Jolanta Dzikowska

ADS 1: Hackney Brook, River Lee

Hackney Water Rooms

Hackney Water Rooms responds to a changing contemporary relationship to water; from local utility to global commodity. It explores the potential for social activities to exist alongside local environmental facilities. Through an architecture that seeks to reveal, question and somewhat demystify the hidden world beneath our feet, a new urban route traces the course of Hackney’s lost river through the everyday urban terrain. A focus of the route is a submerged water centre which serves as an educational facility for local schoolchildren. This free local resource provides both health and leisure activities. Hackney’s hidden history may be a means to regenerate its future.