About

This tour will explore the jetty-like area of Silvertown. An effective island of land that extends into the river Thames and is bounded by the Royal Docks to the north, this easterly district in the London Borough of Newham evidences stories of reclamation and cyclical renewal. New developments currently under construction there prompt a reinvestigation of this area.

Why Silvertown:
We will look at the city as an ecosystem of material symbiosis. Through keeping materials in circulation you can keep records of the past, but more pragmatically, you can keep the carbon released through the production of the material to create a usable form, to a minimum. This is known as 'embodied carbon'. The intention of the circular economy is to reduce carbon emissions, of which the built environment currently contributes to 40% of the world's emissions. A positive attitude of reclamation can be applied to different scales in everyday life, from repairing old clothes, to campaigning for revitalising defunct buildings with a new equitable purpose. The circular economy attempts to decouple economic activity from the consumption of finite resources.

About your guide:

This tour is led by Georgia Green. She is an architectural designer, most recently curating exhibitions on different topics related to the built environment sector. She has been a Londoner for 27 years. Her involvement with the Docklands involves making a short narrative-based film on location here, with an independent collective of artists, architects and filmmakers.

Golden Key Academy

This tour is led by a member of Open City’s Golden Key Academy – a course training up insightful and engaging guides dedicated to explaining London and bringing its many stories to life. It is part of a wider collection of tours created by Golden Key Academy guides for the Open House Festival.

Further information on the Golden Key Academy can be found here https://open-city.org.uk/golden-key-academy