Ship breaking chamber.
Since the closure of the Royal Docks, Silvertown in East London went from being part of the largest dock in the world to a ghost town, a place of memory. Silvertown ship breaking yard will not only provide the local community with highly skilled jobs but through the creative process of playing, testing, experimenting and reconstructing ship elements, new individual and communal identities for Silvertown’s inhabitants will be created. The project can be categorised into three stages.
Ships are broken up through a complex process which takes place inside the breaking chamber, a specially designed channel for the extraction of elements where the lighter parts are removed first and the heavier structural parts last -- the reverse of traditional construction. Throughout this deconstruction process, elements are extracted either to be recycled through sale at a scrap yard and flea market or to be used for experimental reconstruction.
Jonathan Schofield
University of Westminster London UK
Categories:
Around the World project.
