2019_Thesis Book: Maria Diavolova

atlas of erosive potentialities
URBAN narratives in the face of surging seas
an honors thesis in architecture
by maria v diavolova
university of pennsylvania
college of arts and science

atlas of erosive potentialities:
urban narratives in the face of surging seas
an honors thesis in architecture
by maria v diavolova
advising, daniel a. barber, sophie hochhäusl
university of pennsylvania
college of arts and science

contents
abstract...010
preface...011
a game of pick up sticks...013
capital of capital...014
liquidity...018
erosive potentialities...022
appendix a: atlas of erosive potentialities...026
bibliography...033

20 13
anthropogenic
greenhouse gases
65%
13 of the world’s 20 largest cities are port cities
Dawson, 2017, Introduction
Between 60 to 70% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions emanate from cities
Dawson, 2017, 36
005 006

15% London
40%
UK carbon
emissions
15% of London is within a recognized flood risk zone from either tidal or fluvial flooding
https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/planning/london-plan/current-london-plan/london-plan-chapter-five-londons-response/pol-11
The construction / building industry is responsible for 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions
https://www.ukgbc.org/climate-change/
007 008

abstract
“History is humankind trying to get a grip, but it could go better if you
would pay a little more attention to certain details, like for instance your
planet.”
— Kim Stanley Robinson, NY2140
London is inherently vulnerable to flooding as a result of high tides and storm
surges on the Thames, which are exacerbated, at an increasing frequency, by storms
in the North Sea. Since 1984, Great Britain’s capital has been on the defense, primarily
in protection of the City of London, when the government erected the Thames Barrier.
The 1,800-foot retractable floodgate stretches between Silvertown and New Charlton,
cutting off high tide ahead of the meanders that define London’s cityscape. Designed
for a one in a one-thousand-year event, the two-billion-pound investment has already
been used 182 times, and 50 times in the year 2013 alone.
London is a sprawling example of a cosmopolitan urban hub whose architecture
visually defines the city’s temporal boundaries; rigid, brick and masonry buildings,
on the one hand, and tall-glass curtain skyscrapers on the other. At both extremes,
these structures lack resilience. This thesis scrutinizes the resiliency of London’s
built environment both from an urban and a typological perspective; it engages with
texts in urban ecology, science fiction and critical preservation in an attempt to forge
interdependencies in the shape of a fictional story through time. How will sea level rise
affect the spatial configuration of London?
At an architectural level, resilient design solutions oscillate between utopian
paper architecture and novel solutions for new construction. Neither the private nor
the public sector can afford to retroactively introduce architectural resiliency to every
corner of London. Hence, the field relies on infrastructural defenses like the Thames
Barrier. This infests the city with a false sense of security and permanence, promoting
a static way of life, and thereby habitation. We live as subjects of rapid and forthcoming
change. Preservation is a means to derive security. When all else changes, there is
comfort in knowing the physical objects of memory are here to stay. Yet, how will
London adapt its existing architectural typologies?
At an urban level, waterfront schemes – popular solutions in the face of rising
sea levels – run the risk of reinforcing economic and social inequality via environmental
gentrification. An analogous social infrastructure in New York City, the High Line
increased contiguous property values by over one-hundred percent. Luxury building
types, like Zaha’s 520 West 28th Str., further inflate property values. If we are to avoid
similar precedents, how can the architectural type, as the proposed resolution in the
face of rising waters, further equality, as opposed to inequality?
To address these questions, this thesis speculates on the value of erosion as
a vehicle to critically engage the challenges of rising tides. Can the resurgence of the
non-human be thought of as the erosion of the man-made on an urban and typological
scale?
009 010

