[Music]
[Music]
hello I’m here to tell you about a
project that I founded constructed and
then ran in London and it’s a project
which was run on a shoestring which
means on very little resource it was a
huge miracle that it happened and it
came from the conviction that we were
missing something in the city and that
place um we could refer back to the
village well which was always a place
for meeting people where you came to get
water but in the city such places were
often lacking like where would we in
London say sit and meet people who live
completely different lives from us who
think completely differently and that
was um in a something of a of a tangle
because London is very busy buzzy place
there’s plenty of plate street life if
you like in certain areas and in these
boom areas there’s a sense of a real
city but um just down the road in
another neighborhood you’ll find that
it’s McDonald’s that is trying to be
that village well is trying to be the
place where you would have your
children’s birthday parties where you
would go out for the evening and that’s
that’s a world that’s quite flat it’s
quite standardised it’s quite
prepackaged it’s saying you know who you
know and you follow the drill we felt
that it was really important to have
other kinds of places in the city places
where you could share skills places
where there was some particular
paraty where you could make crazy stuff
where there was a kind of the confidence
that got built around and curiosity
around meeting people such that you
would grow to love strangers and look
for more and more of that diversity and
for children it was important to have a
place that wasn’t some spongy rubber
colored enclosures they need places
where they can invent their games they
need places where they can invent their
city and that’s why it’s such an honor
to be in Reggio Emilia where these ideas
were found in and now so famous
throughout education so in 2010 we had
the great opportunity to try out our
ideas to make them real by winning the
meanwhile London competition and the
only problem was is faced with the
reality of a large site which we had for
five years how would we to make these
kinds of paradise these images we had of
conviviality in the post-industrial city
in a place which was a place of
deprivation a place of fear and a place
of turf gang warfare well we looked at
the we looked into the future and it
looked quite hazy but um when we looked
up back into the history of architecture
we found a typology which was um
supported this kind of hybridity this
kind of diversity and was called the
caravanserai and the each caravanserai
was a place which had a kind of
confident look and was a place of refuge
in a hostile world it was a place where
you know had well for animals where
traders could get in the shade and trade
they could sleep and a local population
set up a hotel to host travelers with
money with trade
and we liked this robust in
architectural framework we felt that it
offered something that we needed for the
temporary City a place where in fact
every caravanserai passing through made
its own temporary city in the space and
the word caravanserai is is is a
difficult word it’s um it the difficulty
of saying caravanserai actually became
one of the strengths of the project
because it forced us to tell the stories
and to explain what we were doing to
invite people to participate on this
adventure caravan means the people who
are coming the animals the trade and
suraíh means in turkish the palace or
the palace fort the place where
everything can happen and people can
meet each other and trade
and actually we’ll pass the caravanserai
a number of times wondering what it was
you know I think I remember googling it
it was nice to see something different
come to you it was something that you
know kenick down hadn’t seen it was
music playing at one time star passed in
and had a look and it very nice
agricultural that was called caramel all
right it’s lovely me and just like my
eyes I think this is a very rough area
we went to the shop on we heard music he
started running my shaft out please just
waiting and it was here so he didn’t
came in and it’s raining and we were
just party all right it was this very
rare chance to play with a piece of
London and to experiment because there
is almost no experimentation going on in
city making we wanted this to be
something which was radically open where
the community was anyone on the site
I’m lucky to live around here and I like
to come here with my friends you know
and kind of play music it’s kind of like
a little Haven little oasis it’s a great
place to kind of chill with the plants
and stuff this is much much this is what
I’m the happiest amongst the green staff
there’s a lot of magic think seeing a
car once a time I think he’s the feeling
of our little family we thought why
don’t we have like 10 sarees we have a
hundred square meters of cupboard space
could we find a new material bringing
them into some translucent glass
reinforced plastic to create a fluid
highly decorated roofing material and
that was one of the fairy tales that
came out of this project we’ve kind of
invented a new material which could
change the way that factory sheds look
in the future I had found out about
competition they were holding four kiosk
space I got my space and
I spent that summer trading I mean first
of all building helping to build the
kiosk was one at my personal touches to
it I was busy working in my kiosk and
you know networking and liaison my
children were playing in the sand here
or water in the plants
now it’s a Kemp flower field people
sitting around planting music this is
like a mini United Nations of people a
perfect place to make friends
connections that one needs these nexus
of these these physical intersections an
