Creekmouth Heritage Project
Focal Installations, Wayfinding Strategy & Graphics
Proposals for Creekmouth Heritage Project including focal installations, graphic/footpath art and wayfinding strategy.
The project explores the maritime, natural and industrial heritage of the area through its three key phases of settlement: Creekmouth Village (1857-1953), Thames View Estate (1954-present) and Barking Riverside (2003-present).
The wayfinding proposal introduces a series of bold, colourful and site-specific graphic interventions onto the existing streetscape, to act as wayfinding elements. These interventions are bright and stand out amongst the existing streetscape, whilst also complementing it.
The Graphic installation proposals are for a family of objects, each which contains information about the history of the area. A 'living room' with stage and seating creates a more intimate area which speaks of the village settlement in the now parkland space; A timeline celebrates the area's rich industrial history; a sinuous inscribed bench represents the Thames and the Great Flood of 1954; Look out posts frame the flat landscape and talk of the areas natural landscape and aviation history.
The Focal installation proposals outline the three main phases of settlement in the area: Creekmouth Village, Thames View Estate and Barking Riverside. They explore the juxtaposition between the natural and the artificial, inspired by the historic industrial landscape of the area, its marshlands and riverfront.
Mudlark chimneys create a new welcoming entrance to Creekmouth Open Space and celebrate the lost landmarks of the area. A series of delicate chimney structures, which take cues from the surrounding pylons, are inserted and connected through a landscape pattern that marks out the historic street pattern of the early settlement.
Farr Avenue Field responds to the residential nature of the site and introduces a series of tiled tables occupying the public space and animating the existing street plinths. A natural landscape of tree sculptures is inserted alluding to the resident’s memories of the early days of the estate: "surrounded by marshlands and cows wandered onto our street".
Boat Folly at Rivergate takes inspiration from the area's rich boat building history, its riverside communities and the adjacent school proposing a folly-like structure which can be 'anchored' in different places around the site taking on different uses and characters.