preface
“Creative agents advance their interests in architecture through
designed interventions in existing buildings, which challenge architectural
conventions, and weaken its disciplinary boundaries.”
WATER is the first means to traverse the world; to exchange resources
between faraway lands; to extract and redistribute. Water is inherently endowed with
the quality of a fuel—energy, which can be transformed into power; but as found, it
is a potentiality, a “not yet rigidified [form] of power. 3 Within a reservoir, it becomes
an echo of socio-political conditions for the production of capital, 4 a mirror image of a
place in time.
Once rigidified, it can become a tool for human use and abuse, losing its
identity as anything but a ‘means to.’ 5 The most notable periods in the history of
the United Kingdom are defined as those of greatest geographic reach, not in terms
of landmass but in terms of claim to offshores. The hard divisions between land and
water stem from cartography, of mapping as a tool for the “exploration” of offshore
territories. Globally, waterways became dominant sites of economic activity. Shoreline
factories, warehouses and ports enabled the centralization of economic production,
distribution and exchange. The contemporary domestication of water emanates
from the transformation of these labor practices, from predominately industrial in
nature to primarily service-oriented. Waterfronts have become the sites of the spatial
transformation of capital. 6 Specifically, London’s riverfront is now the site of the global
economy, of vertical forests, which offer far-reaching views that dissolve locality and
instill globality.
The Anthropocene—the era during which human activity has been the ruling
influence on the environment—is increasingly destabilizing the perception of water
as a controllable presence in the environment; insofar as the River Thames is a tool,
“it is quite invisible…[it] disappears in favor of some purpose that it serves.” 7 With
anthropogenic global warming, land subsidence and sea level rise, hard, infrastructural
solutions are deployed to contain it in an effort to preserve its identity. These solutions,
like the Thames Barrier, are predicated on the idea that the effects of global warming
can be localized and resolved as such. Hence, the River Thames remains ‘invisible,’ a
background animation, because it continues to operate within its prescribed boundary.
Rephrasing Heidegger, Graham Harman says, “We generally notice equipment
only when it somehow fails.” 8 If London continues on a trajectory of infrastructural
defense, it will notice the River Thames only when it fails to be contained. This thesis
proposes that water can assume a new identity within London’s built environment,
one that reflect its inherent physical property of a liquid.
What effects would this bear on London’s existing architectural typologies?
London’s waterfront, specifically along South London’s Bermondsey, is populated by
former warehouses. The buildings are Grade II listed, which prevents any significant
modifications to their exterior; they have, however, been transformed into luxury
housing, boutique storefronts and riverside restaurants. As a result, their functions
are supported by extensive HVAC systems, which populate their rooftops and thus
ensure the preservation of the industrial aesthetic of their façades. These systems
expend an enormous amount of energy for the preservation of a borough’s aesthetic
identity. This thesis claims that this identity is no longer viable in the context of sea
level rise.
Architects such as Keller Easterling and Rem Koolhaas have spoken on the
value of subtraction 9 or abstinence 10 in architecture; both of these terms, however,
operate on the same timescale of quick or momentary exchanges. This thesis
speculates on the value of erosion, a term, which implies a longer, geological, time scale
— Jorge Otero-Pailos 2 (3) “Fuels, as I hope to distinguish them from
systems of energy, are potentialities—a
vexing terms that I will revisit at various
points—perhaps flowing or trapped in a
rock, perhaps gaseous and invisible, slippery
and noxious, not yet rigidified forms of
power” (Pinkus 2016, 1)
(4) “…the changing states of the river play
out in terms of history, class struggles,
nationalism and modernization” (Goh
2019, 254); referencing the research of
Anne Redemacher on the Kathmandu
river ecologies, Goh is arguing for an
understanding of river ecologies as both
biophysical and sociopolitical in nature.
Similarly, the domestication of the Thames
as a backdrop to London’s skyline should be
understood as the product of a long history of
imperialism; on the one hand, in terms of the
management and redistribution of imported
goods on its south-eastern shorelines; and
on the other, in terms of embankments, such
as Victoria Embankment, which activate the
river as a background animation to London’s
cultural landmarks.
(5) …insofar as the tool is a tool it is quite
invisible. And what makes it invisible is the
way that this disappears in favor of some
purpose that it serves…we generally notice
equipment only when it somehow fails.”
(Harman quoted in Gage, 2019)
(6) …David Harvey, Professor of
Anthropology and Geography at CUNY, calls
the city “the land of the spatio-temporal
fix for the contradictions of capitalism”
(Harvey quoted in Dawson, 2017). Namely,
as production declines, the city shifts toward
real-estate speculation as a means to grow
via the high returns on investment in real
estate. London’s waterfronts are prime
territories for this “fix.”
(7) Keller Easterling proposes “an economy
where subtraction is the other half
of building,” such that subtraction is
transformed from a term, which connotes
failure or loss to a term, which signifies
exchange (Easterling, 2014, 2)
in the transformation of London’s built environment. Erosion is commonly defined as
a natural process whereby an entity is being eroded by wind, water or other natural
agents. In the context of the Anthropocene, however, erosion is hardly a “natural”
phenomenon; instead, it is the product of anthropogenic activities. This thesis defines
erosion as the gradual removal of the man-made, permitting the resurgence of the
non-human within the built environment; it argues that the built environment is full
of erosive potentialities—objects, systems, and moments, which bear a capacity for
erosion as a means to transform place in the face of surging seas.
Subsequent chapters tell the psychogeography of a person living in a
particular time, as a way to illuminate the layers of historical processes, which have
led to the climate crisis as experienced today. This thesis explores the relationship
between narrative and design; and then, between mapping and narrative. Beginning in
2052, the reader is briefly transported to Post-Carbon London, where carbon-neutral
technological solutions are failing to resolve the crisis. Then, it focuses on three time
periods – 1870, 2020 and 2150, presented chronologically; the objective is to imply a
longer time scale for the contemporary and future realities. 1870 suggests the onset
of the carbon emission curve, which we continue to accelerate; 2020 is the moment of
potentiality, where indecision and inaction will (and do) prove detrimental; and 2150,
as the projected scenario of managed retreat. This thesis proposes a reality where
the resiliency of London’s built environment is not predicated on defense. Instead, the
built environment becomes a moment of exchange between man and the non-human;
in this process, architecture and urbanity may be eroded, but their value multiplies as
they become hosts to new habitats, human and non-human, both.
(9)
camilo vergara, “green ghettos”
vacancy permitting the resurgence of the non-human
(10) “…I come closer-to one of my most
intimate utopian dreams, which is to find an
architecture that does nothing. I’ve always
been appalled that abstinence is the one part
of the architectural repertoire that is never
considered…there ought to be an equally
important arm of it that is concerned with
not doing anything” (Koolhaas and Otero-
Pailos)
011 012

