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AN

OPE N S Y S T E M:

R E S I DE NT S ,N

ON-R E S I D

E NT S

A ND S O C I A L F R I C

T I ON

[ALIEV] [DEWOLF]

[GIRANI] [GRIFFITHS][SZEJNFELD SIRKIS]



2



1960 19701952 1967

INTRODUCTION

Does the planning focus on Elephant & Castle’s transport

connectivity lead to social disconnect on a local scale? In analysing

the historical and present Opportunity Area planning contexts,

this project argues that the current transport-focused approach

to redeveloping the strategic site surrounding Elephant & Castle

and St George’s Circus will undermine its potential to function as a

local centre, just like over a century of unsuccessful regeneration

schemes that preceded it. The transport capacity to accompany

the development of housing and jobs for new residents and

workers is well-dened and measured while strategies to

integrate them with current residents are neglected. Given that

a perceived disconnect between residents and non-residents

already exists, Opportunity Area planning is likely to exacerbate

this. There is the opportunity for this not to be the case, but this

requires a rethinking of how to use OAs to develop specic socialinfrastructure to bring non-residents, new residents and old

residents together thereby supporting the new centre planners

want to create.

Historical Context

Elephant & Castle’s primary value has long been understoo

in terms of proximity and accessibility to Central London, bu

prior redevelopment eorts have not successfully exploited th

resource despite increasingly grand-scale private and publ

developments. Over the last few decades, the area has boaste

one of Europe’s greenest buildings (Eighteen 2005), London

greenest building (SLHL 1991), London’s tallest apartmen

building (SLP 1959), and Europe’s biggest shopping centre (SL

1960).

During its 1920s heyday, the messy intersection supported th

Picadilly of the South, collecting people rather than dispersin

them (Humphrey, 2013). Unlike Piccadilly Circus, successiv

rationalist reworking of the roads culminated in the 1960

reshaping into the current pentagon junction, removing thfriction created by the chaos of connecting routes. St George

Consortium (Southwark News, 2000), who made a recent bid fo

the redevelopment plan, suggested halving the number of lane

entering the junction in order to reduce the ‘slingshot’ eect an

quieten the pace, recognising that “point-to-point” connection

allow for accelerated movement but limit opportunities fo

interaction (Hillier 1996:260).

m m

m m

m7

m7

7 m

7 m

l li li

: :

ti t i t . .

Evolution of Junctions

Source: digimap.edina.ac.uk

Elephant & Castle Piccadilly Circus



4

Public Transport Accesibility Leveldata source: T f L

36B

6A

5

4 2

As with the surrounding area, the scale of interventions at

the Elephant & Castle junction has been signicant over the

last century. Before WW2, the interchange was a huge local

asset, encouraging people to stop, shop, and even drop at the

ever-expanding hotel. Its value was not aligned with moving

eciently through it. Bomb damage later opened up big parcels

of land leaving plots for intervention at a scale unusually large for

London. This resulted in a change in purpose from a destination

to a transport junction with a focus on connectivity to the City

rather than the area surrounding it. Not fully understanding

the economic and social consequences of this shift in scale and

purpose may partly be responsible for repeated regeneration

failure thus far.

Present Context

Southwark Council has sold the public Heygate Estate to private

developer Lend Lease for it to be transformed into “a [private]

model for high quality urban living” (Southwark News, 1998), part

of a larger regeneration eort TfL hope will encourage utilisation

of the transport hub’s full potential. This potentially excludes the

nearby shopping centre, which Deputy Mayor for Transport Isabel

Dedring (2014) sees as a sub-optimal anchor for the junction’s

impending rebirth-by-peninsularisation as it primarily serves local

low-income residents.

Within the London Plan, Opportunity Areas are browneld sitesconsidered resources for providing infrastructure, land, and

investment to support more jobs and houses (2011:60; 2.58).

The Blackfriars Mile is a grouping of sites the local council has

identied as being able to support brownelds redevelopment

and density intensication (Southwark 2013a) and forms part of

the the Elephant & Castle Opportunity Area, as dened in the

London Plan (2011:60). It focuses interventions around linkage to

bring new people in; it uses the public street to activate a point-

to-point connection between the Thames and the new centre. In

eect, the council sees the development challenge as spatially

and economically connecting London and Elephant & Castle. The

lack of social research in OA planning - at City and local authority

level - forms part of a central critique of this project and informs

the need to nd a methodology to build social connection into

OA planning.

Though not an Opportunity Area plan, the Urban Forest initiative

does give some priority to encouraging relationships between

“the ‘local’ urban interior and the rapidly developing edges” along

Bankside by attempting to soften borders for tourists, using

landscaping to activate pathways through the neighbourhood

(WWMA, 2007:3, 10). Although the Urban Forest has invested

energy in investigating local social networks, it is a private

initiative primarily aimed at tourists (ibid 14).

As these privately-led strategies are operating in a speculative

post-recession environment, they must be delivered relatively

quickly and although they are happening within a policy

framework, they don’t directly connect to each other spatially

or temporarily. Both projects allude to the provision of social

infrastructure in their planning but have no clear strategy forimplementation. This lack of strategy for social intervention will

only reinforce the existing problems of Elephant & Castle, the

centre that pins these interventions into south London.



Spatial Fragmentationdata source: Southwark Council & Lambeth Council planningdocuments

elephant & castlewaterloo

blackfriars london bridge, borough, bankside

London Bridge BID

Better Bankside BID

Waterloo Quarter BID

T f L Elephant & Castle

T f L Blackfriars Mile

Blackfriars Mile activation (events)

Blackfriars MileElephant & Castle

Waterloo

BanksideBorough

London Bridge

2004 2014 202

Just to the north is St George’s Circus, branded as “the southern

gateway to central London” (Southwark 2013b:14), echoing

that the area’s legitimacy is in providing overow for business

that cannot t in into the main centre across the Thames. While

attracting investment could bring signicant opportunity for

new social relationships between residents, new residents and

non-residents, Council’s policy on social infrastructure does not

guide where new interventions should happen to “strengthen the

relationships between people living and working in the area” or

how it will encourage “accessibility for all” (Southwark 2013a:18;

3.14). Currently, the council’s planning report for implementing

OAs denes the only strategic use for CILs and Section 106

charging schedules as “transport mitigation” (Southwark Council

2012b:4). CIL legislation allows areas to be compensated for the

“cost of infrastructure required to support the development”(2010:12; 14.1a), which may include social infrastructure. The City

of London sees economic opportunity in making Elephant & Castle

a ‘town centre’, but a more progressive planning framework can

redevelop the centre in a more sustainable way by ensuring social

infrastructure is in place to support it.



