A self-guided tour through the heart of an operational power station? Don't mind if I do. SELCHP stands for South East London Combined Heat and Power, and is a waste incineration plant tucked into the railwaylands west of Deptford. You've probably seen it from the train on the way out of London Bridge, a large industrial shed with a thin chimney rising forth - it's been tucked in opposite The Den since 1994. But I've actually been inside as part of an Open Day timed for Open House, and organised with a particular eye on enticing local residents to learn more about their neighbour. Hard hat on and goggles poised I was directed off towards the steam turbine and generator, technically the end of the process, then followed a maze of walkways and landings to the hoppers where rubbish is tipped into the belly of the machine. SELCHP was set up by three councils keen to curb their reliance on landfill, and now creates enough electricity to power 48000 homes. From the main control room we peered down into the gargantuan bunker where binbags and rags and smelly shreds accumulate, and a grinning five year-old girl was shown how to operate the giant grabber as if this were an oversized amusement arcade. The whiff worsened on the other side of the door, where each measured dose of clutched organics is dropped into the incineration grate. Yes it's fine, nodded the security guard from behind his ear protectors, go ahead and lower the handle and peer inside the furnace to watch the raging flames. From here the steam heads upwards to be treated to remove toxins, and to create the electricity, while the solid residue is cooled and sorted and shaken and dumped in ashen piles at the end. It was eerie wandering through the industrial passageways like some kind of Crystal Maze contestant, but also hugely educational concerning the process that takes place within, which was of course the intention. If you have small children to entertain and this Open Day runs again next year, which I suspect it will, you'll enjoy learning where your power comes from, and where your rubbish goes.
101 Lower Thames Street is an unprepossessing City office block with an astonishing relic in its basement. First uncovered in 1848 when the Coal Exchange was being built, the remains of this 2nd century dwelling were swiftly recognised as something special and became one of Britain's first scheduled ancient monuments. Now under the care of the Museum of London, there's not much to see at what's now ground level. But follow the staircase down from the lobby and you'll enter a long low chamber left undeveloped when the 60s office block was plonked on top, save for a few concrete supports drilled down where they'd do least damage. First up are the foundations of what would have been a riverside house, back when the Thames was wider than it is now, most probably used by visitors to Londinium as the equivalent of a cheap hotel. The remains of the central heating system can still be seen, along with some extensive but crumbly-looking walls, hence visitors walk around the top on metal gangways. Better preserved, hence more impressive, are the remains of a 3rd century bolt-on bathhouse. Its shape is somewhat phallic, sorry to be frank, with one larger rectangular cold room and two smaller warm and hot rooms on opposite sides at the far end. An impressive number of towers of tiles remain in the warm room, plus several of the flagstones laid on top where decades of sweaty feet would have trodden. Curators were on hand to explain what we were seeing, but there was a touch of conveyor belt about visitor throughflow given the size of the queue waiting outside. If you missed out, or if you'd prefer longer to stare in better-informed conditions, 45 minute tours can be booked (for £8) at weekends between now and the middle of December. [3 photos]
Yes, another one, although this antiquity up a sidestreet behind Aldwych station is a misnomer. A single plunge pool, curved at one end and rectangular at the other, this brick-lined cistern is of sufficient size to squeeze in a football team, in some discomfort, but not much more. It's thought to date back to 1612, at least a millennium after the decline of Empire, and started its life feeding a nearby fountain before being transformed into a public bathing facility. Even David Copperfield came to Strand Lane for a dip, or would have done had he been less Dickensian. A century ago, with memory of its origins lost, a local rector convinced himself and others it was Roman, and the bath became a public curiosity. Now under the care of the National Trust and Westminster Council it's seen little love, and lingers on in a musty chamber off a locked passageway up a dead end lane. Worth a brief look, but if all you do is peer through the window you've not missed much.
