PROJECT 1:// The Cockney Maternity Ward
(2012)
To be a true Londoner or, a Cockney, it is said that you must be born within the sound of the Bow Bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church. In 1850, this sound was recorded of travelling a span of what then was the majority of London. However, with the rise of motor cars and other sources of ambient noise, the reach of the bells sound has greatly diminished, and by 2008 (the latest recorded study) the sound barely travelled a mile.
It has diminished to such an extent that the area it encompasses is largely commercial and is out of the reach of any maternities, or hospitals for that matter. It is highly unlikely that any true Cockneys are born today.
The Cockney Maternity Ward looks to replenishing the pool of Cockneys and to what it means to be a Cockney.
The architecture takes the form of gluttony, as expressed in Cockaigne, a derivation of Cockney (as explored later in project two) constructed forms from a fixed and idyll perspective, with the consequences of obtuse forms later a spatial arrangement to program against.
