PROJECT 01 BENCHSPACE PROBE
PATHWAYone

Sample strip:
100m wide
Big Ben, Westminster to Trinity Buoy Wharf, Canning Town

Total walk time:
5 hours

Data collection:
23 January 2007, 10:43 - 17:19
21 February 2007, 14:44 – 18:18
02 March 2007, 14:55 – 17:48
09 March 2007, 13:35 – 16:09
20 May 2007, 11:22 - 13:04
25 May 2007, 10:35 – 14:52
02 June 2007, 09:52 - 15:05
15 June 2007, 14:23 - 15:40

PATHWAYone focuses on the river and its connecting zones, beginning at Big Ben and stretching to Trinity Buoy Wharf, Canning Town. The city ‘decompresses’ as we travel eastwards: abruptly changing, neighbouring, dense urban areas slowly lose cohesion as we head towards the windswept River Lea.

We observed some of London’s better known and lesser known benchspaces, from Parliament Square, passing through the quiet residential areas of Southwark, through the private-public space of More London, over Tower Bridge, through St Katherine’s Dock, into Shadwell, past the Wapping Project, Narrow Street, Robin Hood Gardens, through Bow Creek Ecology Park and ending at Container City at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

In January, freezing spaces showed intriguing traces of prior inhabitation; rustling seedpods and empty cans offering the only companionship on frostbite-inducing steel benches. By summer, some benchspaces were enthusiastically populated over the lunch hour and marked by their nighttime roles, yet many remained eerily silent, dislocated and forgotten.