a game of pick up sticks 2052
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will
be able to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
001
– T.S. Eliot 11 (12)
YOU LAND at the intersection of Jacob Street and George Row, just off of
Bermondsey 12 Wall. 13
The street is lined with compacted plastic in discolored blotches
of pothole fill. You hop along the street, turning the post-carbon blemishes into a game
of hotchpotch. Turning left onto Mill Street, 14 the compacted plastic grows vertical
in the shape of street posts barring parking, street signs barring entry or formerly
corroded wrought iron fencing. You turn right onto Jamaica Road; 15 glancing up at the
fifty-foot building to your right, you see a swarm of industrial climbers, scaling the
building, lowering what seem to be hundreds of treasure chests. Your eyes focus. Ah!
They are HVAC units, sluggishly lowered from the building’s rooftop. You pause at the
foot of St. Savior’s Dock 16 where the water is scraping the underside of the makeshift
wooden pathway lining the building’s edge. The pathway is full of aluminum HVAC units
sitting in purgatory; they are waiting for the next barge pick-up, which will relocate
them from post-carbon London to carbon-filled Eastern Europe. 17
You turn right onto
Shad Thames. 18 The narrow alleyway is buzzing with men and women in utility clothes,
mixing, scrubbing, painting; it’s post-carbon spring cleaning! The alleyway grows visibly
brighter, smoother somehow. Each cavity is surgically cleaned, reducing the multitude
of depths that otherwise sharpen the contrast of the environment. You turn left onto
the stretch of Shad Thames that runs parallel to the River Thames. A gust of wind is
quick to fill your eyes with dust from the mound of toxic paint chips and century-old
dust. Quickly, you turn onto Curlew Street 19 and find refuge at Butler’s Wharf Pier. 20
Bermondsey
from Beormund, Anglo-Saxon lord of the
district; ea or eye, an island; Beorm: Saxon
for prince; mund security or peace
“the prince’s security by the water’s side”
or
“a piece of firm land in a marsh” (Lambert)
(13) 51°30’03.0”N 0°04’07.9”W
(14) 51°30’04.4”N 0°04’16.5”W
(15) 51°30’00.8”N 0°04’22.4”W
(16) 51°30’01.6”N 0°04’25.1”W
(17) “Last year, Bulgaria imported more
than 100,000 second hand cars from EU
countries, more than a third of which were
grossly polluting diesels, according to clean
mobility group Transport and Environment.”
(Nasr 2018)
(18) 51°30’02.5”N 0°04’25.5”W
1870
oil empire industry cholera toxicity
002
(19) 51°30’12.0”N 0°04’22.9”W
USING the hydraulic elevator, you reach the wharf’s top story, overlooking
the Thames. Your Apple Watch shoots up a vibration through the length of your
arm. “IPCC Reports Proved Accurate.” You sit in the ghosted wharf, turned luxury
apartment, flipping through heaps of IPCC reports on your Generation Post-Carbon
(PC) smartphone; it is absolutely positively true -- temperatures have risen by 1.5
degrees Celsius since pre-industrial levels, 0.2 degrees per decade as predicted.
The use of “likely” has been redacted to “has in fact.” The cryosphere has in fact all
but melted. The Earth has in fact become a heat island, in spite of every effort for
economies to transition from carbon-intensive fuel sources.
London has surrendered its attempt at installing living roofs, instead opting for
cool roofs aimed at reflecting 90% of sunlight and alleviating the sweltering interiors of
London’s ill adapted Victorian homes. HVAC systems hang over brick silhouettes like
the scandent weeds of a post-carbon reality.
The United Lagoon Kingdom has constructed levees, dams, barriers in an
island-wide network of defense. The Game is played, over and over again. One would
lower, another would lift in a Game of Pick Up Sticks whose objective is to add or
subtract boundaries without disturbing the operations of the Capital. The Second
Thames barrier lowers, initiating a chain reaction, whereby levees along the Thames
Embankment rise to contain the incoming surge from the North Sea. Concrete bathtubs
emerge from the riverbed, rising forty feet in a sea of high-rise storage tanks. The
water still spills. Only elsewhere—along the Mississippi River from Davenport, Iowa
to New Orleans, Louisiana; along the Java Sea in Jakarta, Indonesia; along the Ganges
Delta in Bangladesh.
(20) 51°30’12.8”N 0°04’21.7”W
(21) “IPPCC’s mitigation targets assume
that profits from fossil capitalism will be
recycled into green technology rather than
penthouse suites in soaring skyscrapers.”
(119, Mike Davis)
(22) Positivism Auguste Comte See Oreskes,
Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. 2014. The
Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from
the Future. Columbia University Press.
(23) See IPCC. 2018. Global Warming of 1.5°
C. The IPCC was established in 1988
(24) Glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice and
permafrost
(24) Design for London. 2008. “Living Roofs
and Walls Technical Report: Supporting
London Plan Policy.” London.
(24) “Deadly flooding from heavy rains and
snow melt continued to plague areas from
Michigan to the South on Saturday. The
Mississippi River ticked above levels reached
in the historic 1993 flood in Davenport,
Iowa, making it the highest level there in
157 years.”
013 014