The City of London supports 110 livery companies, of which the first twelve are the most important, of which the Salters come in at number 9. They made their money when food preservation was at its most basic, and mined salt particularly expensive, before branching out later into the wider chemical trade. These days they're mostly a charitable concern, and a bastion of tradition, and are somewhat unexpectedly based in a Brutalist livery hall close to London Wall. This is the building's sixth incarnation, the fifth having been destroyed in the Blitz, and was designed by Sir Basil Spence (of Coventry Cathedral fame). A crystallineconfection in hand-chipped concrete, it was opened in 1976 and for the last ten has been undergoing a refit, which is why it's not been open for Open House before. One of the architects showed us round, which is always a good sign, and generally means a longer more in-depth tour. Unusually the company's main hall is on the top floor, perched on top of five floors of office space (which are being leased out to the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music). Spence's contemporary wood-panelling has been retained, overseen by an anachronistic Buglers' Gallery and a 'Ladies Dining Room' that's no longer single sex. A whopping great big salt crystal, mined in Cheshire, has pride of place in the hallway outside, and even the lights dangling in the stairwell have ornate salty shades. 2016's main addition is a lofty glass-roofed entrance lobby, sympathetically attached and facing the new Barbican-Guildhall pedestrian axis. "And if you look up there," said the architect at the end of our hour, "you'll see a new pedway under construction." New pedway? Fantastic, and all the better to see Salters' Hall from. [4 photos]
The UK's BestModern Church is in Bow, according to the National Churches Trust and Ecclesiastical Surveyors and Architects Association. Built between 1958 and 1960, and designed by two 20 year-olds, it replaced a Victorian church destroyed in the Blitz with something that looks more like a squared-off shopping mall than a place of worship. But St Paul's exterior gives little away, and only stepping inside past the mercurial font reveals the striking use of space. The altar is positioned centrally beneath a pyramidal lantern, placing the congregation in the round rather than as a body to be preached at. Most impressive is the ring of mosaics around the upper rim - The Heavenly Host - a chain of ten blue-green angels with an elemental creature in each corner. Each Venetian tile was individually placed over a five year period by the artist Charles Lutyens, grandson of Sir Edwin, displaying an astonishing level of dedication to a single work. The overall interior effect feels somehow more Catholic than Anglican, but this is a high church establishment, the architecture springing from the wishes of the post-war congregation. What's more the modern day bunch are more than welcoming, with a better website than most, and a 347 page downloadable illustrated guide to their building's unique heritage should a quick video not suffice. [4 photos]
A patch of land off Poplar High Street overlooking the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel ought not to be desirable real estate, not least because of the noise. The site was cleared by the GLC in the mid-Sixties and the challenge of rebuilding offered to the architects Alison and Peter Smithson. They adopted a novel approach, designing two long lowconcrete blocks with a large open space between, the taller eastern block forming a barrier to blot out the sound of the traffic. They also embraced the concept of the street in the sky, as at the contemporary Balfron Tower a few streets to the north. The end result is one of the most famous Brutalist council estates, much admired by those with a bent for architecture. But the scheme was never listed, and while the first residents in 1972 loved the place the latest residents aren't as keen, and so in a few months time its demolition begins.
Robin Hood Gardens looks nothing like any of the other housing in the area, more like a pair of gargantuan walls with windows, softened greatly by the contoured landscape inbetween. The older kids have a kickabout space at one end, probably not original, while the central grass and trees and mound don't see the toddler footfall they once did. A community centre of sorts lurks in one corner while I assume the vanful of police positioned in the road outside was a random weekend thing rather than a permanent presence. And although the estate's wide open, should you want to take a look, the walkways were sealed off some time back to help prevent vandalism and crime, so it was only thanks to a photography project (and Open House) that any of us got inside. I'd better not tell you how we unlocked the door.
The lifts aren't lovely, and the stairs not much better. They wind round a narrow stairwell with crumbling treads and poor sightlines, so were once places of fear, and the exits aren't exactly obvious either. The lowest elevated passageway comes at floor two, then five, then eight, due to the Trellick-like way the flats have been crammed in. Tenants live on two floors, alternating upwards then downwards from the front doors along each 'street'. These looked safe and homely over the weekend, with bikes and plants and even an exercise bike enlivening the alcoves, plus extended families wandering back with shopping and querulously eyeing up the middle class invaders.
