Crossing the Borough Division: Association as Opportunity
Minju Kim, MArch (Year: 5)
Localism Act afterall is superseded by the power of Greater London Authority and mayor’s heavily infrastructural projects in opportunity areas. Under the connotation of ‘connecting’ ‘opportunity’ projects in fact implement greater physical, social divisions of imbalance.
TFL ring roads, lea valley, brown fields, and leftover structural scars of the industrial revolution superimpose the single ‘line’ of borough division between Newham and Barking as a ‘zone’ of division. Within the territorial division, local service points are restricted to the local taxable residences where residents from the ‘other borough’ are unable to access these facilities.
Cross-association prove to counteract the extreme sectarianist divisions in West Belfast. Against the peace wall, New life church defines the success story of a protestant church transforming for individuals from ‘both sides’ outside of its service hours.
Physical cross over, social shared responsibility, and individual overlap in trajectory. The accumulation of three interventions were deemed crucial to rectify the division zone between Newham and Barking. Cross-borough association altogether encourages the overlap in usage of space, in territorial administration of public/private stakeholders, and in user experience and proposes a shift from an economic definition of opportunity to ‘opportunity’ for the many.

London_Divisions

Belfast

Belfast_division zone

Belfast_association

London_association

3 interventions

Physical_infrastructure

Physical_overlap in space_flatten

Social_overlap responsibility
