On 31 October 1998 the first Amazon UK product was delivered to a John Wainwright on Cherry Hinton Road. Twenty years later, Tilbury became the home of the Amazon Fulfilment Centre, processing hundreds of thousands of products daily that are destined for London’s doorsteps. Driving from Tilbury, away from London, a dreamlike landscape unfolds; floating utopias that once were an ideal, that look alive, but turn out not to be real. We wonder, what were these places made for?

At the start of the year, studio DS(3)4 looked back to some of the historic aspirations for the wider Thames estuary to begin to imagine a ‘Dreamland’ beyond 2030.. The 1930s Denton Plotlands reflected a desire for rural retreats and a connection to the natural landscape. Bata Town’s concept of ’welfare capitalism’ aimed to provide its workers with improved living conditions, social amenities and opportunities for personal dreams and desires, while the publicly owned and state-built 1960s

New Towns – Harlow and Basildon – were a radical combination of modernist planning and the Garden City tradition. And then there is Wallasea Island, a newly formed wetland habitat and artificial island made from material excavated during London’s Crossrail project. The coastline also offered a wealth of seaside towns that are gateways to marshlands, wildlife and the sickly sweet aroma and tacky sensation of candy floss stuck to the underside of your tongue.

In response to the merciless commercialisation of the human environment, DS(3)4 set out to explore the nature of architectural dreamscapes within societies and to construct an alternative ’Dreamland’ – a utopia for Tilbury and the Thames Estuary. Through a filmic lens, we considered the scenes that have temporally and spatially animated Tilbury, redrawing the backdrops of this coastline and reimagining scenarios to make this unique part of the UK a landmark destination.

Tutors

Paolo Zaide Is an architect, academic and curator, and Course Leader for BA Architecture at the University of Westminster.

Tom Budd is an architect and visualiser based in London, specialising in the production of visualisations that look beyond the ‘photo real’ and strive to capture the feelings and atmospheric qualities an unbuilt space could embody.

Guest Critics
Dimitris Argyros (Haptic Architects), ChiaYi Chou (Unknown Works), George Christofi, Emma Colthurst, Cath Hassell (ech2o), Chris Leung, Jan MacBean (Herzog de Meuron / ACME), Sara Martinez Zamora, Will McLean, Matei Mitrache, Tom Parker, Jake Parkin, Emory Smith (SEAM Design), Marci Song (SEAM Design), Josh Stevenson Brown (Macreanor Lavington), Harry Tindale (AOC), Ron Tse (Carter Gregson Gray)

Special Thanks
Bodhi Horton, Pablo Pimentel, Anthony Tai and Ron Tse for sharing their portfolios. Natalie Newey, Matthew Stewart, Constance Lau and students from DS(2)2 and DS(3)3 for a memorable trip to Rotterdam.