As the river’s ebb and flow will continue to connect the Foreshores, Inner Estuary and City Ribbon, the 2050 Vision plan presents the next challenges to the River Thames supporting the growth of the area: its fragmented governance, the new crossings working together with multi- functional defences, as well as improving water quality and increased use of the river for aquaculture and leisure. (Thames Estuary Growth Commission 2050)
The research here presents the first stage in responding to how the River Thames - as a material entity - is presented in the 2050 Speculative plan. By investigating its physical composition, its rhythms and the architectures that manage and impact its material flows, we have begun to trace and map a variety of its social, economic and environmental entanglements.
The River is an entity that has been managed for millennia, through tidal and river defences, trade development and capital production. This continues to manifest today in ever more prescient ways, as locations of urban gentrification and capital development such as Canary Wharf intensify, and infrastructures of defence react to global environmental crises.