intersection between the physical and
the conceptual and the spiritual as well
you need these hotels of caravanserai
Azure laboratories all these places
where where things can meet caravans
right does that in its visionary way
[Applause]
so we opened on a April Fool’s Day and I
think in Italy you know this that some
people make fish and and pin them on the
back of grown-ups well such things are a
wonderful way to open a project which
was very adventurous and foolish in its
own way and one of the things we did is
we made giant fish which we attached to
bicycles and had a race around the site
traditionally in the East End kings and
queens the pearly kings and queens not
the real ones come to open projects and
we were very honored we had a pearly
Queen come to open the caravanserai and
she hitched up her skirt and gone on the
bike and joined in it was a magic moment
and we needed these magic moments
because this site was a big challenge it
had no water no drainage they’d buried
the electrical connections we never had
electricity there was actually no money
very little just the stuff that we
funded and it’s not the place to tell
that story but it was something which
meant that we were always having to do
things differently here
um so we first of all we named the
project in big confident letters along
the front of the site and then we had a
lot of discussions we had a lot of
themes and different groups coming
together to think what did this space
need to be what was the content of of
this new kind of social space and we
made a model which we could take around
places in which people could play with
and move things around we we made a plan
eventually which was very useful for
getting licenses for planning for
getting funding for telling people all
the different things that were on the
site and then we had to build and we
wanted to build simply with the things
which we were donated so we had a pile
of bricks and
tried to build some big domes we were
fortunate enough because they’ve been a
lot of publicity around the project to
have volunteers who were quite
passionate about the project
architecture students unemployed people
just people who wanted to design or
people who wanted to build or people who
wanted to organize events and these
people always promoted the the project
to new volunteers and so there was a
kind of success within that scenario so
now I want to take you on a very
lightning tour through the site which
started with the the gates which were
something which had to again be
confident billboards which were quite
difficult to send about all the events
and eventually we made our second gate
the the gardening and the way that
people could take on a bit of this
garden and own it and and cultivate it
was a very important part of from the
setting so there were people coming to
watered attend to bring their kids to
play and this idea of mixing a place to
socialize with a playground doesn’t
always happen and it’s it’s really
important that children and adults can
play together there’s places to escape
from it all and in a kind of busy city
you need you need these quiet moments
everything could move so when there were
events we could pick up these micro
allotments and trees and change the
space people would find their corner
there were lots of groups coming around
to find out how what vegetables really
look like and eventually we found the
drainage and we were able to make
toilets which was amazing and we made
this kind of a discreet accessible
toilet with a baby change and in a very
romantic setting the food that was grown
was um able to be um
to need and and served in the the
trailer which allowed us to become a
proper cafe and the long table was able
to host feasts for a hundred people the
flying carpet theater and the trading
kiosks brought a little bit of color to
the site which really helped to lift
this very grey building site and became
a sort of backdrop for bands but the
rain was still with us and there were
times when events had to be canceled and
somehow we felt that we needed a big
space we needed a place to properly host
people so we set up an open call in a
competition and the idea was that you
had to be a man and a woman you had to
be an engineer and he had to be an
architect so these two skills and two
genders came together flinched is a word
in English which means that you have
wood and steel coming together to make a
stronger joint and the idea was to take
scrap material timber which should was
not deemed suitable for building and
somehow like a magpie bird put it
together so we gave a list a long list
of materials that we did have on site
and you were only able to build your
project with these materials and it was
fantastic success here it is finished in
the shadow of the South Gate and it had
a kind of magical urban barn character
and was able to host a lot of you know
fantastic discussions and theater um
then it was time to go and we wanted to
pick up the garden take all the good
things and the good relationships to
other places so we had an open call for
something we called parks on wheels and
again gave people a list of materials
that they could build with a lot of
inventive things came out of that there
was a fantastic concertina garden which
could go into the tube there was a
a lot of vertical gardens which were
taken on wheels to school yards in other
places so I feel that there needs to be
caravanserai everywhere and that this is
a missing piece in the city
infrastructure which one could argue was
just as valid as train stations or
supermarkets or football grounds a place
where new concepts of sociability can be
practiced and a place where ordinary
citizens can have a real impact on their
world thank you
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
