016. Reimagining Robin Hood Gardens

Here is our entry for the recent competition for Robin Hood Gardens as run by Building Design.

Our proposal for the recent competition for Robin Hood Gardens as run by Building Design, focused on restoring Robin Hood Gardens at the heart of a dense urban realm for Blackwall Reach.

Robin Hood Gardens' high rise but low density development, with a unique green open space at its centre, forms the centrepiece for a fundamental urban redevelopment that focuses on public space and interaction.

Thus proposal attempts an intensification of the urban field around Robin Hood Gardens, re-establishing prior street patterns and creating new ones through a series of urban interventions, exploring both existing archetypes of urban form and also new urban prototypes.



Touching lightly on the facade of RHG, 4 mobile, kinetic parasitic structures provide security, lighting and telecommunications, an exo-refit for RHG. Mobile, robotic units, they move along the articulated facade of RHG.

As can be seen on the BD website, most of the shortlisted entries focussed on new approaches to the two blocks themselves, with numerous protrusions, and slicing into the building, and across the estate.