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think we know the answer to this, but there be achieved by adhering to the principles view from the are bound to be disagreements, and no basis expressed in the top five design guidance is established for assessing ‘good’ or ‘poor’. documents. By ignoring this valuable infor- chair Over the last decade, design review panels mation, the NPPF is sending the baby down and design guidance documents have created the plughole – to over-extend the metaphor. benchmarks for design quality in the public My top five are very simple: most of realm and built form. Many local authorities them have been in use since the beginning Babies and bathwater spring to mind with have design review panels and the Design of this century but express principles which respect to the government’s approach to Council/CABE intend to continue in the lat- would have been understood by the Romans changes to the planning legislation – yes, ter- ter’s reviewing role for major projects. How- building liveable cities 2000 years ago. These rific to reduce over a thousand pages to 53 as ever, not all projects go to these panels and principles will not change simply because the per the Draft National Planning Policy Frame- not all local authorities have them, so a lack UK planning process changes; this needs to work, but only if you can also distil all the of consistency and continuity is a major risk. be clearly recognised and reference to these essential elements – existing and new - into What of the widely used and accepted documents embedded into new legislation. those 53. From the urbanist’s point of view, design guidance which the NPPF fails to My top five for the ‘new world order’ are: By there are some crucial elements missing from refer to – let alone embed into the planning Design, Better Places to Live, the Urban De- the NPPF’s distillation, primarily around the process? sign Compendium, Safer Places and Manual thorny issue of design quality, which although In recent years, literally hundreds of for Streets. You will have all of these on your mentioned as an important component, is design guidance documents have been shelves – even though several are out of not embedded into the planning process; the produced, many under the auspices of CABE, print – or on your computer, or filed in your suggestion that the non-complying projects government departments or local authorities, brain and all of us should be supporting their would only be those of ‘obviously poor de- each putting their own stamp on the same continued use. sign’ begs more questions than it answers. story. Arguably there are too many of these, Amanda Reynolds The NPPF is silent on methods of achiev- all saying similar things in slightly different • ing good design and silent on what consti- ways; however, the message has not changed tutes ‘obviously poor design’. We may all and the basics of good urban design can

on-line debate, and following a lot of hard that communities are the poorer both finan- Director’s and thoughtful work put in by Tim Hagyard cially and in terms of the quality of their lives, in developing a first draft, the UDG Execu- for want of good urban design. report tive submitted a response to government. The veteran politician Aneurin Bevan, A submission was also made to the inquiry once lamented a ‘poverty of expectation’ in being conducted by the House of Commons the public. People should demand fine places Communities and Local Government Commit- in which to live out their lives, and not settle This has been a really busy autumn for the tee. I know there have also been individual for the polluted, grey environments in which Urban Design Group. There have been two members who submitted their own responses many do. Can we change this? The email con- major events, namely the national conference direct, and some, very helpfully, participated tact list for the urban design community has in Greenwich, and the Kevin Lynch Memorial in debates on the NPPF on national newspa- reached 1,600 and there are over 250 people Lecture given by Professor Christopher Alex- per websites: it is vital that we talk to people who are members of the email forum; the ander, ably supported by UDG Patron John outside the urban design circle. STREET network is growing by the day, and an Worthington and kindly hosted by Alan Bax- One of my worries in this present eco- expanding core of members are Recognised ter. We have doubled the number of events nomic climate is about what is happening to Practitioners. We are potentially a powerful that are run from Cowcross Street, many of young urban designers. To help them stay and influential group. Although the state of which are filmed and made available to any- in touch with professional practice, we ran the economy hurts us sore, and some of us one free of charge on Urbannous thanks to a workshop on Reinventing Greenwich as much more than others, we are witnessing in the unstinting efforts of Fergus Carnegie. a prelude to the conference, at the invita- practitioners not depression and defeat, but The autumn witnessed a continued tion of Geoff Belcher, the coordinator of the a growth in determination and energy. Let us analysis of the so-called London Riots and World Heritage Site. I was delighted when look to 2012 as a year when we all strive to the knee-jerk solution of removing the bar- 30 enthusiastic individuals turned up; more convince public and politicians of the value of riers to the erection of roller shutters. What details can be found on page 4. At the recep- good urban design. better ways are there than this to advertise tion hosted by the University of Greenwich Robert Huxford that a place is dangerous and to deter normal that evening, Joe Holyoak commented that • people from using it? But this was a side- the work could be worth around £20,000. issue compared with the consultation on He may have been generous but it was a the National Planning Policy Framework for reminder that the work urban design profes- England. There was extensive face to face and sionals do is of huge value to society, and

Current subscriptions Annual membership rates UD practice index and on the udg website) Urban Design is free to Urban Design Group Uk individuals £40 uk students £20 Local authorities £100 (including two members who also receive newsletters and International individuals £50 copies of Urban Design) the directory at the time of printing Recognised practitioner in urban Uk libraries £40 design £80 International libraries £50 UDG Office Practices £250 (including a listing in the UD Individual issues of Urban Design cost £5 Tel 020 7250 0872/0892 practice index and on the UDG website) Email [email protected] Education £100 (including a listing in the Contents Contents

This issue has been generously sponsored by Update Udg Awards 2012 35 Argent Group plc The High Street 3 Transport Interchanges 3 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Cover Cities 2030 – Udg National Conference Sector Shortlisted Projects Paintworks, Bristol: the renewed courtyard, on Urban Design 4 Improvements to a congested artery, Verve Properties Ecotown, Dream or Nightmare 6 Carlisle City Council 36 International Urban Design Groups 6 Design guidelines for residential Future Issues Bordeaux and other Baroque cities 6 development, Exeter City Council 38 Issue 122 – Temporary Urbanism The Urban Design Interview – Rob The partnership for Urban South Hampshire, Issue 123 – Localism Thompson 7 Local Authorities, South Hampshire 40 The Urban Design Library #3 8 Freight depot visioning document, Gateshead Design Council Cabe – A new future 9 Council 42

30 years Winter 2012 Tactile city model, Planning Aid for London Urban Design Group Journal creating 121 Urban IssN 1750 712x — £5.00 Viewpoint and Knott Architects 44 PLaces & Catching up with climatology, Michael Urban Design Academy, North East the DeveLoper anD Urban DesiGn shaPing DesiGn Hebbert 10 Derbyshire District Council 46 cities Mobility, access and choice in urban

in the UK environments, David Metz 12 Book Reviews LONDON The Cheonggyecheon restoration scheme, Rethinking the meaning of place, Lineu MANCHESTER BIRMINGHAM Seoul, South Korea, Clare Healy 14 Castello 48 Public parks: the key to livable communities, Topic: The Developer and Alexander Garvin 48 Urban Design The Urban Towers handbook, Eric Firley and Introduction, Sebastian Loew­ 16 Julie Gimbal 49 We have a problem, Chris Brown 17 Urban Microclimate – Designing the spaces Urban Design and Argent, David between buildings, Evyatar Erell, David Partridge 20 Pearlmutter and Terry Williamson 49 From Barking to Beijing, Ken Dytor 23 Place-making, Ashley Nicholson 26 Practice Index 50 A provincial town perspective, Charles Education Index 56 URBAN Brocklehurst 29 DESIGN www.argentgroup.plc.uk GROUP A client’s view of the public realm, Peter Endpiece URBAN DESIGN Bourne 33 Above all, landscape, Joe Holyoak 57 GROUP

WEDNESDAY 18 JANUARY 2012 WEDNESDAY 7 MARCH 2012 DIARY OF Urban Design & Public Health The Developer & Urban Design Soaring rates of obesity, depression and vita- To accompany issue 121 of Urban Design the EVENTS min D deficiency are all evidence of a public UDG will be hosting an event to explore is- health crisis...but can good urban design sues around the role and perception of urban help? This event will look the interplay be- design by the property industry. Leading Unless otherwise indicated, all LONDON tween urban design, planning and the public figures from the private sector will engage events are held at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross health agenda. Research is showing that well in conversation with Ben van Bruggen, to Street, London EC1M 6EJ at 6.30 pm. Tickets designed places can have a major impact on explore what value urban design can bring to on the door from 6.00pm. £3.00 for full price improving the health and general wellbeing projects and what the future requirements UDG members and £7.00 for non-members; of individuals and communities. Martin Willey will be from those commissioning urban de- £1.00 for UDG member students and £3.00 from NHS London Healthy Urban Develop- signers. Questions to the panel may be sent for non-member students. For further details ment Unit will discuss measures to improve to [email protected] in advance of see www.udg.org.uk/events/udg collaboration between the planning and the event. Venue and cost TBC. health sectors in London and Janice Morphet THURSDAY 5 JANUARY 2012 from UCL will present her work on health and WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH 2012 UDG Film Night: The Social Life of Small spatial planning. The Evening Economy Urban Spaces The evening economy can bring both vital- The 1988 film by William H. Whyte, compan- WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2012 ity and identity to a town, and can be of ion to his 1980 book of the same name, is a UDG Awards Event 2012 at 61 Whitehall, particular importance when retail is falter- seminal work in the study of human behav- London ing. Speakers including Prof. Marion Roberts iour in urban settings, and forms the basis The Urban Design Group’s 2012 Awards Event from University of Westminster, will explore for the ongoing work of the Project for Public will take place at the Royal United Services the best ways to encourage a vibrant evening Spaces in New York. A screening of the film Club (RUSI), 61 Whitehall, London. The even- economy, whilst addressing issues such as (approx. 60mins) wil be followed by a discus- ing will commence at 6.45pm with drinks and personal security, transportation and antiso- sion session on whether its conclusions are canapés in the impressive first floor library cial behaviour. How can the negative external as applicable today as they were a quarter of followed at 7.30pm by the presentation of the impacts be managed? This event will provide a century ago. awards in the historic Wellington Hall. See an invaluable opportunity to hear about the page 35 for more details. latest research and the status of the Purple Tickets required - available from UDG office. Flag Award scheme.

Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 1 Leader Update Good for the economy The High Street The Gallery, London 8 September 2011

If people were told the world was to end in four hours time, where would they go? Would they gather in the car park of the local retail mall? The answer to this question, posed by The government is having a hard time hectares of brown field sites are available in the late J G Ballard, is a most emphatic No! One’s thoughts turn either to home or high convincing not just the nation but its own accessible locations, and the government’s street, which people continue to identify as backbenchers, of the wisdom of carrying on position is untenable. the heart of the community. But that heart beats at an ever slowing rate and concern is with the proposed NPPF. The debate at the Good urban design is however a critical growing as to its future, and it was the future parks though providing revenue income, benefits, and how it leaks out. Actions that moment is mostly centred around the protection factor to ensure that urban areas remain of the high street that was the subject of the could be more valuable if developed to sup- individuals could take included choosing UDG’s September event. port the high street’s vibrancy. locally sourced products and supporting of the English countryside, ignoring the other attractive. Fortunately in the past decade The first speaker, Joanne Cave of David One of the major players in recording the independents, establishing a ‘transition town’ side of the coin, the urban environment; the Britain has managed to develop expertise Lock Associates, took the theme of ‘Identity, decline of the high street and in developing group or civic society, or establishing a local Place and Performance’. She noted that the ideas for its revival is the New Economics currency. Local authorities could offer rate fact is that the two are inseparable. When in this field and to vastly improve the quality government has recognised that there were Foundation, represented at the event by reductions to small businesses, establish Lord Rogers was commissioned to lead the of urban areas, adding value to them at the problems and had appointed Mary Portas as Elizabeth Cox. She began by running over High Street Transition hubs, and support High Street Tsar; with some forecasts pre- data on ‘clone towns’, contrasting Petty community land trusts. Urban Task Force, his remit was to find a way same time. This issue’s topic shows that it is dicting that in 20 years, around 50 percent Curry in Cambridge with its two independ- In the ensuing discussion, some won- of common household purchases might be ents, 55 chains, 9 varieties with Tankerton dered whether there was a risk of taking too of protecting the countryside by making cities not just us, urban designers, who think so, made online, the problems are significant. Road, Whitstable and its 50 independents, much of a middle class perspective, ignor- more attractive. His report did exactly that, and but developers, precisely the sector that the Joanne believed that people would continue two chains, 20 varieties. Liz warned that ing the realities of shopping on a restricted to go to high streets for the sensory experi- the economies of clone towns were fragile, income, and having a over-romantic idea of for a number of years people started realising government pretends to support. We are very ence that the internet cannot provide, as well risking higher levels of vacancy rates, poorer community. The worry is that it may be too that living in urban areas had advantages, happy that this endorsement comes from a as simply to meet other people. She thought quality of public realm and reduced possi- late for debate: internet retail already com- that there could be a resurgence in food re- bilities for social interaction. She wondered mands 10 percent market share, and may particularly if they were well designed, well group of people who, each in a different way, tail, given the growth of farmers markets. The whether we wanted high streets that were soon out-compete both high street and out of managed and had good public transport. It have contributed to the country’s wealth and recipe she commended was a mix of retail, about nothing more than consumption. She town outlets. Is there the collective will and leisure and social interaction. Local authori- introduced the idea of ‘Plugging the leaks’: imagination to anticipate and address the is difficult to see why the government is not well-being. Good quality urban design is good ties also should take a more imaginative look being aware of how money enters the local changes that would ensue? following the same route; the argument that for the environment, for society and for the over the use of their own assets. Their car economy, including tourism and welfare • Robert Huxford getting rid of planning controls and allowing economy. That is what sustainability is! growth on green fields will create economic The issue also include the local authorities’ Transport people use public transport. But his main a more positive vein he suggested that the growth doesn’t make any sense: Jane Jacobs initiatives shortlisted for the Francis Tibbalds subject was the importance of a well func- existence of a Mayor for London was a great Interchanges tioning and attractive public realm as part of advantage as it gave leadership. The current showed many years ago that urban areas award. They are further proof of the quality the interchanges, in order to avoid walking Mayor’s strategy deals with interchanges in attract investment and generate growth, not of work being done by hard-working local The Gallery – 13 October 2011 becoming the most negative part of the ex- an integrated way and should achieve results. perience. Through examples he showed how McNulty used Stratford station to explain the countryside. Add to that the cost of the authority planners and councillors. This is part the pedestrian is often completely forgotten how difficult it was to get all stakeholders to in the design of interchanges, and how this collaborate but how in the end he succeeded additional infrastructure needed to make green of the country’s wealth but it is being neglected can have an impact on the whole journey and and was pleased with the results. He ended fields buildable and of the resulting commuting, and diminished by current government policies. therefore on the success of the transport up showing a few other current and potential operation. He also indicated that designing successful interchanges in London. combine it with the fact that thousands of Sebastian Loew a good space was not easy, particularly as Finally June Taylor described a number of • conflicting demands were made: for example, European interchanges from the point of view street furniture required by some was seen of the user. She observed that in large sta- as clutter by others. However his conclusion tions, money was spent in creating glamor- Urban Design Group Editorial Board Design was encouraging: ‘everybody values quality ous spaces to attract retailers and shoppers Chairman Amanda Reynolds John Billingham, Matthew Carmona, trockenbrot (Claudia Schenk and Anja Sicka) public realm’. but frequently the spaces outside of the Patrons Irena Bauman, Alan Baxter, Tim Catchpole, Richard Cole, Alastair Donald, www.trockenbrot.com TfL’s John McNulty’s subject was Re- station, where the interchange took place Sir Richard MacCormac, Dickon Robinson, Tim Hagyard, Joe Holyoak, Liezel Kruger, generation through better interchange. He (the bus stop for instance) was neglected Helle Søholt, Lindsey Whitelaw and John Sebastian Loew, Jane Manning, Malcolm Printing Henry Ling Ltd started by outlining the various reasons that and unfriendly to pedestrians. Small towns Worthington Moor, Judith Ryser, Louise Thomas © Urban Design Group ISSN 1750 712X have resulted in a terribly inefficient system: with smaller stations could not afford the Three speakers in succession – all three fragmented ownership and management, investments but sometimes offered a better Office Editors Advertising enquiries contributors to UD 120 - addressed the issue inadequate cooperation between transport experience to the customer through very Urban Design Group Sebastian Loew (this issue) and Please contact UDG office of transport interchanges at this event at planners and city planners, fragmented simple solutions. 70 Cowcross Street Louise Thomas Material for publication the Gallery, located almost on top of a new and short term funding, lack of joined-up Surprisingly though all three speakers London EC1M 6EJ [email protected] Please send text by email to the interchange being built at Farringdon. John governance, and as result of all this poor had a large number of images, there were few Tel 020 7250 0872/0892 [email protected] editors, images to be supplied at a Dales of Urban Initiatives started his very outcomes and value for customers, com- diagrams or sections to explain the spatial Email [email protected] Book Review Editor high-resolution (180mm width @300dpi) entertaining talk reflecting on the possible munities and tax payers. An image of Victoria configuration of some of the interchanges. Website www.udg.org.uk Richard Cole preferably as jpeg impact of new technologies on the way that station’s forecourt summarised this mess. On • Sebastian Loew 2 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 3 Update Update

