Atelier Deptford

Creating a framework for residual memory

Architecture

•

Urbanism

ROLE

Architectural Designer

TIMELINE

7 weeks

TEAM

Tianchi Zhao, Jason Prasetyono

TECH STACK

Rhino, Grasshopper, Illustrator, Photoshop, D5 Render

CONTEXT

London’s relationship with water has shaped its urban fabric through centuries of trade, industry, ecological transformation, and redevelopment.

In Southeast London, Deptford Creek and Deptford High Street reveal this layered condition, where tidal landscapes, aquatic habitats, maritime histories, multicultural public life, and pressures of gentrification converge. As flooding, sea-level rise, saturated soils, and saltwater intrusion become increasingly urgent, the city must learn to live with wetness as a dynamic condition rather than treat it as an exception.

GOALS

Investigate Deptford Creek and Deptford High Street through historical, ecological, social, cultural, and infrastructural research;
Propose architectural interventions that reconcile environmental adaptation with cultural continuity, inclusive public life, and the layered identity of Southeast London;
Develop water-conscious design strategies that address flooding, ecological resilience, urban transformation, and coexistence between human and non-human communities.

OUTCOMES

Investigated social, political, cultural, and ecological factors affecting Deptford.
Designed a temporal, community-driven art studio with longevity and continuous urban influence.
Created adaptive ecological systems for non-human habitat restoration.

CONCEPT

Urban theorist Neil Smith, in The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City, extends this argument to urban planning, asserting that it has shifted away from serving communities toward facilitating “accumulation by dispossession."

Alongside David Harvey’s critiques of neoliberalism, we see how cities are increasingly shaped by the logic of capital rather than the needs of their inhabitants.

Despite these modern forces that shape our built environments, there is an infinitely profound power in the individual contributing to a collective artifact or project for the community rather than working only for their own gain.

The site houses a workshop and studio for local artists and craftspeople to design and develop their work. The primary program of the project functions as a space for the public, containing a long-term rotating artifact or urban installation where anyone can contribute a piece to the final product.

Initial Site Plan

10-Year Site Impact

Once the collective installation is deemed complete, it is transported to a site along the creek, where it will stand as an artifact encapsulating the collective experiences of the city, as a ‘keyframe’ in the city’s history.

BUILDING DRAWINGS

Ground Floor Plan Perspective

Floors 2, 3, & Roof

In addition to the public installation studio, private studios for the artists are located on the south building’s first and second floor. A small indoor gallery, archive, and café supplement the primary studio program by providing additional places of history, interaction, and leisure.

Building Sections (drawn in collaboration with Tianchi Zhao)

Urban Isometric, the Deptford Creek Walk

VIGNETTES

A selection of significant moments from the project and the surrounding site.

the collective installation studio
the streetside corner
the urban creek walk
the display terraces
the Deptford crossing
the creek infrastructure

TECHNICAL DRAWINGS

The choice of bricks as a major component of the project’s material language revolves around the rich tradition of brickmaking in London, particularly in the Deptford area. The primary producers, Forterra and LB Stock, play a crucial role in manufacturing bricks, which are then distributed to local suppliers in and around Deptford.

A large portion of the structural steel is sourced from the Metal Recycling Group in Silvertown and Cleveland Steel. Several case studies prove that the reused and recycled steel is suitable for buildings up to six stories in height, notably in Grosvenor’s Holbein Gardens project, which sourced 24 metric tons of steel from these sources.

PERPSECTIVES

The Public Art Studio, "Animal Activations" (drawn by Jason Prasetyono)

A comic-style drawing showcasing a potential installation series. In this series, the animals of and around Deptford Creek are crafted as sculptures. Each visitor is invited to build their own sculpture on-site, and their work becomes one of many that will eventually contribute to the artwork of the creekside and the city.

the display terraces
the installation studio
the streetside corner
the museum/archive
the private terraces
the Deptford crossing

Perspectives rendered by Tianchi Zhao

Over time, the creekside will become home to a collection of artifacts, each one a representation of a unique memory with the contributions of different people. Through the immersive and interactive spaces and objects they experience, each person contributes, over time, to moments of a collective memory.