What our JWL Walk Leaders 2023 have said about their walks:
Elly Mead on her walk GREEN+BLUE in Mile End: https://theglasshouse.org.uk/neighbourhoods/janes-walks-london-mile-end/
Tranquil City on their walk DESIGNING GREEN SPACES FOR CONNECTION AND ENJOYMENT: https://tranquilcity.co.uk/2023/05/19/janes-walk-london-festival-a-walk-exploring-south-londons-green-connections/
© Franca Carassai
London is a world city and Peckham is only one tile in the London carpet. Peckham is a middle more than a centre - like me, and other Londoners by choice - is between places absorbed into larger identities but has a personality of its own.
Through stories of cultural place-making, community-led campaigns, regeneration schemes and the voice of locals, we will explore the vibrancy, contrasts, and peculiarities of the diverse public, private and communal spaces of this culturally diverse environment that make of Peckham a place rather than an administrative unit. A walk to unravel the different Londons that live all together under the Peckham’s paradigm.
No bookings required.
Franca Carassai works as an architectural and urban designer in London and is interested in the relationship between people and places and how it affects human behaviour. She is also the Jane's Walk London Walk Leaders Coordinator.
Accessibility: #fullyaccessible #flatrout #seniorswelcome #breaks
Over the past forty years the area known as the Eastern Cluster has become home to some of the most distinctive architectures in the capital. Significant buildings include: Tower 42 (formerly the NatWest Tower), the Lloyds Building, the Leadenhall Building, 30 St Mary Axe, 70 St Mary Axe, the Heron Building, Fen Court and the tallest building in the City - 22 Bishopsgate. All are spectacular especially at night. This walk will explore the buildings and the increasingly elegant public spaces but it will also look at the impact of a city in which the lights are always on even if people are only using the buildings a few days a week.
The City of London has recently announced plans to lower the use of light in the Square Mile but will this make a real difference?
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Paul Lincoln is a Golden Lane Estate resident, JWL Leader 2022 and City of London/Open City guide. He is involved with Imagine Golden Lane at Net Zero which campaigns to prepare the estate for a net zero future.
Accessibility: #flatroute
© Paul Lincoln
© Elly Mead
Join Elly for a gentle walk and talk around and through Mile End’s green lungs and blue veins to consider how the last 100 years of urban planning have influenced the area’s natural voices. You’ll be exploring how nature weaves into the bustling city as you amble in a circular route through Mile End Park, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and along Lower Regents Canal.
You’ll be looking through nature’s lens to explore what and who lives, often unseen, inside the hubbub of the city and discussing how we can connect our natural neighbours. In Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, you’ll be exploring how the Victorian-era graveyard came to be a nature reserve and some of the heritage within this mini urban forest.
Terrain is mostly flat, with a steeper hill in Mile End Park over the Green Bridge. Pathways in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park are not paved and can be muddy depending on the weather. There is a small coffee cart (a pavement patisserie!) in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, but participants are invited to bring their own snacks and drinks.
Come walk and chat with Elly and other local community members about Mile End’s urban history and planning, birds, trees and plants, and how we can relate and connect to the intricate network of living things around us.
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jwl-festival-2023-green-blue-in-mile-end-tickets-617678742747
Elly Mead is an architectural designer with a passion for community-led design. She is a Design Champion at The Glass-House Community Led Design, a design and educational charity based in London, and a London National Park City Ranger, so spends a lot of time thinking about people, place and nature.
Accessibility: #Seniorswelcome #petfriendly #familyfriendly #uneventerrain
Anna Gibb and her illustrations © Open City
A meander along the Royal Albert Dock, led by architect, artist, and local resident Anna Gibb. Along the route, we will explore the fascinating past, present and possible future for the royal docks, accompanied by some unique illustrations to enliven the story. A history of industry, entrepreneurship, politics and people. The walk will begin in front of the Hilton DoubleTree, at the western edge of the dock, and will end at the eastern end, where the dock meets the Thames.
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Anna Gibb is an architect and illustrator based in the Royal Docks. Her hand drawings have been exhibited both in the UK and internationally, including at the 2012 Venice Biennale. Visit her Instagram page to discover more about her work.
Accessibility: #Seniorswelcome #mostlyflat #wheelchairfriendly #longwalk (around 3km)
Golden Lane residents set up the campaign Imagine Golden Lane Estate at Net Zero in 2020. It currently has projects on cycle storage and insulation. The walk starts at the Barbican, described as: 'The architecture of fossil fuels at its glorious best... *', moves to the Museum of London and Bastion House, at the centre of a resident-led campaign to retain and re-use rather than demolish; then it explores Golden Lane Estate - post-war public housing at its best. The estate now offers major challenges: 75% of the flats have little insulation, heating is through individual gas boilers and there is little biodiversity. The walk will address how to move towards net zero in a poorly thermally performing estate and the need to improve biodiversity. It will consider the power and the ability of the individual resident to tackle climate emergency and biodiversity loss alongside the responsibility of the local authority.
The route is flat with ramp access to the areas to be visited at upper walkway level. A lift available to get to the upper level and this will be checked in advance to ensure that it is working.
