BEDS & SHEDS - THE MAKERS COMMUNITY AT AMAZON

This proposal focuses on designing a scheme that combines industrial activity with residential, using an existing Amazon warehouse in Canning Town, London. The city is facing both a housing and warehouse crisis, where it is running short of space for both. Incorporating the two uses together could be the future solution for cities, creating a new norm for building typologies. The design aims to make the invisible world of warehouse workers visible, improve their well-being and connect them to the wider public community and natural environment of the River Lea. These workers spend their days working in grid formations and so the new proposal has been designed to go against the grid, to allow for more natural activity to take place. It includes allotments for residents and garden spaces for cafes to grow and sell fresh produce. The new steel and timber structure sits above the warehouse but also cuts into the side of the unused airspace within the Amazon building. These internal proposed spaces will support business start-ups and local manufacturers with access to public workshops and affordable creative studio spaces. This community will then be able to sell their products locally in the retail spaces above Amazon and further distribute them globally within the warehouse itself.