Southwark Cyclists Healthy Ride April 1st 2024
Full report from Ride Leader Werner Wiethege, includes list of all sites visited.
The forecasts for Easter Monday had been rather dynamic but we were lucky and enjoyed a dry ride. Fifteen riders, some of whom remembered last year’s heroic effort (or at least the part of it they rode), started from the Needle.
A few weeks ago RIBA had announced the 76 projects shortlisted for the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) London Awards 2024. https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/riba-london-2024-shortlist Obviously a list is irresistible and a themed ride needed to get organised, even if the list wasn’t the most helpful one. It’s an open question whether, if you know all the locations, you can visit all the projects in less time than it takes to find the locations from the list. So a kind of treasure hunt with a bit of cycling. Quite a few of the sites are in SE London but it became clear very soon that some are interiors or extensions into the garden, i.e. not that visible from the street. So the range was extended (and then shortened again by the organiser) to include sites north of the river and a 32km route with a coffee stop after 20 was built and tested and tested.
Tannery 1.6 km The first stop was the converted pickle factory in Bermondsey. So close to the start and between Grange Rd and C10 but many riders weren’t aware of it. Maybe because it’s not that obvious from the roads or because the Access Storage Depot on the corner suggests it’s still industrial. We were lucky, the pedestrian gate was open and we rode around the courtyards. https://www.dezeen.com/2023/10/25/coffey-architects-tannery-housing-arts-spaces-london/.
Peckham House 5.2 km. Along C10, C35 and a bit of Rye Lane to the next stop. A lockdown project by two architects, one of whom now lives in it with his family, fills a forgotten end-of-terrace plot: https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/residential/peckham-house-surman-weston-london-uk The two features which immediately caught our attention were the stock conservatory on the roof and the unusual brickwork, both visible in the photo: https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/terraced-house-peckham-surman-weston-builder-architect-developer
Corner Fold House 6.8 km Of course, an Easter Monday ride is not just educational but also an opportunity to work off the previous day’s chocolate bunnies and eggs. Up the Southwark Spine and the Avondale Rise to a building easy to overlook. It’s one of the projects which started with discovering a space to fill, in this case a concreted garden between a Victorian house and a transformer station. https://enkimagazine.com/corner-fold-house-converts-narrow-plot-space-efficient-urban-infill/
Tree House 11.2 km A bit more climbing before cruising down Camberwell Grove and through Burgess Park to the Elephant Park. The Tree House is not a house in a tree but a tree surrounded by a house. All the residents left the Heygate estate but some trees stayed behind. https://www.dezeen.com/2022/08/07/bell-phillips-the-tree-house-london-elephant-park/ Southwark Cyclists sometimes hold their monthly meeting in the community space. Roads were very quiet, even for a bank holiday and there was not much traffic on New Kent Road and Newington Causeway.
LSBU Hub 12.5 km A major requirement for several buildings we saw on the ride was to save embedded carbon, i.e. try to use as much of an existing building’s structure as possible while adapting it to a new function or more suitable for its current use. The LSBU Hub is one of them: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15912-wilkinsoneyre-built-a-new-campus-hub-within-a-50-year-old-structure-at-london-south-bank-university
Africa Centre 13.5 km The Africa Centre moved from Covent Garden into a Southwark office building in 2013 and briefed an architect to make it “unmistakably African”: https://hypebeast.com/2022/6/freehaus-africa-centre-london. It’s worth a return visit, also to explore the railway arches at the back: https://londonist.com/london/things-to-do/africa-centre-new-home-southwark-visit
Church view 14.0 km The next stop gate-crashed the ride. It’s not shortlisted (at least not this year) but its inclusion on the route was justified by the riders’ reaction when they saw it. Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen it skip the next few lines and come back next time after you have ridden along Union St. I had missed it a few times and only discovered it when I read Oliver Wainright’s article, to quote his architectural terminology: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/feb/06/attacked-by-an-ice-cream-scoop-the-story-of-londons-gouged-building-union-street. It is a true architectural WTF moment that has been stopping passers by in their tracks since the scaffolding came down a few weeks ago.
67 Southwark St 14.4 km This was one of my favourite listings, at least I could find it immediately on the map with the street and number in the list. We approached from the East along Southwark St so could appreciate its position on the corner with Lavington St. It’s a very small triangular plot, seven of the nine flats use two storeys: https://hdawards.org/scheme/67-southwark-street/
That completed the first half of the ride and we crossed over Blackfriars Bridge for the northern half. Despite being a group we managed a clean run across the many lights before Fleet Street. After splitting at every light (and there are quite a few) between the Needle and Bermondsey St that seemed only fair. Our luck ran out further up on C6 and those waiting at the light could watch the police in action. At the front we only heard them switching on the horn (on an empty Farringdon Road) and saw them stopping a cyclist (not one of ours) who had overtaken us. They had told him to stop at the lights where we split but he ignored them. As I said, it was a very quiet day and they didn’t have anything else to do. Not a day when you want to ride between the stations, we went behind the British Library and when we turned left after St Pancras we passed the end of the cab queue in Camley St. Some of us showed our age by pointing out that we visited Camley St Nature Reserve in the 80s. Somehow campaigners managed to claim that bit of land between the railway and the canal and declared it a nature reserve. The area north of the stations was abandoned and when the developers came in they left it alone or even helped them with section 106 contributions. Of course, in the 80s there wasn’t a coffee and cake counter but now it has all the facilities some riders need. Strange the rider who had first ask for coffee at the Tree House was the last to arrive (after having managed to get lost) and the last to get served.