and they may be right. Despite the boom of Lines investigated the use of technologi- Cities 2030 – Live – recent years, the quality of place wished for cal solutions to reduce speed and whether Work – Play has not been delivered. Bigness has been Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) offered an the order of the day and many places have answer to improving safety and environmen- UDG National fallen victim to the big bang masterplan. Our tal aspects. As 1 mph reduction can reduce thinking, tools and processes for planning, accidents by 5 per cent, an ISA might save conference on Urban design and delivery in this new normal world 28,000 crashes/year. ‘Intelligent’ vehicles are broken and will not be put back together could be introduced where speed would be Design again! Kelvin made the case for simple rules controlled by the car’s computer. Smoother Greenwich 20 – 22 October 2011 to resolve complex situations. His presenta- driving would result and cycling could be tion induced curiosity in seeing how these integrated more easily. principles were translated into projects at Urban Initiatives. Making it Happen The conference was held over three days, Carl Vann from Pollard Thomas & Edwards Mark Curry of the Grosvenor Group intro- starting on Thursday with a workshop, a visit described a number of projects, of which duced this session by describing the role of of the Olympic Park and a reception at Green- the work at Diespeker Wharf seemed to offer the developer in improving the public realm wich University. The main event took place most lessons. Many years ago the practice adjacent to their property holdings, in pro- on the Friday at the Laban Centre in Deptford had located its offices there; since then, jects carried out in Westminster. Their main and was followed by the annual dinner. On their workspace had expanded from existing strategy was to reduce through traffic, enable Saturday, tours of Greenwich and the Olympic participants to refine their big ideas and sustainable development and offering op- buildings to larger spaces enhanced by the activities to benefit from this change, provide area were organised. consider the detail of how they might be portunities for Londoners in sport, jobs and adjacent canal. Community gardens, the ad- pocket parking and improve the pedestrian delivered. commercial development. He showed the dition of other facilities and new residential and visual environments, and to do this in 20 October 2011 Time flew and there was no stopping for a Legacy’s importance by making comparisons development, had all served to benefit the partnership (including finance) with the local Re-Inventing Greenwich tea break. The excellent presentations ended with Athens and Sydney where many facilities practice and the community. authority. Workshop in the Old Brewery refreshed by a well de- were either unused or not maintained.In Lon- Charles Scott of Sheppard Robson A final discussion session was devoted It was a very cold Thursday morning by the served drink.It was a valuable exercise for all don a hundred year timescale was the refer- defined the four categories of issues to to the issue of whether we have the answers Thames, when a group of around 30 urban concerned, and hopefully some of the great ence. McNevin reviewed the priority themes be considered for 2030: cars and cycling, and are really sure about the questions. design students and young practitioners ideas that were produced will find their way and policies, and contrasted the existing interactive modes of communication, quality Ideas flew in various directions from the gathered at the entrance of the Discover to fruition. They may even be taken forward state of the area with its end state when the and convenience of the high street, and lastly importance of designing the process (and not Greenwich centre in the Old Naval Col- by those young professionals that came up Olympic park would connect with surround- the testing of ideas. He felt (speaking as a just the project), to issues of scale (macro, lege, eager to take part in the Re-Inventing with them. ing areas to form a twenty mile corridor along cyclist) that the time involved in designing micro and in-between), to the impact of (un) Greenwich Workshop which was organised the Lea valley and repair an existing tear in for the car was out of proportion, particularly certainty about the future, and the social by the UDG in partnership with the University 21 October 2011 – Laban Centre the urban landscape. as alternative modes are sure to increase. He purpose of urban development. Several of Greenwich, as a precursor to this year’s Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich and Wool- Richard Walker from Savills, one of the thought that although on-line sales of goods members of the audience made comments conference. wich opened the conference at the Laban sponsors of the conference, questioned the were increasing, the social role of the high and one thought that the day’s papers con- The day began with an introduction to the Centre in Deptford, setting the scene by de- use of showcase projects in regeneration. street needed protection. And as interactive tained a series of contradictions. This may be area from Geoffrey Belcher, World Heritage claring that urban regeneration and climate He used the Arsenal stadium to illustrate and mapping technologies were becom- what such a conference is about: not problem Site Coordinator and our host for the day.He change were two major challenges for the how two objectives had been realised – the ing much richer, testing of proposals would solving but imagination raising! set out some of the history of the area and next twenty years. Referring to the local area funding of a new stadium and the conver- become easier. The UDG chair, Amanda Reynolds, gave a highlighted the fact that in the past ten years, he saw the transformation of the Millennium sion of the existing stadium into apartments. final summary: responding to one comment visitor numbers had grown from 1.5m/yr to Dome into a music venue as a major symbol He contrasted this with redevelopment at Streets and Public Realm from the floor, she expressed the concern 10.5m/yr. This massive increase looks likely to in the regeneration of historic Greenwich. He Hulme, Manchester, and Castle Vale, West Mike Biddulph from Cardiff University ex- that sustainability shouldn’t have to be continue (with the Olympics and re-opening emphasized that good planning and design Midlands, suggesting that these would have plained his work on shared space developed stressed all the time as it should be taken of the Cutty Sark next year), and the town were needed to address the challenges of been helped by the location of major city with the aid of a research grant from the for granted by all. She thought we should centre is already struggling to cope with the climate change. wide facilities, as Bilbao had been by the UDG. He compared seven schemes based concentrate on those matters on which we demands put on its constrained public realm. Guggenheim and West Bromwich by The Pub- on Manual for Streets (homezones) to three can have an influence - the middle section, Geoff also introduced the site for the Legacies and Lessons lic, a cultural centre. He examined in some based on DB32 rules. His conclusions (see UD between the big (planning) and the small day’s workshop - a busy and traffic domi- Barry Shaw, director of the Essex Design detail the proposals to provide a new stadium 118) were that the homezones outperformed (buildings) - and seek flexibility, integration nated road junction on the edge of the town Initiative, reviewed the transformation of for Tottenham Hotspur and the way in which the others and were used much more for chil- and visioning. centre. Bounded on one side by the Hawks- Docklands starting with the Docklands Joint it could assist in regenerating an area; this dren’s play, while speed limits alone would As a parting gesture, participants had moor designed St Alfege Church, and on the Committee work, the efforts of the LDDC to would not happen without grants and Section not change the level of street activities. been asked to provide a collective noun for other by the new University of Greenwich enlist the private sector as fully as possible, 106 funds. His conclusion was that regenera- Further analysis of the better projects may a gathering of urban designers; from an ex- School of Architecture and Construction the early Isle of Dogs proposal by Cullen tion schemes need more than a new building reveal the aspects that made them successful tremely small response, the favourite was ‘a (under construction), it has the potential to and Gosling, the scheme initiated by G Ware to create places where people want to go. and in what specific way. density of urban designers’. Follow that! be a major public space for the town. Before Travelstead, and ending with the Olympic and Stuart Reid of MVA addressed the ques- John Billingham and Paul Reynolds visiting the site, the participants divided into York funded development of Canary Wharf. 21st Century Urban Design tion ‘Is Shared Space the answer?’ and • groups of five, were told what to look for by Public transport, a key component, was inad- Kelvin Campbell of Urban Initiatives pre- thought that it should not be seen as a single UDG Director Robert Huxford, as within less equate until the Jubilee Line was introduced sented excerpts from his recent publication solution: a space had to be designed in its than an hour, they would have to undertake at a later date. Shaw referred to good exam- – Massive Small - The Operating system for totality. Projects where the redesign of a a rapid analysis of the site and grasp the key ples of housing by Jeremy Dixon and Richard Smart Urbanism. His presentation was too space resulted in the removal of the tradi- urban design issues. MacCormac, and projects such as Butlers brief to explain how his new approach might tional crash barriers and the replacement After lunch, which many spent explor- Wharf that saved existing buildings of charac- deliver but it provided plenty of food for of signage, showed how a totally different ↖ Herzog & DeMeuron’s Laban Centre, in Deptford where the ing the rest of the town centre, the groups ter. His key lessons were that leadership and thought:‘Never waste the opportunity offered streetscape could be created to the benefit of Conference took place quickly started to develop ideas for the site vision, and a design team that gave priority to by a good crisis’ (Machiavelli), ‘obsessed with all. His analysis of solutions involved provid- ↗ Top to bottom: Working group and how it could be improved.These were quality were essential, and that spaces were certainty we see almost nothing,’ ‘design ing a vision, clearly stating the purpose and redesigning a corner of Greenwich at a variety of scales and everybody was more important than buildings. alone will not save us’. Kelvin’s quotes reveal following on with appropriate action.Reid A full room during one of the encouraged to ‘think big’ to overcome some Niall McNevin from the Olympic Park Leg- his thinking: top-down, command-and-con- also mentioned the impact of speed and how conference’s sessions Delegates during a guided tour significant challenges. Then, midway through acy Company emphasised the importance of trol doesn’t work for us any more; those in techniques could be used to help people with of a near-by scheme by Pollard the afternoon, Dr. Noha Nasser gave some the Olympics in transforming the east end of power say that bottom-up is the better way disabilities. Thomas and Edwards top tips for street design which helped the London, helping to inspire people, providing of addressing sustainable growth and change, Continuing with the same theme, Chris Another conference session

4 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 5 Update Update

Jack Warshaw and his fellow travellers centre, playing fields and a working farm. Al- What do you think are the most important art of survival in the face of large scale retail. Ecotown, Dream or presented the case of Bordon, one of the 16 though not opposed to growth, the residents The Urban Design skills of an urban designer? Being able to enjoy the elements before Nightmare designated eco-towns under one of the previ- objected to its scale, the small size of dwell- Interview – Rob Being able to grasp ideas and evaluate sites heading back into the town revitalised, is a ous government’s initiative towards lower- ings, the high density, the building on green and proposals is invaluable but two key skills great experience. The Gallery, ing the UK ecological footprint. No doubt spaces and its traffic impact. Converting a Thompson are important: first, being able to see things London 21 September 2011 the objective was laudable, but Warshaw business park site into yet another supermar- at a number of levels, from the broader Where is your most hated place and why? demonstrated that eco-towns, as currently ket would exacerbate the situation. city-wide masterplanning to the detail of par- Just as it is difficult to single out one good pursued, are not achieving that goal, quite Warshaw demonstrated that the ticular sites. Second is communication, the place, it is difficult to point a finger at a the reverse. As the only urban designer living eco-town criteria were not fulfilled by the ability to appreciate different perspectives wholly bad place; everywhere has some in the designated eco-town area, he endeav- masterplan, which is being imposed by the and explain things in a variety of ways to suit good and some bad. It is disappointing to oured to make a positive contribution during conservative district on a liberal-democrat the audience. Finding different arguments for realise that a chain of events leading up to a the consultation process which turned out to town, and he suspected ulterior motives. good design is imperative in making sure all particular development could have easily led be rather wanting; residents concerned with A lively discussion ranged from suggesting parties understand that it is integral to the to an alternative one – often with negligible the proposals then formed a pressure group how to obtain further assistance to propose whole process, not just an aesthetic add on. differences in cost. Unfortunately, the current ‘baag’ (www.baaga.co.uk). an alternative masterplan, to honourable system does not properly reward quality. At The Bordon case illustrates convincingly ways out for the protagonists of a plan which What would you like to be doing in ten its most depressing, this manifests itself in the misnomers of the eco-town concept, has encountered considerably changed years’ time? seeing the same housing development – with hastily put forward by what is now the Depart- circumstances and local resistance, getting Following my daughter’s directive, I’ll be identical porch details and weathervanes – ment of Communities and Local Government. prepared for the even more pro-development making somewhere beautiful. some 250 miles apart. The argument goes It seems that besides the genuine efforts of localism bill and National Planning Frame- that it is what people want, but invariably reducing carbon emissions, the selection of work under discussion, to declaration of As an urban designer, do you have a role people inhabit and sometimes make the best locations was guided by land in public owner- independence. What is your current job and how long have model? of the places they are given. ship, and in particular the Ministry of Defence What was seen as the major problem is you been there? Without question, it is Gordon Cullen. As a first which owns some 200has in the vicinity of that both alternatives - do nothing and an I have been in my current post as principal year undergraduate, I picked up his Town- What advice would you give to UD readers? Bordon. The MoD is an important employer of imposed eco-town - would lead to insecurity urban designer at Sheffield City Council since scape and it changed my world. Beyond the Two recommendations: travel and sketch. its 12,000 inhabitants, although employment and planning blight, considering the uncer- September 2004. Within this role, I manage obvious skills as an artist, the way he commu- Travel, because there are unlimited experi- seems to be transient and sporadic. The locals tainty of MoD’s departure. This is the case of the city’s Sustainable Development & Design nicated the experience and drama inherent in ences and fantastic opportunities for learn- are preoccupied by the employment deficit a well-intentioned idea for sustainable plan- Panel which brings together independent good townscape was a revelation. Many of the ing. Sketching is great fun and it improves that its departure would leave, especially in ning that has gone astray. An urban design experts to review strategic projects across concepts he put forward remain valid today; with practice. More than anything else, it view of the doubling of Bordon’s population event in the form of a local charrette could the city; I am part of a team providing design one of the key attributes of his approach is to helps to develop one’s skills of observation; forecasted in the eco-town proposals, without be organised to produce a viable, sustainable advice on development and currently work- consider emotional reactions to places –sur- sit and draw something and you have to forthcoming jobs. alternative of high ecological quality while ing on the city’s new Market proposal; I am prises are important and the city can be made properly look at it and appreciate how it fits Bordon is situated in a very rural set- addressing the fears of the community for its responsible for urban design policy within the memorable through intense experiences. I’m together, a critical element in understanding ting near the South Downs, surrounded by idyllic rural way of life. city’s planning documents, and have worked currently working on a book that seeks to offer place. Digital cameras make it increasingly protected sites, ancient forests near the town Judith Ryser to develop a sustainability toolkit. a 21st century take on his ideas. easy to have a passive relationship with our • surroundings, but drawing helps you to stop, Can you describe the path that you fol- If you were to recommend an urban design engage with and appreciate the world around International Urban activities. Below is an incomplete list and we • Urban Design Forum (NZ) lowed to become an urban designer and scheme or study (past or present) for an you. The feel of a place doesn’t just come would be very grateful to members if they • Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design, what motivated you? award, what would you chose? from the physical nature of the built form, Design groups added to it or correct information that they www.hkiud.org I have always loved cities. When growing up, I love ‘indoor – outdoor’ spaces: ones where but from sounds and smells. think is wrong. • Institute of Urban Designers India (IUDI), I thought nothing of walking the length of there is that implicit townscape drama and • Urban Design Forum, udf.org.au www.udesindia.org Edinburgh to get home from school and one wow factor. Often these tend to obscure or What should the Urban Design Group be • Urban Design Alliance of Queensland, • Institute for Urban Design, New York, of my favourite things is to meander around blur the boundaries of where urban design doing now or in the future? www.udal.org.au www.ifud.org a city for hours on end. I studied planning begins and ends. The rejuvenation of St Pan- It should work on relevance, to ensure that the We are trying to draw a list of organisations • Australian Council for New Urbanism, • Van Allen Institute, New York at Glasgow School of Art and the mindset cras has helped to celebrate once more the benefits of design quality go beyond mere aes- that fulfil similar roles to that of the UDG in acnu.org/index.php • Nordic Urban Design association (NUDA), towards creativity was fixed. The design romance of travel. In a similar vein, I’ve re- thetics – design has a clear role to play in how other countries, with the objective of devel- • Dutch Association of Urban Designers and www.nuda.no oriented course had some inspirational cently visited the reopened National Museum places work at all levels. A huge amount of oping links with them, exchange informa- Planners (BNSP), www.bnsp.nl • Urban Planning Institute of Slovenia, tutors (particularly Peter Booth and Brian of Scotland in Edinburgh by Gareth Hoskins design decisions within the built environment tion and in due course collaborate in joint • Urban Design Institute of South Africa (DISA) www.uirs.si Edwards) who ignited and developed my and Ralph Applebaum. The different spaces – about units, floorspace, development mix, • design instincts and awareness. After that I work well together; being there was a real etc - are taken by a host of other professionals knew what I wanted to be doing and started pleasure, and a reminder of how great design well before architects or urban designers ever development from the 1950s. The price of my career working in urban regeneration; this can not only make a place feel good and look get to see what is going on. These critical deci- Bordeaux and other £440 (£400 for UDG members) includes rail included a spell helping to deliver Barnsley’s good, but crucially work well. sions have a significant impact on how places travel to and from London and three nights’ urban renaissance. Finally I enrolled on a part work, and earlier involvement in getting them baroque cities accommodation (sharing room). time MA course, which was a factor in being Where is your favourite town or city and right will have a profound impact. Urban Design Group Study Tours You may if you wish combine this with a appointed to my current post. why? 12-20 May and 17-20 May 2012 longer tour, led by Alan Stones, from Satur- I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and spend Finally, who would you like to see inter- day May 12th to Sunday May 20th which in- What do you find exciting about your work? time in a great number of great places across viewed by UD? cludes visits to other important Baroque cit- There is something special about being able the world. We can still enjoy the quality of I think it is important that urban design ies such as Nancy, Karlsruhe and Mannheim. to shape your surroundings. I’ve tried to diversity and individuality that a truly great as a profession continues to look outside Bordeaux became prosperous as France’s All these cities have geometrical layouts £880 (£840 for UDG members) includes rail explain what I do to my six-year old daughter, place can bring, through a combination of its normal boundaries – taking different premier port, and created spectacular urban focused on the ruler’s palace and have gone travel, participation in the Bordeaux visit and who now proudly tells all her school friends culture and personality, architecture, materi- perspectives from a range of fields is useful set pieces along the Garonne river frontage on more recently to upgrade their public eight nights’ accommodation (sharing room). that her daddy makes Sheffield beautiful. ality and climate. Although I have a soft spot in thinking laterally. Two radically different during the 18th century. More recently the city realm and link city to suburbs with modern Further information is available from Alan It’s sometimes helpful to be reminded of the for both Edinburgh and Glasgow, I do love re- areas spring to mind: firstly, how entrepre- has regenerated many quarters and renewed tram systems. We shall be talking to plan- Stones, Fullerthorne, Church Street, Kelve- reason for doing what you do, and of the art turning to North Berwick, on the coast in East neurial business leaders analyse and redirect its public realm, including the provision of ners about their urban design policies and don, Essex CO5 9AH, phone 01376 571351, or of simple explanation. It’s also quite handy Lothian: it has a fantastic relationship with its their core business and think of new ways of three new tram lines. The ‘short tour’, from plans. We shall also be taking a look at the email [email protected] (Please to do something you enjoy; I don’t think you coastline and enjoys fabulous beaches at ei- marketing and adding value. Secondly, the May 17th-20th, will be led by Sebastian Loew, contemporary Paris classical set-pieces, such note the new email address). can be an urban designer and not enjoy your ther side of the harbour; the main High Street approach taken by those connected with the and will include a talk by city planners and a as the Place des Vosges, Palais Royal, Place The last booking date is Friday 10th job because you are constantly surrounded is a wonderful piece of townscape and, from visual arts to bring drama and interest into visit to Le Corbusier’s seminal Pessac housing Vendôme and Axe des Tuileries. The price of February 2012. • by work! a work perspective, a study in the constant towns and cities. • 6 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 7 Update Update