capital of capital
blackfriers railway bridge
london bridge
walworth
london bridge
st. saviours estate
bermondsey
tower bridge
river thames
“A stranger, standing on one of the wooden bridges thrown across this
ditch in Mill Street, will see the inhabitants of the houses on either side
lowering, from their back doors and windows, buckets, pails, and domestic
utensils in which to haul the water up; and when his eye is turned from
these operations to the houses themselves, his utmost astonishment
will be excited by the scene before him. Crazy wooden galleries, common
to the backs of half-a-dozen houses, with holes from whence to look on
the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out
on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy,
so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and
squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out
above the mud, and threatening to fall into it, as some of them have done;
dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations—all these ornament the
banks of Folly Ditch.”
— Charles Dickens 25
001
OLIVER LANDS at the intersection of Jacob Street and Georges Row, just
off of Bermondsey Wall. 26 He crosses the footbridge over Georges Row onto Jacob
Street; midway through, he glances upon the still water beneath his feet, which looks
like a rare marble stone of algae and surface run off. Jacob Street is lined in cobble
stone, barely visible beneath a hefty layer of dirt. Oliver lowers himself to the ground,
crouching over the dirt in an attempt to decipher the street’s horizon. The subsurface
water is causing the street to settle unevenly, turning the street into an ever- shifting
seabed. Oliver hops along the street, turning the cobble stone islands into a game
of hotchpotch. He turns left onto Mill Street, 27 crossing over a centaur—half bridge,
half street. The canal running parallel to Mill Street is being buried, in part by the
demolition of the adjacent wooden galleries, whose rotten wood dissolves nearly
instantaneously in the viscous substance, adding onto London’s clays. He turns right
onto Thornton Street; 28
glancing up at the fifty-foot wharves to his right, he sees
windowless silhouettes, animated by the indiscriminate voices of hundreds of men.
He pauses at the foot of St. Saviour’s Dock, 29 where the low skies spill into the city
following the mud-lined path of the tributary. He turns right onto Shad Thames. 30
The narrow alleyway is filled with wooden crates, which spill over from the adjacent
wharves. Laborers toss burlap sacks of goods across the alley. Oliver runs beneath
their arched throws and turns onto the stretch of Shad Thames that runs parallel to
the River Thames. A carriage of goods nearly runs over his tiny body, barely visible in
the cloud of black dust that fills the air. Quickly, he turns onto Curlew Street 31 and finds
refuge at Butler’s Wharf Pier. 32
(26) 51°30’03.0”N 0°04’07.9”W
(27) 51°30’04.4”N 0°04’16.5”W
(28) 51°30’00.8”N 0°04’22.4”W
(29) 51°30’01.6”N 0°04’25.1”W
(30) 51°30’02.5”N 0°04’25.5”W
(31) 51°30’12.0”N 0°04’22.9”W
(32) 51°30’12.8”N 0°04’21.7”W
london’s geology, mylne, r.w. 1858
https://www.crouchrarebooks.com/maps/view/mylnegeological-map-of-london
Legends, Symbols
Locations where water from the Thames
becomes a valuable resource, as a transporter
of goods, as a component in production, as a
vessel for the treatment of goods.
wharf
factory
tannery
002
OLIVER SITS in the corner, observing like an invisible presence on the shores
of Bermondsey. A map sits atop a beat-up stool, anchored by a pair of charred logs,
its edges fluttering in the wind. Hands reach over hands, drawing, smearing, marking,
hatching. Heavy charcoal lines populate the would-be-white space in a seemingly
illegible network. A bell rings once, then twice, signaling the 13:00 o’clock arrival time
of the next ship. Water, the connective tissue of planet Earth, is organized via the
logic of capital as an artery of a global network of exchange. Time is money; so, the
015 016

