Three Rivers
Zoöp since: 2025 | Location: Bexley, EN | Speaker for the Living: J D Swann
Three Rivers works in Bexley, London (EN) towards a future in which people and their environment are strongly connected. They use places such as Tump 39 – an old, walled ammunition depot – as an open community space. Residents work together to redesign their neighbourhood as a new community space for art and ecology.
Highlights
Highlights of the goals Three Rivers is working towards as a Zoöp:
- Listening to the ground
The soil of Tump 39 carries traces of its military past, including heavy metals. By truly listening to the ground, Three Rivers tries to understand how this past still influences the site, both ecologically and socially. - Managing the site together ('commoning')
Tump 39 does not belong to one organisation, but to the neighbourhood. Residents gain access via a shared code and help care for this place and everything living within it. The focus here is on taking shared responsibility, not on control. - Play as a way of learning
Children and teenagers used to secretly climb over the walls of Tump 39 to play there. That is no longer necessary: they are now actively welcomed to come and participate. Play is an important way to discover and learn. Three Rivers therefore develops programmes for children in which they explore through play what people can learn from the way animals play and interact with their environment.