independent vehicles were created to raise its communities. While, Jacobs’ ‘view from THE URBAN DESIGN finance, to commission and deliver public the street’ is rich and human, as citizens our Design Council Cabe LIBRARY # 3 works. The reformer set out to end the Tam- needs and desires are bound up with the – a new future many Hall systems of patronage in contracts, futures of cities and regions too. Today, we Robert Caro: The Power Broker and took supreme control of jobs, contracts have become mistrustful of governments Robert Moses And The Fall Of and privileges in a regime as elitist as the sys- and politicians; despite Moses’ disdainful New York (Knopf, New York, 1974) tem the youthful Moses set out to eradicate. contempt for the public, he could engender Moses’ determination to drive an expressway popular support for his projects in a manner The merger of CABE into the Design Council through Washington Square, Greenwich Vil- unimaginable in our risk averse, suspicious, was a result of significant effort over a short lage, and Jane Jacobs’ winning determination mistrustful times. time, starting with a shared vision expressed to stop him, became the defining moment in Can we imagine public support for large- by their respective Chief Executives to meld establishing the values that inform contem- scale transformation and development, not together two world class design organisa- porary urbanism. just for ‘nudging’ incremental and organic tions. Both championed the value of good Not until the 1960s did the ‘power broker’ changes? Probably, the answer is: not at the design nationally and had similar operating fall from grace. The Rockefeller administra- moment. Right now, the most optimistic models – using a core team and a wider fam- tion took back power and control from the outcome could be for the government to put ily of Design Associates/Enablers to deliver executive: a different consensus between more tools and resources in the hands of expertise and guidance to key audiences. As public and political elite had to be struck. people. Allowing people to come together to each faced reductions in central government Moses, forced to engage with the book take over buildings, to experiment with social funding, merging and sharing their skill sets which ‘tries to prove I was a good boy, who enterprises and to plan simply by taking over, and expertise had compelling benefits.. fell from grace, became a politician and can be a good way of kick-starting a new So on 1st April 2011, I was one of twenty mistreated the poor’, denounces its veracity wave of urbanism. It is perhaps one precon- CABE staff who made the short move from in his inimitable style: ‘the biography is full of dition for resurrecting a sense of agency. Kemble Street to the Design Council’s office efficiently to practitioners, via networks and is critical therefore that we continue to offer mistakes, unsupported charges, nasty, base- Caro would cheer: the solution is for all the on Bow Street. I think that it was particularly in partnerships. This is a significant shift from enabling support and advice to help them less personalities and random haymakers contemporary Robert Moses figures to simply evident that both teams of staff were starting CABE’s previous role: this ‘learning hub’ ap- develop local plans that are spatially aware thrown at just about anybody in public life’. get out of the way. afresh and keen to work together. For many proach is much less top down, fleeter of foot, and set a clear vision for their locality. This Caro, tersely retorts: ‘It is slightly absurd (but But we should recognise something lost of us transferring, the survival of CABE was a with much more interactivity, debate and year we have run seven ‘design in planning’ typical of Robert Moses) to label as with- here. We sorely need large-scale invest- huge relief, and the Design Council Cabe was sharing of ideas with our audiences, through workshops reaching nearly 90 local authori- out documentation a book that has 83 solid ment and development to meet our needs. a new venture able to set its own agenda as a websites, blogs, social media and formal and ties, and continued to run our Local Develop- pages of single-spaced, small-type notes To achieve this we need plans to extend our charity working for public benefit. informal networks. ment Framework panel workshops to help and that is based on seven years of research, cities and to embrace growth. We need to The work programme we have been Indeed, our target audiences will con- local authorities complete their plans. including 522 separate interviews’. scale up our imagination, our ambitions, and developing has taken some of the work tinue to expand in this networked environ- In the introduction, Caro invokes Sopho- our plans. Moses demonstrated technical and previously done by CABE, particularly design ment. Local communities are one relatively Evolving with the times cles: ‘We must wait until the evening to see organizational possibilities; in different social review, and has also taken new directions, new audience and Design Council Cabe Looking forward, we will always be open to how splendid the day has been’. Caro looks circumstances, that power could have been working much more directly with communi- should be able to facilitate their engagement new ideas and new audiences. Many com- Robert A Caro’s epic account of the life of on despairingly at 1960s New York, the sun- democratically controlled and put to popular ties and specifically helping local authorities in shaping their neighbourhoods. We have mentators are waiting with some trepidation Robert Moses, the man central to shaping set of Moses’ career, and sees chaos, conges- use. prepare for the radical changes to the plan- already begun a programme that has given to see what the NPPF will bring to the urban the physical fabric and governance of 20th tion, fear and despair. Michael Owens, Director, Global Cities and ning system expressed in the draft National out 13 grants (for which we had over 130 design sector and those seeking to improve century New York, is both scholarly and Yet twenty years on, Caro’s negative as- •author of The Planned City in Williams, A. and Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The applications) to organisations working with the environment. Design Council Cabe will highly readable. It is considered a definitive sessment is not universally shared. Ballon Donald, A. (eds) The Lure of the City: From Slums to direction of our work has been influenced by specific communities to advance or develop be very much in the centre of the debate as Suburbs (Pluto Press, London) account of the play of power in the making and Jackson’s 2007 re-appraisal of Moses the Bishop Review – a critical analysis of the a design project of public benefit. This has a national, independent, strategic thought of the greatest world city at the height of the notes a renewed interest in Moses’ achieve- design support landscape across England, been incredibly illuminating: it showed how leader. We look forward to integrating with American Century. The interplay of history ments, spurred, they suggest, by ‘a fear that Read on published on 18 October 2011. This review many communities want to drive change in the Design Council, learning from their ways and personality, of grand vision compellingly New York can no longer execute ambitious Goodman, R. (1972) After the planners (Routledge, reinforces the value of a centre of excellence their local area and deal with what matters to of working, and sharing our own knowledge and painstakingly pursued through the lens projects because of a multi-layered process London) for design in the built environment which them, and want support on design to achieve and skills. In this way we will create a centre Ballon, H. and Jackson, K.T. (eds) (2007) Robert of a life story, means The Power Broker can of citizen and governmental review’. Moses Moses and the Modern City (W.W Norton and Co., acts in the public interest. Many examples it. It is taking Design Council Cabe out across of excellence for design across all sectors, at times evoke the brilliant writing of Philip ‘looks different in a national context than New York and London) showed the high regard that CABE’s work was England into rural areas, towns and small vil- thus improving the quality of people’s lives. Roth. he does in isolation’. Without seeking to Campbell, K. (2011) Massive Small: The Operating held in – how many places and buildings are lages. Many of the projects aim to reconfigure Brian Quinn, Advisor in the Localism and Moses built 14 Expressways, hundreds of diminish his failings, their account re-poses Programme for Smart Urbanism (Urban Exchange, demonstrably better because of the inspira- left-over bits of public space or to develop •Planning team, Design Council Cabe. Please note public parks, swimming pools and scores of New York’s transformation in terms of the London) tion, challenge and practical advice given by new uses for redundant civic buildings, bely- that Design Council Cabe as expressed (lower case Cabe) is our new name not Design Council other developments, including Triborough imperatives of growth, modernisation, and CABE staff, design review panel members and ing the idea that people are not interested in CABE and Verrazano Bridges. He transformed the responses to federal funding and policies. enablers. what happens beyond their garden fence. It physical landscape of New York City, com- The challenge exposes the central flaw has given Design Council Cabe the opportu- missioning projects that embody some of in the Caro account. Many of the apparently Facilitator’s role nity to work in partnership with 13 organisa- New York’s finest historical architecture and exceptional features of New York’s develop- However it was also noted that the environ- tions as well as the communities. Design landscape. His impact on New York draws ment are typical of city development across ment had changed since CABE was set up in review grants for organisations developing comparisons with Haussmann’s remodeling the USA. It becomes clear that Caro’s narra- 1999. A range of organisations of local and new ways of bringing the community into the of Paris. tive of naïve public support for Moses in the national stature now deliver design advice design review process have also been made The reach of Caro’s research is as remark- 1930s followed by loss of faith in the 1950s and review. Design Council Cabe is affiliated available. These projects are continuing able as the extent of the works; the story is actually reflects a wider loss of confidence in with eight independent design review panels through to March 2012 and we will be report- told from the inside. Moses’ appointment in government and urban programmes altogeth- that cover all of England apart from London. ing on them periodically on our website. 1934 as commissioner of parks and parkway er, rather than a specific loss of confidence Many local authorities have design review development by newly elected liberal re- in Moses. Caro’s focus on the individual, panels as well. There was clearly a specific Support to local authorities publican Mayor Fiorello La Guardia provided although highly contextualised, over-empha- demand for Design Council Cabe to be a While we have a new focus on working with a platform for him to re-engineer the city’s sises Moses’ personal attributes and thereby strategic body that would deliver less itself, communities, we have not neglected our on- bureaucracy and to begin re-crafting the city undervalues the wider social and political but act instead as a ‘learning and facilita- going relationship with local authority plan- itself. The City drew on the Federal Govern- changes at play. tion hub’. This hub would be able to examine ning departments, still central to the new ment’s New Deal resources, supplemented by Moses viewed the world from the and facilitate debate on new challenges planning system. We are very much aware the raising of tolls on bridges, and by issuing perspective of the needs of the city as a and themes, gather best practice and ‘next that the design capacity within local authori- bonds. Steadily, Moses influence grew as whole rather than the neighbourhood and practice’, and disseminate such learning ties is reducing, as cuts are made to staff. It

8 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 9 Viewpoint Viewpoint

CATCHING UP WITH CLIMATOLOGY ↓ Yokohama, Klimaatlas 2010. Image, Yokohama City Council Michael Hebbert reports on research showing the relationship between climate ↓↓ Hong Kong, the campaign for fresh air. Image, Professor and urban design Edward Ng, Chinese University of Hong Kong ↓↓↓ Frankfurt, point-specific ↙ Rotterdam, thermal survey by design recommendations based cargo bicycle. Image, Professor upon high-resolution climate Bert van Hove, Wageningen analysis. Image, Professor Lutz University Katzschner, Kassel Univerity

a part. The concern for carbon emissions Klimaatlas was published in 1992 and government went on to initiate a climate and thermal performance has had the it was updated in 2008 to cover the mapping exercise as the basis for urban effect of bringing the sciences of indoor entire metropolitan region, enabling design of its former airport site. and outdoor environments together climate management to be factored into Research on urban heat island (UHI) every scale of urbanism from strategic Drawing lessons has expanded greatly and the workshop green space protection to site layout, Rohinton Emmanuel and Evyetar Erell heard many examples from around the landscaping and detailed building design. summarised the need for designers to world. In the Netherlands the topic had Ulrich Reuter, who heads the climatology understand the urban climates they are been dropped when studies of air pollution unit, showed how mechanisms invented working in. The world’s fastest growing ended in the 1970s. Excess heat deaths in to protect air quality now serve the larger cities are in the tropics, and local warming 2003 and 2006 came as a wake-up call. agenda of carbon mitigation and global doubles the impact of global climate The Dutch realised that they could no warming strategy. change. When temperatures are close to longer take for granted their temperate Stuttgart’s methodologies have been human tolerance thresholds, every degree climate and the mitigating influence of the widely emulated. Lutz Katzschner of of mitigation matters. Too few planners North Sea. But they had no data, because the University of Kassel has applied the appreciate the importance of outdoor the national weather stations of the Royal method in Kassel and Frankfurt, and he comfort and the availability of viable Netherlands Meteorological Institute showed the workshop an experimental remedies to encourage natural ventilation (KNMI) were located in out-of-town interactive table-top flat-screen and promote shade and evaporative locations, following standard practice. Klimaatlas for Arnhem in the Netherlands, cooling. Expertise remains scarce but the So, intensive measurement campaigns where prospective designs for the UHI can costs of data collection, modelling and were launched, combining installation be sketched and tested for their effects monitoring the urban climate have never of new automatic weather stations, on the microclimate. Much of his current been more affordable. transect surveys with bicycle-mounted work is in Southeast Asia. We heard from The workshop reached clear Around midsummer 2011 a group of how to optimise the natural ventilation data-loggers, and compilation of weather Chao Ren of the Chinese University of conclusions. Climatically responsive scientists and practitioners gathered in system through intelligent planning of records from hobby meteorologists. Hong Kong, how the Stuttgart approach urban design requires local investigation. the country club setting of the University landscape and urban forms. Significant urban heat island effects were has been transferred from the context Sectoral measures such as building of Manchester Chancellor’s Hall to Stuttgart’s interest in climate- discovered, with nocturnal temperature of low-density cities in temperate inland performance standards, carbon discuss the state of play in applied urban management was provoked by specific differences between rural and urban areas climatic regions to high-density tropical inventories, emissions limits, and green climatology. Participants included Evyatar problems of a motor manufacturing town of up to 7 degrees, and high variations in urbanism on the Pacific Rim. For example, space targets go so far but like oral Erell, co-author of Urban Microclimate - in a steep valley setting with low wind thermal comfort levels. climate mapping and design of wind-paths medicine in a human body they may not Designing the Spaces between Buildings speeds. It was an unusual case in the – kaze-no-michi – are being widely applied touch the spot. Effective medication (2011), Rohinton Emmanuel, author of 1970s, when most cities regarded smog Climate mapping in Japanese cities such as Yokohama, sometimes needs to be topical, applied An Urban Approach to Climate Sensitive and soot as a thing of the past, and wind Sue Grimmond’s keynote paper on where summer warming has been just where it matters. The idea of the Design: Strategies for the Tropics (2005), roses and rainfall distribution maps were the history of climate investigations compounded by anthropogenic weakening climate atlas is to show up the invisible Sue Grimmond of KCL who advises the becoming a rarity. How do things stand in London underlined the advance in of the natural ventilation effects of land atmospheric ecology of the urban heat Mayor of London on climate strategy, and today, 35 years on from Habitat I? This was knowledge. Despite the recent closure of and sea breezes. island, its climatopes, hot-spots, pollution the past and present directors of the urban the theme of the workshop. the London Weather Centre in Holborn, The architect/climatologist Edward Ng sumps, rain pockets, cold air production meteorology unit of the City of Stuttgart. today’s city has a more extensive weather described how Hong Kong’s permissive zones and drainage slopes, and more. As As a scene-setter we watched the classic Climatology rediscovers the measurement network than ever before, building regulations have created Edward Ng (2011) argues, this is evidence documentary movie Urban Development city thanks to the new availability of low-cost unbroken walls of waterfront apartments worth having. and Urban Climate, made by the ARPA Urban areas were traditionally left out of sensors and automatic data transmitters. sealing off sea breezes from the street Michael Hebbert, Professor of Town Planning, studio in Munich as an official German weather models or treated as localised The cost of numerical modelling is canyons. Air conditioning units worsen •University of Manchester exhibit at the United Nations Habitat I anomalies within a background climate. coming down too, and the workshop the outdoor heat burden. In response to The City Weathers Workshop, was funded by the ESRC. Papers, powerpoints and the 1976 Stuttgart Conference in Vancouver in June 1976. Faster computing and improved spatial heard several examples of urban-scale the 2003 SARS epidemic Professor Ng documentary movie are all available for download The movie describes, with voice-over in resolution are bringing them into focus application of ENVI-Met, the freeware launched a major research campaign to from www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/architecture/ Chinese, Russian, Japanese and English, and encouraging the development of programme developed by Michael Bruse raise awareness of Hong Kong’s ventilation research/csud/ how the post-war city of Stuttgart new sub-models which realistically of the University of Mainz, simulating the crisis, involving field surveys of thermal tackled its air quality problems through a incorporate the exchanges of heat, three-dimensional interactions between comfort, wind tunnel modelling, GIS combination of systematic meteorological moisture and momentum between urban buildings, vegetation and atmosphere mapping and numerical simulation research and physical design. The film’s surfaces and their dynamic atmosphere within the urban environment. modelling. The Chinese University vivid imagery includes long shots of into the regional models of the Met The City of Stuttgart remains at the prepared its own Hong Kong Klimaatlas shimmering thermal hazes, and three- Office and other weather forecasters. forefront, with its municipal weather with detailed recommendations for dimensional animations of the city in its A complementary shift is occurring stations and in-house analytical expertise. building height and setback in the most valley setting, with cold air flows - streams at the micro-scale of building physics Its most significant contribution affected zones. This robust evidence of blue gel - pouring down the slopes and and heating and ventilation research, since 1976 has been the concept of a base and Ng’s forceful lobbying put the being blocked or channelled by buildings. which traditionally focused on comfort ’climate atlas’, a high-resolution map outdoor environment onto the political We see Oberbürgermeister Manfred conditions within the ’cube’, disregarding combining physical analysis of the agenda, bringing revision of the planning Rommel, the pipe-smoking son of the consequences outdoors in the ’canyon’ and urban microclimate with planning codes to ensure building separation in the WW2 general, pondering with his experts the wider urban climate of which it forms recommendations. The city’s first interests of public health. The Hong Kong

10 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 11 Viewpoint Viewpoint Mobility, access and choice in urban environments David Metz explains how the decline in car use in London can be a model for other cities → Average distance travelled (miles), travel time (hours) and trips, per person per year. ↘ Trip based mode share by main mode in London.

The pattern of human habitation has been happening over the past forty years. This analysis excludes international travel by popularity of public transport. Figure shaped by the development of transport survey covers all modes of personal travel air, which is still growing. Note also that 2 shows estimates made by Transport systems, which in turn has depended on by British residents except international thus far we have focused on per capita for London of the share of journeys by the evolution of transport technologies. travel by air. travel behaviour. It follows that future mode, 1993-2008. Private transport has Two hundred years ago nearly all travel The average number of journeys made growth of total daily travel demand will been declining while public transport use was on foot. This meant that most people has held steady at about 1000 per person be driven by population growth (and, to has been increasing, with walking and had to live close to where they worked per year (pppy). The average time spent a lesser extend by other demographic cycling staying level. The total number of and had limited choice of dwellings, travelling has also stayed fairly constant changes, in particular population ageing). car-based trips – driver and passenger - markets, schools and other facilities. at about 370 hours pppy or an hour a day. has held steady over the period at about Rising incomes have made possible What has changed is that the average Population growth and 10m per day, consistent with a fixed the widespread adoption of successive distance travelled has increased from distribution amount of road space, but the share of technological innovations which permit about 4500 miles pppy in the early 1970s The population of Britain is currently car-based journeys has fallen on account faster travel and hence more access than is to reach 7000 miles around 1995, since 62m and is projected to grow to 70m by of population growth. Private transport possible by walking – principally bicycles, when it has plateaued. Although we lack 2035. A key issue is where the additional mode share is projected to decline to 37 buses, trams, trains, motorised two- direct data, what we know about social population will live and work. Historically, per cent by 2031, from the present 41 per wheelers and cars. conditions and urban geography would the growth of the housing stock has cent, compared with a peak of car use in suggest that we could extrapolate back largely taken place on greenfield sites, London of 50 per cent of all trips in the Impact of transport to an average distance travelled of about on the edges of existing settlements or, early 1990s. technologies 1000 miles pppy two hundred years ago, on occasion, in the form of entirely new This decline in mode share for car use Peter Hall has described how, for each just before the first railways in the 1820s. towns. In recent years, however, new in London reflects the revival in urban successive development of transport 1000 miles was how far you would go each housing in Britain has predominantly living, for which the car is less central. technology, there was a corresponding year on foot, allowing an hour a day for been erected on brownfield sites. Indeed, The relegation of the car is most marked kind of city, but the relationship was travel. in 2009 80 per cent of new dwellings, in the urban regeneration that has taken mutual in that the previous growth We know also from the National Travel including conversions, were on previously place in the former Docklands area, of the city shaped and constrained Survey that the purposes of journeys developed land. where redevelopment was catalysed by the subsequent transport options. have changed little over time. The main New houses on greenfield sites at crucial rail-based transport developments Michael Thomson investigated twenty purposes, in rank order, are shopping, relatively low densities in pleasant ( Docklands Light Railway, Jubilee Line eight cities from five continents and visiting friends, commuting, education environments, have always been attractive. and surface Overground). This rendered identified five archetypes which and personal business. So why is it that Car-based mobility is the preferred Canary Wharf accessible in ten minutes reflected geographical features, relative we travel faster and further for the same transport mode. On the other hand, from the historic financial centre of the accessibility, development control and purposes? Our need for daily travel is brownfield developments within existing City. As a result, a second financial district dynamic processes. Peter Newman and Jeff predominantly to gain access to regular urban boundaries allow little opportunity has grown up, with a working population The trend of increasing urban density acceptable, despite overcrowding at times Kenworthy distinguish different classes destinations outside the home. The faster for additional carriageway construction of approaching 100,000. There are only in inner city areas first seen in London of peak use, to the well-paid staff of the of city according to population density. we can travel, the more choice of each and thus for car use, particularly when 3000 car parking spaces at Canary Wharf, has spread to other economically buoyant international businesses that have chosen ‘Walking cities’ were the major urban form kind of destination we have. This choice the road network is already congested. reflecting the very large reliance on urban British cities over the past decade, to locate there. for 8000 years and substantial parts of the is valuable, which is why speedy travel Hence more public transport provision rail travel, with a further underground line including Manchester, Nottingham, central areas of many major cities retain is attractive. In fact, access and choice is the natural response to the mobility – Crossrail – under construction. Bristol and Sheffield, as employment in Conclusion this character. ‘Transit cities’ developed increase with the square of the speed of needs of growing urban populations. The The trend of declining car use in finance and business services has grown. The Government is consulting on from 1850 to 1950 based on trams and travel, since what is accessible is defined recent and future development of London London is remarkable. Historically and This reflects a break from the previous a new National Planning Policy trains, allowing 20-30km spreading by the area of the circle whose radius illustrates the possibilities. globally, as incomes have grown, so has long term trend of declining inner city Framework. Regrettably, this includes along rail corridors. ‘Automobile cities’ is proportional to the speed of travel. At the beginning of the 19th century car use. Yet in London, a world city with populations and shift of employment to the proposed removal of the current 60 from the 1950s on could spread further On the other hand, choice is subject to the population of London was one million. a vibrant economy and median incomes low density residential areas in the urban per cent brownfield target for housing at low density to 50-80km. Newman and the economic principle of diminishing It grew to over eight million by mid-20th in the inner boroughs 50 per cent above periphery and beyond. development. The existing policy of Kenworthy find that constant average marginal utility – each extra increment of century. Then after a period of decline the national average, this trend has gone Globally, there is a trend to urban preferring brownfield sites for housing travel time defines the shape of cities choice is less valuable than the previous. followed by one of stability in the 1980s, into reverse. This has been fostered by living, with 50 per cent of the world’s has been successful in promoting - successive innovations in transport This combination of access increasing London’s population has grown steadily the provision of more and better public population now resident in urban areas, urban regeneration, protecting the technology have permitted travel at with the square of the speed and the to reach 7.6m by 2008. The forward transport, but also by a number of up from 36 per cent in 1970 and projected countryside, fostering more sustainable higher speeds, hence greater distances are value of choice governed by diminishing projection is for continued growth, with circumstances that constrain car use: a to grow to 70 per cent by 2050. The travel behaviour, and helping absorb a possible in the limited time available, and returns implies a saturation of demand around 1.3m more people and more fixed road network with a greater share experience of London has implications for growing population while minimising lower densities ensue. for travel, which is what we see in Figure than 750,000 additional jobs by 2031. of carriageway allocated to bus lanes; other major urban centres. A high quality the environmental impact. It should be Investments in new transport 1. The average distance travelled has not Population growth has been within the enforced restrictions on, and general public transport system, particularly retained. technologies which allow higher speeds increased since the mid-1990s, following existing urban boundaries, such that 96 charging for, parking during working rail-based for journey time reliability and David Metz, Centre for Transport Studies, of travel have permitted greater access two hundred years of steady growth. This per cent of capacity for new housing comes hours; and the Central London Congestion low emissions, can serve to constrain the •University College London within the time available for travel, and cessation of growth of travel is also seen in from formerly used sites. Charging scheme. The increasing historic growth of private transport, even this in turn has offered increased choice of other developed countries and it is helpful population density implies smaller amongst those who can readily afford to employment, residence, shopping, leisure for concerns about sustainability, since Decline in car use catchment areas, whether for schools or own a car. It is noteworthy that London’s and educational facilities, etc. The findings the transport sector has been seen as less Population growth in London over the past supermarkets, which in turn allows readier new financial centre at Canary Wharf of the National Travel Survey shown tractable than others as regards reducing two decades has been accompanied by access by walking, cycling and public has been made possible by new high in Figure 1 make clear what has been carbon emissions. Note, however, that the declining relative car use and increasing transport. quality rail transport, which has proved