Stepping inside your flat the hall's not enormous but the kitchen's large, that is assuming you want to use the space for cooking rather than dining. Most of everything else is upstairs (or downstairs, depending), in this case with four bedrooms and a living room leading off a labyrinthine landing. The whole set-up felt a little compact, although dimensions were in excess of the minimum standards laid down at the time, and the disrepair in the empty flat we got to view won't have helped. But there was a balcony, if you can call a ledge no more than one person deep running along the front of the flat a balcony, this doubling up as a fire exit in case of the unthinkable.
Having visited both the Balfron and Trellick Towers courtesy of Open House in previous years, there were a number of similarities to the feel of the place. But the flats at Robin Hood Gardens were perhaps a little less brutal, and with added layers of design, such as the way all the kitchens faced out over the central park so that Sixties mothers could watch over their Sixties kids while cooking. This was the only social housing that the Smithsons ever built, even though they entered every municipal competition going, and the 20th Century Society have used this and several other mitigating reasons to try to get the building listed. But there are better examples elsewhere, the argument goes, and a lack of care means that the structure is economically past the point of saving.
What happens next is Blackwall Reach. This multi-stageproject is a joint venture between Tower Hamlets and a housing group, and phase 1 beside the East India Dock Road is already complete. This has allowed the council to move everyone out of the western block (or disperse them elsewhere if their tenancy wasn't protected), which now stands empty. Phase 2 will see the western block demolished, starting in the New Year, and when that's complete in a couple of years those in the eastern block will move across. The replenished estate will eventually have 1500 flats rather than the current 214, with half deemed affordable and an overall increase in socially rented homes. In further good news they're keeping the open space in the centre, but marketing to the over-privileged of Docklands has already begun, and the dynamic of the site is going to change utterly.
You have approximately four months to come down and see Robin Hood Gardens in its natural denuded state (and pick a bright day if you can to bring out the monolithicsplendour of the concrete). This time next year it'll resemble more of a worksite, and by the end of the decade we'll have to rely on photos to remember. And while the replacement architecture won't look awful, it won't look amazing either, just another bog standard late-2010s estate, and I very much doubt that Open House will ever be coming back. [10 photos]
To Bethnal Green and a site off Roman Road, south of Victoria Park, formerly covered by workshops and terraced houses. In 1955 the council decided upon wholesale clearance, with all the existing residents to be rehoused in a new high-rise neighbourhood of groundbreaking design. The architects they appointed included Berthold Lubetkin, the modernist pioneer, in what was to be his final public scheme. His plans for development included fifteen-, thirteen- and eleven-storey blocks, each with four flats per floor, plus some rather lower infill and a row of old people's bungalows out front. Each tower was named after one of Bethnal Green's twin towns - they had enough in those days - and the development was officially opened in 1965. [history here]
Although densely-plotted the site feels spacious, with plenty of open space and little in the way of traffic. Originally the street pattern was based on two diagonal axes, but that's since been upgraded to a figure of eight to make vehicular access a bit easier. The exterior of each block features characteristic green cladding arranged as at the intersections of a grid, and the windows alternate in pairs to accommodate shifts in the balcony space at each corner. Oh, and you'll have seen the Cranbrook Estate on TV, if only fleetingly, as it was where Little Britain's Lou and Andy used to live, not that this is particularly relevant architecturally-speaking.
What happens if you add a Modernist housing estate to the Open House listings for the first time is that dozens of people turn up. A good idea, then, to have opened up the estate's Community Centre for an informative exhibition of photographs showing before, during and after construction, plus the official mayoral programme for the opening ceremony. An inspirational idea to have a handful of long-standing residents present to provide first-hand reminiscence (they were lovely, as you'd expect). And an exceedingly brave idea to invite members of the public into your flat, especially when there are quite so many of them, and your flat isn't especially enormous.
