Caruso St John Architects

2003
Location: London
Project Status: Competition

The extraordinary landscape at Rainham Marsh has the smoothly rounded topography of plains, arcs and flat hills that one might expect of a natural coastline. Yet here the topography is all man-made; bunds, mounds, ditches, motorway flyovers and swooping powerlines together mark out an epic artificial landscape. The city, visible at a distance on all horizons, appears to have thinned out, leaving an empty space. The protection of the Marsh as a Wildlife Reserve gives this space a secret energy, where its remote, still quality is something to be doubly valued. Our design for the Centre responds to the aura of this found landscape, with its melancholic character of something grand abandoned to nature. The new building is compact and tall, appearing as a ‘found’ structure that relates strongly to the man-made forms, the straight river bund and the dyke, which define the southeast corner of the Marsh. Its proportions give it a powerful relationship to the expanse of the river and allow it to operate as a point of focus for the confluence of the paths and entrances to the Reserve and to the river wall. Like a Victorian signal box standing beside the railway line, or the watermill at the end of the mill race, the new building appears to belong to its location and establishes a point of significance at the moment of going out into the Reserve.