12 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 13 International International The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Scheme, Seoul, South Korea Clare Healy explores the restoration of Seoul’s ‘lost’ river and the value of blue ↙ The Cheonggyecheon → A reminder of what used infrastructure in cities to exist ↘ Entertainment on the Cheonggyecheon ↘↘ An interactive space ↘↘↘ The Jonhchi Piers

the Mayor put the demolition of the road with each zone making the transition of heavy rainfall, the Cheonggyecheon and expressway and the restoration of from an urban landscape to a natural takes on a flood attenuation function. the Cheonggyecheon at the centre of his one as the river flows downstream away Pedestrian access to the river at such time political manifesto. from the centre of Seoul. Each zone was is prohibited and surface water runoff subsequently themed as follows: is diverted into the stream through a Delivery • Zone 1: ‘history and tradition’ – series of floodgates. The cross section is The project was delivered solely by the upstream, located in the centre of designed to withstand the worst floods city government, including all budget, Seoul, designed with national motifs recorded in the last 200 years. planning, design and execution. The and a number of ancient restored A number of historic artefacts were restoration of the Cheonggyecheon began bridges uncovered during the opening up of the on the 1st June 2003 and opened ahead of • Zone 2: ‘culture and modernity’ – Cheonggyecheon and have been restored schedule on the 1st October 2005 at a cost decking and promenades to provide in the river, including the 600-year old of US$386 million (approximately £237 public entertainment spaces Gwanggyo Bridge. Representing the area’s million). • Zone 3: ‘nature and future’ – river more modern history are the Jonhchi Even critics of the project have lauded widens at the lower reaches to support piers, three supporting structures, relics of the approach to extensive and meaningful ecological habitats the elevated expressway left intentionally community involvement in the delivery as a permanent commemoration. The of the scheme, with approximately 4,000 First impressions upon visiting the scale of these piers is visually impressive, meetings held with local businesses and Cheonggyecheon is how green the river particularly with their juxtaposition residents. Whilst also raising the profile is, with some 1,500,000 trees and shrubs against the gently flowing river. of the project, consultation initiatives planted during the restoration. In order also hoped to encourage an active to implement the ‘urban stream in nature’ Value of Blue Infrastructure interest and instil ownership and respect concept, landscaping focused on the The Cheonggyecheon river has provided for the Cheonggyecheon. The ‘Wall of optimal balance between its recreational a place for the people of Seoul to Hope’ programme invited the public to function for citizens, visitors and tourists, reconnect with their past and heritage Everyday an estimated 90,000 people a place for laundry, play and cultural decorate a 10cm2 ceramic tile with their and its ecological and biodiversity and celebrate their culture, recovering visit the Cheonggyecheon river in Seoul, festivities. However, during Japanese wishes and more than 20,000 of these value. The design balance between these and restoring important assets and long- South Korea. It is hard to believe that less colonial rule in the early 20th century, are now on display on the walls of the competing priorities gradually shifts forgotten history. The project has enabled than a decade ago the 5.6 km long river the river deteriorated as a sewerage Cheonggyecheon. as the Cheonggyecheon flows away citizens to take pride in their city. The was ‘lost’ as a polluted sewer beneath a system. Many farmers evicted from A key challenge encountered in from the centre of Seoul through the Cheonggyecheon also offers a location to 10-lane highway and four-lane elevated their land migrated to Seoul and built delivering the restoration of the three design zones. Whereas upstream, visit and socialise by the riverfront. The expressway, a victim of Seoul’s rapid illegal dwellings on the banks of the Cheonggyecheon was how to demolish waterfront decks, art works and small terraces underneath the bridges are busy post-war economic growth. After a Cheonggyecheon. Soon the stream became one of the city’s major transport arteries squares dominate the landscape as with people, day and night. Numerous 40-year absence from Seoul’s streetscape, a polluted breeding ground for infectious whilst avoiding a traffic disaster. The functional public spaces, as the river flows events are held along the river, including the Cheonggyecheon re-opened in diseases, a situation that worsened with city government used the project as an downstream, the stream widens and is dance shows, lights displays, concerts and 2005 following a multi-million dollar the onset of the Korean War in 1950. opportunity to reform the city’s public designed to look overgrown and untamed, even catwalk shows. investment programme. In the 1960s, Seoul experienced rapid transport system and expand low- with the northern terrace largely The 5.6km long uninterrupted stretch Last summer I was awarded the industrialisation and economic growth emission transportation infrastructure. inaccessible to the public to support of green space encourages pedestrian Planning Summer School travelling of unprecedented levels compared to The capacity of the buses and subway were ecological habitats. activity, walkers and joggers, boosting scholarship to visit South Korea Western counterpart cities. Economic increased and upgraded, and campaigns Upon walking along the fitness and wellbeing of the population. and research the restoration of the development was partnered with rapid were launched to promote public transport Cheonggyecheon, it is clear that what The space is a break from the hectic nature Cheonggyecheon river. The project urbanisation and between 1960 and 1990 and encourage car owners to leave their makes this river different from most and commotion of such a large metropolis. provides an interesting and topical case the population of Seoul rose to become cars at home. Bus-only lanes were also conventional watercourses is its The Cheonggyecheon also provides study for cities in the UK and across the one of the most densely populated cities designated and expanded in the city, interactive nature. Visitors have close a welcome respite from the heat and globe wishing to open and revive their in the world. As Seoul advanced towards and a synchronised payment system was contact with the water and this tactile humidity of summer in Seoul, with own lost river channels. London alone has modernisation, policies pushed to cover implemented across the bus and subway relationship is greatly encouraged by the temperatures 5 degrees cooler by the river more than a dozen tributaries flowing into the contaminated Cheonggyecheon to network. design of the Cheonggyecheon, which than the surrounding roads. A diverse the River Thames that now exist only as meet increasing transportation demand. Other initiatives included a crackdown involves a large amount of terracing. range of plants and wildlife has also culverted subterranean sewers. By 1967 a 10-lane highway and four- on illegal parking and raising downtown The cleanliness, shallow depth and slow been recorded in the river. In addition, a lane elevated expressway covered the parking fees, deploying traffic guides, and velocity of the river also play a key role in decrease in traffic in the area has caused Seoul’s ‘Lost’ River Cheonggyecheon and the river was designating a number of streets one-way persuading visitors to dip their feet in the levels of harmful gases, dust particles and The Cheonggyecheon, which literally forgotten. to facilitate transport flows. water or splash in knee deep. noise to be considerably lower. means ‘valley of clean water’, was By the 1990s the highway and Whilst designing an urban stream in More than ten million Koreans visited originally the centrepiece of Seoul expressway were carrying a combined Urban Stream in Nature nature was the overall goal, flood control the Cheonggyecheon within two months of when the city was designated capital of total of 170,000 vehicles daily. The A detailed design guide for the was a key concern and improving the its opening. The project is testament to the • Clare Healy is an urban Korea’s Joseon dynasty over 600 years huge volume of traffic and associated Cheonggyecheon was established, which city’s resilience to climate change and value of incorporating blue infrastructure planner at Arup. For more details on the Planning ago. Over the pursuing centuries, the air pollution was taking its toll and divided the river into three, two-metre likely increases in flash rainfalls greatly in spatial planning and urban design, and Summer School travelling Cheonggyecheon became an integral part surrounding areas were in decline. long zones. The overall aim for the design influenced the cross section design of provides an inspiring example on how to scholarship please visit www. of the people’s everyday lives, including Drastic action was needed and in 2002 was to restore an ‘urban stream in nature’, the Cheonggyecheon. During periods transform a city for the 21st century. planningsummerschool.org.uk

14 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 15 Topic Topic Urban Design and the We have a Problem Chris Brown reflects on his relationship Developers to urban design

Six developers were invited to give that quality public realm adds value to their opinions on urban design, a development. to describe their experiences in In a different vein but equally an dealing with urban designers and to enthusiast, Ken Dytor thinks that the evaluate whether these were positive great talent of urban designers and or not. We were fortunate in getting their experience in this country, should a varied range of developers, from be combined to that of financial one of the largest in the country services, and exported to the Far East, to a relatively small regional one, where the future lies. Ashley Nicholson and from a traditional and long laments the approach taken by many established organisation to a former investors, for whom buildings are just private developer who is now a local a commodity. And he doesn’t think that government manager. Their candid they would change their views unless opinions can reasonably be seen as forced by tighter conditions. representative of the industry as a Charles Brocklehurst is in the whole though unfortunately, there are position of seeing both sides of the also less responsible firms out there! coin; as a former developer now Although the approaches to the working for a local authority, he subject and comments are as varied knows the difficulties in getting the I have a problem with urban design in the UK. As It’s Not The Designers Fault as the background of the writers, private sector to improve the quality of clients at Igloo Regeneration for large, sustainable, But I shouldn’t blame the designers; it is the clients mixed-use regeneration projects on the edge of who should take most of the blame. As an industry, their responses are uniformly positive. schemes, particularly if the developer the top 20 city centres in the UK, we use urban we put virtually no value on urban design, we don’t All of them understand what urban is not interested. Finally Peter Bourne designers all the time. My problem is that the UK pay enough for it, and therefore few good people do doesn’t seem to have many good ones. Historically, it. Our regulatory systems are similarly powerless design is about and believe it has shows by examples what good we haven’t trained many urban designers, so to achieve good quality urban design. made a contribution to their success; practice can achieve in improving the that now there aren’t enough experienced ones, Many clients seem to struggle with the urban and those that are, have to struggle with poor design basics like the difference between a street they regret that not everybody in the quality of the public realm and adding instructions and poor clients because we don’t seem block and a building, the need for fronts and backs industry understands the value of value to a long-term portfolio. to value their input to projects and place-making. to buildings, or using the micro-climate of a site The ideal approach to urban design would to its best potential. In my experience, urban urban design and would like to remove All these successful businessmen have a talented urban designer appointed from design for a commercial client is often a function of the barriers to a wider influence of the the beginning of the project to the end, with a arithmetic: how can we maximise the Zone A, the are interested in quality, relish the role that includes the management of the design size of floor plate or the number of units. profession. combination of new and old and interface between different architects. Only the Markets are very good at valuing urban design incremental organic evolution of a city or urban once it has been implemented, and a scheme Chris Brown enjoys working with understand that history can teach us neighbourhood, building by building over the can be seen and touched. Time and time again talented designers but finds that local lessons. We hope that government centuries, could beat this. our best ‘designed’ (often evolved) places have In contrast, the recent British approach, higher values than their ill-conceived (usually authorities and investors don’t seem to members and civil servants will read particularly by the public sector, has been to designed) neighbours. But valuers are very poor share his enthusiasm. He clearly knows their comments, which challenge commission master planners who are paid off at differentiating between well designed and before the developer is even appointed, and whose poorly designed places on the drawing board. what is important in achieving quality the received ideas about the cost to work is then often ignored. A number of architects The ‘location, location, location’ mantra seems to and is prepare to fight to obtain it. the economy of planning and urban have sought to move into this arena but my overwhelm them and so they struggle to identify experience has been that very few have the skills the features of the location (or neighbourhood as I David Partridge is a strong advocate design. to do great urban design (although a far larger prefer to think of it) that create the value. There is number think they can), in the same way that most evidence about the contribution to value that comes of urban design and he has no doubt ↑ Brentford Waterside aerial Sebastian Loew people trained in town and country planning also from important urban design considerations such sketch by Ash Shakula • lack this ability. as trees, water and connectivity, but less about the architects

16 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 17 Topic Topic

Working with Urban Designers My most recent experience of urban design has been the Isis Waterside Regeneration scheme in Brentford, west London. We were incredibly lucky to work with Klas Tham (probably most famous for his work on Bo01 at the Western Harbour in Malmö), supported by Tovatts (Ralph Erskine’s former studio where both Johannes Tovatt and Klas Tham worked) and Urbed’s Manchester office. Isis is one of the very few developers who employ an in-house urban designer (Chris Breslin). This resource is enormously helpful in ensuring the organisation behaves as an intelligent client, producing good quality briefs and procurement processes and challenging and managing the design team to best effect. I had a fantastic design session with Klas in a lighthouse at the top of an old lighting factory in Stockholm, and it was a privilege as well as a to lead a significant number of projects and even of the existing we can keep, the better and more ↖ Aerial view of Bo01 in pleasure, to watch him sketch a fabulous public fewer get to see these large-scale and long-term valuable the resultant place is likely to be. Malmö square (a skill that many people who call themselves projects through from beginning to end. This is a There are also a process and a practical point ↑ Poundbury: narrow planting strip allows roses to urban designers seem to lack). I will always fundamental challenge, and one that means that we here. Jane Jacobs remarked that the range of uses grow and be pruned remember the Christmas card he sent me with his need to get the most out of our experienced clients and activities that relied on low-cost older buildings sketch of the scheme. and urban designers by extending their careers for played an important role in the neighbourhoods. My first real experience as an urban design client as long as possible. In current market conditions this is critical was in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. I don’t count and meanwhile uses are the identifying feature Albert Dock in Liverpool because the 1.2 million Modernism vs Traditional Urbanism of the age. Sites like Birmingham's Eastside square feet of buildings were Grade 1 listed, so that There is usually an enormous contrast between Locks sitting for years as seas of rubble because while we had some control over their use, we were doing urban design with a modernist architect perfectly serviceable buildings were prematurely almost completely constrained in what we could do and with a traditional urbanist, but Klas Tham demolished, are sad to see. around them. in particular was able to bridge this chasm, Some of the best designs emerge when encouraging contemporary buildings in ways that contemporary architects intervene in robust recreate the cherished elements of traditional, but unprotected buildings like these. This is an Despite the fine words about good mainly organically evolved, cities and urban approach we are currently encouraging with the design in many policy documents, neighbourhoods. When it comes to Modernist extremely talented people at Ash Sakula, on a urban design versus Traditional Urbanism I go for project called Northgate Riverside in Leicester. This few planning authorities pay much the latter every time. For me the urban design at is about much more than just keeping buildings. layout of streets and public spaces, or the micro- attention to their design advisors somewhere like Poundbury (Leon Krier) is streets It is about keeping and releasing the potential of climate. ahead (excuse the pun!) of the work of OMA at existing businesses and entrepreneurs. And the planners don’t seem able to help. Euralille. In addition to our focus on environmental Despite the fine words about good design in many In Manchester, we first tried out a process we call I never tire of the image I took of a lady pruning sustainability, design quality and social progress, policy documents, few planning authorities pay evolutionary design. This doesn’t involve a single the roses over the front door of her house in our igloo Footprint approach has health, happiness much attention to their design advisors, whether urban designer in the traditional sense; instead Poundbury. The design brilliance here was to leave and well being as its fourth leg. It is clear to us that in-house or external design panels. Hopefully the a group of Manchester designers (all architects), a narrow planting zone between the back of the financial value derives directly from how people Bishop report may help us make progress in this many of whom had developed together in their pavement and the building to allow roses to be feel about a place. As we see this in existing popular area. Those authorities that do take urban design careers, were brought together under the watchful grown, and therefore pruned, thus leading to the neighbourhoods, we need to recreate it in our new seriously, take a significant risk at appeal because eye of George Mills of MBLC (who played more of lady chatting with her neighbours. Detail matters neighbourhoods. inspectors, who are not supposed to have their an uncle’s than a co-ordinator’s role), to develop even at the scale of urban design. So for me, the key elements of the successful own views on these matters, when faced with the a street and urban block layout based on historic To avoid any doubt, this is not a comment re-creation of inner urban neighbourhoods, developer’s experts opining on the brilliance of patterns and desire lines. The blocks were then on architectural style which is something quite something that is desperately needed in most major the design, seem unable to differentiate between divided into individual buildings and each of these different! I am a particular fan of an architectural cities (including some parts of London), include: good and bad. CABE provided a great service by allocated to a designer. style I call contemporary vernacular, something • An intelligent client: either the local community, surveying the whole country and quantifying the The design interfaces then became a matter of that I am increasingly seeing in architect- designed or a developer or local authority working with extent to which designs fell short of expectations. negotiation between designers, with the results housing in the UK; this follows the Stirling Prize the community Even the Government’s draft National Planning subject to periodic critique by the wider group. win for Accordia in Cambridge, designed by FCB • A talented urban designer appointed from Policy Framework (NPPF) recognises this as it says Again the need to keep the existing buildings on Studios, McCreanor Lavington and Alison Brooks beginning to end of the project, working with ‘Our standards of design can be so much higher. the site helped create interest. The first phase for Countryside. We are currently working with two multiple quality architects We are a nation renowned worldwide for creative was delivered, and although subsequently the of these practices, on competitions for relatively • A brief that retains the existing, identifies the excellence, yet, at home, confidence in development architectural design was poor, the urban design has small sites that have existing buildings on them, value in green, micro climate, water, mixed itself has been eroded by the too frequent proven reasonably robust in its ability to deliver a which tend to make achieving good urban design uses, etc., and seeks contextual contemporary experience of mediocrity.’ decent place in the face of unbridled market forces. easier. My mantra with existing buildings is ‘if in vernacular architecture I may be naïve in hoping that the move to It is indeed still winning awards. doubt, keep them’. • A team and stakeholder ethos that values the neighbourhood planning will improve the situation. In between Manchester’s Smithfield Market feelings of the people that will use the place in Neighbourhood design panels, backed by a strong and Brentford Lock West the opportunities to An Approach to Inner Urban the future neighbourhood plan, may have the potential to deliver neighbourhood scale urban design have Neighbourhood Design hold developers and designers to account. However been relatively few. However at the moment, Keeping existing buildings (and trees and other Problem or Challenge? the bar in the NPPF, set as ‘Permission should be we are working on some incredibly exciting biodiversity assets) is for me, the starting point. Our current challenge is to find the best urban Chris Brown, Chief •Execuive of Igloo Urban ↑ Klas Tham’s sketch of refused for development of obviously poor design’, neighbourhood scale projects in Cardiff (Porth Cities evolve organically and it is incredibly difficult designers to help us deliver large projects in Regeneration and Brentford does not appear to be particularly high. Teigr), Newcastle (Lower Ouseburn) and Glasgow to create an attractive place from a cleared site in this way, in Nottingham and Northampton. All Director of Isis Waterside ↑↑ Brentford masterplan (Spiers Wharf and Maryhill Locks). Few clients get a relative short period of time. Bluntly, the more recommendations gratefully received! • Regeneration 18 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 19 Topic Topic

at King’s Cross and Brindleyplace, or over a road at Piccadilly) are extremely important in creating URBAN DESIGN AND ARGENT new connectivity to radically alter the movement David Partridge describes urban design’s long dynamics of a city and to divert the flow of people into and through the new places. There have been standing and positive contribution to the work of many examples throughout the last ten years of the creation of very well-designed and beautifully Argent landscaped public spaces, which are ultimately sterile because they lack accessibility or an anchor use to encourage people into them. Better examples from the past are interventions like Nash’s Regent Street, which opened up the whole of the backwater which was Regent’s Park, by driving a new connection into the heart of London at Piccadilly Circus. The new King’s Boulevard at King’s Cross will achieve the same, by providing a direct connection from the area between the two stunning new stations at King’s Cross and St Pancras

