The London Festival of Architecture, which launched in 2004, is Europe's biggest annual architecture festival. It lasts a month and that month is June so it kicks off this week. I clicked through the map-based listings trying to find events that were a) open yesterday, b) interesting c) free d) accessible during a tube strike. And I started at the LFA hub.
New London Architecture at The London Centre
3 Aldermanbury, EC2V 7HH (Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5pm)
You may remember visiting the enormous model of London housed at NLA off Tottenham Court Road, the perfect plastic replica of inner London with all the potential new buildings highlighted. Well the good news is it's resurfaced in a giant room round the back of the Guildhall, indeed it's been there since 2023 and I'm just not terribly awake. You simply wander in, it's free, and not just in June but any time. The model stretches all the way from Wembley to Dagenham at 1:2000 scale, and is so detailed they've even got my balcony right. A slightly whiter shade shows what developments like Earl's Court and Barking Riverside might end up looking like (although Gallions Reach is very out of date and misses a lot of what's already there).
Across the room is the City of London model, this at 1:500 scale, with highly detailed illuminated models of all the buildings erected after 1980. It's ideal for architects trying to imagine how a new skyscraper might fit into the City and also an interesting focus for a school trip, You'll know all this if you've ever been to see it, and the good news is you can go and see it again. Go this month and there's also this...
Back in February TfL launched a trial of a new bus shelter design, indeed two designs, at 27 locations, But they haven't really said a lot about it, except in a rather wordy press release, whereas this explains more deeply including a table of handle-able materials. Pick up samples of the dark grey, red and wooden seating, also feel the difference between the refurbished metalwork in the type A shelters and the new stainless steel frames in type B. Also if you shine your phone light at the new red retroreflective roof material you can see how it's designed to reflect vehicle lights better at night.
The high level of interesting detail is because this display is presented not by TfL but their design partner Trueform. Did you know for example that the rounded roof is a deliberate echo of the New Routemaster bus, or that bus shelter glass is normally 6mm thick but here they're trialling 8mm? Annoyingly the one thing not on display is an actual bus shelter, this because it's only a teensy display and there wouldn't be room, but there is a list on the wall of where the nearest examples are (none of them especially near). It won't keep you more than a few minutes but if anyone's target audience for this kind of thing you lot are.
Some LFA 'events' appear to be projects that were happening anyway and just happen to be launching in June. In this case that's a line of 21 granite blocks stretched along one edge of St Paul's Cathedral's yard, essentially providing a fresh bank of seating for tourists and lingerers alike. What's special about the blocks is that they all used to be part of the Thames Embankment built in the 1870s by Joseph Bazalgette, then had to be removed in 2020 for the construction of London's newest deep sewer. Sustainability ensured a local reuse was sought, because why bring in new benches when salvaged granite is available literally down the road?
Additional work was required to cut out notches suitable for sitting, and not even the off-cuts were wasted because they were crushed to make the 3D-printed information board alongside. I don't think that part's finished yet because on my visit an important-looking stump was being sponged down by workmen in hi-vis. Also two official City types were dashing up and down the row measuring the larger gaps with a tape measure - twice, so it must have been important. Meanwhile several tourists plonked down on the granite and consumed the fish and chips or ice cream they'd just bought from the foodtrucks alongside, unaware that last month they'd have been crouching on the ground.
I only know the backstory because I stumbled upon a temporary pavilion explaining the project round the other side of the cathedral. This looks much more LFA, an ephemeral aluminium frame with flappy flags and information boards, also gabion feet containing 12 stones you're supposed to search for. A lot of effort's been put into creating a learning experience only for every passer-by I saw to completely ignore it, also this is inexplicably 160m away from the project it describes. However you can pick up a special If Stone Could Speak map from the neighbouring City Information Centre and maybe go on a proper geological circuit to see specific rocks in situ (digital map and programme of events here).
They love a pavilion at the LFA - useful, temporary and an opportunity for the designers to show off. This one's at Citypoint Plaza off Moorgate, essentially two wooden sheds and a mini bandstand with plenty of seating. The blurb describes them as "bespoke pavilions", "places to pause", "a vibrant destination" and "a bold playful setting", which is why you should never read the blurb. They're also "painted in the Brookfield Properties Activated colour palette" because sponsors insist on getting their moneysworth. Any other day they'd have been a lovely place to sit and wolf down a bowl of protein slop, but on the wettest day of the year the lack of roof had left surfaces splattered and rather less alluring.
Finally to a street corner close to Petticoat Lane, just outside the collectively right-on Colombian Coffee Company. Here on a former bike park the team from OUT Architects has designed a bench in the form of the circular stain left by a coffee cup because why not. A nice idea, negated only perhaps by the fact lunchtime was in full flow, the streets were abuzz with lunchbuyers and the bench was entirely empty. Apparently it's "a temporary pocket park" but "will remain in place after the festival", so make of that what you will. Whatever, don't feel the need to go see what I saw, why not delve into the programme for yourself and see if you can dig out an architectural gemortwo from the surrounding noise.