6

Centres within LondonInner Ring Road

3/elephant

& castle

2/

old

street

1/angel

FRICTION AND RESONANCE

Resonance

To understand Elephant & Castle’s potential to perform as a

centre, we analysed Angel and Old Street, two other major

transport nodes and popular neighbourhood centres along the

London Inner Ring Road and the Northern Line. We consistently

found that the greatest amount of social and economic activity

did not occur in the main node but on the streets just removed.

As residents mitigate the chaos of junctions by seeking

alternative paths to access the areas around them, the centre

reaches beyond the junction. The pedestrian patterns along

these alternative paths attract small-scale retail, enriching and

further extending the centre. As in space resonance theory,

where electron particles inuence those around them in waves of

continuous communication (Wol 1995), spatially concentrated

interactions resonate outward from urban nodes and manifest

in perceivable physical layers in the urban fabric. This resonanceis best perceived along the streets, as they serve to “spread the

centre out” (Hall 2012:180).

data source:Edina , BLOM 2013



Friction

Centres are dense concentrations of spatial and social dierence,

and they form the types of spaces that philosopher Unger refers

to as “zones of heightened mutual vulnerability, within which

people gain a chance to resolve … conict” while catering to

“microlevel … deance and incongruity” (Unger 1987:562, 564).

This microlevel defance that dierent communities engage with

as they manage their co-existence and come to make sense of the

‘other’ is friction. As a force used either to start or stop activity,

friction can have productive or destructive consequences; what

could result in cooperation in some multicultural districts may

lead to tensions and crime in areas where social disconnection

is particularly pronounced. Productive frictions generated by

the negotiation of social, cultural, and political dierences are

actually preferable to consensus (Wittgenstein 1958:46); as

Jane Jacobs (1961) argues, dierence stimulates “spontaneousself-diversication” through which groups assert their inuence

on their neighbourhoods, eectively producing urban space

and driving forward social, cultural, and economic innovation

(Lefebvre 1974; Huvendick & Lenskjold 2004). Thus, friction

can be a resource if channelled to bridge rather than deepen

disconnect, enabling the centre to resonate outward in waves

that overlap and shape its surroundings.

Reading an Open System

Resonance speaks to the centre being part of a larger city context,a kind of system where the centre both has an inuence on the

periphery and the periphery on the centre. Solving ‘problems’

by simply pushing frictions further out from the centre will

only increase socio-spatial inequalities, which will likely have

a far greater negative impact on the centre. City environments

are complex, and everything has an impact on its immediate

surroundings, making it problematic to draw boundaries to create

closed system environments (Batty 2011). Operating within an

open system encourages planners to transfer their development

focus from the central point toward a network of strategically

advantageous beats or “pulses” (Hall 2012:180) where frictions

overlap. In reaching beyond the centre to a wider audience on

a smaller, more dispersed scale, a distributed development

strategy can be realised that is inclusive of both commuters and

residents (Sassen 2006:29).

The open system includes all of the Opportunity Areas withi

Southwark and neighbouring Lambeth, with some overow int

their immediate surroundings. The scale of the system is large

than the Local Authority to include relationships beyond boroug

boundaries and it focuses on the area north of Elephant & Cast

as its proximity to Central London makes it a contested site o

regeneration.

Any system has the potential to over-simplify or abstrac

Forrester’s (1969) attempt to use cybernetics to dene all cities a

one system had disastrous consequences; his models advocate

for wide-scale clearing of social housing in favour of luxury home

If this system were let loose in Southwark, Elephant Park, the ne

Heygate, won’t be the only scheme that raises social housing.

The open system recognises that people’s spatial relationship t

the city is an imagined lived experience (Crane 1960), so ever

mapped street has been walked; interviews and surveys provide

greater insight into how residents and non-residents relate t

the area; and commuter ows by bus were studied entering an

exiting Elephant & Castle with empirical data sets to conrm ou

perceptual analysis.

The open system is one of the ways planners can use Opportunit

Areas to support the regeneration eorts going on across Londo

by ensuring development does not “privilege the centre” (Senne

2008:10), but strengthens “the complex interactions necessar

to join up the dierent human groups the city contains” (ibid

The council needs to drive these connections as developers ar

unlikely to plan beyond their scheme boundaries. Lend Lease

for example, were criticised for using major transport links t

develop Westeld Stratford City as a “citadel of … high-end reta

which aim[s] to attract the well-heeled of the region rather tha

the local communities around them” (Minton 2008:XIV-XV). Th

Blackfriars Mile project, as a kind of transport infrastructur

linking London to what is hoped to eventually be a complete

new centre at Elephant & Castle, risks achieving the same resul

However, Opportunity Areas along Blackfriars and around th

Elephant can be used to “locate new community resources a

the edges between communities ... to open the gates betweedierent … communities” (Sennet 2008:11). The followin

section of analysis explains how planners can locate and ope

these gates.



8

CONTEXT SPECIFIC ANALYSIS

Locating gates through rhythm analysis

As people move through space, a variety of signals allow the

moods and atmospheres of a place to be judged and interpreted.

In this movement malfunctions of rhythm or arrythmia are

registered as disruptions in the fabric of the city, potentially

prompting people to alter their path (Lefebrve 1974). Arrythmia,

or ‘breaks’, can be physical, such as an abrupt change in building

scale, or perceptual, like the unease brought on by a sudden lack

of people in the street. For a centre to be successful at drawing

people in, breaks in approach must be kept to a minimum;

rather, its inuence must resonate in a way that prepares people

for arrival at the central point. To understand the rhythm of

approach to Elephant & Castle, we analysed the movement to it

from Central London using what is considered by Council to be its

greatest asset: public transport.