It is the framework of the public realm, the streets and the squares, the places and the parks, which are the lasting legacy of development on this scale

International, up to Granary Square in front of the new Central Saint Martins complex. The early picture of Brindleyplace demonstrates this approach again, whereby we built the streets and main central square, fully fitted out with lawns, fountains and sculpture in the very first phases of the development, and only subsequently were able Brindley Place commenced in 2000, and it wasn’t until 2007 to encourage the commercial occupiers to follow Argent first employed urban design, as in the art that we really got going with construction on suit, once the area had been established. of creating and shaping places and cities, when we site. October 2011 marks the opening of the first Intriguingly, the approach of putting in the bought the Brindleyplace site in Birmingham in major elements of the public realm, and the first infrastructure first has also, as it has done in cities 1993. Although it was derelict, having been cleared anchor building – the new campus for Central Saint through the centuries, allowed Argent to deliver for development for a number of years, it came with Martins’, part of University of the Arts London. infrastructure which could not happen other than the benefit of a masterplan originating from the In total, King’s Cross will be around 8m square on a vast scale. In the case of King’s Cross, a site- office of Terry Farrell, subsequently taken on and feet of a diverse mix of different uses – education, wide District Heating Network services all of the developed for us by John Chatwin, after he left that leisure, retail, restaurants, homes, offices, hotels, plots within the development (and potentially practice. student accommodation, culture, arts and heritage some adjacent areas) with hot water generated in the coffee shops and restaurants with outdoor Our work at Brindleyplace since then has become – around 20 new streets and 10 new squares, public a central Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant. terraces, which are now ubiquitous but didn’t exist an exemplar of successful city centre regeneration, realm which will take up more than 40 per cent Each individual plot will be provided with a hot under commercial or residential building in the and in many ways it made Argent’s reputation as of the 67 acre site. In addition to this there will water service thus eliminating the need for boilers, 1990s, our schemes include art galleries, theatres one of the leading practitioners in this field. Over be schools, a library, a health and sports centre at a price which is equivalent to doing the same with and hotels, cultural centres and leisure activities, 1.5m square feet of offices, restaurants and retail, and a huge commitment to social and community gas. The CHP engines, which can be converted to all of which contribute to provide opportunities for homes and leisure uses has been created and initiatives. bio-mass in the future, sell electricity to the grid, people to populate the spaces. Above ground, the are enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people and produce the hot water for tri-generation as a mix of offices, commercial, residential, affordable throughout the year. Public realm first by-product. housing and student accommodation ensures that While we were in the process of creating The key contribution which urban design has made there is always a mix of different sorts of people at Brindleyplace, Argent also became involved in to these three city-wide developments has been to Mix of uses different times throughout the day, the week and Manchester, particularly in the Piccadilly area, engender an understanding that it is the framework Having set up the key Masterplan framework, good the seasons. where we developed both One Piccadilly Gardens of the public realm, the streets and the squares, the urban design then goes on to help create the places and the Piccadilly Place complex, adjacent to the places and the parks, which are the lasting legacy of themselves by setting out guidelines about issues Good for business main-line Piccadilly Station. Although these are on development on this scale, not the architecture of such as containment, scale and hierarchy which Even more interestingly, in many ways the key a smaller scale than the 17 acre Brindleyplace site, the buildings which then populate the masterplan. the architecture that will surround them must element which urban design has delivered to many of the same principles of good urban design The framework engenders connectivity both address. But equally important, places will only Argent, is not in fact to do with the architectural were employed. Four new office buildings, a hotel, within and beyond the masterplan site, providing come alive through the uses which are encouraged form or landscaping of the eventual product, apartments and serviced apartments have now been accessibility from and into the areas around, for within them and in the buildings which front onto but the influence urban design has had on the completed, all above a wide range of restaurants both public transport and for pedestrians. Without them. Sterility also comes about because of mono- commercial deliverability of the scheme in the first and lively bars. this interaction, the new set piece open spaces culture, and the success that Argent has achieved at place. Both Brindleyplace and King’s Cross were within the development itself would be starved of Brindleyplace and Manchester and is beginning to commenced in the depths of recession, and they ↑ Brindleyplace, Birmingham in 1994 ↑ King’s Cross aerial view King’s Cross the vital transfusion of people which can bring them happen at King’s Cross, has come about by virtue of were kick-started by the uses which would, in a ↑↑ Brindleyplace in 2010 of the completed scheme At King’s Cross, however, the lessons we had alive, and transform them from spaces into places. ensuring that a wide mix of uses is always delivered, normal development business plan, be considered ↑↑↑ Original Nash plan for (computer generated image) learnt have really come into play. Our involvement Bridges and crossings (whether over canals – as especially at ground floor level. In addition to peripheral. Regent Street

20 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 21 Topic Topic

In Birmingham, it was leisure, retail and a bit of ‘give-away’ residential which we had reluctantly inherited from the Masterplan which provided the From Barking to Beijing early disposal cash flow, and subsidised the creation Ken Dytor transfers his successful experience as a of the public realm up-front. It was only once this new address had been delivered, that the office UK developer, to work in China market in Birmingham – which had previously been hidebound in a more conventional central business district – began to start paying attention and voting with its feet.

Without a clear vision and commitment to the public realm which will link these different activities… these early phases would never have come about

At King’s Cross it is the educational use, affordable housing, student accommodation, a cultural institution and a hotel which have provided the proceeds to be ploughed into the substantial infrastructure required to render the future plots developable on a stand-alone basis. And these uses have been spread across the site from the southern- most tip to the northern-most point, with Central Saint Martins in the middle. Without a clear vision and commitment to the public realm which will link these different activities, and indeed without an idea of the city which welcomed this broad mix of activities in the first place, these early phases would never have come about. And without these early phases, It is now over five years since I took the hard (I believe we may have given Ken his first paid the emerging progress on the more directly decision to ‘soft land’ Urban Catalyst as an commercial appointment on a bid), Buro Happold, commercial uses – offices, market housing and operating company and exited property Cartwright Pickard, MUF and Arups. In addition we retail/restaurants – would not be possible, as the development more than a year before the market had a powerful consultancy team that was providing development cycle swings round to more benign started to fall into the economic decline that we key work for both John Prescott as Deputy Prime conditions in these sectors. currently find ourselves in. It was not an easy route Minister and Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London. to take because for the previous six years, we had The latter’s appointment resulted in our proposing Argent’s aspirations arguably become one of the leading mixed-use the role of a Design for London director. Peter All of the ideas embodied in this approach were regeneration real estate developers in the UK. By Bishop, the one person I had in mind when we set out in Argent’s publication Principles for a committing ourselves to quality design, linked to an produced the report for the Mayor, subsequently Human City (July 2001), in which we set out ten innovative approach to public-private partnership, stepped into this role. clear aspirations for both what King’s Cross should we had secured a first class development become and the way that we intended to go about programme that was setting standards that were Increasing concerns delivering it: subsequently followed by others. Even though by this stage, the Urban Catalyst • A robust urban framework development programme was all in a joint venture • A lasting new place Successful schemes company with Carillion, I was increasingly • Promote accessibility The exciting Barking Town Square regeneration concerned at the problems we were encountering • A vibrant mix of uses project (designed by AHMM) was at fourth floor not only on site, but more generally with the UK • Harness the value of heritage construction, and was already winning awards; procurement process that was costing too much • Work for King’s Cross, work for London work had started on site at Bermondsey Square and delivering too little. Just as importantly, I • Commit to long-term success (designed by Munkenbeck & Marshall). In both was alarmed not only by the state of the property • Engage and inspire cases we had been working closely with the market but by the general economy that was • Secure delivery local authorities to secure long and hard fought showing similar symptoms to the late 1980s: at • Communicate clearly and openly planning consents. Both these developments the time, I was at British Land with the unique and set out to achieve true mixed-use regeneration, impressive John Ritblat, when he steered a counter- These principles have guided the vast enterprise and incorporated community friendly uses cyclical strategy that led to the company becoming that involves the creation of a new piece of city, such as Shortwave Films outdoor cinema and a FTSE100. and still continue to do so. The ultimate intention production training facility. I look back on these Whilst it was with a heavy heart that I made for King’s Cross, and in many ways the proof of developments and am proud of the design teams’ the decision to transfer the Barking development whether or not urban design has done its job input that resulted in achieving our original agenda, to Urban Catalyst’s second largest shareholder ↑ King’s Cross infrastructure plan well, is encapsulated in an A-Z of London which successfully combining commerce with community, Redrow, and Bermondsey Square to our financial ↑↑ King’s Cross District heating incorporates the whole area into the city as if it had art with architecture and public with private. partner Igloo, I knew it was the right decision to Network David Partridge, MA never been a development site at all. We were working with some of the leading make because it would secure the future of these ↑↑↑ King’s Boulevard (CGI) •(Hons), Dip Arch, RIBA, Joint • ↑ South Beijing International ↑↑↑↑ A-Z plan of King’s Cross Chief Executive, Argent global design companies including Terry Farrell, ground-breaking developments and ensure that the railway station by Terry in 2020 Estates Ltd. Will Alsop, Ken Yeang, Ken Shuttleworth’s MAKE high-quality designs would have the regenerative Farrell

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design experience in order to establish increased economic activity in my various business interests.

Working in China In the last four years, as I noticed that the global dynamic of economic activity was shifting to the East, my focus has increasingly been China- centric. This has led me to spend several months in China in the last year alone, building up first- class relationships and creating commercial opportunities that will lead to the opening in January of a new office in Beijing. It has been exhausting but worthwhile. The level of support that we are obtaining not only in China but also in Singapore and elsewhere in the Far East, is both refreshing and promising. The high regard in which UK-led design is viewed there is increasing all the time, as companies such as Fitch, Zaha Hadid and those I worked with at Urban Catalyst, are carving out successful profiles. However, all is not plain sailing in China. In a recent edition of China Daily, the front page lead article ‘Bad Boy Architects & China’s New Face’ argued that the introduction of international firms such as Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhas and Norman Foster may not be viewed as positive by everyone in China: ‘The works of international architects have sprung up like mushrooms in China’s cities. These urban gurus brought their cutting edge designs here, but also the world’s attention to what can be built in China. Constant global media coverage has

I have harnessed this rich design experience in order to establish increased economic activity in my various business interests.

portrayed China as an open stage for ambitious, the East, such as Singapore’s RSP and Malaysia’s ↑ Shanghai, two views of innovative urban design, a reputation which initially Ken Yeang, as positive. Indeed this collaboration Will Alsop’ International pleased...but later raised doubts and reflections of should result in increased standards of sustainable Cruise Centre whether the country was being misused as a testing regeneration and planning, which the Chinese ground for maverick projects’. Government is quite rightly committed to deliver. benefit which they were designed to do. The organisations such as English Heritage (I have to These are strong words but for the reasons Arguably one of the failings to date, leading subsequent awards and critical acclaim showed own up to say that I am in my third term at the EH that will be stated below, they are not on the to the comments in the China Daily, may have that we made the right decision from a design London Advisory Committee) and our Universities mark. In any case, the desire in China to raise been that not all clients in China have been able perspective. Whether we would have survived the and Colleges that should be exporting their skill standards whereby art and architecture merge to harness the talent of these design practices; financial tsunami that followed is anyone’s guess; all base. and sustainability drives the agenda, should additionally in many quarters, the way in which I do know is that I was relieved to have exited direct We also need to incorporate public realm design not be misunderstood. I recently showed David long term value is created by high-quality design, development when I did. Nevertheless, I went on to and management experience such as that gained Adjaye’s Rivington Place, an award winning arts- is still not appreciated. There is a need therefore chair the Regeneration & Development Committee through the Circle Initiative set up under Pat centred development in Shoreditch, completed on to bring forward comprehensive packages which of the British Property Federation, a valuable Brown’s influential Central London Partnership, time and budget (through an organisation which include financial expertise and global marketing role that I am honoured to have had through the under the guidance of the much missed late Sir I was fortunate to chair from concept to post skills, led by clients who can work alongside the difficulties of the last three years, when we have Simon Milton. Working closely with them, we completion), to the leaders of a Beijing District. Chinese Government and Chinese companies in needed to engage constantly with Government. created a template for public realm management They are creating a new city of 226 hectares, true partnership. Everything in China is changing Throughout this time I have never failed to be that led to the creation of the UK-wide Business incorporating an impressive cultural and creative at an amazing pace and I am confident that we will impressed by the high standards of our design Improvement Districts (BID) programme. The cluster that already includes 5,000 artists at work increasingly see the spread into key Chinese cities teams here in the UK and the value that they have urban-rural agenda also needs to be considered as in purpose-designed studies and galleries. Whilst of the type of development quality that ten years for UK plc. The failing in the development process the pressures grow for global urbanisation; Terry such scale of development in China eclipses our ago, we were trying to achieve at Urban Catalyst. has been the unwieldy, costly and ineffective Farrell’s recent Thames Park work shows what can own, the respect for how we integrate art and Achieving this is essential, as China needs to make procurement process – a situation that must still be be done. Combining all this know-how with the design in a sustainable regeneration environment that progress for the good of the planet, both addressed. financial expertise of the City of London, creates a was clear to see. financially and environmentally. In turn this will I have argued strongly that as we need to open up powerful argument for taking our real estate design also be positive for the future of design quality in new markets and sell ourselves globally, our design and development skills abroad in a total package Future collaboration the UK. ↑ Terry Farrell’s masterplan • for the Thames Gateway and construction skills which are generally admired that would be attractive to most countries around I view the introduction of high-quality design Ken Dytor, Managing ↑↑ Barking Town Centre around the world, must be harnessed. Furthermore, the world. For my part I have found there to be a real and construction skills from the West, working in •Director, Regeneration (CGI) it should not just be the commercial practices but appetite to engage, and I have harnessed this rich close association with experienced practices from Investments Limited

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Fortunately, the residential sector is far more consumer focused and attuned to design …er… Place-making no. Whilst the residential sector includes many Ashley Nicholson wonders why developers do it so more small independent builders and many local ones, who continue the tradition of stitching badly and what can be done to improve It? seamlessly into the historic fabric of a town, the market is unfortunately dominated by the national house builders. These are experts at efficiency to cope with volume and tight margins. However, this specialism comes at a price: standard design and materials, and most damagingly in terms of urban design, a refusal to engage with commercial uses. Their method of dealing with the increased need for mixed uses is to package the commercial uses to a big company, on a long lease that can be forward sold. Alternatively they minimise the cost of commercial provision by placing it underneath flats; this meets the planning obligations but only adds a few extra vertical metres of walling, particularly if it is then left as a shell with a boarded-up front.

