Re-imagining Holland Park Mews
How could we stimulate the rise of a new city, where common spaces are a tool and the place for living in community? Trying to answer this question, the proposal is focused on the re-imagination of the Holland Park Mews, in London.
The intervention on the space is basically the insertion of MOBILE PARKS (hardware), which APPROPRIATION and ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE (software) are delegated to the residents. The community itself will decide how to use, appropriate, transform and manage the mobile parks.
The mobile parks have the role of making visible the outdoor spaces and stimulating the residents to stay outside and interact with each other, strengthening the sense of community and belonging, and also giving new life to their space. The design permits a wide range of collective activities and offers environmental, urban and social OPPORTUNITIES. The mobile parks may be used for gardening, urban agriculture, children’s play area, or simply a place to stand, sit, look around, talk and interact.
It’s proposed a shift from MINE to OUR, from MY CAR/FRONT GARDEN to OUR MOBILE PARK. The way that the mobile parks are moved, managed and maintained is a community deal, monitored by an elected manager. For example, the mobile parks may move every week or month from one’s home to the next one and so does the responsibility of maintenance, while the use of the park is always open to the whole community. The financial maintenance may be done with resident’s donations or community resources gathered by selling goods as vegetables grown on the mobile parks.
The mobile parks are designed as a temporary intervention. They may stimulate the construction of permanent pocket parks. They may also move around London, re-imagining other spaces in different ways of CO-PRODUCING the city.
Eduardo Pimentel Pizarro is a young architect (University of São Paulo) who studies informal settlements in Brazil, where common spaces are quite live and stimulating environments. His role was designing the mobile parks based on the rich opportunities that common spaces may take, regarding design, management and community interaction.
Professor Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves was the tutor for this design, focusing on the environmental aspects of the proposal. Joana is Professor of Environmental Design at the University of Sao Paulo, and Visiting Professor at the Architectural Association Graduate School and the University of Westminster.
