Hill, Dale & Ham charts the future of Forest Hill, Kirkdale & Sydenham. It considers how shifts in science, technology, culture and politics will transform this pocket of South London.

All the sites on this map are based on real places, their people and its geography. These factors form a local identity that shape a response to future universal challenges.

Use this map to journey into parallel realities. Discover how you and your surroundings are guided by alternative influences. Time travel into possible futures. Explore how science and technology change our relationship with nature, geography, society, politics and culture.

The signposts you encounter on this map point from current research, observations, local histories and future trends. As you travel, they ultimately ask, what future would you like?

Hill Dale & Ham book volume1 is available for purchase soon on our online bookshop. To register your interest, please get in touch with us.
Volume1 contains following chapters:

1. Metamorphosis Factory
2. Bioremediation and the new Dale&Ham beasts
3. Vacuum trains
4. A dog knows every tree - the health parks
5. Knowledge Banking
6. Perma Politics
7. Change By Order

To find out more about Volume2, please get in touch with us.
Volume 2 contains following chapters:

8. The Mycorrhiza Network
9. Synthetic Biology & Biohacking
10. Algae Opera from After Agri
11. “ S ” for shelter
12. The Reserve for Alternative Living
13. NEST
14. Salon
15. The Future Constructors
16. Adventurers in a shrinking world
17. HDH Space Mission

Science, technology and future natures

Science and technology has the transformational power to galvanise our collective ambition and vision. It can refocus our beliefs and our relationship with everyday systems and services and create new associations with each other, our world and Universe.

Ultimately, the application of science and technological devices and systems highlights the intricacies of human nature. At its strength, they can create whole new dimensions to our lives and world. It can revolutionise how we perceive and alter our behaviour. At its worst, science and technology can be used to control, threaten and kill fellow inhabitants.

In the following scenarios Co.Futures dives into parallel and future worlds where alternative choices and predicted discoveries shape science and technology with delightful and dreadful results.

1. Metamorphosis Factory
2. Bioremediation and the new Dale&Ham beasts
3. Vacuum trains
8. The Mycorrhiza Network
9. Synthetic Biology & Biohacking
10. Algae Opera from After Agri

Alternative States of Reality

Alternative States of Reality
The areas of Hill, Dale and Ham, as their name suggests, were once rural havens and unrecognisable to the urban sprawl we see today. The streets and buildings that we encounter now were inconceivable to the fields, springs, woodlands they grew from.

They have developed according to the choices of the inhabitants and shifting societal & environmental influences that have left their impressions through time. Just as we leave our imprint on these places, we offer the question to you: what kind of place would you like to leave for future generations?

Acknowledging the impact of human choices and events on the landscape in the past, what future activities could shape Hill, Dale and Ham in the future?
What if some forms of technology had become more successful or superseded our current technology? How would their existence shape these places?

4. A dog knows every tree - the health parks
5. Knowledge Banking
11. “ S ” for shelter
12. The Reserve for Alternative Living
13. NEST
14. Salon

PermaPolitics & Counter Culture

There’s no escaping the impact of social and political influences on our urban design and planning.
The land in Dale and Ham was once common land before being enclosed and sold to the rich. World War II has left scars across Hill, Dale & Ham. Here also, the Greyhound pub, a pub that once welcomed travellers from centuries past, bares the scares of development as it now stands as a shell with it’s heart ripped-out, ready to be rebuilt. In progress what place does the past have? Is there another way to weave development with notions of authenticity, heritage, memories and social fabric?
Or is it necessary, even natural, that traces of the past linger but fade, just as new residents rediscover these places a new, forming their own associations with the site as place and home.
We reframe the way we design our locality through a vision called PermaPolitics. In our study of PermaPolitics and Counter Culture we stumble across some tantalising questions:

Whose place is Hill, Dale & Ham? Do some people have more right to shape and control these places? What place does nostalgia have in these places? Is change good, or even necessary?
Can preservation be disruptive? Ultimately, how will we build these places in the future?
How will world political and cultural events leave their imprint on these places?

6. Perma Politics
7. Change By Order
15. The Future Constructors
16. Adventurers in a shrinking world
17. HDH Space Mission