Stacked against the poor planning officer is the power of the financial ‘system’

Possible remedies Whilst the scene thus painted may be simplistic, it is unfortunately true that the providers of much of our built environment have, by their very structure, motivations opposed to those of urban designers. Like in much of today’s world dominated by corporate and global interests, little can be done to change the ‘system’. Assuming that the free market survives the current tremors resonating around the world, are there measures that can be taken to improve our towns and cities? My belief is that there are tools we can use within the existing system, and that upheavals always present new opportunities. All of us will be able to name a suitably offensive around, those attracted to the trading floor are The fact that banks and even governments can redevelopment somewhere near where we live, or generally not the most public minded. be considered un-creditworthy may change the close to our hearts. Often this will also involve the Stacked against the poor planning officer is the way investments are evaluated. If there can be no loss of a building with some historic and vernacular power of the financial ‘system’: because buildings, certainty that a single occupier will remain in a merit, and its replacement by an anodyne identikit particularly in large regeneration projects, are so building for the length of a lease, it may be better building that erodes the town’s identity. Often as expensive to build, their financing has to come from to spread the risk through multiple lettings. So, well, its ugly new face will sneer at any attempt at City Institutions; therefore their form needs to be instead of designing a building as a one-size-fits-all vibrancy on the street it fronts. palatable to them. that appeals to the international corporate market, Before attempting to provide any solutions it is The average pension-fund manager is unlikely to a design that appeals to a myriad of local users may necessary to understand the circumstances that have a degree in urban design; instead he is focused have advantages. Occupation, as in the hotel sector, caused this to happen. Contrary to Prince Charles on mitigating risk. At the top of his list will be a may become the new investment mantra and if it lambasting of architects some years ago, the villains requirement for a long lease to a big company, in does, our towns and cities will be all the better. in the dock are developers, the ‘system’, and to some a building that has all the boxes ticked in the same The current stagnation of activity in the extent all of us who are prepared to both buy and way as all the other similar buildings in the market residential sector, itself a key driver in the economy, let the end product. Architects may be the assassins place. Attracting international companies requires may force the government to alter legislation to Architecture in many ways has been guilty but others pay to put the knife in their hands. international, not vernacular tastes, so it will be encourage institutional investment in this sector. of looking forward too much and being too best to design it as in Dallas, Dubai, or Malaysia. The Institutions, one of the major providers of the built concerned with style, rather than learning the The métier nearest whiff of a small independent developer will environment, would for the first time, be interested lessons from the past. I have always been mystified Developers are not urban designers, they are get him reaching for his abacus and adjust the price in both commercial and residential buildings, why so many of us seek out old towns for their traders. They (we) create products for people to reflect the increased risk. If this were not bad thus eliminating the barriers currently existing irregularity and idiosyncrasies, and yet never to live, work or play in, that can be sold or enough, any mention of including some residential between the two. History shows that mixed uses seem to replicate them. My belief is that the fear alternatively let and then sold to an investor. The in the development, will make him think he is at were one of the main reasons for towns and cities of pastiche drives architects to try and re-invent difference between developers and other traders is a comedy night. People like this will need a lot of to grow organically. It is the combination and mix principles rather than replicate those that have ↑ Paintworks: The main that their product is the built environment we live managing, and in addition the legislation and tax of commercial activities alongside living, that gives been proven. Additionally architects can be courtyard before conversion ↑↑ Jazz concert in the in. Their only constraints are the planning system implications will make their lives too complicated. them the vibrancy and 24-hour culture so clearly preoccupied with stylistic considerations rather renewed courtyard ↑ Paintworks, Bristol: aerial and how public spirited they may be. However, as Better to look at a single-let building to spend £50m lacking in business parks and gated residential than with a layout that ensures that the public ↑↑↑ Event space internal view before renewal buildings are pretty much the largest trading stock on, and book a round of golf! communities. realm functions satisfactorily. view

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designed in a way that would stop small units being used by larger retailers. Similarly, large commercial and mixed-use schemes could be conditioned A Provincial Town to include low-rise small office, non-residential institutions (D1) and retail units. Organisations Perspective with less than 15 staff require technological and human interaction with others whilst companies Poacher turned gamekeeper, Charles Brocklehurst with more than 15 people, tend to be self-sufficient. So, small units will provide the vibrancy, variety evaluates the work of developers in Wycombe and the connection to the local area, which would be lacking otherwise. If the planning consent for a development has these conditions, the funding institutions will have no alternative but to find a

Public realm is often used as a tool to justify high density, rather than the starting context into which buildings are placed.

↑ Paintworks, Bristol A model An example way to deliver it. Authorities need to be robust in of the finalised development, Paintworks scheme in Bristol, was an attempt to upholding their requirements; they are too easily phase 3 create a piece of town out of an isolated, derelict brow beaten. Likewise they are too easily persuaded former paint factory on the edge of town. Perhaps to accept corporate architecture which dilutes the unusually for a developer, Verve’s background is distinctive appearance of towns and cities. based more on meeting the needs of occupiers In some circumstances, there is little commercial than providing a ready-meal for the investment demand or value to justify such demands. In these market. Utilising the knowledge gained across both cases, bodies such as artist communities can be commercial and residential markets, the arrogant incorporated. Through section106 agreements, ambition was to create a new mixed-use community ACME artist studios have contributed to several based on the principle of replicating old towns. recent schemes, adding to the vibrancy and public This could then be used to provide evidence and accessibility of residential schemes. empower local authorities to insist on integrated mixed-uses, and to better resist the unnecessary Public realm afterthought As an ex-developer, I became poacher turned Theory would have it that developers will loss of historic vernacular architecture, even if On re-reading my first draft of this article meant gamekeeper in 2004. I chose to join my hometown’s recognise that good quality urban design adds value this was of humble quality. Further arrogance was to explain the processes and consequences of Council, to help put the place back together over and above its additional cost, and will therefore shown in the hope that others might follow this lead developers’ actions, I noted there was little again. The trigger was the Council’s rejection of adopt improved urban design out of commercial and better integrated, vibrant new developments reference to the space around buildings and the a large-scale mixed-use development that I had self-interest. But in a provincial market, as against would ensue. way they relate to each other. The reason for this assembled, because it did not recognise the 200 or a city one, where development economics are Working with George Ferguson, narrow streets, omission was that the public realm is very rarely so jobs it would have created as employment (these markedly more marginal and competition is less, is alleys, arcades, courtyards were carved out of the a material consideration in the process. In the were leisure related rather than in the B1/B2/B8 this theory borne out in practice? Or is it more a case single mass of the former factory. Brickwork was majority of cases it is a purely voluntary option categories). It made me realise that planning policy, of the blind-leading-the-blind – a competency issue deliberately not cleaned, nor windows regularised. or an afterthought. Density is the primary driver; like valuation, was backward looking because of amongst those force–feeding (regulating) and those Uses were carefully layered into the street scene as public realm is often used as a tool to justify high its need for an evidential base, and not forward unable to recognise the added-value case? they would if grown organically. A bar (village pub) density, rather than the starting context into which looking; it could therefore never keep up with the and event space (village hall/ church) and outside buildings are placed. Therefore, the absence in this times. So, on the basis that ‘if you can’t beat them, Two commercial examples space (village green) were all included, albeit in an narrative of references to the built environment join them’, I decided to try to get change from Located on the M40 motorway and Chiltern Rail, urban and irreverent way. The objective was that providers’ concern for the public realm, is very within. High Wycombe is equidistant to London and the activities and their interaction with the public instructive in its own right. Their forbearance at letting loose a creative Oxford. Its position in a valley in the Chiltern Hills realm, were far more important than the style. Perhaps the most important element for developer within an authority previously (AONB), constrains its outward growth. It has an Much has since been written about the way the improving our built environment is to understand dominated by its regulatory functions has been immediate population of about 100,000 and is scheme has successfully created a new creative the reasons it has failed to provide the richness commendable. However, another professional generally prosperous. A London commuter town, it district in the city. The biggest compliment came our towns and cities have acquired organically, discipline - one that understands the mystique of has an historic High Street and church core. Though from the planning officer who said it was ‘the only and as a result are so loved by so many of us. If we development appraisals, profit margins and the Wycombe has an industrial heritage, it is now place I can think of where I would like to work understand these reasons and those that motivate strength of one’s negotiating position, that is able largely service sector dominated. and I would like to live’. In reality there is nothing the providers of the built environment, we may be to explain the detailed effects of leasehold tenure For nearly 20 years, the Council had plans for innovative other than the fact that the whole able to produce better new developments: there is and all its jargon relative to the funding markets, the Western sector of the town, known as the scheme was done as one piece of work, rather than nothing wrong with copying what works. and that can advise on market conditions by being Western Desert after at least one abortive attempt over generations; the rest is simply looking at what • active within it - adds an additional dimension at initiating its redevelopment. The proposal for works elsewhere and copying it. to what would otherwise be a single discipline an area of some 7has, on the other side of the (planning) team, and enables it to be better armed Inner Relief Road (a 1960s brutalist flyover with Advice to deliver change. It is the teamwork that has kept a shopping centre underneath), was for a new One way to achieve less anodyne developments me there through boom and bust, in what is at times department store and larger retail outlets. In 2005, is for planners to condition consents. Conditions a frustrating workplace, and that has provided me a £250m scheme of some 80,000m2 branded Eden could include setting aside part of large retail with an observation point. As a result I can consider High Wycombe, was finally brought to fruition: it schemes for small independents which could whether good urban design in a provincial town includes two department stores, a multi-screen Ashley Nicholson, provide a splash of localism to the multiples- needs always to be force-fed by regulation or can cinema with bowling and restaurants, a library and ↑ Wycombe Historic High •Director of Verve Properties dominated high streets. The layout would have to be ever be market led? apartments. Street

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Two further examples reflect smaller scale residential developers approach. The contemporary versus pastiche approaches are probably due to commercial viability but here, the schemes are the result of ramped-up densities and both seem to be somewhat incongruous. The in-town Caitlin building, a UK spin-off of the Irish property boom (and still incomplete), is one or two storeys too high, whilst the West Wycombe Road blocks look like they are on steroids, with scale and proportion all wrong. Neither contributes much to the street- scene, although the Caitlin building is meant to have an active ground floor. If nothing else, the West Wycombe Road blocks could have had a decent front hedge, to soften their street frontage.

Hotels Another comparison Is offered by two budget hotels. Travelodge’s somewhat eclectic façade, presumably an attempt to overcome the uniformity of bedroom windows, looks likely to be matched by Premier Inn’s attempt to do the same, with the use of yet more bland rendering (cf Eden) broken up by columns of ubiquitous stretcher bond brickwork. The latter at least earns brownie points as an all timber framed construction above the first floor. Both involve near 100 per cent site cover and front existing pedestrian walkways, but neither appears to have been required to enhance these through surface treatment, lighting or signage, nor have they recognised that to do so would be in their Such a large-scale transformation provided the The result is some striking contemporary design, commercial self-interest. opportunity to apply urban design best practice with a degree of quality in both the building and and the intention to do so was certainly there: its surrounding public realm: glass ventilation streets instead of malls, individual blocks, animated towers (designed to be blue lit from within, though Unless there is a proven track- frontages and public realm enhanced by public art, never seen working!) paving, planting and seating, record of delivering quality, what were the order of the day. The developers portrayed give a feeling of completeness. Whether the hotel/ themselves as integrated contractor/developer/ drive-thru under construction with their different prospective developers promise investors (not trading developers), who intended architects, will add to this, remains to be seen. before planning consent, cannot be to retain the finished product as an investment, maintaining that they had a long-term commercial Residential schemes taken as a guarantee of what will self-interest in quality. Trophy architects gained The sector which boomed until 2008/9 has ultimately materialise planning consent, with much detailed design left to fortunately started up recently again as a result Reserved Matters. of the pent-up demand in a popular area like High With construction using design-and-build Wycombe. Two current residential schemes, both Lessons from a provincial town contracts and different architects for the working reflecting the past decade’s policies on density (as Sadly, it seems that unless there is a proven track- drawings, the dumbing-down of detailing began to against the current decade’s concern about size record of delivering quality, what prospective show. Policing it was a challenge, given fast-track of units) and two volume house builders’ differing developers promise before planning consent, construction and pressure not to hold things up: approaches offer similar comparisons. cannot be taken as a guarantee of what will details were often agreed retrospectively, after the In the case of Berkeley Group’s Wye Dene, a 500 ultimately materialise. Unless there is a make savings below ground, it is inevitably the ↑ West Wycombe Road start of implementation. The need to meet longstop unit in-town redevelopment, the contemporary demonstrable corporate culture that appreciates superstructure and more particularly the external housing dates was the driver. In one sense, the rush paid design somewhat brashly strives to be a quality that good design and craftsmanship generate areas that suffer. ↑↑ Caitlin residential building (unfinished) off: the scheme was completed in March 2008, product. Its grand entrance, use of materials and faster sales at higher values (or will preserve rental Above all there seems to be a loss of appreciation ↑↑↑ The Travelodge hotel’s just before the recession, and 80 per cent of it was structured landscaping, including the re-shaping of growth), regulation will still have to force the of detail: poor production and reading of plans eclectic façade occupied from day one. Six months later and the the River Wye which divides the site, immediately issue. The difficulty is that enforcing conditions (not necessarily helped by the clinical crispness of letting market would have been missed. However, give an up-market feel, compensating for the stretches the ever-more limited resources of local CAD); failure to understand the art of proportions; the quality of the finished product seems to be perceived less than prime location, and attempting authorities, whose officers are invariably inundated an inability to visualise two-dimensional plans different to that originally proposed. The public to create a sense of place and wellbeing. with the next proposals, and have inadequate time in three dimensions; a lack of understanding of realm is somewhat bare, with poor seating, little By comparison, Taylor Wimpey’s Kingshill to police what they have conditionally consented. the finer points of building construction and of noticeable public art, spaces lack animation and Grange, a 250 unit scheme developed on edge-of- It is better to get binding commitment ahead of the the importance of articulation of elevations (flush apart from the integral bus station, the scheme town former playing fields, is more pastiche and point of value creation (before granting planning mounted fenestration, no overhanging drips, poorly largely turns its back on its surroundings. verges upon being a suburban housing estate with permission) than to try and chase after it, once executed parapet walls) are major contributors to a Compare this to an almost simultaneous, token urban design touches (an ‘art feature’). The planning consent has been banked. lack of excellence. All constituent parts of a scheme ↑ Wycombe’s Sainsbury: adjacent 10,000 m2 redevelopment by Sainsbury’s, two developments share one common factor: their Adding to this difficulty is the propensity for should be detailed and hang together, both within public realm with the Eden wrapped around a re-modelled 1970s multi-storey affordable housing is of lower design quality. Both developers to pay too much for land, or for the the site boundaries and throughout the spaces centre in the back car park and including an hotel and drive-thru are selling well and their sales values are on a par. public sector to seek too much because of ‘best linking it to others. Whilst much of the above is ↗ Two residential restaurant. In this instance, the trophy architects It may be that the land purchase costs of one were consideration’ obligations. This results in value outside individuals’ control, some at least comes Charles Brocklehurst developments in Wycombe: •Former Director of ICE Wye Dean, Berkeley Group were retained throughout and the construction lower than the other, enabling more to be invested engineering, the subsequent cutting-back of costs down to three Cs – competency, commitment and Developments, now Head of Kingshill Grange, Taylor was with a partnership contractor. As a company, in the build quality. The reader will have to decide (and hence quality) to make schemes commercially care - which are often lacking in a world dominated Property Services Wycombe Wimpey Sainsbury’s has an interest in design patronage. which one it is. viable: given that there is seldom scope to by that other C – commerciality. • District Council 30 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 31 Topic Topic

Atkins, translated that vision into the following: • Create more space for pedestrians by A client’s view of the widening the footways and turning them into a comfortable space. In order to achieve this as public realm well as other strategies described below, it is necessary to further reduce vehicle numbers Peter Bourne argues that quality in the public realm • Increase freedom to move along the street by closing off side-streets or creating headway is critical in adding value to property treatments, and enhance pedestrian access from side to side by improving crossings across the street • Reduce noise, smell, danger and disruption, by reducing vehicle numbers. This has helped with several other strategies • Improve entry points from tube stations, on foot from the surrounding area, by bus, cycle and taxi • Improve the ambience by removing street clutter, floodlighting the buildings, adopting high quality natural stone materials, and creating attractive areas off the main street where people can relax

By adding a median strip along sections of the road to encourage safe informal crossing, pedestrians should no longer have to seek permission to cross it

Implementation So far, a partnership of Westminster City Council, the Mayor of London (through Transport for London) and the Crown Estate has undertaken the following projects: The Oxford Circus diagonal crossing scheme, which provides a third more usable footway space, allowing pedestrians to cross where they want without adversely affecting traffic flows (see UD issue 116). The Piccadilly two-way scheme, completed in October 2011 in time for the Olympics, which Piccadilly Circus have been upgraded, as have most delivers a similar improvement for pedestrians of the side roads. Innovative de-cluttering has as the Oxford Circus scheme did. It also tames removed much of the unnecessary street furniture, traffic, restoring Pall Mall, St James’s Street and vastly improving the pedestrian experience. Three Piccadilly to two-way working, making it easier for side-streets off Regent Street have also been closed pedestrians to cross these roads. The key objectives to traffic, and headway treatments created for of this scheme are: most of the nearby streets. By adding a median • To civilise the area by removing the multi-lane strip along sections of the road to encourage safe one-way streets which isolated St James’s from informal crossing, pedestrians should no longer the rest of central London have to seek permission to cross it. Hopefully • To restore Piccadilly to its former grandeur this process will be extended to the rest of Regent A good public realm ties together the ‘bits started the regeneration process twelve years ago • To enhance the views down Regent Street Street. in-between’ into an attractive location. A whole with a whole raft of strategies. We began by setting towards the Duke of York Column and the Palace range of factors make a good location: access to up a Strategic Planning Group to capitalise on the of Westminster beyond, and down St James’s Traffic reduction it, access within it, facilities and services, and the expertise of our consultants, which included Les street toward St James’s Palace The reduction of traffic levels is a key element proximity to other important draws – whether Sparks, one of the founding Commissioners of • To improve Piccadilly Circus by giving more to achieve these objectives of public realm these are shops, offices, restaurants or other CABE, and planners and development consultants space to pedestrians, where necessary to ensure improvement Two years ago we started a retail destinations. Often a significant factor is simply from CB Richard Ellis. The Group brought together that people can enjoy the iconic sights within the delivery consolidation scheme, which allows being in an attractive place. expertise in the fields of architecture, conservation, Circus, but crucially also the views out from it retailers to have their deliveries made to a From an investor’s point of view, there are branding, servicing and restaurant quarters, and warehouse close to the M25. From there, the goods two ways of approaching location: the passive addressed each of the use types - residential, retail In addition, the Crown Estate on their own had to be delivered to several shops are brought to approach – picking the right location; or the active and office. This helped us to deliver our vision: to already carried out smaller public realm schemes Regent Street in a single lorry which, since July one – creating the right location. Either way, position Regent Street as a unique international just off Regent Street, creating some successful 2011, is an electric one. As a result, deliveries to the developing the right approach requires specific destination and a world class environment that oases. Heddon Street and Swallow Street are Regent participating retailers have been reduced by over strategies rather than a ‘one size fits all’. delivers quality, heritage, style and success to Street’s food quarters featuring al fresco dining, 80 per cent. businesses, visitors and local communities alike; in while New Burlington Place, Regent Place and We have also worked on reducing office ↑ Picadilly Circus. Before Regent Street short, a place for people, business and shopping. Princess Street are quieter areas. deliveries by starting a preferred supplier scheme. (bottom) and after (top) In the case of Regent Street, The Crown Estate The public realm strategy, developed with The main entry points at Oxford Circus and Our logistics consultants, Arup, identified that ↑Heddon St, Before and after