One Hour at Gallions Reach An apparently pointless excursion to somewhere on the edge of London, which turns out to reveal fascinating details about urban development and retail parks.
estuarine Gallions Reach isn't on the edge of London, merely at the far end of the Royal Docks, but it is unexpectedly remote for Newham and I did spend exactly an hour there. Officially Gallions Reach is the straight-ish mile of the Thames Estuary between Woolwich and Thamesmead but the name has been adopted mainly by the land to the west, especially since the DLR opened a station here in 1994. Things were very quiet round here then, mostly brownfield where docks and gasworks used to be, but with every subsequent block of flats a sense of artificial gravity has intensified. I'm not a fan.
disconnect
The fringes of Beckton were the ideal spot to hide essential infrastructure nobody would want to live near, most notably a gasworks and a sewage works, thus if you do choose to live here it's a long way to anywhere. But as the housing crisis has intensified it's become worthwhile building stacks of flats even here, that is once the ground's been suitably remediated, and future pressure ensures there's a heck of a lot more to come. An hour-long wander thus means exploring a peculiar mix of vernacular brick and dereliction, also if you've not been back for a few years gasping at the pace of change. Half an hour to the City by train, 40 minutes to North Greenwich by bus.
roundabout
The Gallions roundabout is a Ballardian circuit funnelling vehicles through to arterials and river crossings elsewhere. The DLR curves round on an intrusive viaduct, the station an annoying 50+ steps up, below which developers have recently created a sparse grey piazza called Silley Weir Promenade. That postmodern rotunda in the centre of the roundabout is the Gallions Surface Water Pumping Station, a reminder that the Thames would like to intrude on this land occasionally and that people only live here because we successfully keep the water out. For now at least.
remnant
All the action here used to be on the university side in what's technically Cyprus, while to the east were depots, contaminated land and a stripe of dockside development. But if you thread through the new flats there is one genuine Victorian leftover, a former hotel built for P&O passengers preparing to board liners berthed at the Royal Albert Docks. It's since been rebranded as a bar called Galyons, not a poncy nominal variant but the original name of the medieval family who lived out here on the remote marshes in the 14th century. All burgers come with rainbow slaw, every cocktail's £12.50.
upthrust
The new tranche of flats stretches from the DLR station to the estuary, a grid of bricky blocks with entryphones and occasionally interesting indentations. Construction is almost complete with just one wedge by the riverside remaining behind metal barriers. The resulting patchwork has all the sparkle of Barking Riverside, which is not meant as a compliment. Buildings rise gently in height towards the Thames where you pay extra for views of grey water, incoming planes and Thamesmead. Hats off to the developers for slotting an incredible number of tiny playgrounds almost everywhere, although older children are stuffed because the only garden large enough for ballsports has been deliberately landscaped with rolling humps.
private
The more you walk around the more you see the restriction signs and warning messages. ANPR & CCTV recording in operation. All dogs to be kept on leads. Cyclists must dismount before crossing walkway. Permit holders only. By remaining on this land you agree to abide by all the terms and conditions. That's because Gallions Reach is one of those new London suburbs where the public realm is privately managed and inherently sterile, part of the insidious creep of pseudo-public space beholden to unseen leaseholders. It's by no means unique, merely a modern exemplar, but if you live somewhere older without inbuilt coercion then count yourself lucky.
commercial
When you're this far from anywhere, the local retail offering is important. Hence there are now brief parades near the station, or rather rows of ground floor units nobody gets to live in because the risk of flooding is too high. First to open was a blue Co-op, and ridiculously across the street there's now a green Co-op with pretty much the same special offers pasted up outside (the currently independent Southern variant). Elsewhere it's mainly beauty, wellness and refreshment, from nails to Starbucks, pilates to desserts and haircuts to Mr Todiwala's culinary masterclass. Nothing about New Gallions Wharf says destination, merely local and inward-looking.
connect
Had road planners got their way the Gallions Reach Crossing would by now launch off towards Thamesmead, but funding never materialised and the latest consensus is it'll never be built so all the safeguarded land might as well be released for housing. A fresh DLR link is thus planned with a station where nobody (yet) lives, a fair hike north up Armada Way. I was slightly concerned to see the site's just been sealed off (Danger! Contaminated Ground! PPE mandatory!), given I've once sat where a man in a protective hazmat suit was prodding the ground. Incidentally the new DLR rolling stock withdrawn from public service seven months ago is still sitting there mid-depot, at least six strong, with no phased reintroduction expected before "late summer".