Specically, the analysis covered ve routes crossing the Thames

via Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, and London

bridges. First we analysed statistical patterns of movement

towards Elephant & Castle using TfL passenger data to determine

points along the routes which were particularly attractive to

pedestrians and which ones they avoided. Densities at bus stops

along four of the routes clearly show Elephant & Castle to be the

busiest, with quieter rings fanning outwards, showing breaks

of signicantly quieter activity, particularly around St George’s

Circus.

We then engaged in qualitative perception mapping, recording

our experience along the path to Elephant & Castle while

observing building use, landmarks, changes in urban grain,

signage, movement of fellow passengers, and whether we felt a

sense of preparedness to enter a new centre after leaving Central

London.

Changing patterns in building scale, road capacity, land use, and

street-level activity were observed on each 15-minute route, and

breaks occurred at similar intervals along all ve, supporting

the understanding of centres as nodes that resonate outward

in broad rings. For example, the inuence of the central city is

apparent in the large scale of hotel and oce buildings from the

Thames down to the railway overpass that crosses all ve routes.After this point, the size of buildings dramatically reduces to a

more human scale, and they become increasingly geared toward

residential and small business use. The nal segments of the

route pass through an indeterminate area of generic institutional

and commercial structures that do not provide any spatial cues to

prepare passengers for arrival at the centre. Suddenly, the buses

turn a corner and dump passengers at the Elephant & Castle

junction in a frenzy of vehicular and pedestrian trac. Such an

approach to the centre is disorientating and suggests that the

inuence of this particular centre does not resonate to integrate

co-existence in a gradual, cohesive way. In this case, the rings meet t

form constraining boundaries that isolate the dierent urban realitie

within them, contributing to increasing fragmentation along the bu

routes.

Variable Friction: Structural Unemployment

Moving beyond the physical fragmentation of Elephant & Castle, there

are social conditions that may undermine the resonance of the centre.

The Borough of Southwark has a greater job density (1.16) than the city

of London overall (0.98), but signicantly higher unemployment: 10.5%

vs 9.1% (Nomis 2011; Southwark Council, 2012a:6). When new jobs do

not resolve local unemployment, the cause is generally structural due t

a skills mismatch between residents and the types of jobs available. Thsuggests that the focus on Elephant & Castle’s city-wide accessibility

undermines job accessibility for local residents. Southwark Council

strategies to address unemployment prioritise entrepreneurship and

connecting unemployed to jobs created through new enterprise (ibid

2012a:9). The skills mismatch becomes a destructive local friction

that widens the disconnect between employed and unemployed, thus

hindering the continuous resonance of the centre’s inuence.

NEW BUSINESSES1998-2007

LONDON 13%

SOUTHWARK 35%

JOBS CREATED

1998-2007

LONDON 8%

SOUTHWARK 15%

JOB DENSITY2012

LONDON 0.98

SOUTHWARK 1.16

UNEMPLOYMENT2012

LONDON 9.1%

SOUTHWARK 10.5%

data source: Southwark Council (2012)



Bus stop utilisation: daily occupancy average on bus stops on a week day

The graphic shows the sum of the daily average number of boaders of every bus route using these bus stops.

data source: T f L Bus Service Survey Analysis (2009-2013)

Perceptual analysis of the streets:

breaks perceived on the buses

during our survey.

The analysis of the breaks in the

built environment was conducted

walking along the streets and

experiencing all the bus routes,

taking notes of the landscape and

people’s behaviour on the buses.

DIRECTIONS

PEOPLE

travelling south

1000

Waterloo Station

BUS ROUTEBLACKFRIARS BRIDGE

BUS ROUTELONDON BRIDGE

2000

3000

6000

Elephant & CastleRoundabout

Thames River Saint GeorgesCircle

BUS ROUTEWATERLOO BRIDGE

BUS ROUTEWESTMINSTER BRIDGE

travelling north



10

The reason behind [the regeneration] is to get

rid of the poor people and bring in new rich

people. Eventually you’ll have the locals moving out...

unemployed resident,

in shopping mall, late-20s

The people you see at the roundabout are the people

who just come in, not the people who live in the area.

When you’re from outside it becomes a concern to you

because you don’t really see what is going on there.

security desk employee at LCC,

male, middle-aged

They should build more places that kids could go...

A lot of youn g children have criminal records before

reaching 18, and it’s a very bad start for them in life.

father in rising sun pub nearrockingham estate

I used to volunteer at the library but I have a childnow and so I can’t work. I wish I could look for a job.

mother in community gardennear heygate estate

1 2 3

4

1

3

2

4

5

5

Interviews

To understand how structural unemployment aects the social

resonance of the area, we conducted 25 in-depth interviews with

local residents, students, and people working but not living in the

area (see appendix B). The interviews took place at the Elephant

& Castle shopping centre, the London College of Communication,

the Elephant & Castle metro station, the Rockingham housing

estate, and at a number of local businesses and on streets

equally distributed between the roundabout and Central London.

Four pervasive themes emerged from these conversations: (1)

transport accessibility is the neighbourhood’s greatest asset;

(2) its greatest aw is that there is no place for youth and the

unemployed to ‘hang out’; (3) change through regeneration

is welcome, but it must be inclusive and serve the needs of the

existing population; and (4) there is a social disconnect between

residents and non-residents, or those who are moving in dueto the regeneration. We were particularly interested in this

disconnect because it pointed to a destructive friction that could

be undermining the resonance of Elephant & Castle.

The neighborhood feels rundown, it needs business-es more money and little bit of regeneration. Thosethings will help.

job centre employee, non-resident,male, mid-30s



1

Methodology

We developed a methodology for identifying resonance and

frictions around Elephant & Castle to highlight that council does

have the tools at their disposal to measure social concerns directly

related to OA planning. Particular overlaps will be used to identify

sites for strengthening the centre by providing shared access to

spaces for residents, commuters and non-residents. Without this

shared space, the opportunity for developing relationships to

each other and to the spaces supported by the centre is limited.

The following layers provide a quantitative understanding of

the context into which Opportunity Areas are being inserted:

Residential Property Values; Unemployment (Variable Friction)

and Density; Land Use; and Urban Grain and Heights. The Council

uses Opportunity Areas to propose where development can take

place, focusing on transport accessibility. Opportunity areas arelikely to be developed rst and, those that include publically

owned plots present ideal sites for intervention. The 15-year OA

plan includes 56 hectares in total, of which 40% is public land. Of

this public land, 15% has already been developed.

