Peckham regeneration employs a host of creatives

Three years after the opening of Alsop Architects’ award-winning Peckham Library, Peckham is on the creative map again as it rolls out the first evidence of a seven-year scheme to regenerate the south London area.

Unusual street furniture will start to appear in the Bellenden Renewal Area from this week, marking the start of the initiative. Local artists and designers who have worked on the project include Antony Gormley, Zandra Rhodes and Tom Phillips, among others.

Southwark Housing commissioned Gormley to create a set of wrought iron bollards to line the pavements. Gormley has also been commissioned to design manhole covers comprising enlarged handand thumb-prints.

Phillips has created a range of barcode pavement slabs, street lamps, which, from a distance, form the shape of a heart, as well as two hand-made, Murano glass mosaics featuring the message ‘I Love Peckham’.

Rhodes has designed a series of exterior furniture around a parade of shops, cafés and galleries. She has created pink diamond-shaped paving stones, pink and black tree grilles and black Liquorice Stick lampposts (pictured).

Bellenden Renewal Area co-ordinator Camilla Goddard worked to match local artists to projects. ‘We were keen to involve local artists in the scheme, and create a kind of Hoxton-type area that would attract bars, cafés and residents,’ Goddard says.