Paper short abstract:

This image narrative investigates the £1bn upgrade of Tottenham Court Road Station, in the midst of one of London's busiest streets.Images catalog the spaces of construction to reveal the pressure of noise, herding, confusion, crowding, claustrophobia and nostalgia for buildings lost in the upgrade.

Paper long abstract:

This image narrative investigates the £1bn upgrade of Tottenham Court Road Station, which is situated in the midst of one of the busiest streets, pedestrian and vehicular, in London. Documentation catalogs the spaces surrounding construction, the ever-present blue hoardings surrounding the site, and the movement of users around the site.

London runs on transport. Without the myriad of transport services available, such as underground, train, bus, and the coming Crossrail, London would grind to a halt. Most activities would be confined to smaller areas without an efficient transport system, as moving users through the dense urban areas of London would be impossible. The city would become a collection of villages.

In The Image of the City [1960], Kevin Lynch argues that a city should be shaped for human purposes, and describes the ways in which users negotiate complex objects, such as buildings or hoardings, and the mental memory maps used to navigate. Lynch coins the elements of a city, defined as users understand their surroundings: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. At the Tottenham Court Road Station construction site, which lies at the junction of four major roads, a more complex situation occurs, as familiar landmarks and accesses disappear, and new paths and edges are created. Users, vehicular and pedestrian, discover that landmarks that previously marked the district have disappeared. This image narrative reveals the pressure of noise, herding, confusion, crowding, claustrophobia and a touch of nostalgia for buildings that have been removed in the upgrade process.