hands pause momentarily, long enough to listen for a third bell, before they continue
to demarcate ship routes along the earth’s waterways. The gestures are sprightly,
visibly foreign to the shores of Bermondsey, which are filled with stillness in spite of
its bustling warehouses. The air is motionless, thick with an amalgam of foul smells
pressing down upon the streetscape. Warehouses have long outgrown the marshland,
creating tall and narrow corridors, indistinguishable from the airless interiors of their
surroundings. Each stands tall, like a brick silo lining the industrial waterfront; a building
for the organization of imperialism.
The men sit one on top of the other, their voices hardly distinct from one
another, as they continue to debate distribution schedules. Schedule after schedule,
wharf laborers rush to fulfill quixotic demands. Their bodies are pulled backwards,
forwards, upward over footbridges through a dense substance they can hardly call air.
Little distinguishes a wharf laborer from a Sherpa scaling the Himalayas.
Fleets glide, first colonizing, then extracting before they retreat from offshore
territories, circle the earth and land upon the Thames. The great schism meanders
inland from the North Sea, bifurcating the metropolis into north and south. Every inch
of its shores is lined with bollards onto which ships will imminently moor; in the brief
moment they stand empty, wharf laborers sit atop their heads. Yet, the river ebbs and
flows, ceaselessly ushering in vessels.
the penang from west ferry road, national
maritime museum london
https://www.crouchrarebooks.com/maps/view/mylnehttp://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/
ConMediaFile.4696/The-Penang-in-the-Britannia-Dry-
Dock-Millwall.html
003
SPRINKLED with fragments of Roman Londinium, the northwestern
topographical highland is the crowning jewel of the city, the land of the metropolis as
imagined by thousands of countrymen, women and children migrating en masse from
the English countryside. Every corner of the city beyond is a function of this highland,
built to manage the northern reality. South London is the waste land of this horizon;
the land for the production and redistribution of goods; the land of toxicity that is
unwelcome within the visual field of the northwest.
The universal solvent 33 swells, its molecules pulled upward by the strings of
a cosmic gravitational force. The new moon rests silently above the stratocumulus
clouds of South London, its force field withdrawing London’s water reservoirs from
their internal world. Water inches along the gravel deposits lining the Thames Basin,
fleetingly lifting the sediments before continuing its upward surge. Cautiously, in
search of entry, it begins to meet edges between timber pilings and makeshift quays,
land and water. The men rush in, climbing upward with as many crates of goods
they can carry. Gradually, then all at once, its body spills over the haphazard web of
dirt roads, cobblestone lined streets and patches of remnant fields, indiscriminately
sweeping along the filth. The landscape of loose paper and dust sweeps inward in a
pulpous mixture, turning encrusted streetscapes into mud. Knee-high, untraversable,
disease ridden mud. Loose objects, some having lined the riverside wharves, others
having drifted ashore, rush inward to create islands of stray wood, tea and spice.
Laborers hang over warehouse apertures, hypnotized by the viscous substance,
which stirs up the filth to reveal a new geological stratum. Oliver hangs alongside them
watching as the firm land he landed upon is set in motion. The scars of industrialization
meander inward, impersonating River Neckinger, once branching off of the Thames at
St. Saviour’s Dock.
the thames and tower bridge, albert kahn,
1924
https://vakin.livejournal.com/834469.html
st. saviour’s dock, a.g. linney, 1930
https://www.museumoflondonprints.com/
image/374725/a-g-linney-st-saviours-dock-1930
2020
capital fuel defense impermeability preservation
st. saviour’s dock, dockhead, 1983
http://petermarshallphotos.co.uk/pics/34f35.jpg
017 018

