my name is mwd

I’ve been driven to clichés, but I got very frustrated today when walking around the More London site, a collection of modern buildings around City Hall. Generally I like London’s architecture – there’s a lot of interesting things happening to the sky line, and it tends to have the feeling of reaching to the future. More London itself does perhaps look a bit like it could be used for the remake of Logan’s Run, but at least it’s trying.

What really vexed me was the every ledge in More London, and there’s an awful lot of them, looked like this:

All the ledges and benches and the entire, otherwise rather nice, amphitheater are covered in these daft studs, the aesthetics of which I’m happy to debate, but their purpose is there to stop kids having fun. Skateboards might try and use these ledges for grinding along, and whilst I admit this will cause a slight wear of the edging, there’s lots and lots and lots of it at this site. We’re constantly being told that kids these days are not getting enough exercise, there’s an obesity crisis, or that youths have nothing to do and are thus a nuisance, but at the same time architects all over the land (and not just this land) are putting in these studs everywhere to stop them having fun and doing a sport.

I’d not mind so much if it was reserved to the really nice looking bits, but it’s everywhere – a big “fuck off” to kids that might spend time doing something healthy, challenging, and engaging. Thankfully architects haven’t always been this obsessed with studding surfaces, or the vibrant fun of the area next to the National Film Theatre on Southbank wouldn’t have become so.

I say, I don’t think the skaters should be allowed to go in and take over ever surface, but giving them some freedom to take advantage of the space surely isn’t too much to ask, particularly given the direction the nation’s health seems to be headed?