Inspired by Moore's law, network effects and the growing number of distributed and decentralised informational networks emerging across the globe disrupting the traditional financial system, this project explores how traditional financial institutions located in The City of London might evolve over the coming years in response to the emergence of cryptocurrency and rising distrust amongst the public.
In an attempt to spatialise the obsolecense of the United Kingdoms oldest bank, and the decentralisation of it's functional role from physical branches into digital nodes, the project explores/experiments with different ways of encoding cryptocurrency data into geometry in order to deconstruct and decentralise the Portland Stone fascade of the building from a singular opaque and obtuse volume which projects power and privacy, into a series of smaller civic spaces which invite the publics curisoity and engagement.
The end result is civic water garden which serves as a new monument at the entrance to The City, whereby flows of water are activated by international exchange across blockchains.
SITE RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Located at 1 Fleet Street, the entrance to the City of London and previous location of the Temple Bar gateway, Child & Co Bank is the United Kingdom's oldest bank. It's fascade is constructed from Portland Stone, a material which projects strength, immoveability and power, and has been utilised in many of London's historic civic structures.
DATA DRIVEN PARAMETRIC ALGORITHM
Many experiments were conducted throughout the project on how to alogrithmically manipulate space, specifically looking at how data can be encoded into geometry through a series of tranformations.
FINAL PROJECT RENDERS
FINAL PROJECT ANIMATION