expansion
Beckton Gasworks was once so derelict that Stanley Kubrick filmed much of Full Metal Jacket here. A vast swathe is still sealed off forty years later, too contaminated for anything other than prohibited scrubby undergrowth, but all now pencilled in for the first stage of the Beckton Riverside development. Phase 1 will bring 2900 much-needed new homes, but also the same vacuous sterile grid ofskyhutches chronicled earlier in today's post. Expect no joy and no pizazz, merely bogstandard people-packing and a pitiful ceiling of 6% affordable housing because the cost of remediation is so high.
retail
The Gallions Reach Shopping Park opened in 2003 at the arse end of nowhere, sandwiched between ex-Gas and Sewage, but also readily accessible by car from the North Circular and A13. It's thus mostly car park with a rim of massive retail sheds from Puregym round to a mega-Tesco, though now with empty shells where WH Smith and River Island used to be. Streetfood kiosks provide diverting refreshment, even on a Monday morning, and a menagerie of bronze animals helps keep tinier visitors engaged. The ultimate plan is for this to evolve into Beckton Riverside's town centre, which I guess is bad news for everyone who currently shops here, but at current glacial pace it'll be a heck of a long time before Matalan ends up as flats.
Fri 1: To celebrate May Day, and to make the most of the glorious weather, I went for a 10 mile walk up the Chess Valley from Rickmansworth to Chesham. Along the way I passed 16 dogs, 19 horses, 2 cows, 68 butterflies, 8 birds of prey, 5 bluebell woods and 71 people, 13 of whom said hello. Highly recommended.
Sat 2: I have once again managed to ride all the TfL buses in the space of a calendar year, in this case 4 months. My last two buses were the frustratingly infrequent 399 and the Lakeside-bound 372. This is the sixth time I've achieved this feat, the quickest being 2023 when I had the whole lot ticked off by the end of January. Sun 3: Went to the South Bank because it was the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Festival of Britain. However the Royal Festival Hall was entirely closed to casual visitors having been turned into a massive artsy walkthrough experience called You Are Here, co-directed by Danny Boyle, ticket price £45. The outside section included a soul band, jazz trumpeters and a fog slalom, and the interior a lot of performative dancing. It certainly wasn't the inclusive celebration the original FoB had been, and I haven't seen one good review. [Highlights now on iPlayer] Mon 4: Another daily game that might suck you in is Clues by Sam, a grid of 20 suspects where you have to decide (by logic alone) who's innocent and who's a criminal. [Nancy is one of Sue's 3 innocent neighbors] Grids get harder during the week, so Sunday's a lot harder than Monday.
Tue 5:Swanley Mini Mart has the most unnerving selection of liquids on its exterior vinyl... Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, bottled water... vegetable oil... Fairy Liquid, Domestos. Wed 6: Hats off to the dog in Richmond who waited until he was right outside David Attenborough's house before squatting and doing a dump on the pavement. Thu 7: I managed to complete the Guardian's 30,000th crossword, and spotted the hidden clues directing solvers to the perimeter of today's Quick Crossword, and solved the nina directing solvers to today's editorial, and spotted the acrostic message referencing the last 35 primes. However I did not check the bottom row of every prime numbered crossword grid published since January 2025 to discover the final message heralding a special crossword published at noon. Hats off to an incredible creative tour de force. Fri 8:Bexley Country Market takes place every Friday morning in Freemantle Hall, a cosy circuit with tables of jams, glassware, candles, twee clocks, homemade greetings cards and unusual knitted things, almost like being in a provincial village rather than Greater London.
Sat 9: The police have started doing regular speed checks at Bus Stop M, hoping to catch cars speeding up just before the limit rises from 20 to 30 at the Bow Flyover. I've spotted their snoopy lenses at least half a dozen times this month. Sun 10: Another daily game for you - dailymetro.live is yet another variant on 'guess the tube station'. The full archive is available to play. Mon 11: I unfollowed someone on social media who used to be interesting but has become a relentless hypercritical doomsayer and my timeline is much happier as a result. I have my eye on two further accounts that are alas heading the same way. Tue 12: Yesterday I walked across Ponders End Park. Today I walked over the top of Riddlesdown. Landscapewise south London beats north London hands down.
Wed 13: Zack Polanski liked one of my tweets today, which is often the kind of thing that gets him into deep trouble. Thu 14: A squirrel turned up on my balcony, dug up a monkey nut and sat there brazenly watching me while chewing it. Fri 15: Tom Edwards has made a 4 minute piece for BBC London called 'Does Anyone Actually Use London’s Cable Car?', including mention of its alternative title, and blimey it's had 200,000 views on YouTube. Thanks Tom! Sat 16: I read in Tower Hamlets Slice that the stables at Bow Police station have permanently closed and the 10 horses have been retired, redeployed, or rehomed. This is part of significant budget cuts to the Met's mounted division and ends 80 years of local service. The stables are "pure Moderne in white concrete" and Grade II listed so will be hard to repurpose. On the positive side, no more brown dollops down Bow Road on match days.