The layers show a complex built environment. Bigger buildings

hug the Thames, showing the inuence the City has across the

river. Moving south, the landscape is interrupted by train tracks

and a mix of lower density typologies made up of continuous street

facades, former industrial buildings, terraced houses, and gated

estates. Approaching and immediately around the Elephant &

Castle is a collection of completely dierent typologies, highrise

modernist shopping centre and buildings and new ‘global city’

buildings characterised by a fragmented urban grain. Proceeding

south the density considerably decreases and also the typology

becomes more uniform. The change in grain is reected in the

varied land use, which also highlights how the Elephant & Castle

pulls mixed activity down from the north along the main roads

and limits non-residential use south of the junction.

The multiple layers show how Elephant & Castle and Central

London have an eect of resonance. We can read a double

system. The rst one, consisting of public institutions (mainly

cultural), private institutions (largely educational) and oces,

attracts people at a metropolitan level; it is developed along thebank of the river and at Elephant & Castle. The second one, the

local system, is mostly made up of smaller shops spread along

the high streets. Land use identies this disconnect between

residents and non-residents.

Residential property value clearly shows the inuence of the City,

with land values in the highest band along the Thames, but also

by viaducts and the factory typology east of Blackfriars Mile.

The depressed values along Blackfriars and Elephant & Castle

show the economic rationale behind the Opportunity Areas;

Residential Property Valu

Unemploymen

Densit

Land Us

Urban Grain + Height

Opportunity Area

from a Central London perspective, this land is a signican

discount, dropping by at least 20% between the north section o

St George’s Circus and Elephant & Castle.

The index of deprivation is used to add a social layer to the physica

and economic frictions. Since local access to jobs presented a

one of the big social disconnects in the area, and to a greate

degree than London, isolating unemployment helps spatially

locate frictions. As stated above, structural unemployment act

as a friction in that the skills mismatch makes it unlikely these

residents will be able to access many of the new jobs the boroug

is producing. Moving away from central London, density triple

from the top of Blackfriars road and mainly concentrates aroun

Elephant & Castle. Density is used to inform where the highes

pockets of unemployed people are, giving a clearer idea of whersignicant social frictions exist.

Multiples Layers: mapping

the complexity of the open system



12

Opportunity Areasdata source: Southwark Council &Lambeth Council (2014)

publicly owned

approved or being redeveloped

BID boundary

Residential Popertiy Value (£)

data source: zoopla.co.uk (2014)270’000 - 320’000

320’001 - 400’000

400’001 - 490’000

490’001 - 560’000

560’001 - 850’000

rest



1

Unemploymentdata source: Indices of deprivation (2010)

0.01 - 0.08

0.08 - 0.10

0.10 - 0.12

0.12 - 0.15

0.15 - 0.22

14- 50

51 - 100

101 - 150

151 - 180

181 - 323

Density (people per hectare)

data source: GLA (2013)



14

Land Use

commercial

mixed use - commercial

oces

mixed use - oces

cultural institutions

non-cultural institutions

infrastructure

public housing

Urban Grain + Heights

data source: Cities Revealed (2012)building over 20 metres

urban grain



1

Metropolitan and Local Systems

local use spaces

spaces attracting non-residents

spaces attracting non-residents ofmetropolitan importance

Overlaying these layers of analysis produces a map visualising

a complex open system that resonates from the two centres:

Elephant & Castle and central London. The data has been

simplied to make frictions legible so gates can be identied.

Opportunity areas already built out have been hidden. BIDs have

been added to show potential partners and the major roads where

visibility is greatest, have been plotted. These streets give a sense

of how people transit through the space and how the dierent

areas are physically connected.

The areas where layers overlap, especially along high-visibility

bus routes, are of interest because they spatially highlight

where frictions are likely to make it dicult for residents and

non-residents to interact meaningfully. By using the OAs to

strategically position social infrastructure in these spaces, thesegates can be opened, thereby unlocking “our capacity to live

together” (Sennet 2012:200).



16

Synthesis Map

local use spaces

spaces attracting non-residents

spaces of metropolitan importance

high unemployment + high density zones

opportunity areas

opportunity areas, public

BID boundaries



18

OPEN SYSTEM

System of Intervention

By identifying the areas where social and spatial friction is

concentrated, a strategy can be generated to encourage

relationships across the gates to broadly increase interactions

between residents and non-residents. Council’s plan to connect

Elephant & Castle to the City using Blackfriars Mile and other

linkage projects are point-to-point spatial strategies that may

actually reinforce gates. The complexity of cities requires a

system of relationships; the centre will need to have relationships

with the areas around it and not just with regenerated areas.

“Cities that develop organically over time possess a rich web of

overlapping connections” while building cities like ‘trees’ is not

ideal as branches can never grow back into each other, which

undermines a city’s structural complexity and sustainability

(Alexander 1965:70). Blackfriars Mile emphasises Elephant &Castle’s ‘branch’ character, while the open system adds a layer

of relational complexity to and around the centre, strengthening

the centre.

The open system suggests relationships, both physical and social,

that in a sense ‘build’ the semi-lattice Alexander (1965) positions

as superior to the ‘tree’. Oxford Street, London’s premier high

street, highlights how powerful these lattices can be: space

syntax analysis shows it to be the most physically integrated

street in London (Major, Penn & Hillier 1997:42.03). However,

physical connection alone is not sucient to integrate non-

residents and residents. The argument proposed is that the best

opportunities for intervention is where social and spatial frictions

collide. Opportunity Areas dened at the borough level provide

great opportunity to develop these social relationships.

What follows are some suggested sites and the relationships that

could be developed, but the same logic could be used to identify

other sites.

[2] On Waterloo Road, St George’s depot is highly visible; retaining

public space here allows for interventions targeted at using these

frictions as a resource to bring residents and non-residents

together. Visibility on the bus network enables non-resident

access, while public land allows residents to not be crowded outof what is likely to become a contested space for development.

