Arnold Circus

Second Place / Design Competition

Client: London Borough of Tower Hamlets &

            Friends of Arnold Circus
Location: Tower Hamlets

Date: 2009

Arnold Circus is a ‘constructed landscape’ forming a centerpiece to an early social housing quarter in Shoreditch. Unusual and distinct, this Victorian ‘mound’ was made from the remains of former slums and is now the heart of a varied community. It has the presence of an object in a contained space or a piece of furniture in a large room. This important local space is fondly regarded, and is animated by the active ‘Friends of Arnold Circus’, who garden and hold picnics and festival days.

We proposed a sensitive restoration of the Victorian elements combined with the introduction of new ‘furniture’ elements inspired by a juxtaposition of Victorian and Islamic sensibilities. These elements acknowledged incidental patterns of use and introduced moments of ‘domestic’-like intimacy. We worked with an artist to propose areas of tiled ‘inserts’, which could engage local volunteers in their making and grow into a new layer of meaning.