32 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 33 Topic UDG Awards 2012

described above has allowed us to look at many areas with new eyes. UDG Awards 2012 Waterloo Place marks the point where Regent Street reaches The Mall. It is a lost London square with the fantastic architecture of the Athenaeum Club and the Institute of Directors on either side, the Duke of York Column at the centre and several monuments and statues. But this splendour surrounds what looks like a car park. Regent Street, ↙ Reception in RUSI’s library before between Waterloo Place and Piccadilly Circus, is last year’s award ceremony another glorious architectural set-piece in need of a face-lift. And Haymarket with its two glorious • Castle St Improvements by Carlisle City theatres, the Theatre Royal and Her Majesty’s, has Council an appalling public realm. After the Olympics, in • Tactile City Model by Planning Aid for January 2013 we hope to start restoring all these London streets to their former glory. • Quality Places Charter by Partnership for Urban South Hampshire Conclusions So what are the conclusions we can draw from this Student Award experience? Does this approach deliver value to our All the courses listed in Urban Design properties? We are convinced it does but it is often were invited to nominate a student who hard to quantify. The public realm strategy is only was then asked to submit a limited amount one element of the programme of improvements, of work for consideration. Eight entries and it is virtually impossible to attribute the were received and three students were undoubted increase in value we have experienced shortlisted. The schemes will be displayed through the actions outlined above, to a particular on the UDG website and members will be element. We are though, sufficiently convinced, to asked to cast a vote for the best scheme. A make public realm improvements a key element prize of £600 will be awarded either as a of our emerging plans to improve our St James’s The next awards event will be held on Practice Award single prize or shared by two students. portfolio. Wednesday 15 February 2012 at RUSI Fourteen entries were received for this The shortlisted projects are: What is the secret to achieving the various public on Whitehall, London. Tickets will be award and six shortlisted by the judges. • Radical Reconstruction by Ralf realm improvements we have delivered in the available in mid-January. These were published in Urban Design in Furuland, student at Edinburgh College West End? Initially clear strategic objectives have Four awards will be presented: Best July 2011. UDG members will be asked to of Art to be set and the aspirations of local communities Practice, Best Student, Best Public Sector vote for the project they feel achieved the • Gallowgate Renewal by Ian Brodie, taken into account; then they have to be delivered Project and Best Publisher. In addition, highest standard. The prize of £1000 is to student at university of Strathclyde with flexibility. Working with the grain of the a Lifetime Achievement Award will fund two members of the winning office • St Pauls Neighbourhood by Dongni local authorities’ policies and maintaining a clear be presented by the chair of the UDG, to participate in an Urban Design Group Yao, student at University of Cardiff understanding of their objectives as well as of our Amanda Reynolds. study tour (such as the one mentioned on own, balancing the needs of residents and visitors, The event has been generously p.6), or an alternative agreed with UDG. Publisher award is also essential. In all these cases we have employed sponsored by Atkins, last year’s winner For this award regular publishers of books urban designers and they have collaborated with of the Practice award, Tibbalds Planning The practices selected and projects about urban design were contacted to traffic planners and pedestrian flow analysts, as and Urban Design, and the publishers published are: nominate a book. A panel of four UDG well as with Westminster City Council, to come Routledge who will be exhibiting a display • John Thompson & Partners – Suzhou members, Marc Furnival, Jonathan up with the initial designs, at our financial risk. of books. EcoTown Kendall, Juliet Bidgood and Laurie Once the designs are adopted and the funding The awards will be presented by Janet • NEW Masterplanning – Greyfriars, Mentiplay, chaired by Alistair Donald, package agreed, the costs are then shared and Tibbalds, chair of The Francis Tibbalds Gloucester drew a shortlist and selected the winner. implementation is passed to the council, with the Trust which has funded the prizes for the • NJBA A+U – Rush 2020 Strategic Vision The shorlisted books were published in urban designers retained by us to ensure the design best practice and the best student. The • Richards Partington Architects – issue 120 or Urban Design. There is no features are not diluted. awards were devised by John Billingham Howden Urban Extension Masterplan financial award for this category. All this requires persistence, patience and the who chairs the UDG awards group, and are • Studio REAL – Moat Lane, Towcester The publishers and shortlisted books ↑ Waterloo Place before many office deliveries were of similar commodities: right professionals working in a collaborative way administered by Louise Ingledow. • URBED – Brentford Lock West are: and after stationary, milk, drinking water, newspapers and with other specialists, but the results are worth In January UDG members will be • RIBA Publishing: NewcastleGateshead, ↑↑ The Regent Street Public Sector Award Shaping the City electric delivery lorry sandwiches. We have selected suppliers which it. From a client perspective, the public realm is a asked to vote through the website, for , Peter Hetherington provide good value and who are prepared to adopt critical element of our improvement programme in the Practice, Student and Public sector Local authorities and public sector • Routledge: Urban design, The sustainable delivery methods. For example , our both Regent Street and St James’s. awards. Look out for this and don’t forget agencies were invited to submit projects Composition of complexity, Ron preferred stationary supplier delivers into the • to vote! under a wide description of categories. Kasprisin area at night in bulk; the last-mile-delivery is then Free membership of the UDG for a six- • Wiley: Urban Design Since 1945, A carried out during the working day, using cargo Judges month period has been provided for Global Perspective, D G Shane bikes. The short lists for the Practice, Public all entrants but there is no additional • Ashgate: Learning from Delhi, Unfortunately, these delivery reduction Sector and Student awards have been financial award to the winner. Dispersed Initiatives in Changing measures, while useful, do not address the main drawn by a panel of judges that included: Twenty seven projects were submitted; Urban Landscapes, Maurice Mitchell, source of congestion and air pollution caused • Louise Thomas, co-editor of Urban the following six were shortlisted and are Shamoon Patwari and Bo Tang mostly by buses and taxis. We are putting pressure Design and chair of the panel, published in the following pages of this on TfL to limit the impact of these, and once a major • Richard Hayward, academic and issue of Urban Design : Lifetime Achievement Award reduction has been achieved, footways along the practitioner, • Exeter Residential Design SPD by This award is intended to recognise rest of the street can be widened and de-cluttered to • Paul Reynolds from Atkins Exeter City Council outstanding work by an individual in the make them more comfortable for pedestrians. • Stefan Kruczkowski from North West • Urban Design Academy by North East urban design field. Nominations are made We have started applying the same sort of public Leicestershire Derbyshire District Council by the UDG Executive. Peter Bourne, • •Development Manager The realm strategies to the regeneration of our St • Lindsey Whitelaw, patron of the UDG. • Freight Depot visioning document by Crown Estate James’s portfolio. The Piccadilly two-way scheme Gateshead Council

34 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 35 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Improvements to a Congested Artery Carlisle City Council describes their public realm scheme for Castle Street

← Congestion in 2007 ↙ Plan of Phase I scheme → Concept sketch of proposed works ↘ Completed Scheme

footprint of the scheme covered some It is these, not a row of parked cars, who 1000sqm. As work began on site for are the lifeblood of the city and those that Phase 1, the Council was fortunate keep its economy active. enough to secure European Regional While tightened finances have Development Fund (ERDF) finance for stalled plans for wider public realm the remainder of the street (the Roman improvements, (in particular the need Gateway project). This centred on Tullie to address the severance effect of Castle House Museum and on improving Way, a 1973 inner ring road which compels signage links to the nearby Hadrian’s visitors to the castle to use either a bridge Wall long distance footpath and cycleway. or underpass for access) this particular The installation of monolithic granite scheme has a robustness in design and in benches by the Cumbrian based artist materials which should ensure that it is of Hannah Stewart completed Phase 1 and lasting value to the city. both schemes were completed in late • spring/summer 2011.

Prognosis area were developed by City and County The removal of signage clutter and of Council officers working closely with extensive parking has allowed a key a small working group of members. street in the city to become a place Extensive public consultation took place in for people rather than a route for 2007-08. traffic. Use of the street for pavement The scheme which emerged proposed cafés has expanded and in pleasant to narrow the width of the carriageway weather the street can be seen to be a (making it one-way), and to significantly place to linger rather than a conduit increase pedestrian space by doubling made uncomfortable by heavy traffic. pavement width on the commercial Public responses during the scheme eastern side. With minimal (50mm) development phase were mixed, with a kerbs and flush crossings, the space common concern being that other streets was intended to be returned to the were more deserving of attention. In pedestrian, yet allowing traffic to access retrospect, a clearer setting out of the other allocated on-street parking that wider benefits of the scheme to Carlisle businesses had lobbied strongly to retain. as a whole might have addressed these A traffic order enabled the stripping out concerns. Political support was markedly Castle Street lies at the heart of Carlisle’s Diagnosis and Prescription of yellow lines and substantial signage, broad based, with a members steering historic quarter. It links the retail heart of A public realm study of the historic although the process of obtaining DfT group drawn from all main parties and the city (centred on the Market Cross) to quarter by the City Council identified approval for this was lengthy. Displaced both City and County Council. With Carlisle Castle. At its southern end Castle Castle Street as an achievable and blue badge parking was replaced with hindsight, it may have been possible to Street connects with the pedestrianised significant public realm opportunity. parking in allocated bays with a general provide a contraflow cycle lane, which centre, and to the north, runs towards the While numerous other streets were also reduction in availability of disc. However, would have benefited cyclists (who castle and parkland beyond. The street strong contenders for improvement, a number of large and underused car parks must now push their bikes an additional is flanked by the 12th century cathedral, Castle Street was at the heart of the city, are available within reasonable walking 100m travelling northwards). A number and by mixed office and commercial and any improvement here would benefit distance. The scheme (Castle Street Phase of granite bollards were installed to development. residents, businesses and visitors. The 1) covered half of the total length of the physically prevent parking on the Until recently this key street was street is also a key connection between the street, with the remaining 100m length pavements, which conflicts somewhat dominated by parked cars, and by vehicles city and the long distance Hadrian’s Wall identified as a future phase. with the desired goal of reducing clutter. circulating the narrow medieval street Path National Trail and cycle route which A materials palette was developed, Although a modest improvement plan in search of parking. A notable impact skirt Carlisle. drawn from the local street masonry of considering the scale of works in other of this was the almost continual presence The City Council, working with the whinstone, granite and the russet Lazonby larger conurbations, Castle Street has of blue badge parking on double yellow local highway authority Cumbria County sandstone which gives Carlisle’s historic perhaps been the most significant public lines along the boundary of the cathedral Council, developed draft proposals to buildings their reddish hue. While existing realm intervention in Carlisle since the precinct. No view of the cathedral was reduce the flow of vehicular traffic through concrete flags were recycled elsewhere in pedestrianisation of the city centre in the complete without a permanent honour- the area while enhancing its attractiveness the district, granite kerbs were retained late 1980s. It has given the public, local guard of nose to tail vehicles. In 2007 a to pedestrians. Full pedestrianisation was and retooled, reducing overall costs and businesses and our elected members the scheme was conceived to strip out much one option considered, but maintenance minimising environmental impact. confidence that the city can be improved of the parking from half the length of of some through-traffic was felt to Project costs were in the region of in ways which respects its historic the street, and to introduce a restricted animate the space, and constraints on £700,000, with the majority of both character, allows for the reasonable parking zone to limit other traffic. neighbouring streets limited alternatives design work and physical execution needs of vehicle access but also gives full for circulation. Traffic options for the undertaken by the City Council. The weight to the needs of the pedestrian.

36 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 37 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Design Guidelines for Residential Development ↙ Exeter’s Residential Design guide cover. Exeter City Council trusts that their new SPD will raise the quality of residential → Residents’ views on the quality of recently built housing developments were mapped schemes and assessed →→ Exemplar floor plans illustrate how ‘standard’ house types could be modified to meet Internal Space Standards ↘ ‘Test’ layout for RNSD Lower Site – illustrating that density is not compromised by principles set out in the SPD

problems. Layout, architectural design guidance through research into demand and retention of existing trees and and the pros and cons of allocated buildings were identified as important versus unallocated provision. English factors in achieving a positive sense of Partnerships’ Parking – What works place and community. where was a useful starting point for An initial workshop was also held this chapter, with the final guidance with house builders. It covered a range clearly demonstrating the inefficiencies of topics, and concerns were raised of courtyard parking and the benefits of about intervention in the market, but the on street parking. Phil Jones Associates consultation was appreciated, and the provided census statistics to assess car benefits of clear guidance understood. All ownership patterns, ensuring that parking felt that it was essential that any guidance guidance is practical and meets local need. created a level playing field. Parking layouts were tested to ensure that Following these workshops, officers different ones and mixes of allocated and developed the SPD setting out best unallocated spaces were achievable. practice for the design of new housing. The design process was identified as TESTING a significant barrier to good design. The draft guidance was thoroughly tested Often developers were seen to start the to ensure it was practical and would design process with a concept layout allow viable developments. Layouts for without an adequate understanding of approved development sites were tested site constraints and context. The SPD, by the design team to allow comparison of therefore, sets out a design process which density and viability. Designs for houses starts with site and context appraisal from volume house builders were tested and concept layouts, and then provides against the space standards and revised clear design guidance for each aspect internal layouts produced to demonstrate of the design; it starts with layout and that the proposed standards would be place-making before considering more viable and not have an impact upon detailed issues. The expected approach to density. climate change and sustainable design is A further workshop was held with clearly set out, not only for the design of house builders to present the draft and new buildings, but also in relation to site receive feedback on the implications for layout, connections to neighbourhood the industry. Concern was voiced that facilities and promotion of sustainable duplication between the SPD and other transport modes. The City Council also policy/legislation should be avoided. worked with Devon Wildlife Trust and Significant discussion took place on RSPB to ensure that the protection the impact of internal space standards and enhancement of biodiversity is in a competitive market. Opinions embedded into the guidance at all levels ranged from confidence that the market (from site wide measures to individual delivered the housing people wanted, to Exeter City Council identified a need for RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT dwellings). an understanding of the logic of specifying design guidance to enhance the quality To develop the Supplementary Planning Research into space standards was space standards. There was consensus of residential developments. Recent Document (SPD), officers reviewed carried out with CABE enabler Juliet however, that any extra costs identified schemes were failing to create high quality existing guidance (including CABE Bidgood and Creating Excellence’s Mark in building houses to specified space places, and achieved predominately research, housing precedents and other Pearson. This included a workshop for standards should be reflected in the price poor or average Building for Life scores. local authority documents) and instigated south-west local authorities where Exeter paid for land rather than being passed on Officers identified significant problems a detailed consultation process with City Council presented its research and to purchasers. Experience since adoption with these schemes, including a failure to house builders, planning officers and proposals. The City Council based its of the SPD demonstrates that expectations create a distinctive sense of place, a lack householders in recently completed guidance on research by HATC Limited of land value present a challenge to of consideration of sustainable design or housing schemes. for London and developed volume achieving good quality sustainable potential for adaptation of housing, poor Householders were invited to builder house types to demonstrate the designs. provision of parking, and poor internal workshops where a facilitator and practical application of space standards. spaces and amenity. The need for guidance council officers ran through exercises Housing colleagues were particularly PUTTING THE SPD INTO PRACTICE was heightened by the potential for rapid to discuss the residents’ views of the supportive of requirements for new Following revisions and public rise in housing development: 15,000 new development and their homes. Parking, housing to be adaptable, enabling people consultation, the SPD was adopted in for all residential development proposals scores. The City Council has also had homes were allocated around Exeter by lack of adequate living and storage space, to live contentedly in one place as their September 2010 and provides detailed in Exeter. Recently approved applications success at recent planning appeals where the Regional Spatial Strategey (RSS), then residential amenity, lack of adaptability circumstances change. guidance related to design policies in indicate a more successful approach to the SPD’s internal space and amenity reduced to 12,000 in the submission Core and sustainability, and the location and Special attention was also paid to the Local Plan and in the emerging Core place-making and design, as they achieve standards have been supported by Strategy. quality of open space were identified as developing a rationale for parking Strategy. It is now used in negotiations Good and Very Good Building for Life Inspectors as reasons for refusal. • 38 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 39 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects THE PARTNERSHIP FOR URBAN SOUTH HAMPSHIRE Local authorities in South Hampshire have teamed up to improve the design quality of developments

↙ University of Portsmouth Library ↓↘ Wellstead Primary School

• Leadership and management structures SOLENT QUALITY PLACE DESIGN The winners were announced at an Awards to ensure that creating quality places is AWARDS Dinner at Winchester Guildhall organised a high priority To promote good practice and reflect by SCAD and sponsored by Warings • A design-led multi-disciplinary culture the principles of the Charter, the QPPG Construction. A keynote address was which plans, designs and manages new established a sub-regional design award made by Wayne Hemingway, who spoke and existing places in an integrated way scheme. The awards recognise and reward about the importance of the liveability of signed by the leaders of each council as a to achieve high quality the contribution that a scheme makes in buildings, places and spaces. reflection of its importance, and to help • Place-making and quality design creating a quality place, rather than the The second Quality Places Design ensure that its message would be cascaded policies which underpin Local merits of the building(s) design alone. The Awards are set to take place in 2012. down throughout each authority. Development Plan documents, emphasis is on schemes that create special including detailed guidance on creating places for people, that lift communities University of Portsmouth The Charter’s statement of intent is as high quality development where and create richer experiences for the Library (Penoyre & Prasad follows: necessary users. The awards also help to encourage architects) ‘The PUSH authorities are committed • Decision making which considers the and raise the profile and quality of place- The Library was extended to meet the to the creation of quality places. We wider value of creating quality places as making in the future. Schemes that meet growing student numbers and their recognise the different components a prime consideration, rather than cost the criteria receive a Quality Place award. expectations of a high quality learning that combine to create quality places alone There is an overall winner and a winner environment. It includes enhanced IT and will ensure implementation of • Opportunities to improve the quality chosen by the local community following facilities, study and teaching rooms, as place-making principles and the and management of existing places an on-line vote. well as a café. It bridges over the entrance processes for their delivery. We • Appropriate place awareness and design In conjunction with the Solent Centre to a public park, acting as a gateway and is acknowledge that we must collaborate training for leaders, councillors and for Architecture and Design (SCAD), a set accessed from a new urban square which and cooperate with the many other officers of judging criteria was established: provides space for students and the public organisations and bodies responsible • Community involvement in the • Civic-mindedness – the impact for the to congregate. An internal street, which for the management and development planning, design and management of public good can be used by the public provides a direct PUSH is a partnership of the unitary actions were developed including the of the public realm to achieve high places • Delight – the lifting of the spirit connection to both sides of the park. authorities of Portsmouth and preparation of a design charter and quality places. We call upon those • Firmness – Concerning the fabric of the Southampton, Hampshire County Council guidance, launching design awards and organisations and bodies to commit Members of the QPPG continue to building/ scheme Wellstead Primary School, and the district authorities of Eastleigh, implementing a programme of skills to delivering the place-making promote and embed the vision of the • Commodity – The scheme’s Hedge End (Hampshire County East Hampshire, Fareham, Gosport, development and capacity building. components identified in this charter’. Charter into their organisations and as functionality for its users Council Architects) Havant, Test Valley and Winchester. PUSH part of their everyday work on design Wellstead Primary School is a new building works with local partners and government PUSH QUALITY PLACES CHARTER PUSH recognised that delivering high matters. They are also developing design There were 12 shortlisted schemes (see within a modern housing development in agencies to deliver sustainable, economic- The Charter was drawn up by the Quality quality places and buildings could not guidance, offering a framework within www.solentdesignawards.org.uk.) from Hedge End. It is set around a courtyard, led growth and regeneration. To achieve Places Practitioners Group (QPPG), be achieved through a statement of which PUSH authorities can set detailed, which the Quality Places winners were with the main teaching block on one this PUSH has constituted a number of which comprises local authority officers intent alone. The Charter identifies that locally specific policies to help realise the chosen by a panel of judges. The award side and the administrative and social themed Delivery Panels. responsible for design and reports to the it is equally important that appropriate principles of the Charter. winners were: block on the other. A library and a glass Quality Places is one of the themed Quality Places Delivery Panel. It acts as delivery mechanisms and processes are The full version of the Charter is • Quality Places Award, Overall Winner: passageway link the four sides. The glass delivery panels. A principal aim is to a statement of intent by all signatories in place. Each local authority in South available at www.push.gov.uk/quality_ University of Portsmouth Library provides the necessary security but allows ensure new developments conform to to recognise the principles of quality Hampshire, as a signatory to the charter, places_charter.pdf • Quality Places Award: Wellstead the school to be visually connected to the high standards of design in the built places and place-making and to ensure is committed to delivering the following: Primary School, Hedge End community outside. The design allows the environment to increase the quality and their delivery becomes an everyday part • People’s Choice Award: University of school to act as a central focus for the local liveability of the sub-region. Priority of service provision. The Charter was Portsmouth Library community. • 40 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 41 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects FREIGHT DEPOT VISIONING DOCUMENT Gateshead Council has produced a document to stimulate the imagination of ← Exploring urban design concepts developers ↙↙ Looking for access solutions ↙ Developing zoning and linkages ↘ The Freight Depot sits at the heart of central Gateshead ↓ Evolution Gateshead’s proposed designs brought the Freight Depot vision to life. Designs by Studio Egret West