The stairwells are magnificent, a very Lubetkian trait, in the case of Mödling House a teardrop-shaped lightwell with a single railing spiralling down fourteen floors. The council later added bobbles to the banister to discourage boisterous children from skidding down the banister, although I suspect vertigo would be the clincher for most. As at Robin Hood Gardens the central circulatory space used to be open access, but about twenty years ago the council added ground level entry doors which means only those with friends here will ever see inside, but no doubt makes residents feel a lot more comfortable.
Into the flat we crowded, impressed that the hallway was large enough to hold us all, although the living room with all its furniture was more of a squeeze. Originally all the walls were painted battleship grey, bar one in each room which was instead pillarbox red, if you can imagine living under such indecorous conditions. Free underfloor heating was provided, a municipal perk which was rapidly withdrawn once the council worked out how much cheaper giving every flat its own boiler would be. Our Open House host was extremely keen to share her enthusiasm for the building, and rightly so, though with a mild hint of terror at the thought that one day Tower Hamlets might decide it's time to build something new. As yet there's no sign, hurrah, as these homes of character pass their half-century unscathed. [6 photos]
Here East is a silly name, but not as silly as iCity, which was the original brand name for the giant sheds at the top of the Olympic Park. In 2012 they were used to house the world's media - one for the press and one for TV, plus another for a multi-storey car park. The car park is still there but the media are long gone, which left the thorny issue of what to do with a vast amount of interior space which had been used for only eight weeks. There were pipedreams at one point for the construction of a snowdrome and artificial ski slope, then plans for the filming of EastEnders to move here from Borehamwood, given that the postcode genuinely is E20. But all of that fell through, and a decision was ultimately taken to turn Here East into a place for design, innovation and making things. It's all very Hackney Wick, I think was the inspiration.
The Press Centre has a quarter of a million square feet of floor space, which is a lot to let, spread over four waterside floors. Most of the building is still empty, awaiting negotiation with clients, with the prime space probably on the first floor beside the roof terrace, from which the City, Docklands and several local flats can be seen. One huge chunk is pencilled in as an open plan innovation incubator, where start-ups can gain a toehold and grow before moving off somewhere bigger. A hotel, or members' club, has an eye on part of the southern end, and a row of foodie-nibbly stuff has invaded the retail spaces on the canalside. If you've ever wanted to dine at a branch of Breakfast Club where the queues aren't out the door, and don't mind the trek, Here East is for you.
The Broadcast Centre has two thirds of a million square feet of floor space, plus a dozen tricky-to-sell central voids which in summer 2012 housed huge TV studios. But 'windowless' is just what some clients want, so six have become a data centre, one will be a university robotics lab, and two have been taken by BT Sport. All that football continuity you watch before, after and sandwiched inbetween the big match, all that comes from here, and may soon be scripted in an amazing globularmeeting space suspended above reception. Meanwhile Loughborough University have taken the building's northern slice, all the better for attracting foreign students, while an open-fronted grid facing the main park called The Gantry is being filled in with artists' workshops, a bit like a Boxpark for the arts.
Perhaps most intriguingly, linking the two main buildings is a smaller-but-still-large building on stilts. It has to be on stilts because all of the main pipes and cables servicing the Olympic Park pass in a conduit underneath - that string of electricity pylons they removed in 2008 had to go somewhere. This building is The Theatre, or that's its intended future use, providing conference and events space on a scale not generally available hereabouts. But for London 2012 it was designed as a refuge for the world's journalists, somewhere safe to hide should an act of terrorism break out, which of course it didn't. But it pays to be prepared, even if this huge room was used only once during the Games, for a press conference where Seb Coe attempted to explain why there were empty seats. Please hire it soon, someone, and bring it life.