liquidity
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The city…does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand,
written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the
banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the
flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”
001
— Italo Calvino 34 (34)
SKYE LANDS at the intersection of Jacob Street and Georges Row, just off
of Bermondsey Wall. 35 The street is lined in asphalt. Modified, but standing, the brick
silhouettes of formerly industrial buildings fill the street with clay off tones. Black,
damp-proofing paint lines the first thirty courses of brick, a vertical extension of the
bitumen that covers the streets. Every ten feet, the brick course is interrupted by
a corrugated plastic weep hole or vent. Turning left onto Mill Street, Sky glances up
at the 180-foot Vogans Mill Wharf, a former silo, turned luxury apartments, which
towers over its surroundings; its white, lace stucco finish is starkly contrasted against
the earthy tones of its neighbors. The stucco’s ridges have already turned off-white as
footprints of pollutive activity. Skye turns right onto Jamaica Road. The wind picks up,
the only indication of the river’s proximity. She walks along toward the Shard, the only
glass skyscraper along the southern shoreline. She leans over the wall at the foot of
St. Saviour’s Dock 36
mesmerized by the glistening mud beneath. A fluorescent traffic
cone sits lightly atop an island of clay. There is no traffic. Wood piles line the shores of
each building, their color progressing in a patchy gradient from heavily soaked brown
to algae green, inching upward in independent streaks, which follow along the wood’s
grain. Skye turns right onto Shad Thames. 37 The alleyway is quiet. The footbridges
stand still. Skye walks with neck outstretched toward the sun; it’s a futile gesture
considering the sun reaches halfway through the fifty-foot building before being
replaced by its heavy shadow. Skye turns left onto the stretch of Shad Thames that
runs parallel to River Thames. The entrance to Butler’s Wharf is on right.
002
The “divorce between appearance
and performance…keeps the illusion of
architecture intact, while surrendering
wholeheartedly to the needs of the
metropolis” (Koolhaas and Mau, 1998, 937)
The building typology of Bermondsey is
sufficient to tell of the borough’s history, as
well as hint at the socio-economic status of
its current residents. The warehouse building
type, comprising of tall, brick structures
with arched openings; the iron ornaments
on the façades; the iron hooks; the signage
in latex, reading “Butler’s Wharf,” etc. are all
recognizable symbols of an industrial past.
The restoration of these emblems is a
form of restorative nostalgia—which
stresses “nostos and proposes to rebuild
the lost home and patch up the memory
gaps” (Boym, 2010, 41).; in restoring the
architectural emblems of colonial activity,
they become an aesthetic tool for the sale
of luxury apartments. Thus, the borough
relegates its past as an actor within the
imperial network.
This expression of restorative nostalgia
bears a significant energy cost. Specifically,
aerial views reveal the extensive HVAC
systems, which adorn the rooftops of these
grade II listed buildings. Jorge Otero-Pailos
says, “while it’s important to continue to
care for built heritage and art, we also have
to recognize that what we’ve been caring
for is pollution…pollution is our cultural
heritage” (Otero-Pailos quoted in Raskin).
Analogously, what we’ve been caring for
along the shore of Bermondsey is carbon.
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Atlas of Erosive Potentialities 1’ = 20,000’ N
atlas of erosive potentialities
2020
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THE GATE RISES in a seamless rotation from the underbelly of the riverbed
to a cross-section in the water. On a clear day, when the barrier rises for its monthly
maintenance, the water remains visibly undisturbed, though Skye is well-aware its
natural ebb and flow come to an engineered stop.
Looking out from the balcony atop Butler’s Wharf shortly after four o’clock,
Skye watched the ever-murky water of the Thames oscillate against the embankment
in conflicting sinusoidal motion. The water crawled up the masonry, inching toward
its smooth edge. This was day seventeen in the barrier’s battle against the relentless
offense of England’s increasingly volatile climate. Water came from all directions as
rainwater battered stone, brick, shingle indiscriminately. Sewage gargled through
gridded manholes, always on the brink of spilling over. London was enshrouded by
thick mist, denying the city its horizon.
The international face mist market had taken a hit in recent months as the
dry, chill winters of the European northwest were replaced by a perpetual wetness.
Londoners had gone on to schedule daily rituals—vigilantly observing the river for
signs of the barrier’s performance, while simultaneously offering their melanindeprived
faces to the bottomless sky. Even if imperceptible to the eye, sunlight was
out there, they thought. And they were calling it forth.
Skye exhaled a full lung capacity’s worth of cigarette smoke as the water
aerial view of butler’s wharf showing systems
google earth
(35) 51°30’03.0”N 0°04’07.9”W
(36) 51°30’01.6”N 0°04’25.1”W
(37) 51°30’02.5”N 0°04’25.5”W
019 020