[3] It is possible to give Blackfriars Mile an east-west focus too,

and the mix of interventions may provide value for residents

and non-residents to interact. Strong visibility along the Mile,

with strategic partnerships in quieter locations [4] east of the

street, can be used to draw non-residents further in, encouraging

exploration beyond the gates.

[5] Services can be established at the redeveloped Heygate that

bring existing residents into contact with incoming residents,

while strategic street activations can encourage a relationship

south and east. The redeveloped Heygate will introduce new

friction into an area of mostly social housing; land values will

increase as the new Elephant Park is marketed to auent

clientele. This highlights the need for an understanding of how

big projects will inuence the surrounding social landscape.

[1, 6, 7, 8] The system of intervention does not require everything

to be done simultaneously. Future projects that increase

relationships can extended further from Elephant & Castle.

Rather than linking point-to-point, which serves to spatially

fragment rather than strengthen the centre, these interventionswork together. The current massive redevelopment of browneld

sites provides the possibility to consider the opportunity of these

areas beyond the built environment, economic development and

transport accessibility. The availability of so much land, much

of it public, in close proximity to the centre of London is also a

resource for the social structure of the City. Social fragmentation

in this case can be addressed spatially by retaining public land.



1

Rethinking Social Opportunity

Policy for the development of urban centres must aim to integrate

economically-focused initiatives with cultural and social services

for the benet of local residents (Porta 2011:44). Similarly, where

new centres are created out of Opportunity Areas, council need

to consider the long-term social impact of projects to ensure

the short-term, isolated approach taken by the private sector

is balanced by providing necessary social infrastructure (FALP

2014:59). This presents a challenge in an austerity environment

where public land is increasingly sold to developers.

Providing eective social infrastructure is all the more challenging

within a planning ideology that tends to identify Opportunity Areas

on the basis of underutilised transport infrastructure. At both City

and borough level, the conceptualisation of “opportunity” as a

means to create more jobs and houses is far too narrow and limitsthe priority of providing social infrastructure. While an interest

in developing London’s social infrastructure and fostering social

interaction amongst groups is expressed in planning documents

at both City and Council level (FALP 2014; SPD 2012), there

is no clear strategy for implementing social infrastructure

interventions, measuring their impact, or using them to generate

relationships between residents and non-residents.

We advocate for a conceptual shift by proposing two policy

recommendations to the New London Plan, which is currently

under consideration:

1. The performance of social infrastructure can be measured

according to the English Indices of Deprivation, which combine a

number of statistical indicators to analyse which areas experience

high levels of social, economic, and housing-related deprivation.

This data can help to determine local frictions and where they

could be turned into resources to plan what types of interventions

would be most eective in the development of new social

infrastructure.

2. To ensure the long-term impact of social infrastructure, the

council must act now to systematically retain or buy public land

on desired intervention sites before it is developed by privately-

led regeneration eorts; where public land is sold, revenuesshould go purchase replacement land. Section 106 and the CIL are

charges that council can levy to compensate local communities

when development takes place, and the revenue can be used most

strategically by going towards the retention or purchase of public

land distributed across the open system. Using this approach, the

public is more able to contest increasingly privatised spaces into

the future.

Opportunity Areas should be more than nancial centres (Sasse

2009:225). But advocating for more social infrastructure

not a matter of either-or; in fact, it can have massive positiv

externalities on economic progress. In addressing inequalitie

and bridging disconnect, social infrastructure has the potential t

drive development by enhancing human capital (Familoni 2006

It oers a chance to build both social and economic relationship

to ensure more distributed growth and prevent social inequalitie

and decay (Sassen 2009:234-5). Therefore, broadening th

understanding of ‘opportunity’ to include the provision of bot

social and economic infrastructure is in the best interest of th

City as well as residents.

Opening the Gates

To balance the eects of private development in Elephant &

Castle, Southwark Council’s rst priority should be to retain o

acquire the public land. Determining its use must be exible an

include the participation of all parties involved in order to “leav

an essential part of the process to those who are most intimate

connected with it: the ultimate consumers or citizens” (Mumfor

on Geddes 1950:86-7).



20

Along the high-friction gates identied within the open systemresonating from the centre, we located specic sites for

interventions that could serve to open these gates. The process of

site identication is two-fold: on a human scale, the intervention

must encourage physical and social interaction between

disconnected groups. On an urban scale, the sites must be widely

distributed in order to use frictions productively to support

the resonance of the centre. Thus, friction will be channeled to

encourage connection rather than disconnection.

The next step is to determine the function that each intervention

will have. Frictions can only be used productively if the activities

at each site relate directly back to the social contexts of the opensystem. In the case of Elephant & Castle, the professional skills

gap is one of the greatest disconnects in the area, resulting in high

employment for local residents. If neglected, this dierence might

generate frictions in the form of social tensions, displacement,

and potentially deepening socio-economic inequalities. To

instead use the friction as a resource to bridge disconnection and

create a more socially and physically cohesive open system, the

functions of the Elephant & Castle interventions must deal with

the skills gap and with social disconnect in some manner.

Beyond these social, spatial, and political strategies, our systemis not prescriptive; a variety of sites, including non-OA sites, and

functions could produce the desired results. However, to envision

the success of this systematic approach to development, we

carried the process through for exemplar projects at four sites

within the Elephant & Castle system.

Ownership model‘retain, purchase and distribute public land’

Private LandUnused Public Land

Retainpublic / privatepartnership fordevelopment

Sell Purchase PrivateDevelopment

Redistributed PublicLandShared Revenues CIL/S106



2

Weekend BarterNetworkCo-Op Food

Market

Childcare &Language Centre

Youth Centre &Exhibition Space

23 4

5

SITE SPECIFIC INTERVENTIONS

Implementation

Local data and in-depth stakeholder interviews should beanalysed to imagine how the function of each intervention could

address unemployment or its negative eects. According to a

council-generated survey, local residents identify the biggest

problem in Southwark as “lack of things for young people to do”

(Southwark Council 2011:9). A number interviews also conrmed

that residents are concerned with the lack of activities for youth

and the unemployed. From another perspective, a local mother

expressed that she wanted to work but had to look after her child.

Statistical ndings in Southwark conrm more economically

inactive women desire to work than men, suggesting greater

barriers for women to nd jobs (Southwark Council 2012a:7).

