SPACE GAP - London Design Festival 2018

The local economy

The pavilion is designed to engage the public and form a stage for debate. It makes visible stories that represent the Space Gap. Each element of the pavilion describes a piece of the socio-economic picture and confronts the audience with the unequal distribution of space present in London and laid bare before them. Space Gap was appropriately sited on a street in Kensington: a place with high levels of overcrowding and under-occupation, situated only a mile away from the Grenfell Tower. It is an area with one the greatest disparities of wealth of any place in the UK. The pavilion played host to three panel discussions, each followed by a series of film screenings showing films related to the issues at hand. Panel Discussion 1: The Policy Gap: Wednesday 19th September With the government having described the housing market as ‘broken’ and the private market struggling to meet current housing needs, what role should the public sector and its policies play in fixing it? This panel discussed the role of policy in tackling the housing crisis, including the constraints and opportunities it brings. Speakers included: Louise Wyman - Head of Strategy, Homes England, Cat Drew - Us Creates, John Bibby - Policy Manager, Shelter, Chair: Tom Copley, London Assembly. Panel Discussion 2: The Design Gap: Thursday 20th September With the design of our cities generally imposed upon, rather than specifically chosen by, its end users, what responsibility do designers have to protect their interests and how able are they to act? The panel discussed the role of design and the designer in tackling the housing crisis. Speakers included: Alice Brownfield - Associate Director, Peter Barber Architects, Geoff Denton - Partner, White Arkitekter, Ed Thomas - Insight Lead, The Collective, Chair: Heinz Richardson - Director, Jestico + Whiles. Panel Discussion 3: The Space Gap: Friday 21st September A link to a film of the talk can be found here: www.unknown.works/spacegap The panel discussed fundamental questions such as: who has the right to space in the city? How do we deal with the disparity of space allocation in the future? Speakers included: Patrik Schumacher - Principal, Zaha Hadid Architects, Alastair Parvin - CEO, Open Systems Lab, Tom Copley - London Assembly, Cllr. Aarien-Uday Areti - Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Chair: Christine Murray - Writer, critic, former Editor-in-chief of The Architectural Review and the Architects' Journal, Founder of the Women in Architecture Awards.

Arts, culture & heritage

Space Gap by Unknown Works in collaboration with Hildrey Studio explores the disparity of space allocation in London. A take on the ‘wealth gap’, the project seeks to address the social divide created by the current housing crisis. For the London Design Festival 2018 from 19th - 22nd September, Space Gap manifested as a pavilion and events programme where design and social issues, ranging from homelessness to ghost mansions, were addressed through talks, debates, film screenings and in the immersive design of the pavilion itself. The project takes a holistic view of this complex debate. By raising awareness, the project asks fundamental questions in order to find sustainable solutions; the foremost being - ‘Who has the right to space in the city?’ Space Gap is a self initiated project by newly formed London and Hong Kong based creative studio, Unknown Works who designed and made the pavilion. The extensive event programme and funding for the project were developed in collaboration with London based, Hildrey Studio. Set in front of Kensington Olympia, the pavilion formed the gateway installation to 100% Design as part of the newly created West Kensington Design District for LDF18. The project was made possible through the generosity of those who pledged as part of a successful crowdfunding campaign, the generous support of Origin Housing - one of London’s medium sized housing associations and Arts Council England through a Lottery Arts Council Grant. The pavilion is an open forum, set within a three dimensional spatial diagram formed from scaled representations taken from true stories of inhabitation found throughout London compared against existing space standards. It is both a representation and commentary on the absurd division of space allocation in London. It lays bare the appalling contrast in size, quality and density of occupation between the largest of homes and the smallest of spaces that people are forced to endure. The pavilion hosted panel discussions addressing the specific role of Policy, Design and rights to space in the city. The discussions were following by a curated selection of film screenings made by a number of emerging filmmakers tackling a spectrum of issues related to the Space Gap. The panel discussions proved fascinating and engaging, bringing together the expertise of individuals across various fields. These included Cat Drew (UsCreates), Louise Wyman (Homes England), John Bibby (Shelter), Alice Brownfield (Peter Barber Architects), Heinz Richardson (Jestico & Whiles), Ed Thomas (The Collective) and Geoff Denton (White Arkitekter). Highlights of the programme included a lively interaction between Patrik Schumacher (Principle of Zaha Hadid Architects), Cllr. Aarien-Uday Areti (Councillor from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea), Alastair Parvin, (CEO of Open Systems Lab) and Tom Copley (GLA assembly member). As chair, Christine Murray, (Former Editor-in-chief of The Architectural Review and the Architects' Journal, Founder of the Women in Architecture Awards), mediated between starkly different attitudes to the problem. Schumacher’s opinion that, “there are too many supply restrictions and planning is a huge problem...rules are killing choices”, alluded to a liberal approach to planning restrictions that were contrasted with Copley’s more fundamental statements, “housing is a human right, and fundamental to not only existing but living”. During the same discussion, Parvin’s rhetoric called for a broader look at the whole system: “The inflated value is in the ground beneath us… One of the great questions of society is how do you resocialise that value?... We are moving from a world in which we believe that urban development is something done to people by the market or the state… a future, where if we can bring down the cost of production, we can democratise the power of production to a greater extent...you can then start to say, we are going to give you the power to build cities for yourself.” Link to the film of the discussion can be found here: www.unknown.works/spacegap Credits: Space Gap by Unknown Works in collaboration with Hildrey Studio Pavilion design & build: Unknown Works Events Programme: Unknown Works and Hildrey Studio Crowdfunding: Unknown Works Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant: Hildrey Studio Structural overview: Structuremode Funding: Origin Housing, Arts Council England, crowdfunding