John Atkin

Notaroundabout and other associated works of street furniture were commissioned through Kent County Council as part of the groundbreaking Ashford Ring-road project in Kent.  I was invited by ARL Consultants to become Lead Artist in 2006, with a brief to work as an embedded component of an interdisciplinary design team (IDT) that included Landscape Architects and Highway Engineers. In addition, I was an integral member of the Champions Group that shaped strategy for the pioneering project to reduce traffic congestion within a shared space highway’s scheme, which focused on the development of Ashford to the South of the existing town boundaries. The ring-road had, over decades, become a tourniquet around the Town, restricting growth and future prosperity for its inhabitants.

Part of my brief was to look the heritage factors that had shaped the development of the community and the identity of the Town. I did this through community consultation as well as Mentoring schemes with local F.E. Colleges. This strategy widened the public’s visibility of the project, making clear the aims and objectives of the scheme as a whole. It soon became clear through my participation in Ashford Borough Council committee meetings that the community, on the whole, did not want to invest in a single stand-alone, piece of artwork, instead. I suggested looking at ways the industries and trades associated with Ashford’s past could be discreetly deployed within the new highway structure that was about to shape the southern perimeter of the infamous ring road.

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Working with the IDT allowed me to establish ambitious projects that tapped into Ashford’s heritage and implement pioneering structures that reflected Ashford’s heritage and aspirations for a fresh space where pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic could coexist safely within the same space. Reflecting on the pioneering work by Hans Monderman (a Dutch Highways Engineer who championed shared space) and Ben Hamilton Bailee (an Urban Designer and contemporary of Monderman), I developed a DNA of shapes and forms that became blueprints for a series of highway structures and street furniture, cycle stands, bollards, benches, tree grilles, as well as pocket parks.