I've read the marketing blurb for Here East and found some of it nauseating. "East London is transformation, graft, talent, spirit. It is a landscape in making." Whoever writes this stuff needs to get out more, or have a bit more respect for the intelligence of their audience. "Here East is a meeting point. Creative businesses growing in scale collide with businesses of scale growing in creativity." But listening to the two gentlemen in charge of the refit and subsequent sell-off gave me a much more positive view of the development, as they explained function and future plans with enthusiasm, experience and candour. One of Open House's greatest strengths is connecting us to our environment, making us understand why buildings are how they are, and helping us to see architecture anew. [9 photos]
A more unusual form of Olympic legacy sits downstream, near Bromley-by-Bow, astride the River Lea. More accurately it sites astride the Prescott Channel, a thread of the Bow Back Rivers, a distinction which has proved to be important. Three Mills Lock is the only lock to be built on a waterway in London this century, and it's a biggie. It was planned with good intentions, and £23m of cash, the idea being to provide access for large barges delivering construction materials to the Olympic Park and thereby reduce the number of journeys made by road. Unfortunately the lock was completed ten months behind schedule, by which point contractors had already defaulted to lorries, and so very little freight or waste actually passed this way.
Still, British Waterways were pleased. They'd always wanted to upgrade the derelict Bow Back Rivers but could never afford it, and now they had a long-term restoration project plus a giant state-of-the-art lock. Property developers were delighted too, because the new lock permanently stops the channel upstream from being tidal, and it's so much easier to sell property beside a river that doesn't ebb twice a day revealing mud and discarded tyres.
For Open House the lock was opened up to visitors, and a steady stream trotted across Three Mills Green to take a look. It was also possible to look inside the central control tower, a three storey structure linked by a spiral staircase, and with an observation deck on top. This provided good views of the adjacent area, including the Bow flyover, the gothic Abbey Mills Pumping Station and its modern replacement, and the gasholders at Twelvetrees. I was particularly interested to be able to see the cap of the Lee Tunnel, Newham's new supersewer and the deepest bore in London. Alongside is the site of the first Big Brother house, now covered by a landscaped pile of spoil, and destined (one day) to be reopened as a public space. But don't get your hopes up - the footpath alongside has been sealed off for the best part of nine years, and the sign saying it reopens in "early 2016" looks increasingly fictional.
Three Mills Lock has quite a complicated structure, ably explained to us by the two employees of the Canal and River Trust who pop over to operate the machinery should the automated systems be insufficient. On the far side is a fish pass, a series of chambers on a gradient allowing upriver migration to take place, although apparently there's no evidence it's being used by anything more substantial than a few eels. Next come the weir gates, one of which automatically rises or falls every ten minutes to help balance the water level on either side. And then there's the main lock, by far the longest and widest in the area, with 20 ton 'fish belly' gates at either end which can be opened in ten minutes if they're ever needed.
They're rarely needed. Apparently only one boat a month(!) uses the lock, on average - usually a dredger keeping the channel clear. The Prescott Channel's somewhat out on a limb, so pleasurecraft tend not to go this way, heading up the Limehouse Cut or nipping across the tidal divide at Bow Locks instead. Even when Carpenters Lock is restored in the Olympic Park and recreational boating kicks off big time, Three Mills Lock is still likely to remain untroubled by traffic. It's arguably London 2012's biggest white elephant, but while it keeps the water level constant upstream its existence hasn't entirely been in vain. [7 photos]
Building a new underground railway doesn't happen quickly, not these days, because there's a heck of a lot to be done. It's now seven years since the Astoria and the other buildings opposite Centre Point were demolished to make way for Crossrail, during which time giant shafts have been opened up, new entrances have been dug out and twin-bore tunnels have been driven through. To showcase all the hard work so far, construction company Laing O'Rourke led a select few Londoners below ground for Open House to see current progress, and blimey didn't the tickets go fast?
It's a measure of how far Tottenham Court Road's Crossrail fit-out has already progressed that we didn't all need to change into hard hats and hi-vis before venturing down to explore the platforms. Nevertheless there aren't yet any escalators to glide down, nor would it be ideal to take the stairs, so instead we all took the hoist. This judders a little but doesn't take long, and it's how all the workforce (and a lot of the materials) will have headed 24 metres down over the last few years.
Once you reach the bottom and walk out, what strikes you first is the cavernous space. This is very much a feature of all the subterranean Crossrail stations, each designed with smooth future-proof passenger flow in mind, and you'll already have gained some idea of this when TCR's new Eastern ticket hall opened last year. A long, broad escalator bed is in place, six treads wide if I counted correctly, landing closer to the eastbound platform than the westbound.