Sun 17: I made the mistake of coming home via Hackney Wick and emerged into the mania of the aftermath of the Hackney Half Marathon, the streets clogged with sweaty folk 'rehydrating', also no buses for hours so I had to walk home. Mon 18: Over the next two months the Radio 4 Sunday afternoon quiz slot will be filled by pilot episodes of potential new quiz series. Tonight I went along to the recording of one of them in a really tiny venue, squished in and watched the bare bones of how radio is made. I was impressed by the host's quick wit and if the show is commissioned I'll be well chuffed to have seen the first one. [31 May & 7 June Bookmarks (with Claire Balding), 14 & 21 June Déjà News (with Lucy Porter), 28 June & 5 July Your Number's Up (with Max Fosh), 12 & 19 July Around the World in 80 Ways (with Simon Reeve)] Tue 19: At Waterloo station they were giving away free Ginsters pastries which you're supposed to put in a toaster before eating. Obviously nobody has a toaster nearby at 9.30am, and most workplaces outlaw them as a fire risk, so I wonder how many other people wolfed theirs down cold too? Wed 20: I have once again managed to visit every London station in a calendar year, in this case 4½ months. Specifically I either touched in or out at every station in zones 1-9, I didn't just pass through. There are more than 600 altogether. My last three stations were Tadworth, Chipstead and Thames Ditton. This is the second time I've achieved this feat, and four weeks quicker than last year.
Thu 21: It's been over two months since scaffolding went up across the front of Bromley-by-Bow station prior to repairing the smashed glass roundel, but only this week has someone been up and taken all the glass out. It's now fully boarded-up and looks worse than before. Fri 22: It's British Sandwich Week, the theme this year 'Seven Days, Seven Sandwiches', and I don't think there's a single concoction on the list anyone from the 20th century would recognise as a sandwich. (folded pinsa bread with a twist, anyone?) Sat 23: Riding the seriously unbusy Liberty line between Upminster and Romford, I shared the back carriage with a uniformed member of staff who seemingly just shuttles back and forth all day doing bugger all. (n.b. they may not actually stare at their phone all day, but it certainly looked like it) Sun 24: I've had a Mr Daydream glass tumbler since I was a child, regularly used. Today I filled it with lemon squash, gulped down to cool off, rested it slightly too near the edge of a table and smash, it ended up in sharp pieces on the carpet. Look after your heirlooms, folks.
Mon 25: I think I was the only person at the Dorset seaside wearing jeans, or indeed any kind of long trousers. Tue 26: On today's walk I listened to Equus, a horse-stabbing play by Peter Shaffer first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1980. I can't believe my English teacher let me read it, review it and submit an essay about it for my O Level. [The play's currently being performed at the Menier Chocolate Factory] Wed 27: I know I said I wasn't going to carry on doing this but...
Enf
25
Harr
25
Barn
25
Hari
25
WFor
25
Hill
25
Eal
25
Bren
25
Cam
33
Isl
33
Hack
25
Redb
25
Hav
25
Hou
25
H&F
25
K&C
25
West
33
City
43
Tow
144
New
139
B&D
25
Rich
25
Wan
25
Lam
33
Sou
33
Lew
25
Grn
25
Bex
25
King
25
Mer
25
Cro
25
Bro
25
Sut
25
Thu 28: Walking through the Olympic Park I heard the sound of whistles, then spotted outrider motorbikes stopping the traffic so a Landrover Discovery with tinted windows could slip safely through. Living on Bow Road this kind of thing happens quite a lot, and I often end up wondering who it is I haven't seen. Fri 29: I worry that the unprecedented May heatwave has borked the innards of my stash of Creme Eggs. Usually you can count on getting to the Best Before Date on 31st July before the yolk solidifies. Sat 30: Arrived at Heathrow to find the Piccadilly line closed for engineering works and Crossrail closed due to flooding. The bus station was a grim scrum of folk with heavy suitcases trying to pile onto double deckers to escape, and goodness knows how many people missed flights because they were trying to find a way in.
Sun 31: I dropped by the Arsenal victoryparaderoute but six hours before the bus arrived. Nevertheless the street was already busy with milling fans in red shirts, also dubious persons selling red hats, red scarves, red flags and red vuvuzelas, also excitable fans pouring off the trains in enormous numbers, and this was just the advance guard. I don't know how they filled the intervening hours, nor how those setting off from the outer suburbs three hours later ever got close enough to find a space, and all for just 90 seconds of top deck waving. Sun 31: My post on London's Free Roof Terraces hit Hacker News today so in piled the Americans, making it the 4th busiest day ever on this blog.
