Designing alternative rhythmicity for the City of London

Everyday, we follow patterns of behaviours in space and time- our rhythm. The rhythm is influenced by external ones including time zones, working hours or urban space and the way it directs our movement. That predesign city labyrinth becomes a stage for our rhythms to collide.

In the City of London, five hundred thousand rhythms collide every day in just over a square mile. This international financial district has such a huge density of users it is nearly impossible to observe the rhythm of just one individual. Workers I talked to claimed that the city makes them stuck in the rhythm

The Cathedral of Movement is a proposal which creates alternative rhythmicity for the work financial district right now deprived of any entertainment activities. The movement centre combines various sports facilities and social spaces in the old abandoned office dedicating the unused site to movement and recreation advertisement. It creates space for mental and physical well-being for the busy workers and kids from a neighbouring school. It offers a range of activities from tennis courts and a multipurpose sports hall to a swimming pool and circus arts performance space, hoping to bring various workers together challenging the work-centred area.

The project maximizes the use of the existing structure to fit the new purpose. Starting with stripping the building of its elevation the original structure is retained. However, cut back as the building size is too big and the design wants to reclaim the natural ground on the riverside. That will not only remove the part of the building that is flooding risk but also will create a natural flooding barrier that will absorb the heavy rains and flooding water. The creation of a nice, south-facing, riverside Park makes a flooding strategy became a social strategy. As the next step variety of sports objects is fitted within the structure. The Cathedral allows a variety of movements allowing everyone to change their daily rhythm in the way that suits them best. Calming down the rhythm through yoga or swimming or intensifying through martial art or climbing. Some of the sports are individual some encourage sharing the rhythm with others. The Cathedral of Movement will become a place to celebrate new rhythm as Tate modern is a cathedral of the art. It will be far seen from the riverbank standing as a movement advertisement and attracting new visitors.

This injection is challenging conventional dense urban landscape with new activities to change the City rhythm and open space park responsive to the flooding need of its side and its surrounding. This project has thought me that the power of a design project can be seen not in solving the problem(mostly impossible with one design) but simply in creating an alternative for others to choose from. This alternative for the City of London in my opinion is the Cathedral of Movement.