Elephant and Castle

A £3 Billion investment, Elephant & Castle will see a redevelopment that'll spur on a new town centre of one of central London's greatest regeneration projects.

The dated hub of Elephant and Castle, the shopping centre is the afterbirth of a second world war bomb site, constructed in 1965 it has been the centre of the ethnically diverse area of London since opening. Presented as the first American-style mall in the UK: It was promised to make the area the south London's equivalent of Piccadilly circus. However the brutalist post war architecture and planning expresses a very unwelcoming and unloved feeling completely disregarding the fact that a shopping centre needs shops in order to function properly, with over half of the plots boarded up, the potenial for the space is still apparent. You can feel the great sense of community and London spirit even in the 3 floors of the shopping centre, despite the foreseeable closure approaching.

With the closure and demolition of the housing estates such as Heygate, lower/working class citizens have been systemically forced out of their properties and uprooted from their community to somewhere less desirable, families are faced with not been given council houses in the same area and as a result are forced to relocate schools.

With the new elephant park development will create almost 2500 new homes that are promised to be affordable for residents of elephant and castle when in the reality starting prices for the 1 bedroom studio flat continue to rise (£750 000).

This gentrification is not only a form of new buildings but can be a new class of people. In elephant and castle's case it is both, the melting pot of south London is becoming increasingly tailored to one class,Disregarding the history of the area and only focusing on being profit-based where everything is orientated around money.

But it isn't all negative as changes in the elephant and castle create new homes, new residents and new cultures arriving and visually it will be a vast improvement.

The plan includes a much needed new campus for the university I attend, London College of Communication (University of Arts London) as the lack of studio space impacts the quality of learning along with the outstretched layout building results in a feeling of disconnection from different sections of the university.

One can only hope that the current and previous residents do not get further pushed aside for the professionals who will set eyes on such accessible place to live, I guess only time will tell...