Finally, other interviews revealed that residents, particularly theunemployed, fear regeneration will drive up prices in local shops.

All of these concerns informed the suggestions for potential

interventions. As proof-of-concepts, examples are inspired by

existing projects from cities around the world.

All job-related initiatives would be connected to Employ SE1

a job placement network established by the Southwark an

Waterloo BIDs. The Council has already advocated for expandin

this network to include more organisations, so linking it to thes

interventions would further the goal of resolving unemploymen

(Southwark Council 2012a). The London Plan policy 4.1

(FALF 2014:151-2) also supports eorts to “remove barriers t

employment” through local skills development and providin

business start-up space and aordable childcare facilities.



22

Plot Specifcations to

determine future project

Site Specifc Context

At a highly visible area, withmany bus routes; near mixeduse buildings & schools

Status of Land OwnershipOwned by T f L; Council owned D1(Westminster Bridge Road 5a)

Bridging DisconnectSpace that can attract visitors fromacross London due to accesibility;important location in the borough

Reach of ResonnanceLondon-wide reach

Youth Development Centre and Exhibition Space

Ownership and Partnership

Negotiation + Agreement

T f L Land

partially sold

private

development

S106/CILSelf FinancedPublic Asset

SharedRevenues

Public BuildingCATEGORY D1*

*CATEGORY D1: In The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, Part D,Class D1 includes ‘non-residential institutions; any use not including a residential use’.

**SEMAVIP in Paris is an example of how the public sector can participate in thedevelopment process and retain part of the revenues through increased land values .

public / private

partnership fordevelopment **

Exemplar 1: Youth Development Centre and

Exhibition Space

The Bakerloo Depot OA next to St George’s Circus is valuably

positioned between the private development on Blackfriars Road

and Elephant & Castle roundabout. When TfL sells the land to

developers, the council could negotiate a partnership to use some

of the land along with the portion they already own (Westminster

Bridge Road 5a) to support a youth centre and exhibition space.

At the centre young people could practise visual and performing

arts, and those not in school or employed could learn job skills. Just

as in the United Teen Equality Center in Lowell, Massachusetts,

the youth would work with the sta to organise desired

programmes, taking ownership of the centre while learning how

to enter the labour market. Next to the centre on the same plot

would be a public space for exhibitions and performances of their

projects. Modelled after Paris’ Le Centquatre public performanceestablishment, this public space would connect young residents

with visitors from elsewhere. This two-part intervention gives

youth a place to go while bridging the structural unemployment

gap by providing skills and placement opportunities.



2

Exemplar 2: Blackfriars Food Cooperative

The highly visible, publicly-owned opportunity areas near

Blackfriars Road are ideal for a linked intervention to counteract

the area’s privatisation and to provide a space where residentsand non-residents could meet. On one site, a cooperative market

could supply locally-sourced products at discounted rates to

members who work a few hours per month, allowing access to

aordable food and to an aliation of co-workers from dierent

areas. The council would retain the land, but the co-op could be

run by a non-prot with subsidised rents. An existing example of

this model is the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, New York,

where membership is diverse and based on a wide catchment

area. The co-op also provides an alternative to the proliferation

of chain-food stores, something bemoaned by the Blackfriars

Landowners Forum (2014).

Exemplar 3: Weekend Barter Market

A nearby plot is privately-owned. The Council could temporarily

use it to host a weekend barter market while the developer waits

for the land value to increase, and people from across London

could come together to exchange labour hours for services.

The market could be managed by the same organisation as the

food cooperative, and may even sell fresh produce. Examples of

similar initiatives are London’s Local Exchange Trading Scheme

(which recently closed its Southwark branch) and Zumbara Time

Bank in Istanbul.

b. Weekend Barter Networ

Temporary Agreement

Co-Op

Temporary Use

Private Development

Private Land

Agreement

a. Co-Op Market

a.Co-Op Market

Landlord Agreement

Landlord

Oversight

Sustainable Asset Revenue

Public Land

Negotiation + Agreement

b. Barter Network

Site Specifc Context

a. Highly visible plotb. Slightly hidden plot

Status of Land Ownershipa. Public landb. Private land

Bridging Disconnecta. Commercial meeting spacb. Local network

Reach of Resonnancea. London-wide reachb. Southwark-wide reach



24

Child Care + Language Centre

Purchase and Partnership

+

Buy

Public Land

Public Asset S106/CIL

Regeneration Agreement *

Private Land Revenue

*REGENERATION AGREEMENT in respect of Elephant & Castle (09/2010)section ‘6.2 The Council shall be entitled to Prot Overage equal to 50 percentof the Net Prot.’

Exemplar 3: Childcare and Language Center

The proximity of the Heygate Estate to the roundabout and

the friction the new upscale housing will create with Walworth

Road make it a strategic location for intervention. The council

could use the revenue gained from the sales agreement to buy

back a portion of the scheme, and this portion could serve as an

aordable childcare centre and a language institute for adults

taught by local instructors. Economically inactive mothers could

receive free childcare while seeking work, but the centre would

also available to local residents. As nearly 20% (CIS 2013:5) of

Southwark’s population has a main language other than English,

ESL and other language courses could help them secure jobs.

Native speakers of other languages could teach courses or

provide immersion sessions to native English speakers as well.

Plot Specifcations to

determine future project

Site Specifc ContextWithin the premises of a former Estate Building;surrounded by Estates

Status of Land OwnershipFormerly Public Land; Council have prot shareagreement

Bridging DisconnectMeeting place for new residents and currentresidents

Reach of ResonnanceSouthwark-wide reach



2

Interrelational & Organisational

n e t w

o r k

c o u n

c i l s u p e

r v i s i

o n

p r o j e c t i

n t e r a c t i

o n

s h a r e d

i n f o

r m a t i o

n

Physical Network

p u b l

i c T r

a n s p

o r t

p e d e

s t r i a

n s

c y c l i s t s

Context

local use spacesspaces of metropolitanimportance and attractingnon-residents

intervention plots

intervention plots

community centres

open system connections

new project interactionsintergration with existingsocial centres (D1)

open system stakeholders



26

IMPLICATIONS

Our suggestions for strategically bridging disconnect within an

open system come at a time when social infrastructure is being

developed and reworked in innovative ways throughout the

City of London. In little over a decade, Tower Hamlets Council

has reestablished the importance of city libraries for local

residents by implementing a network of Idea Store Libraries that

add adult education classes, career support and training, and

leisure areas to traditional library services. The new King’s Cross

redevelopment includes King’s Place, a commercial and cultural

hub that used Section 106 monies to build a public concert

hall and secure space for three orchestras. The Coin Street

Community Builders trust has worked to regenerate London’s

South Bank while incorporating mixed-use social resources and

public spaces such as the Oxo Tower Wharf and Bernie Spain

Gardens. These schemes work to bring people together, but ouropen system framework calls for addressing disconnect in a more

spatially strategic way and through retention of public assets in

order to balance private inuence.

