Jacob Riman

‘It seems to be a function of development in London that objectively impossible things can be stated as inevitable fact’

Increasingly urban life takes place in provisional spaces whilst adjacent ‘real’ spaces are under construction, withdrawn and hidden from public eye. Where contradictions and structural clashes threaten the seamless facade of contemporary urban design the standard response is to avoid or mask the inconsistencies as much as possible. Leading to a growing sense of sublime immateriality, where matter and mass are increasingly withdrawn, whitewashed by an image-led desire for consistency and uniformity. The project explores the intersection between the real and unreal, the digital and physical realities of contemporary design, representation and city building.

The digital age's dependence on connectivity and convergence now eclipses the longstanding values of time and space, as both are infinite within digital space. This societal trend has aided the exponential densification of cities, functions and money and the dawning of hyperreal urbanism.

Old Oak Common is soon to become the most connected place in the UK, and potentially the densest new development in Europe. The train station and HS2/Crossrail interchange at Old Oaks' heart represents the pivotal nodal point, both physically and digitally, of the whole development. A hyperreal landscape.

Before its time, before anything is real, before plans are drawn up, works have started. Time and space become intangible as does matter and money; all merging into a seamless vista of aspirational visuals and metrics.

The focus of architecture has shifted from the physical realm to virtual process, politics and representation. Can ‘real-world’ conflictions and misalignments be marshaled and embraced as productive tension in the creation of a more honest and palpable architecture.

The work uses the quantifiable irrationality of the station to explore alternative responses to system-generated, intractable problems. The station design celebrates and choreographs the glitchy nature of its own existence. It reasserts the agency of the Architect and materiality in the face of hyperreal dichotomies.