When was the last time you gave a building more than a glance? Today is the start of the London Festival of Architecture, a month of walks, talks, screenings and street installations that urges focus on the future of our built environment — and asks us to look at the familiar with fresh eyes.
This year’s theme is “In Common”, so expect the 400 events to examine themes of community, equity and finite resources. Here are seven you should not miss.
1. Access all areas
Headline installation Seats at the Table is a rallying cry for accessibility in an ableist world. It’s a collaboration between waste collective Re-Fabricate and the DisOrdinary Architecture Project, which have enlisted a group of disabled and non-disabled artists and architects to create symbolic street furniture for Postman’s Park near St Paul’s.
The hope is that it broadens understanding of diverse needs in public spaces, from quiet pods to level access, and stirs deeper conversations about inclusion. From June 2; Postman’s Park, King Edward St, EC1A 7BT
2. Architecture on film
What happens to a building once the architect’s role is redundant? The people move in, of course.
Equal parts post-occupancy review and people-watching session, short film The Architect Has Left the Building by photographer and filmmaker Jim Stephenson is a quietly joyful study of how we inhabit architecture, using 14 bigname buildings as a backdrop.
Watch art students and tourists mingle in Tate St Ives, or ballet dancers stretch on the steps of Stirling Prize-winner Kingston Town House. From June 5; RIBA Architecture Gallery, 66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD
3. Studio Lates series
Snoop around the studios of some of London’s top architects on the first four Fridays in June, at practices in Shoreditch and Cambridge Heath, Southbank, Clerkenwell, Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury respectively.
Each will set their own agenda, so it might be a tour and drink at Turner Works in Hackney, a nose around the Conran & Partners HQ and then an after-hours showing of the latest exhibition at the Zaha Hadid Foundation. On June 2, 9, 16 and 23; to reserve a place visit londonfestivalofarchitecture.org
4. Down to the docks
One of the festival’s most popular public installations, Pews and Perches, is a now-annual display of radical seating dotted around the Royal Docks.
A bench by Pan- Projects will be made using waste from the Thames, while Akmaral Khassen’s design has a feminist twist. One duo, Nicolos Makatsaria and Jericho Cabalan, will reclaim materials from Andre Kong’s installation from last year, which used two tiers to warn of rising sea levels.
While you’re in the area, walk sculpture trail The Line; its newest additions are works by Yinka Ilori, Larry Achiampong and Laura Ford. From June 1, The Royal Docks
5. Memories of migration
Lewisham’s Migration Museum is an unexpected joy within the shopping centre. A free all-day festival will include a film screening and exhibition about the black self-build co-operative of Fusions Jameen and a talk by Edward Adonteng on Brenton Pink — better known as Mr Pink — a Windrush-era Jamaican migrant who delighted passersby with the rosy exterior of his home on Loampit Hill.
Locals are encouraged to bring in photographs and small mementos, which will be added to a Lewisham Memory Map with the help of artist Kim Chin. On June 10, Lewisham Shopping Centre, SE13 7HB; book a free ticket at londonfestivalofarchitecture.org
6. Green street
The fabric of our public space attracts fierce debate, but most of us wouldn’t say no to a few extra trees. This greening installation by London collective Wayward Plants certainly promises more than a few scattered pots.
By utilising a mix of medicinal plants, the new urban garden for Fleet Street Quarter pays tribute to 16th-century herbalist John Gerard and the wider area’s printing heritage. From June 1, Holborn Circus, EC4A 3AF
7. Giants of industry
If you think Margaret Howell’s Wigmore Street store is an unlikely stage for an exhibition on Britain’s cooling towers, then you must have missed the fashion designer’s showcase of post-war public art last year.
This collaboration with the Twentieth Century Society hopes to document the “silent, sculptural beauty” of these at-risk buildings. From June 3 to 18, 34 Wigmore Street, W1U 2RS