To facilitate the relationships between the diverse range of

stakeholders implicated in Elephant & Castle’s redevelopment,

we advocate for a shift in the perception of how to build a

successful urban centre. The Council has already identied

disconnect and unemployment as problems that require policy

attention. The Blackfriars Mile and Urban Forest initiatives

address this disconnect by economically and spatially linking

Elephant & Castle to the north. The regeneration will draw in new

people of higher socio-economic status, which could produce

destructive frictions that will widen inequalities in the area and

further disconnect residents who already experience diculty

accessing many of the benets of a strong local economy. If we

spatially identify where these frictions are generated, we can

use them productively to start interaction rather than prevent it.

Approaching Elephant & Castle as an open system of strategically

placed public assets allows for a more nuanced policy intervention

framework with many benets: it provides opportunities for

connections between non-residents, new residents and old

residents; it strengthens the resonance of the centre and

increases access by widely distributing sites for intervention; and

it builds relationships between these sites as well as other areastakeholders who might not otherwise connect. Finally, the open

system framework highlights the capacity the council already has

to develop Opportunity Areas as resources for social benet as

well as economic impact. Using this open system to strategically

retain public land for the provision of social infrastructure is

critical to realising the potential of Elephant & Castle in a way that

does not repeat the history of failed regeneration eorts.



2

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2

APPENDIX 1

Interview MethodologySample from the street/shops, at dierent times (weekday lunch/

rush hour evening/Saturday afternoon/night time), record the

interviews with our phones (w permission), make our student

positions clear, ask questions in hierarchy shown below.

Detail:

time, location

General:

Age?

Do you live in this neighbourhood (postcode)?

Why are you here?

What is your profession?

If living in the area:

How long have you lived here?Is this a part of London you want to stay in?

What attracts you to the neighbourhood?

What’s the centre of this neighbourhood?

When you leave the neighbourhood (day-to-day), what do you

leave to do?

If working or visiting:

How long does it take you to get here?

General:

What’s missing from the area?

Is there anything you wish were physically dierent with the area?

Do you think it is safe here?

If you were to encourage a friend from out of town to visit the

area for a day, how would you sell it?

If you were to encourage a friend to move here, how would you

sell it?

Is there anything else you’d like to add that I didn’t ask you?



30

APPENDIX 2

InterviewsKey: I (I1) – interviewer 1

I2 – interviewer 2

R (R1) – respondent 1

R2 – respondent 2

Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre 1

I: How long have you been living in the area?

R1: [For] 15 years.

I: What do you think are the best things about the neighborhood?

R1: Cosmopolitan society, centrality, transport is here:

Underground, Overground. It is central

I: Do you work nearby?

R1: I do. And I have access to transport when I don’t work nearby.

I: What do you think is missing in the neighborhood?

R1: We need fun. What is missing is more facilities for the

unemployed: more leisure centres, theatres, cinemas and things

like that; things for people to go so they do not have to go to the

West End. More facilities for amusement.

I: What do you do on the weekend?

R1: There are not many places on Elephant & Castle. Most people

go to the Ministry of Sound, which is a well-known place for

music. And we also have is just one sports centre right on the

corner. Apart from these things... not much here.

R2: The shopping centre is the only amenity we have. Nothing to

do here.

I: How do you feel about the new plans for the shopping centre

then?

R1: When is this gonna happen?

I: 5 years. How do you feel about it?R1: I am all right. But will it stand for the local neighborhood? The

people who live here, will it not be too expensive for them to go

there? Will it have the shops that we like? I don’t know.

R2: The reason behind it is to get the rich people in, get rid of poor

people. Eventually, you’ll have the locals moving out.

I: If you need to invite friends who have never been to London

before in the neighborhood, how would you sell it?

R1: If I had a friend coming from abroad, I will bring him here just

because I live here. This is not a place for sightseeing. West End is

a place for sightseeing. But it does have a few: the [Imperial] War

Museum is just around the corner, Bingo upstairs… There is not

much for sights. I wouldn’t bring a friend to Elephant and Castle. Iwill take him to [INAUDIBLE].

I: But even not for sightseeing. If you want to show what you love

about where you live, is there particular street…

R1: The only thing I can show what I love – this is the shopping

centre. This is the main attraction.

R2: And the Underground.

R1: The Underground which is very low-cost. And the bus stops.

I: Anything you guys wanna add?

R2: Give your nal project to the council so that the council can

see what we said.

I: We are planning to do that.

Student at UAL

I: How old are you?

R: 23.

I: Do you live around here?R: Yeah.

I: How far do you live?

R: Bermondsey, which is like 15-20 minutes away.

I: How long have you been living there?

R: 3 years.

I: So is this the part of London you want to stay in? Why?

R: Yeah. It is more central. I used to live quite out of London. That

is the reason.

I: What attracts you to the neighborhood?

R: It is up-and-coming! I live in an estate and everything around us

is being redone since the Olympics. It is a nicer place to be.

I: If you are to encourage your friend to come and visit you how

would you sell the neighborhood?

R: Really really close to all the bars and clubs.

I: And what about to move here? If you wanted your friend to

move here how would you...

R: I won’t recommend someone to move here because it is just so

expensive. I already did a study and... yeah, it is expensive.

I: What do you think is the centre of this neighborhood?

R: I don’t know. It is all housing.

I: When you leave the neighborhood what do you leave to do?

R: Uni.

I: What do you think is missing?

R: Nothing really. Everything is all right.

I: Did it get safe?R: It is safer. Now...

I: What do you think is missing?

