Inspiration and Project Background:
During the summer of 2010, I went to the London Think Tank Lecture Series
on the Shad Thames. One of the most frequently-discussed topic was the lack
of a Centralized Database for the Building Industry. Ideas were tossed around
ranging from having a centralized website to something along the lines of a Facebook
webpage. The main intention was to have a database which is constantly
updated with the latest changes by City Councils, building code, new technology,
events, people profiles, etc. It would be used as a tool to streamline the
processes of bringing a project to fruition. I didn’t think much about it at the time,
but it came back up again when I wrote about “Interactive Landscapes” in my
final dissertation at the Edinburgh College of Art. It was about the hypothesis- “If
a computer database was physicaly ‘injected’ into the landscape which enabled
constant feedback loops and stored information; how much wealth of data can
be extracted from the landscape- a database as old as Time? Hence, I continued
my research and decided to bring it into the Lea Valley Gateway Project.

Design Concept:
The term “Gateway” is multi-faceted, and applies to the very nature of the
Site- a space where different types of systems collide. A “Gateway” is a point of
constant transition, a change from one state to another. Within this space, information
is needed in order to cause action and direction. In this case, a “Gateway”
can be a state fo mind- that transitional point where scientific breakthroughs
happen, or when a student learns something new. Similarly, it could come in the
form of a map, or a book- information which can be made accessible to someone
new to a space, like an “Information Kiosk” at an airport terminal. The point is
that this “Gateway” space is constantly in flux, like Facebook- a landscape which
is on an constant feedback loop. It’s called a “Project” because it’s evolution is
constantly in progress- a never-ending experiment.
The project goal is to create an ‘interactive’ artist landscape/platform,
curated by Trinity Buoy Wharf; one which is multi-layered and it’s interface is
designed to allow the myriad of infrastructural, sociological, time-based, and
natural systems to ‘interact’, or ‘collide’ within the Gateway. For this to happen,
the project is set up in 4 Stages which are further described on pages xx-xx:

Project Outcome:
As an end-product, this “landscape” will be a prototype in it’s own; it is a
“Data Landscape”, which a high constant feedback loop which can be collated
and made accessible to the public via free wireless internet on Site, and via the
I.T. Layer. This data will prove to be useful for planning authorities to make better
decisions about the development of London; and quite certainly it can be a
ground-up approach. In effect the fusion between the internet landscape and
physical landscape will offer another level of freedom for social connection as well
as provide a robust platform for the growth of other practices and enterprises.