*Barnabas Calder - Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Paul Lincoln is a Golden Lane Estate resident, JWL Leader 2022 and City of London/Open City guide. He is involved with Imagine Golden Lane at Net Zero which campaigns to prepare the estate for a net zero future.
Accessibility: #flatroute #rampaccess
© Paul Lincoln
© Tranquil City
Tranquil City has recently been researching the characteristics that make a green space attractive, can increase visits by diverse communities, and promote enjoyment. Join them on this walk where they’ll share their findings by exploring parks, green corridors and informal green spaces in South London to spark an open conversation on how they can connect wider audiences to nature in the city.
The walk will begin in the vibrant Peckham Square, where you will discuss how the transition from busy, car-dominated environments to green corridors and low-traffic routes can provide much-needed respite and promote walking and cycling. Along the route, you will explore a variety of parks and open green spaces that showcase their findings and provide examples of how to increase the appeal of green spaces to diverse communities to socialise, relax and dwell. The walk will reach its conclusion in the recently redeveloped Elephant Park and the surrounding area, where Tranquil City will open the conversation up to examine the pros and cons of its approach to increasing nature connection in highly dense environments.
The walk will shed light on how design and landscaping choices can improve accessibility, appeal and experience of nature in the city, and will be useful to landscape architects, urbanists, environmentalists and non-practitioners alike.
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Tranquil City is s a multidisciplinary grassroots collective, passionate about connecting city dwellers to nature and helping ensure that green spaces are valued as essential components of healthier, more sustainable cities. The research project was commissioned by Natural England and carried out in collaboration with the University of Surrey and Go Jauntly.
Grant Waters is one of the founders of Tranquil City, and has a professional background in urban and architectural acoustics and soundscape design.
Chloe McFarlane is an Engagement Lead at Tranquil City, and has a professional and academic background in citizen-led urban regeneration.
Accessibility: If anyone has specific accessibility requirements, please do email Tranquil City at hello@tranquilcity.co.uk prior to the event and they'll do their best to ensure everyone can enjoy the event.
Soul Complex Unfinished is an interdisciplinary media project by artist and designer Daniel Oduntan. Started in 2010, abandoned in 2012, and now being revisited as part of the 'I Create' research and development project with Southwark Council and Tate Modern.
Created just before the major regeneration changes in Southwark, the work is made up of photography, sound compositions, voice notes and video. Using AR to place the work back within its environment. A focal point of the tour is to ponder the process of regeneration in areas, the notion of investment and memory loss, and the possibilities of how spatial design can play a more active role in community archives.
Majority of the tour is ground level, first floor access is required at the beginning of the walk, escalator and lift access should be available on the day.
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Daniel Oduntan is an interdisciplinary media artist and designer occupying the spaces between visual arts, sound and performance media. The core of his work is asking questions of his spatial reality, encompassing the built environment and the multi-sensory. Daniel's practice is idea first, medium second, allowing him to create in a style described as explorative participation design: a method of research and speculation to build inclusive futures; working alongside the likes of The Bartlett School of Architecture, The Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing and The Design Museum.
Free Form Frequency is a creative research agency and spatial design group founded by Daniel Oduntan. Created with the purpose to question the centre of conversation and production around the built environment; by identifying the most pressing needs and adopting a multi-sensory approach to place-making.
Accessibility: #escalatorandliftccess
‘Now & Here’, 2012 © Daniel Oduntan
© Minerva Romay
Forgotten for years, these days, the canals are one of London's worst kept secrets for weekend walks, where you can leave the bustling of the city without really leaving it. Once derelict, more and more people can see their value these days. Its renewed popularity makes them an attractive place for business. But, where is the line between public benefit and private profit? What makes a public space truly successful?
As part of the walk participants are encouraged to become urban explores, and to take pictures of the different public spaces visited and how people use them, the role of the light, the height and bulk of buildings… for more prompts on what to observe, Minerva invites attendees to visit this link prior to the walk.
Starting in King’s Cross, you will walk around the former Great Northern Railway Co’s Goods Yard and Kings Cross Central, one of central London’s biggest developments. Then you will walk Regents Canal towards Hackney, leaving the water level to walk through Angel, as the Islington Tunnel can only be crossed by barge.
For the last part of the walk you will rejoin the canal and look into the adaptive reuse of industrial buildings, new mixed-use developments, two major estate regeneration projects (the Packington and Colville Estates) and will look at the extent to which both new and adaptive projects consider the ecosystem of the canal and the local character of the area.
Please wear comfortable shoes as pavement on the canals is uneven in some areas, and a water bottle. Public toilets are available in King’s Cross and Angel.
Participants are asked to book in advance via the link below:
Minerva Romey is an Architect specialising in Sustainable Conservation. She lives and works in Islington, and is passionate about how to bring historic buildings and places back to life, so they can still be enjoyed by future generations. She also has an interest in sociology and place-making, and for years she has been looking for the answer to the question: what makes a successful public space?
Accessibility: #petfriendly #familyfriendly #seniorswelcome #breaks
