1.4 Infrastructure day

Itinerary:
* cross the Thames on the Woolwich Free Ferry;
* walk to Woolwich Arsenal passenger pier;
* take the Clipper high-speed catamaran along the Thames to Bankside Pier;
* Millennium Bridge by Fosters and Partners;
* Riverside Walk and Queenhithe dock, dating from Saxon times and protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument;
* new Blackfriars Station which is built on the existing rail bridge and spans the river with a photovoltaic array integrated into the roof;
* Southbank riverside walk: National Theatre, the BFI Southbank (formerly National Film Theatre), Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery, Royal Festival Hall;
* the Golden Jubilee Footbridges that share the foundation piers of the mid-19th Century Hungerford railway bridge;
* Imax cinema by Avery Associates, constructed within an existing roundabout;
* walk via Roupell Street to Union Street;
* the Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition (at the link you can also download the catalogue which has low-res images of all exhibited work);

You are recording from direct observation and analysis of spaces, structures and your experience of them. Drawing skill is only developed through practice. Movement, at different speeds according to mode of transport, alters experiences of place, and the viewpoint from the river changes how the city is viewed. Many older buildings were designed to face the Thames. Large-scale structures such as bridges form strategic connections but are also occupied in unexpected, unintended, ways.

The catalogue from "SPANS: Viaducts, Bridges and Walkways" exhibition at the Building Centre 2008 has a range of case studies at a range of scales (not London-specific)

As part of the London Festival of Architecture in 2006, 51% studios collaborated with artists Neil Cum­mings and Marysia Lewandowska on Social Cin­ema: a project to create a series of tem­po­rary cin­e­mas, each installed for one night only. One of these occurred under the North end of the Millennium Footbridge
http://www.51pct.com/topic/social-cinema/
http://www.51pct.com/portfolio/social-cinema-3/

The piers under construction, image from Urban 75 website


Shortlisted entries from the 1996 RIBA competition for the Millennium footbridge
(above: model image of Niels Gimsing / George Rotne entry)


Previous Peabody competition for a habitable bridge, 1995
(above: John Outram Associates / Whitby Bird entry)


above: Woolwich Free Ferry crossing