Rainham Riverside by Untitled Practice

Rainham Riverside is a Mayor of London ‘Good Growth by Design’ publicly funded project for London Riverside BID (Business Improvement District) that enhances and conserves a narrow strip of left-over industrial urban wild land, along the edge of the River Thames, through landscape improvements and strategic architectural interventions. The site is bordered by Easter Industrial Park to the north, with over 1,000 workers, and the Thames Path to the south.

The Riverside was formerly a neglected, unwelcoming and underutilised space, forming the impression of being ‘left over’ by the surrounding industrial development, despite the site’s historic importance as the place of the Rainham Ferry for over 1,000 years. The associated Three Crowns (former Ferry Inn) served travellers using the Thames crossing ferry, and later also the ‘long’ ferry, which transported holiday makers from central London to the area’s beaches. Despite the predominantly industrial character of the surrounding area, the Riverside highlights the ecological significance of ‘urban wild’ sites, containing valuable ‘open mosaic habitat’ (OMH), which is the second most diverse habitat after pockets of rare ancient woodland. The riverside path links Rainham town centre to the SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and RSPB nature reserve at Rainham Marshes.

The project has created an enhanced and redefined public open space that provides increased amenity for workers, walkers, and other site visitors, whilst preserving the OMH, leading to greater stewardship of the Riverside. It achieves this by limiting access to the OMH with strategic architectural interventions at either end: a new Belvedere, beside the Tilda Rice processing plant, and the ‘Museum of Garden Escapes’ courtyard garden, on the footprint of the old Ferry Inn. These interventions both include extensive interpretation signage describing the significance and inter-relationship of the site’s combined industrial and ecological heritage.

To the upper ‘river edge zone’, the predominant landscape character is the hard infrastructural language of the sheet pile river wall. The new angular Belvedere structure responds to this language, and the surrounding industrial sheds, providing shelter and seating as a new destination on the riverside route, relating to site geometry and the confluence of existing paths with its own distinctive form. Laser-cut RAINHAM RIVERSIDE lettering enhances the sense of place and identity. The Corten-coloured steel references both the site’s Murex ferroalloy foundry history, and the legacy of earlier interventions nearby, which include Corten bridges, bird hides, and wayfinding signs by Peter Beard / Landroom. The Belvedere’s all steel construction, expanded mesh balustrading, and lighting, respond to ‘Secured by Design’ principles, ensuring a durable and non-combustible structure with visual permeability for better safety. The structure is also fully accessible. By working with the existing topography of the riverside embankment, the Belvedere provides elevated views over the Thames, whilst deflecting antisocial bike behaviour away from the OMH. The striking structure mediates the large scale of the adjacent buildings, and directly responds to local workers’ desire to have somewhere sheltered outdoors to use during their breaks, enabling them to access and enjoy the wellbeing benefits that nature provides. The Belvedere’s gabion bases provide an additional habitat for reptiles and invertebrates, extending the ecological benefits of the OMH.

The lower level ‘mixed meadow zone’ has a softer urban wild character, defined by the open mosaic habitat. The OMH includes a large number of ‘garden escape’ plants alongside other more characteristic native species. The ‘Museum of Garden Escapes’ is a new courtyard garden built to a reinterpretation of the Ferry Inn footprint, with planting beds for garden escapes, surrounded by a continuous low level seating wall with domestic scale doorway, window cill and fireplace features. The garden showcases the garden escape plants as an educational resource for Riverside visitors, including groups of local schoolchildren, who can gather around the full seating wall perimeter. A preceding ‘meanwhile’ version of the garden involved children growing some of these plants from seed at home before planting out at the Riverside. The garden is an inviting space providing an additional destination and focal point for local workers to meet and socialise during breaks. Interpretation signage highlights the historic and ecological significance of the site. Signage uses the same language of Corten-coloured steel as the Belvedere. A new access across the roadside drainage ditch along Ferry Lane is provided with cycle parking to encourage active travel.

Belvedere and courtyard garden bookend Rainham Riverside, protecting the valuable open mosaic habitat at its centre, which the Museum of Garden Escapes celebrates.

Other credits: Flow Structures (structural engineer)

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