A faintly complex grid of passageways then leads off, this because the two platforms are at least 50 metres apart at this point. One central distributor passageway has been burrowed between the two, which looks like it goes on forever, but in truth not even halfway to the other end. It's broad and arched and has been sprayed with concrete, itself an attractive finish, but you're unlikely to enjoy its texture because I understand all this is to be covered over.
A trio of similar-looking cross-passages link through to the eastern ends of the two platforms. At the moment they join at a sharp right angle, but these are being covered over with swooshing curved sections to improve safety and sightlines. Again you'll not notice, but we saw various moulded white panels laid out on the floor and a few already pinnedup on the walls, each resembling a stormtrooper's breastplate or perhaps a giant's cricket box.
The eastern platform is unique amongst central Crossrail stations in being curved. This became necessary to avoid the foundations of Centre Point a short way ahead, and required some particularly accurate boring when the tunnelling machines dug through. Thus far the tracks are invisible, mainly because they haven't been laid yet, but also because a long temporary screen is in the way. This is to be replaced by a Jubilee-style glass barrier with opening doors, with real-time information scrolling past along the top.
And my word, it's long! We're used to tube platforms up to about 130m in length, whereas TCR's platforms are double that - sufficient to stable a nine-carriage train and future-proofed for ten. The curve hides the overall dimensions a bit, but commentators weren't joking when they said it'll be important to try to be at the right end of a train for your eventual destination. Because we were on a guided tour I couldn't time it precisely, but I'd say it'll take the best part of three minutes to walk from one end to the other.
The platforms are so long that central Crossrail stations have been designed with two exits, in this case an additional ticket hall on Dean Street. It'll be the minor of the two access points, this because there are no tube lines to interchange with at the western end, but it is likely to be your better option if you're heading to the shops. This time the escalator bed is three treads wide, and will go all the way up in one go, so I wonder if it'll end up with similar "no walking" rules to Holborn?
We had plenty of time to look around the western concourse, and to engage the manager and architects in Q&A. One of the joys of a good Open House visit is the opportunity to hear from the experts who've actually been involved in building the place, rather than a volunteer simply reading notes hesitantly off a sheet. We therefore got the full lowdown on materials and structure, as well as the practicalities of construction and just a little nudge at underlying politics, and this really brought the tour to life.
Tottenham Court Road's two ticket halls will have subtly different characters, we were told. The Dean Street end will be "dark and cinematic, reflecting the nocturnal economies that characterise the area", whereas the St Giles end will be "bright and well lit to reflect the 1960s iconography of the nearby Centre Point". You can expect a lot of this kind of underlying artistic piffle at stations throughout the route, but if that means the upper levels of each station gain their own particular character, all well and good.
At lower levels the design will be more uniform, with a common Crossrail style and palette. And that's what's currently being added to the western concourse, as the original breezeblock shell is inexorably blanketed by more public-facing materials. Several large granite slabs have been lowered down the adjacent shaft and the first two have been affixed to metal brackets in front of the wall, while the rest are scattered across the floor awaiting their turn, By the time the fit-out of this space is complete every single surface we saw will have been covered over, save for the upper half of the supporting columns whose concrete will be left clear.
It wasn't possible to exit the station at the Dean Street end, which was good because it meant the tour got to walk all the way back down the westbound platform. This one's straight and therefore more typical, and still daubed with painted codes on the floor and chalkmarks on walls and ceiling. Engineers have also taken the opportunity to lay three slabs of paving, just to see what it looks like and how it performs, as well as installing a single four-seater bench, as yet unwrapped. When you get down here you'll be at least six inches higher up than we were, once the proper depth of platform surface has been laid.
What a privilege to be allowed deep beneath the streets of Soho for a sneak preview of London's newest transport system. Indeed Open House has provided severalopportunities to do this over the years, but we can't all get that chance, not until Crossrail's central section opens up twenty-seven months hence. Tens of thousands of passengers are expected down here daily, not enough of whom will stop to consider precisely how they came to be down here in the first place. And only a few of us will remember how it used to look along the way.