R: Nothing really. Everything is all right.

I: Do you wish anything physically dierent for the neighborhood?

R: Do it a bit nicer. The shopping centre is a little bit dodgy. A lot

of people there begging, asking for money and it always smells

like weed.

The Rising Sun Pub

I1: So you live around the area?

R1: Yeah.

I1: For how long?R1: All of my life.

I1: What is your favourite thing about this neighborhood?

R1: [laughs] Well… This neighborhood?

I1: What do you like doing around here? Where would you like to

go?

R1: Stay in bed! Then coming down to the pub for a couple of

drinks then go home, cause we are working so we can’t get out

a lot.

I1: So you have the kids you said?

R1: Yeah

I1: Is there a place nearby where your kids like to play?



3

R1: Yeah, we got parks. Down that way. There is a park down there,

massive one. They jump on a bus and go to that park. St. James’ Park.

I1: What do you not like about the area?

R1: I don’t know. I suppose it might be a bit more modern. Like youknow, there are a lot of Tescos coming in, big buildings. My mom the

other day… They opened the new building which now blocks the place.

The neighborhood is too tight. There is too much of new development

carrying on. People are losing their houses. Old houses are being knocked

down and they build new ones, shopping centres, everything… And

people don’t like that.

I1: So you want more stores?

R1: No, we got enough. Look. There was a big business. Next door - a

little business. [Little business] not working anymore.

I1: So you prefer to help small business stay?

R1: Yeah, survive. But I can’t help them! The government should help

them!

I1: When you go to do your shopping do you usually go to the smaller

local places?

R1: I go to Tescos.There a lot of shopping around. When you got down the

road and you want a box of cigarettes or a drink you don’t go to Tescos,

do you? You go to a little shop. That is what people want.

R2: Sometimes you get those things cheaper in the Tesco.

I2: You say that the government should be in charge, but is there any

sense of community? Do you have places or websites? Do you get any

chance to express your opinion?

R1: We have social clubs for people to go, for kids 16, 17, 18. We have

a social clubs where they can go to play table tennis, keep them of the

street, out of trouble.

I1: Are they nearby? Do they really work?R2: They used to have them but now they shut them down! There is one

down this road, there is a big park there, just before the mosque. There

is a new place where kids can go to play games, you know, when the kids

are on holiday and all that to keep them of the street. I’ve seen kids like 13

years old selling drugs and 12-year olds sitting on drugs.

I1: And do kids go?

R2: Yeah, on holidays there are a lot of kids in there. When we were in that

age, we used to go to one on [INAUDIBLE] Street. We paid nothing. But

the government, they shut them all down.

R1: Do you live here?

I1: No, we just doing a project?

R1: Do people talk to you?I1: Yeah.

R1: You see, they are friendly in here. But people are rough as well. The

area is very dangerous.

I1: So do you feel safe? Is this a safer place that Elephant and Castle itself?

R1: I don’t go to the Elephant and Castle. I just don’t need to. I got the

tube station here. Everyday I do the same work.

I1: So you live close by?

R1: Yeah, like 6-7 minutes from here.

I1: Do you think that a lot of people have lived here for a long time like

you?

R1: Yeah, because in London, yeah, we have postcodes SE1, SE17, SE16.

SE1 is better than SE17, it is below. Postcode depends on th

area. You understand? The lower the number - the better. Yo

must know that the government always, probably in whol

Europe, Italy, America, the government only spends moneon nice places. They don’t spend much on such places. It is sa

because I’ve been living here for all of my live and I’ve never see

nothing else, all the same. Old houses are going and businesse

going because the big shops are opening - same thing.

I1: So you think that having this kind of social centres would b

the best thing to add?

R1: Yeah, because any [kind of] education keeps children an

students of the street.

I2: So you went there as a kid?

R1: Yeah, I went to a playground where professional teacher look

after you because mommy and daddy, they must work. It’s har

to live in this country for everyone. I was born in 1966 and m

birthday is tomorrow...

I1: Oh, happy birthday!

R1: ...and I think there should be more places where kids can g

cause if the kids don’t go there they gonna stay on the street an

they gonna make lots of trouble, they gonna take drugs just as h

[R2] said and things like that and this makes an area very rough

So the government should spend more money on the kids wh

live here. All the young children have a criminal record befor

they even reach 18 which is a very bad start for them in live

They won’t get the job ‘cause it is dicult to do with the crimin

record, especially the job they want. For example, if somebod

studied to be a teacher and he had a criminal record you have n

chance [to become a teacher].I2: I have a question.

R1: The last one…

I2: Ok, since you are living here for such a long period of tim

would you collaborate with the government to do something i

the area?

R1: No, I never take money from the government, no socia

benets. Never! I worked my whole life. I bought a house, payin

mortgage £700 every month. And I have 2 kids, I look afte

them. And the government never gave me anything; I archieve

everything myself. Government is always ready to take. If yo

own anything extra government is always ready to take [it] o

you…I2: This is true...

R1: ...because everybody know that rich government make poo

people. This country, Germany, Belgium, everywhere. And wha

we gonna do in this country?

[after wrapping the dialogue adds]

And if you can do anything, yeah, you might consider building

park on this side as well. Nobody even can a walk a dog here. W

already said that but the government in this country can’t liste

to anybody anyway. Look, we now have 400,000 Romanians an

Bulgarians coming in. This country is 75 million people. You know



32

how many people are unemployed? 1.7 million! And if there more

and more people coming it this [gure] is gonna go higher. People

will be sleeping in the streets.

I2: Where was your mom from?R1: Cyprus.

I2: Nobody stopped her from coming here.

R1: But people from Cyprus came into this country before the

[Second World] war. They were here. Whatever the British people

think. All people had very hard time This country is still building

up from the war. All of these [building] are knocked down from

the war, you see?

I1: Is there a big Cypriot community in this neighborhood?

R1: Yeah, there is. And it is a big one. We have shops, cafes similar

to those Italians have, Brazilians have, many Americans have,

Australians… Everybody in this country has his own section

[ethnic area]. There is Little Italy, here in London. You won’t see in

a lot of countries.Germany and France, they are similar [to Britain

in terms of ethnic diversity]... America – as well. I have to go...

an_open_system.pdf

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