Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Mound

[delicatemoth]

There's a new folly in London.

https://twitter.com/danbarker/status/1419787260107558918

[ursus arctos]

It is very strange

dm's new avatar adds to the righteousness of her title

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

What the hell is this? I had more luck trying to understand Minecraft than this

[delicatemoth]

It reminds me of the mound that used to be by the Watermead estate on the outskirts of Aylesbury, which the bus from Buckingham would pass. I think it was a dry ski slope. Watermead had these toytowny houses and you never saw any people.

[ursus arctos]

It appears to be some dirt covering a great deal of scaffolding

The artificial ski slope comparison seems apt

[Ginger Yellow]

WTAF. I've barely been west of London Bridge for a year and a half, so I had no idea this was going on. Who would pay money to go up there? And please tell me that they're going to put more trees on it, because it's fucking eyesore like that.

[RobW]

https://osd.london/project/marble-arch-mound/

"Oxford Street District" Eurgh, no. Stop this fucking nonsense (see also branding Holborn and Covent Garden as 'Midtown').

[ursus arctos]

https://osd.london/project/marble-arch-mound/

Stop this fucking nonsense (see also branding Holborn and Covent Garden as 'Midtown').

This is effing hillarious

What a bunch of maroons

[Ginger Yellow]

https://osd.london/project/marble-arch-mound/

"Oxford Street District" Eurgh, no. Stop this fucking nonsense (see also branding Holborn and Covent Garden as 'Midtown').

Bwahahahaha. The "Soho Photography Quarter", aka "round the back of TK Maxx".

[Snake Plissken]

All that remains is to find out which one of Johnson's mates got the earth moving contract.

[ursus arctos]

I was shocked that it isn't a Heatherwick joint

[ad hoc]

This is totally baffling. It's about a view? A cheaper option would be to park one of those cherry pickers there and have people pay to go up in it. Though I suppose that wouldn't have been "an experience of the great outdoors" in the same way that climbing up some stairs onto the top of scaffolding covered in grass is

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It's an idea that Siobhan Sharpe and her colleagues from Perfect Curve could have come up with.

[ursus arctos]

Do they plan to add a cereal cafe?

[Antepli Ejderha]

I thought this was a wind up but it seems it actually exists.

In summary, some group of chancers have dumped a load of soil around some scaffolding and are charging people to climb up it because there's a bit of a view. Wtaf?

[Levin]

Oh there's no soil.

[San Bernardhinault]

This is an April Fools, right? This is an April Fools, right? Come on. Someone. Tell me this is a belated April 1st thing. Please?

[WOM]

Oh, it's temporary. Best we go in case we miss out. Maybe everyone will fall in love with it and they'll keep it, like the Eiffel Tower.

[Paul S]

It looks like one of the Beckton Alps.

[Capybara]

I might go when they put the big slide on it.

[WOM]

I hope someone in the flats across the road starts charging 4 quid so people can look down on those who paid the 6 quid.

[jwdd27]

I was shocked that it isn't a Heatherwick joint

Heatherwick would have cost more than £2m, but would have at least been vaguely competent.

[Benjm]

You won't really get the full effect until they place Dame Vera Lynn's embalmed body on top and set fire to it.

[Sam]

Oh there's no soil.

Yep. I read the Twitter thread linked in the OP shortly before coming over here today, and feel that not enough folk on this thread are aware of the fact that it's not even real grass, it's astroturf.

It's all very twenty-first century London, isn't it?

[ursus arctos]

[It was supposed to boast glorious views of the capital from a lush, human-made hill in order to tempt shoppers back to central London, but now refunds are being offered to customers who bought tickets for a trip up the £2m Marble Arch Mound.

Westminster city council confirmed refunds were being given out after the project suffered “teething problems” which left its artist’s impression looking nothing like the rather limp reality – leading to a torrent of ridicule on social media.

The council said it would offer anybody who had booked a visit during the first week another ticket free of charge so that they could enjoy “the full experience” – once the landscape had “had time to bed in and grow”.

It is evidently sedum matting (of the kind used on "green" roofs) rather than artificial turf.

https://www.theguardian.com/artandde...ffered-refunds