London. Given Hackney Wick’s proximity to Stratford and the new Olympic park, it was fairly obvious what future lay in store when an 11-mile-long blue fence was unceremoniously erected in 2007, closing in several square miles of the Wick and Stratford.
Many of the area’s early artist spaces – including Vittoria Wharf and Mother Studios – have closed. New buildings, like Fish island Village, incorporate studio spaces, but these seem geared more towards ‘innovators’ and small businesses, rather than artists, musicians and others drawn to the cheap freedom offered by Hackney Wick’s repurposed industrial spaces.
Part of the reason I often take long breaks from updating Development Aesthetics is that it’s just so god damn depressing to be constantly confronted with the myriad ways London (and other cities, of course) has of sacrificing any genuine authenticity or diversity or difference for the sake of C.A.S.H.
