Sitting on London Clay

廢 土 之 上   

This is social furniture that enhances our well-being in public spaces and provides a rare moment in the inner city of London for passengers to interact with the tactility and rawness of earth - the natural topography which London sits on.

The bench’s modular system offers different arrangements for different social needs, while the materiality of clay improves indoor air quality by absorbing humidity and toxins. As the Crossrail development excavates 6 million tons of earth – it is time to re-appropriate construction waste.

“The collaboration between LFA and Network Rail and saw an impressive range of bench designs - some of them are fun, some are beautiful, and some ask searching questions about how we should make things in this new decade.” – Will Hurst, managing editor at the Architects’ Journal.

Design and Construction By: It’s a local collective / Client: Network Rail and London Festival of Architecture / Clay in Rammed Earth Supplied by: Clayworks / Clay in Rammed Earth Applied by: Guy Valentine / Photography by: Jim Stephenson