KGX Masterplan 20.4 km The King’s Cross development appears three times on the shortlist, one is for the Allies and Morrison master plan. https://www.alliesandmorrison.com/projects/kings-cross Another historical footnote, not going back to the 80s but to the 2000s. Barry Mason had managed to get a guided tour of the area when Argent, the developers, had just come in and the rave scene left. The CEO, who was a keen cyclist and in charge of the KGX development, took us around. Definitely a tour for solid shoes and lights. Btw, he is now Joint Head of Canada Water at British Land.
10 Lewis Cubitt Square 20.6 km One of Meta’s (formerly known as Facebook) two King’s Cross office buildings dominates one side of Lewis Cubitt Square with its nine storeys: https://www.buildington.co.uk/buildings/8076/england/london-n1c/handyside-street/10-lewis-cubitt-square
22 Handysite St 20.8 km It wasn’t far to the next stop, just to junction of Handyside St and York Rd. Definitely one of the riders’ favourites and one of the most risky building sites, it sits one metre above three Grade II-listed rail tunnels and there are also gasworks tunnels. She deserves her award: https://www.bam.com/en/press/press-releases/2021/10/historic-works-at-londons-kings-cross-help-emily-hoggins-to. “Because of the tunnels placing the columns wasn’t easy, they couldn’t just be put in columns orthogonal to the façade (https://www.coffeyarchitects.com/22-handyside-street). In response to these challenges, we ingeniously shifted the three-storey building diagonally. This clever adjustment not onlyachieved a balanced weight distribution but also optimized theorientation for heat gain, directional flow, and outward views.” We didn’t vote for our favourite at the end of the ride but this one might have won.
Still refreshed by the coffee we rode up Copenhagen St without anybody complaining about the gradient and did a loop around Cloudesley Sq, a lovely Islington Square with a huge church in the middle. It’s always worth a detour and we were lucky, the caps on the spires glistened in the sunshine. Across a quiet Upper St and down almost to the canal but not to the towpath, it can be overcrowded on a bank holiday.
Orwell House 26.3 km Orwell House is another in-fill, Tower Hamlets found space between blocks of flats in the Dorset Estate for an affordable housing project: https://www.ribaj.com/products/vandersanden-brick-bpa-orwell-house Apropos Tower Hamlets housing estates, having just seen one of the newest we then rode its oldest, Arnold Circus: https://londonist.com/2015/02/worlds-oldest-council-estate-at-125-then-and-now The next stop was in deepest Shoreditch but before inspecting the shortlisted building we inspected the yard opposite. It’s a dedicated space where graffiti artists can show their skills and the Banksy poodle attracts tourists.
74 Rivington Street Black&White Building 27.3 km Carbon footprints were an important consideration for many on this year’s shortlist. Waugh Thistleton Architects had already used cross-laminated timber for a residential block before creating the Black&White Building, a seven-storey office building. https://www.we-heart.com/2023/01/23/the-black-white-building-shoreditch-london/ If we hadn’t known we were in Shoreditch a green plaque on no. 63 would have told us that we were among cool people. It point out that Ethereum, a cryptocurrency, went live in that building in 2015. The one-way system around Spitalfields isn’t easy but we managed to get legally to Heneage St, just off Brick Lane.
Gilbert&George Centre We were a bit early, it opens next week, but we hadn’t planned to go inside. Not only because Brick Lane doesn’t have a reputation as a good place to leave bicycles unattended. I wonder whether the definitely new monogrammed gates helped it to get on the Royal IBA’s shortlist. They are decorated with G&G in large curly metalwork and above the ampersand is a golden CIIIR, definitely the only building on our tour honouring the king that obviously. Architects, construction engineers and others sometimes get invited when a building opens, do they have enough space to accommodate all the lawyers? For the basement 37 party wall agreements had to be reached with neighbours. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/02/gilbert-george-centre-heneage-street-spitalfields-london-review-ripper-world-meets-the-white-cube-old-brewery
The Rowe 30.1 km When the former LMU School of Art, Architecture, and Design was converted into an office building with six additional storeys the original facade was kept. Google has neglected some of the stops on our tour for several years (its latest view of where the LSBU Hub now is predates it significantly) but Whitechapel is better covered and shows before: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ARfWTd6EihXukigu8 and after: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dDwTSZx1xoiUenXi6 Another site where adjusting and extension won over removing and starting from scratch: https://ukandireland.bam.com/media-centre/news/2022/11/bam-completes-prime-new-office-in-whitechapel-london-for-frasers-property
Urbanest 30.8 km We raised the average age of the sites we had visited significantly at the last stop. The Urbanest in Vine St is very new but through the window we could see a part of the Roman Wall: https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/city-wall-at-vine-street/ The new building above it houses students: https://www.universityliving.com/united-kingdom/london/property/urbanest-city
In Whitechapel we felt just a hint of moisture in the air but this year’s Easter Monday ride was dry and we didn’t lose any rider to the weather. We got back in 4h5m, slightly longer than advertised but getting reunited with our lost rider in Camley St and seeing him enjoy his coffee was worth a bit of overtime.
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