H.A.P.P.E.

A healthier high street

HAPPE (High Streets for Augmented Pleasant Personal Experiences)

This Project embraces the medical condition known as seasonal affective disorder (a form of depression triggered by decreased light levels in winter) and creates a series of interior urban light parks in forgotten or underused spaces surrounding the high street as a means to rejuvenate their currently failing status.

These light parks have been translated from the worlds biomes, bringing global environments into the global city of London. This is the new health institution, integrated into community and life and responding to local conditions, it does not separate itself from its surroundings with a façade.

HAPPE

Head wear for Augmented Pleasant Personal Experiences,
This is the result of rethinking the light box, the standard treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Together with Colour, this recreates the light conditions of latitudes with greater sunlight.

Health of London

In order to integrate a new form of health design, it is important to observe the health of the city itself, indeed we find there is a direct relationship between centres of economic deprivation and percentage of people reported in good health.

FOSED

Fibre Optic Sun Enhancing Device, This is an initial provocation whose shapes are based on the contours of economic deprivation which form a 4km high canopy punching through clouds and bringing sunlight back down through fibre optic cables.

Biome Abstraction

London is a global city with people who have left behind their respective countries and environments. By bringing these back into the city and abstracting their spatial and luminous conditions, a network of urban light parks emerges along neglected high streets.

Lightwell Development

Lighting conditions were identified and examined in every biome in their respective different layers. Through detailed technical research into light properties and methods of its manipulation, a series of light wells were created to mimic the precise light condition in a particular layer of a biome. These would be put together to create a light park adapting to a site’s spatial conditions.

Tower Hamlets and Commercial Road

Tower Hamlets is one of the most deprived boroughs in London with many failing high streets such as Commericial Road. The high street is the essence of publicness which my intervention aims to be, a public intervention increasing the amount of open space which this borough in particular lacks, especially around the many schools which have small improvised spaces as their playgrounds.

The Test Site

On Commercial Road lies an empty site behind a drive-thru McDonald’s currently used as a car park and car wash. The site will be reconnected with the high street with a tunnel through the building and the fast-food outlet will be retained since it acts as a meeting point for the local community particularly with younger generations.

Rainforest Test Proposal

An forgotten infill site is revived by placing an abstract rainforest where its light conditions are recreated using carefully designed light wells. There are five levels corresponding the to the five layers of the rainforest, each one with a specific light condition.

Savanna Test Proposal

On the Same site, a second intervention is proposed to show the strategic nature of the proposal. The Savanna proposal consists of two levels and the tall grass environment translated into a maze, its roof is more open than that of the rainforest.

HAPPE Network

The HAPPE Network would form as a result of empty sites along failing high streets being claimed for public space. These would be spaces put together using the light well catalogue creating new attractive spaces of light mimicking an environment from around the world in the global city of London and treating a light deprived population suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.