hello I’m here to tell you about a
project that I founded constructed and
then ran in London and it’s a project
which was run on a shoestring which
means on very little resource it was a
huge miracle that it happened and it
came from the conviction that we were
missing something in the city and that
place um we could refer back to the
village well which was always a place
for meeting people where you came to get
water but in the city such places were
often lacking like where would we in
London say sit and meet people who live
completely different lives from us who
think completely differently and that
was um in a something of a of a tangle
because London is very busy buzzy place
there’s plenty of plate street life if
you like in certain areas and in these
boom areas there’s a sense of a real
city but um just down the road in
another neighborhood you’ll find that
it’s McDonald’s that is trying to be
that village well is trying to be the
place where you would have your
children’s birthday parties where you
would go out for the evening and that’s
that’s a world that’s quite flat it’s
quite standardised it’s quite
prepackaged it’s saying you know who you
know and you follow the drill we felt
that it was really important to have
other kinds of places in the city places
where you could share skills places
where there was some particular
paraty where you could make crazy stuff
where there was a kind of the confidence
that got built around and curiosity
around meeting people such that you
would grow to love strangers and look
for more and more of that diversity and
for children it was important to have a
place that wasn’t some spongy rubber
colored enclosures they need places
where they can invent their games they
need places where they can invent their
city and that’s why it’s such an honor
to be in Reggio Emilia where these ideas
were found in and now so famous
throughout education so in 2010 we had
the great opportunity to try out our
ideas to make them real by winning the
meanwhile London competition and the
only problem was is faced with the
reality of a large site which we had for
five years how would we to make these
kinds of paradise these images we had of
conviviality in the post-industrial city
in a place which was a place of
deprivation a place of fear and a place
of turf gang warfare well we looked at
the we looked into the future and it
looked quite hazy but um when we looked
up back into the history of architecture
we found a typology which was um
supported this kind of hybridity this
kind of diversity and was called the
caravanserai and the each caravanserai
was a place which had a kind of
confident look and was a place of refuge
in a hostile world it was a place where
you know had well for animals where
traders could get in the shade and trade
they could sleep and a local population
set up a hotel to host travelers with
money with trade
and we liked this robust in
architectural framework we felt that it
offered something that we needed for the
temporary City a place where in fact
every caravanserai passing through made
its own temporary city in the space and
the word caravanserai is is is a
difficult word it’s um it the difficulty
of saying caravanserai actually became
one of the strengths of the project
because it forced us to tell the stories
and to explain what we were doing to
invite people to participate on this
adventure caravan means the people who
are coming the animals the trade and
suraíh means in turkish the palace or
the palace fort the place where
everything can happen and people can
meet each other and trade
and actually we’ll pass the caravanserai
a number of times wondering what it was
you know I think I remember googling it
it was nice to see something different
come to you it was something that you
know kenick down hadn’t seen it was
music playing at one time star passed in
and had a look and it very nice
agricultural that was called caramel all
right it’s lovely me and just like my
eyes I think this is a very rough area
we went to the shop on we heard music he
started running my shaft out please just
waiting and it was here so he didn’t
came in and it’s raining and we were
just party all right it was this very
rare chance to play with a piece of
London and to experiment because there
is almost no experimentation going on in
city making we wanted this to be
something which was radically open where
the community was anyone on the site
I’m lucky to live around here and I like
to come here with my friends you know
and kind of play music it’s kind of like
a little Haven little oasis it’s a great
place to kind of chill with the plants
and stuff this is much much this is what
I’m the happiest amongst the green staff
there’s a lot of magic think seeing a
car once a time I think he’s the feeling
of our little family we thought why
don’t we have like 10 sarees we have a
hundred square meters of cupboard space
could we find a new material bringing
them into some translucent glass
reinforced plastic to create a fluid
highly decorated roofing material and
that was one of the fairy tales that
came out of this project we’ve kind of
invented a new material which could
change the way that factory sheds look
in the future I had found out about
competition they were holding four kiosk
space I got my space and
I spent that summer trading I mean first
of all building helping to build the
kiosk was one at my personal touches to
it I was busy working in my kiosk and
you know networking and liaison my
children were playing in the sand here
or water in the plants
now it’s a Kemp flower field people
sitting around planting music this is
like a mini United Nations of people a
perfect place to make friends
connections that one needs these nexus
of these these physical intersections an