leveled. Her break was over. She paced her day around the tide times, updated hourly
via her Apple Watch’s tidal forecast; the watch overlays data from the Environment
Agency to notify its users of imminent barrier closures. The great river had become
the metronome to Skye’s anxiety. She now scheduled daily breaks to coincide with the
water’s volatility, ensuring that she had taken up post at the balcony in observance of
the barrier’s liftoff. Hypnotized by the water’s score against the embankment, Skye
watched the building’s reflection in the water as the rain battered its body. Her focus
broke as dusk hit London. The nautical ship lights came alight, illuminating the iron
footbridges that stretch between Butler’s Wharf and Cardamom Building, a spice
warehouse turned luxury housing. A recent addition to the “maritime industrial”
theme of Bermondsey, the lights signaled the sun’s fall beneath the ghostly horizon.
Skye collected a handful of soaked cigarette buds, a daily measure of her anxiety, and
headed for the sixth-floor footbridge to Cardamom.
003
BUTLER’S WHARF, an eleven-acre site, thrones the southeast edge of the
Thames. Skye manages the cleaning services of a number of waterfront properties in
St. Saviour’s Estate as a way to maintain watchful eye of the river. She spends the day
traversing the borough, shifting perspectives from the footbridge of at St. Saviour’s
Dock to the balcony of a half-a-million-pound property overlooking the Thames.
The river’s periodic withdrawal fills Skye with dread, a cue for the not too distant
memory of her childhood on Canvey Island—a town that suffered the loss of more
than fifty in the 1953 North Sea Storm. Skye’s grandfather told the story year
after year as a cautionary tale. Other children learned to play along the twenty-two
kilometer stretch of concrete built in defense of the island. Skye took on the role of
coast guard and hasn’t left it since.
st. saviour’s dock 2019, personal photograph
st. saviour’s dock 2019, personal photograph
2150
erosion resurgence retreat
021 022

erosive potentialities
“I am not proposing a return to the Stone Age. My intent is not reactionary,
nor even conservative, but simply subversive. It seems that the utopian
imagination is trapped, like capitalism and industrialism and the human
population. All I’m trying to do is figure out how to put a pig on the tracks.”
001
atlas of erosive potentialities
2150
RAVEN lands at the intersection of Jacob Street and Georges Row, just off of
Bermondsey Wall. 39 The street is lined with dense clumps of moss, enfolding every
harsh edge. Compacted plastic protrusions are disguised beneath the soft, lush
flowerless plant. Raven dips to the ground, running her hands along the tips of the
urban carpet. Barefoot, she walks along Jacob Street with arms extended to the touch
of soft bulbs along buildings’ façades. 40 The weep holes ooze with moisture. Turning left
onto Mill Street, Raven hears a burble, the murmur of a nearby stream; it’s otherwise
deadly quiet. Looking up at Vogans Mill Wharf, she pauses beneath its green-veined
silhouette. The stucco’s ridges have been reabsorbed, filled with seedlings, in an
equitable exchange of value. 41
Raven turns right onto Jamaica Road. The road’s
sidewalks have been transformed into suspended pathways, whose undersides scrape
the surface of River Neckinger, a tributary of River Thames long buried as a sewer
line. The river has been undergoing daylighting for a hundred years, its ecosystem
now nearly restored. Bioswales line the tributary bed, cleansing the water from urban
runoff. Children dangle their feet over the water, while others frolic in the water’s
shallow ends. Raven walks along the pathway, hopping onto the bouldered “sidewalk”
when passersby are one too many. The shard continues to glisten in the distance, still
the only glass skyscraper on the southern shoreline; an orienteer among the lagoons
that render former axes inaccessible. Raven leans over the railing at St. Saviour’s Dock
where the flow is still sluggish, but grasses have overgrown the clay and weathered
rubble. The woodpiles are all but rotten, compost for the clay strata that lies beneath.
The Dock is now a green artery, which terminates at the river. Raven is eager to follow
it, so she turns right onto Shad Thames. The alleyway is paved in the green carpet,
only thicker. Her feet disappear among patches of spongy moss. On the right, the
former garage doors have been stripped away by corrosion, creating an aperture onto
the green artery. A light breeze circulates through and onto the alley. The alleyway is
quiet, only home to a couple dozen. Raven turns left onto the stretch of Shad Thames
that runs parallel to River Thames. The footbridges are swarming with residents,
enjoying the coolness of the stream that runs just below. Raven meets the edge of the
stream, so turns to enter Butler’s Wharf through the ghosted apertures of its ground
story.
002
THE GROUND is moist; silt meanders spill from the pier into the interior
through an aperture where a floor-to-ceiling storefront window once hung. Twisting
and turning, the silt deposits demarcate a one-to-one circulation plan of the ground
floor; like tactile paving, they gather where the ground meets the edges of stairwells
and apertures. Raven walks along the ridges until she meets the split-level stairwell.
Looking down, the water fills the basement; it reaches halfway through the industrial
staircase before the steps are overgrown by Nostoc commune. 42
Raven walks up
instead, leaving the habitat undisturbed.
The steps are dense with ivy, the walls are textured. Plantings have latched onto
the crevices at different times, turning the walls into temporal strata. On the second
story, live music filters through the corridor, whose end is open to the elements, letting
– Ursula K. Le Guin 38 (38) Le Guin quoted in Tsing, 2016
(39) 51°30’03.0”N 0°04’07.9”W
(40) David Gissen says, “Nothing is inherently
subnatural in architecture; rather, these
forms arise from a particular set of social
and architectural practices” (Gissen,
2009, 22). London is already host to an
abundance of subnatures—the conditions
that architecture tries to eradicate: dust,
dankness, mud, debris. Gissen continues on
to point out that the restoration of nature
in the shape of green building is a means
to “re-establish a specific class-based idea
of the city” where the comforting forms of
nature—controlled, manicured, maintained
by anyone but the user of a space—go onto
reinforce existing social power dynamics
(Gissen, 24).
I argue that the acceptance of subnatures
in contemporary lived experience can be a
means to undermine the power dynamics
along the shores of Bermondsey. Further,
by relinquishing a degree of control over
the environment, we can begin to see the
externalities of our way of life in visible,
concrete terms through the kinds of
subnatural growths and conditions that
human activity produces.
(41) “…a kind of “collaborative survival”
(Tsing 2015)
(42) Nostoc commune is a cyanobacteria.
“A special thick-walled cell has the ability
to withstand desiccation for long periods of
time…[it] germinates into a filament when
moistened.” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
023 024

