London Festival of ARchitecture History - 2010 - The Welcoming City

Festival History

2010 The Welcoming City

Exploring the idea of ‘The Welcoming City’ the 2010 edition of the Festival travelled across three key areas of London over three weeks-  the Nash Ramblas – connecting Regent’s Park and St James’s Park, Aldgate to Stratford and Bankside – and expanded the role of the Festival position to open up the city to more people and activities.

Key projects included the Union Street Orchard, the flagship event for the greening of Southwark which highlighted plans for the Bankside Urban Forest and transformed a derelict site into a thriving community orchard during June 2010, the Water/Solar lift exploring how the Duke of York Steps could be more accessible and playful space for all, the first ‘Architecture for Dogs’ exhibition and launch of the Regent Street Windows.

This sat alongside an series of unique bike rides and walking tours, exhibitions from established names  in the industry alongside university students and much more. The great lesson learnt from 2010 was about cooperation. While the level of central sponsorship was a fraction of what it was in recent years, the extent of activities and events continued to grow through the commitment and enthusiasm of a host of individuals and companies keen to work together to create a spectacular and change-making Festival.

2010 The Welcoming City
2010 The Welcoming City
2010 The Welcoming City
2010 The Welcoming City
2010 The Welcoming City

LFA2010: Key Projects

2010 The Welcoming City

Taking Steps

As part of the Nash Ramblas programme, Architecture Inside Out (The fore-runner of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project) and the Royal Engineers supported Matthew Lloyd Architects and disabled artist Tony Heaton to build a prototype access lift o...

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2010 The Welcoming City

The Union Street Urban Orchard

For the third and final weekend of the Festival, Bankside was transformed into a haven of woodland and wildlife, culture and community - taking cues from Witherford Watson Mann Architect's Bankside Urban Forest framework, which encoura...

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2010 The Welcoming City

International Architecture Showcase

Across London over 30 embassies and cultural institutes presented a series of exhibitions, installations, events and talks to highlight the dynamic architectural projects that are emerging from their respective countries and to address...

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2010 The Welcoming City

Love Your Street

Bringing together building and landscape professionals with local communities, the programme aimed to pro-actively improve streets, spaces and places. Love Your Street showed how low budget, high impact events, installations and campai...

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2010 The Welcoming City

Regent Street Windows

London’s Regent Street was hit with a new series of window installations during the Festival, led by the RIBA. The Project included 10 architect-led window installations that attempt to fuse architecture with innovations in retail design whilst...

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2010 The Welcoming City

Nash Ramblas

The 2 kilometre stretch from Regent's Park to St James' Park flanked by architect John Nash's Georgian terraces - an area coined the Nash Ramblas by architect Terry Farrell - was animated by events and installations to guide visitors f...

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2010 The Welcoming City

High Street 2012

As East London geared up towards the Olympic Games in 2012, the Festival focused on the area's dramatic regeneration with events concentrated around Aldgate in the west, Stratford in the east and the route in between - representing the...

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