intersection between the physical and
the conceptual and the spiritual as well
you need these hotels of caravanserai
Azure laboratories all these places
where where things can meet caravans
right does that in its visionary way
[Applause]
so we opened on a April Fool’s Day and I
think in Italy you know this that some
people make fish and and pin them on the
back of grown-ups well such things are a
wonderful way to open a project which
was very adventurous and foolish in its
own way and one of the things we did is
we made giant fish which we attached to
bicycles and had a race around the site
traditionally in the East End kings and
queens the pearly kings and queens not
the real ones come to open projects and
we were very honored we had a pearly
Queen come to open the caravanserai and
she hitched up her skirt and gone on the
bike and joined in it was a magic moment
and we needed these magic moments
because this site was a big challenge it
had no water no drainage they’d buried
the electrical connections we never had
electricity there was actually no money
very little just the stuff that we
funded and it’s not the place to tell
that story but it was something which
meant that we were always having to do
things differently here
um so we first of all we named the
project in big confident letters along
the front of the site and then we had a
lot of discussions we had a lot of
themes and different groups coming
together to think what did this space
need to be what was the content of of
this new kind of social space and we
made a model which we could take around
places in which people could play with
and move things around we we made a plan
eventually which was very useful for
getting licenses for planning for
getting funding for telling people all
the different things that were on the
site and then we had to build and we
wanted to build simply with the things
which we were donated so we had a pile
of bricks and
tried to build some big domes we were
fortunate enough because they’ve been a
lot of publicity around the project to
have volunteers who were quite
passionate about the project
architecture students unemployed people
just people who wanted to design or
people who wanted to build or people who
wanted to organize events and these
people always promoted the the project
to new volunteers and so there was a
kind of success within that scenario so
now I want to take you on a very
lightning tour through the site which
started with the the gates which were
something which had to again be
confident billboards which were quite
difficult to send about all the events
and eventually we made our second gate
the the gardening and the way that
people could take on a bit of this
garden and own it and and cultivate it
was a very important part of from the
setting so there were people coming to
watered attend to bring their kids to
play and this idea of mixing a place to
socialize with a playground doesn’t
always happen and it’s it’s really
important that children and adults can
play together there’s places to escape
from it all and in a kind of busy city
you need you need these quiet moments
everything could move so when there were
events we could pick up these micro
allotments and trees and change the
space people would find their corner
there were lots of groups coming around
to find out how what vegetables really
look like and eventually we found the
drainage and we were able to make
toilets which was amazing and we made
this kind of a discreet accessible
toilet with a baby change and in a very
romantic setting the food that was grown
was um able to be um
to need and and served in the the
trailer which allowed us to become a
proper cafe and the long table was able
to host feasts for a hundred people the
flying carpet theater and the trading
kiosks brought a little bit of color to
the site which really helped to lift
this very grey building site and became
a sort of backdrop for bands but the
rain was still with us and there were
times when events had to be canceled and
somehow we felt that we needed a big
space we needed a place to properly host
people so we set up an open call in a
competition and the idea was that you
had to be a man and a woman you had to
be an engineer and he had to be an
architect so these two skills and two
genders came together flinched is a word
in English which means that you have
wood and steel coming together to make a
stronger joint and the idea was to take
scrap material timber which should was
not deemed suitable for building and
somehow like a magpie bird put it
together so we gave a list a long list
of materials that we did have on site
and you were only able to build your
project with these materials and it was
fantastic success here it is finished in
the shadow of the South Gate and it had
a kind of magical urban barn character
and was able to host a lot of you know
fantastic discussions and theater um
then it was time to go and we wanted to
pick up the garden take all the good
things and the good relationships to
other places so we had an open call for
something we called parks on wheels and
again gave people a list of materials
that they could build with a lot of
inventive things came out of that there
was a fantastic concertina garden which
could go into the tube there was a
a lot of vertical gardens which were
taken on wheels to school yards in other
places so I feel that there needs to be
caravanserai everywhere and that this is
a missing piece in the city
infrastructure which one could argue was
just as valid as train stations or
supermarkets or football grounds a place
where new concepts of sociability can be
practiced and a place where ordinary
citizens can have a real impact on their
world thank you
[Music]
[Music]
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