the current of the midsummer breeze circulate through. Suddenly, a cacophony of
laughter and applause fills the space, a sign of habitation that Raven has eagerly been
keeping an ear out for. A flock of artists fills the floor of Block 2B. 43
Raven glances into
each room, a stage for each artist. The artist in 2B-3 let the moss completely overgrow
into a variable backdrop to her performative art. The moss dries out when storms
subside, only to be reawakened as soon as they intensify. Yet, 2B-4 is hermetically
sealed by a pneumatic structure, a light, translucent membrane of compressed air,
which isolates the artist’s studio from the elements. Spilling out through the windows,
the assembly registers on the façade like two bulbous heads. 2B-5 has begun the
process of retreat, leaving behind only that, which can be reabsorbed into nature.
Sketches flutter along the walls, a gallery to a process of discovery and growth,
ushering its viewers to embark on it too. To let go.
Raven continues on her journey upward; along the corridors, which feel like
miniature streets, capturing a publicness 44 that she so rarely feels in the streets of
north London. The air is filled with acceptance of nature’s resurgence, as inhabitants
move out and onto London’s Green Belt. Nature is the landlord, and it’s time to obey
her.
(43) Heilgemeir 2013
artists at butler’s wharf, 1980s, fran cottell
https://archivesoftheartistled.org/projects/butlers-wharf
003
LOOKING OUT from atop the rooftop of Butler’s Wharf shortly after four
o’clock, Raven looked down onto meanders of dust and debris, silt and moss. Piles
of rubble line River Neckinger waiting to be scooped up by the next barge and
relocated to the banks of resurgent tributaries. Eroded land reveals non-operational
subsurface piping, absorbed into the Neckinger riparian zone. 45 The ruin of capitalism
is enshrouded in vegetation, transformed into a favorable riverside habitat; at the
next turn, the network of pipes mutates into a playground, connecting the otherwise
disjointed lagoons of Bermondsey.
Atop the rooftop, Raven sits on an old HVAC unit. Someone laid a wooden plank on
top of it, turning it into a haphazard rooftop bench. The roof is a field of HVAC units,
which sit quietly for once. Most are enveloped by moss or topped by sprouts like grass
heads. Artefacts of the Carbon Age—chimneys, exhausts, HVACs—have been stripped
of their toxicity and left standing as monuments to the age of untethered growth.
The remnants of the Anthropocene are monuments, absorbed into their locality, as
opposed to termed obsolete and transposed to a faraway island of toxicity. Compacted
plastic tetrapods line buildings’ foundations, as pacemakers of the erosive process;
waste is no longer disposable, but an authority which determines the durability of a
said reality. These crude habitats 46 are part of the collective memory; externalities,
which have been internalized into the lived experience.
artist’s studio butler’s wharf, 1980s, fran cottell
https://archivesoftheartistled.org/projects/butlers-wharf
(44) “…the public space is a place in which
there is a momentary condition of equality.
At some point in the future, many overused
cities will have to be reconstructed” (Sassen
quoted in Lim 2017, 77)
(45) interface between land and river
(46) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/
crude-habitat/
appendix a: atlas of erosive potentialities, 2150
025 026

30,000
25,000
20,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
15,000
10,000
10,000
5,000
0
ft
ft
30,000 25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0 ft
5,000
0
green space
water
ft
ft
30,000 25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0 ft
flooded building footprints
atlas of erosive potentialities
2150
atlas of erosive potentialities
2150
027 028

pleistocene
10,000
anthropocene
8,750
anthropocene
holocene
7,500
holocene
5,000
3,750
2,500
1,250
0
pleistocene
10,000
8,750
7,500
5,000
3,750
2,500
1,250 0
ft
2150
029 030

031 032

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atlas of erosive potentialities
URBAN narratives in the face of surging seas
an honors thesis in architecture
by maria v diavolova
university of pennsylvania
college of arts and science