Assembly Lines - 2017

Artist: London Fieldworks

Client: East Thames Development Corporation

Site: Prospect East - Stratford, London

A series of sculptural reliefs and wall paintings mapping rapid urban development in London E15. 'Assembly Lines' was commissioned by the housing association East Thames for a new residential building in Stratford, London E15 on a former industrial site. Considering the history of the site as a railway wagon works and marshalling yard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, each of building’s five lobbies was connected with walking routes to five local train stations.

Taking inspiration from the artist Ed Ruscha’s accordion-fold photo-book, 'Every Building on the Sunset Strip', walking routes were captured by photographing buildings and structures along the way; selections were then made from the series of photographs as a record of evolving gentrification amid the changing urban landscape brought about by post-Olympic regeneration. Software transformed buildings and other structures captured in the photographs into 3D models, which was then collapsed into abstracted profiles for assembly into layered architectural reliefs.

The multilayered 3D computer models were broken into constituent parts, CNC machined, pre-assembled in the workshop, painted and fire-proofed prior to installation.