concept design; detailed design was perceived as being beyond what up on the key objectives of the vision and construction; post construction) developers were willing to achieve. It was provided innovative responses to its urban • a workshop on BioRegional’s SAP assumed to add significant construction design ambitions. • design and sustainability of the wider costs to the project. Since then, progress Even more significantly, the document development area on the Code for Sustainable Homes set a new standard for the council in • a presentation of the draft proposals to standard and government requirements creating development briefs. Officers stakeholders and on new developments have helped to ease learnt that for developers to take • consultation with local residents the pressure of delivery, and developers aspirations seriously there needed to later recognised the ‘zero carbon’ objective be significant groundwork in terms of The involvement of local residents was an as more achievable. research and collaboration. Without interesting and innovative experience. The There were also reservations about the expertise of IDP Partnership and council’s Urban Design Reference Group some of the more creative approaches of BioRegional, the document would have - made up of residents trained in CABE’s the visioning document. The document lacked the detail and scope to really push Building for Life principles - were used to included an indicative solution to connect design and environmental standards. shape the content of the document. Their the Freight Depot to its surroundings via Indeed, the One Planet Living concept In 2008, Gateshead Council launched its to create the original brief for the site It provided planning policy, design knowledge of the local area and informed a green bridge traversing the adjacent introduced by the visioning document search for a private sector partner with but was limited by policy, national guidance and masterplanning concepts on views about urban design provided highway. While this illustrated Gateshead’s has been taken on board by the successful which it could build 2,400 new homes guidance, in-house expertise and software. how the site might be developed as well as invaluably insightful feedback on the commitment to connectivity, it did not bidder who is looking to develop the on 19 sites across the borough. A former Articulating its aims within these setting out sustainability measures that emerging vision. fully translate into a realistic solution. principles across all 19 sites. Freight Depot near to the Felling Bypass constraints became extremely difficult, could be taken. This would guide the type The competitive dialogue process with The success of the visioning document transport corridor was deemed the and left little room to manoeuvre. and general format of the development, Reaction from developers developers revealed the concept was led Gateshead Council to improve the flagship site for this project. The site’s The council recognised the need to create and help the council’s future partner to The visioning document was given limited by problems with how and where quality of its development briefs and location and scale meant it was of strategic a document that would really capture the formulate its design proposals for the site. to private sector developers that the bridge would land on the other side visions. Appropriate graphics software, importance to the local housing market attention and imagination of prospective The urban design issues considered were bidding to be the council’s joint of the highway. The idea was discussed increased urban design staff, and the renewal and to help realise the area’s developers, and resolved to seek the help by the document included land use, venture partner. Their response was throughout the dialogue process and experience learned from the Freight Depot economic potential. Placed at a major of an external specialist. landscape, transport, access and overwhelmingly positive. The vision’s non- was eventually agreed to be untenable. have equipped Gateshead with the tools to gateway into Gateshead’s centre and the movement, and a contextual analysis (the prescriptive approach attracted multiple A surface-level crossing was proposed approach other sites in the same way, and wider conurbation, it has great potential Developing ideas site’s history, assets, constraints and key interpretations of the various urban instead. inspire creative urban design throughout to act as a catalyst for the regeneration of a A consultant was needed to drive forward features). BioRegional also produced a design challenges presented by the site. It the borough. community that has suffered from decline the visioning document based onthe Sustainability Action Plan (SAP) outlining included indicative plans and precedent Setting urban design Evolution Gateshead (a consortium for many years. original planning brief. It appointed IDP how the site could achieve One Planet images but allowed developers to standards of Galliford Try and Home Group) was Partnership to do this, with support from Living status. present alternative solutions - ultimately Despite these challenges, Gateshead took appointed Gateshead Council’s preferred Creating a vision BioRegional. The three organisations generating a wide range of responses to valuable lessons from the production joint venture partner in 2011. The To articulate this message, the council’s worked together to shape the vision, Community insight transforming the Freight Depot. of the visioning document. Firstly, the partnership hopes to start work on the area planning team set about creating a ensuring the correct elements were given The process of developing the vision was However, developers did have some combination of graphics (including site Freight Depot later this year. visioning document that would ensure the right emphasis. This resulted in a broad and varied. It included: hesitations in terms of the costs of plans and illustrations) and text enabled • development proposals reflected its comprehensive document that set out a • project familiarisation by IDP delivering the vision’s goals. When the the council to set out its aspirations in ambitious plans for transforming the thorough agenda for the development of Partnership document was released in early 2009, clear terms. This resulted in equally clear Freight Depot. The team worked hard the Freight Depot. • gap analysis of four key areas (initial the requirement for ‘zero carbon’ submissions from developers, who picked

42 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 43 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Tactile City Model Planning Aid for London and Knott Architects present a tool to include people with visual impairments in the processes of urban design and planning ↙ Prototype 1 school workshop 2009 ↙↙ Production model 2011 ↘ Production model city scape 2011 ↘↘ Prototype 2 community workshop 2010 ↘↘↘ Access model Entering a building 2011

Over three years the partnership has including local authority planning officers created prototypes of different versions increased their understanding of the needs of a Tactile City Model which is designed of disabled people in relation to the built to be read with one’s eyes… or one’s environment and consultation processes. fingers. In its current format, it consists In order to understand the model and of over 300 magnetised pieces that can how it works, participants in workshops be arranged in any format on magnetic benefit from a one-to-one induction. baseboards. Diagrammatic cityscapes can Therefore more trained facilitators will be modelled, either as generic scenarios or be needed in the future. A full report site-specific situations. A menu of brightly called Shaping Places can be seen at www. coloured tactile symbols and distinctive planningaidforlondon.org.uk on the textures represent 22 different land-uses. publications page For example a carpet texture represents The final model has recently been residential use and a red cross symbol manufactured in a format that can be indicates a health building; sandpaper mass-produced. In the future, Planning represents roads and astro-turf is green Aid for London will be running a series space; the symbol of an open hand is a of London-based workshops of various community building and a fork represents kinds. The model workshops will assist a café or restaurant; and so on. Wild- people to gain an understanding of land- cards that can be customised for specific use planning processes, the needs of situations are included. people with physical disabilities when Three Access Models have been added negotiating the built environment, and to the Tactile City Model to illustrate consultations for development and the urban environment at a closer scale. regeneration affecting their local area. Our These three models are used specifically aim is to be able to share this model and to generate discussions about issues workshop structure and as well as to have encountered in moving around public others produced, so that they can be used spaces: entering a building from a car park all over the country. using a ramp or the stairs, negotiating revolving, swing or sliding doors and using Lessons learned a public park space with ramp and bench. The following are the lessons we learned: • The model is very versatile but guidance Testing the models is required on how to use it All the models are robust, transportable • We have acquired an intimate and adaptable. The prototypes have understanding of how to make been workshopped with school pupils, workshops for disabled people community access forums and local accessible authority groups. For example the first • The workshops were effective in prototype was significantly improved after increasing participants’ understanding workshops at Lindon Lodge, a specialist of planning and development , and sensory and physical college for blind confidence to participate in decision- pupils between the ages of 3 and 19. making For people with visual impairments, vision is to break down the barriers Mark 2 of the model was workshopped • The workshops provided valuable links the conventional tools of drawings and that exist for individuals and groups to with groups of disabled people in between planning officers and disabled diagrams are of no use, neither are the engage in the planning system, through four London boroughs: Barking and people. These links should be increased normal, fragile, masterplan models that for example the Involving Young People Dagenham, Brent, Croydon and Tower and enhanced are often produced. Too often the time in Planning initiative, or by providing Hamlets. Feedback from these test-drives • The programme generated six key that the blind and partially sighted have planning training to groups whose first have enabled the model to be refined and recommendations for planning policy their chance to contribute to the planning language is not English. George Knott improved to its current form. Feedback and practice process is after the event – once a project of Knott Architects (in his role as PAL from the London boroughs workshops • has already been implemented. Volunteer Consultant) found himself also showed that everybody taking part designing a granny-flat for a client with no thought that the exercise had increased Collaborative work sight and, so, started experimenting with their knowledge of planning and 88 per A partnership between Knott Architects robust, touchy-feely models as a way of cent felt they had achieved new skills and and Planning Aid for London (PAL) has discussing design ideas. The result of the knowledge which would ‘enable them to collaborated in order to address this collaboration is a marriage between the take part in consultations on planning issue of accessibility and inclusion. Each Tactile City Model and a growing series of applications and planning policies’. of them reached the above conclusion education and consultation opportunities An additional outcome from the from separate directions. PAL’s charitable that it can be used for. workshops was that various third parties,

44 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 45 Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Francis Tibbalds Award Public Sector Shortlisted Projects Urban Design Academy North East Derbyshire District Council outlines their initiative to promote design excellence ↙ The Best Practice Event, March 2011 (L-R) Cllr Graham Baxter MBE, Leader of the Council, Cllr Betty Hill, Deputy Leader, Rob Cowan, Urban Design Skills and John Erskine HCA

collectively put together the Creative Masters in Urban Design to develop and Practice module. The HCA made further retain in house expertise contributions to the Academy, with contributions from Rob Cowan at the best We are also working with other local practice event and also on the Creative authorities to drive up design standards. Practice module. Having secured external funding for a Housing Market Area Development From aspiration to reality Guide, Chesterfield Bolsover and North The Urban Design Academy was launched East Derbyshire councils are working in March 2010, with guest speaker collaboratively to produce a design guide Derek Latham, Chair of OPUN, the to set standards across the sub-region. Architecture Centre of the East Midlands. This approach of reacting to and Around 50 guests attended from private, challenging poor design, and the public and voluntary sectors. Latham’s confidence this has instilled in both has continued to lend expertise to the staff and elected members, is one of the Academy, delivering the first lecture of the unintended outcomes of the Academy. Creative Practice module, plus advice and Richard Guise of Context 4D was information for coursework. engaged to produce the graphics for Critical to the success of the Academy the Development Guide, and has also has been the role of the council’s elected contributed to the Creative Practice members who have taken up the role of Module. Our Urban Design Academy (UDA) shows to focus on design within Clay Cross, Design Champions with huge enthusiasm. how by thinking big, an ambitious district but it evolved to become an initiative Lessons learned - good and council can take a transformational to promote design excellence district- Seeing results bad role in promoting leading-edge wide. Developers GMI Rovinion – the Some of the impressive results of the UDA • You can never be too ambitious: a design. Furthermore, the collaborative company delivering the Clay Cross town are: small district council thinking big won partnership has delivered impressive centre regeneration – also threw their • Skills audit for councillors and officers, over the support of individuals and outcomes on a shoestring budget from the weight behind the initiative. Not only using the Capacity Check programme businesses who wanted to help make our council of less than £10,000. have they promoted the UDA, but they • Nine council staff accredited as BfL vision become reality. The enthusiasm also contributed to the development of assessors across three disciplines and commitment of our Leader and Challenging old perceptions the Academy’s Creative Practice module • A BfL briefing for all councillors Deputy Leader has been second to none Up to 2005, the council didn’t see itself through consultant Pell Frischman, whose • Adopted a policy that all housing and a major contribution to our success as lead agency on development, acting staff delivered a lecture on transport and schemes, above 10 homes, must reach • You can never be too cheeky in what you in a reactive rather than proactive way. highways infrastructure. a score of BfL 14 to secure planning ask for: our staff have learned to ‘blag’ This position changed when work on the From a position of no internal urban approval big time! Much of our success has been regeneration of one of our main town design expertise, no Building for Life (BfL) • Established the Urban Design Best thanks to the expertise and resources centres, Clay Cross, picked up pace, and assessors and limited design guidance and Practice Group to oversee the design we levered in, providing resources way the overarching development document policy for developments, we implemented quality of all major development beyond our budget - the Clay Cross Regeneration Framework - a massive cultural change within the schemes. It includes Chief Executive, • You can never network enough: tell took shape in 2006. council - placing design excellence at the Council Leader and Deputy Leader, people once, twice and then again, In putting together the Framework, heart of corporate objectives and activity. Planning Committee Chair and staff again, and again! Taking every the council knew that selecting an urban Supported by private sector developers, from all levels/teams opportunity to raise the profile of design professional and architects local urban design companies, the • Delivered a new accredited foundation the Urban Design Academy and its who could challenge old perceptions Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) degree module for 13 staff. Alongside ambitions pulled in resources and made and expectations was key. We engaged and Chesterfield College, we secured those already mentioned other it a sustainable resource Maxim Urban Design and Evans Vettorri overwhelming support from partners – all contributors include Andy Beard, Architects - the start of a long-standing impressed with the foresight, ambition Justine Leach and a range of HCA and The Future collaboration with both in support of and enthusiasm of a small council to Chesterfield College staff It is difficult to think of anything we the Academy. Right from the beginning, advance the design agenda. • Organised with the HCA an Urban would or could have done differently as it Graham Marshall of Maxim Urban Design Best Practice event in March has been such a positive experience; the Design, made an invaluable contribution, The HCA provided invaluable support 2011 for district councils with over 60 challenge is where do we go from here? providing ongoing and relentless advice through an initial grant of £5,000 for representatives attending We are not going to hang up our boots yet! and support across all elements of the a new accredited learning programme. • HCA contributed £5,000 to the There are plans for an Academy Board, a Academy’s work. Meanwhile the College was open to the Academy and provided four free places local design review panel, and also to roll idea and embraced the challenge with on the BURA regeneration training out the accredited training programme, Placing design excellence at enthusiasm. With Maxim Urban Design programme and that’s just for starters! • the corporate heart as professionals, the college staff as • A Design Guide for Silkston The Urban Design Academy was born educators and the council clear on its staff development site out of this process. The initial idea was training needs, the three organisations • One member of staff is undertaking a

46 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 47 Book Reviews Book Reviews

Rethinking the Meaning of externalities and propels rehabilitation into a pursuit Garvin gives us an attractive, useful The Urban Towers reconcile these opposing aspects of sustain- Williamson want to share the good news. self-sustained stage. and enjoyable assembly of history, analysis ability but it does a thorough job of raising The book begins by establishing the Place Castello uses his intimate knowledge of and case studies. It’s an American book, and Handbook the key issues. scales of analysis, from the canyon street to Lineu Castello, Ashgate, 2010, Brazilian towns to illustrate his conceptual the focus is on US parks, but with appropriate Eric Firley and Julie Gimbal, Wiley, The graphics have been given a lot of at- the entire urban heat island: height-to-width £65.00, ISBN 978 0 75467 814 4 models of contemporary place by express- credit given to British and European prec- 2011, £50.00, ISBN 978 0 470 68474 0 tention. Photos are of consistently good qual- ratios and sky-view factors provide geo- ing his professional concerns as a designer edents. New York’s Central Park, which he ity, useful context plans are at a comparable metrical parameters. Add solar radiation at ‘within the pragmatism of constructing and has used from toddlerhood to old age, recurs scale of 1/2500, a third of projects include various wave-lengths, the heat produced by What distinguishes this book from others marketing of places of cloning’. In his conclu- throughout the book as Garvin’s classic The authors’ aim is to produce a tool that detailed floor plans (why not all?) and the anthropogenic activity, plus that stored in reviewed in Urban Design is its perspective sion, he reviews the theoretical and practical demonstration of virtuous and enlightened relies on its graphical qualities, which this invaluable comparative table of all projects the urban fabric, minus the energy that be- from the other end of the kaleidoscope. Lineu controversies he has raised while defending park design, and Frederick Law Olmsted is his compendious and well-produced book gives stats and plot ratios. More explana- comes latent through evaporation or is used Castello is a Brazilian architect and urbanist. the approach to cloned places, claiming that hero. I knew that Central Park was inserted achieves through excellent photos, aeri- tory diagrams would have been helpful and I in organic evapotranspiration - the climatic His book engages the developing world into it creates spaces where people want to be. into the Commissioners’ grid before the area als and plans. The subject is the tower, the found the small font size and postage-stamp implications of canyon geometry, vegetation a dialogue with urban theories elaborated in He affirms that the global profile of today’s was built up. Garvin tells us that in fact when most extrovert and contentious of building sized location plans taxing. It is understand- and surface porosity are clearly explained. the developed world. places are reflected in local practices, fos- the park was designed, New York was still types, the rock star of the building world. The ably difficult to satisfy all readers without the Then add the complex patterns of airflow as The book consists of two parts, a theo- tered by the rapid diffusion of technological three and a half miles away to the south. authors stress that towers must be viewed book growing way beyond its 264 pages, but regional winds are disrupted and perturbed retical discussion of place and examples of progress. He defends the privatisation of the What amazing foresight and confidence! within the context of the urban fabric and not even at £50 there is a lot of valuable informa- by the 'roughness layer' of buildings, losing contemporary place-making. The first concep- public realm which according to him is pro- Public Parks is well illustrated by plans just their obvious impact on the city skyline. tion for the money. power and breaking into eddies, vortices, tualises the notion of place in modernism and ducing de facto public spaces, justified by the and photographs of parks in colour, many of The book is divided into three sections. Malcolm Moor and countercurrents; after pages of formulae, postmodernism by studying its history, typol- existential pattern of current society. Even the pictures cropped into page-wide super- Section A is the main part with case studies • readers might wish for less technicality and ogy, role in urbanity and design, its represen- gentrification is contributing to the reactiva- landscape format. It is beautifully designed covering a broad geographic and stylistic more on how modelling software takes the tation and role as model of reproduction. tion of places as public spaces, and their and produced. The emphasis is on the design sweep of towers, from the Soviet realism of strain. Finally add humans with their physi- He reviews the changing understanding broad variety underpins the theory of place. quality and visitor-experience of parks, but Moscow University tower to the high-tech Urban Microclimate - ological requirements and comfort percep- of urbanism from Rem Koolhaas’s ‘project for In practice, when new places are based they are supported by plenty of facts and pinnacle of London’s Gherkin. The 52 case Designing the Spaces tions, again expressed at the level of basic what used to be the city’, to Cedric Price’s on locations endowed with significant gen- figures too. Hard to believe it, but parks studies are sub-divided into three types of science. egg metaphors, François Ascher’s metapolis, erative factors such cloned places are capa- apparently constitute 26 per cent of New urban towers: Solitaires, Clusters and Verti- Between Buildings Thermal preference analysis marks the Saskia Sassens’ global city, Arjen Mulder’s ble of stimulating the perception of urbanity York’s area, more than in any other big city. cal Cities. Anyone working on major interven- Evyatar Erell, David Pearlmutter transition to the second half of the book, Trans-Urbanism, and others. He connects by the population. Castello concludes that Nonetheless, if Manhattan’s residents were to tions involving towers would do well to study and Terry Williamson, Earthscan, where microclimatology provides a rationale these findings related to new social practices architect-urbanists, or urban designers can be provided with parks at the normative ratio these, particularly when considering the 2011, £70.00, for design. The authors are primarily inter- and innovation in information technology learn useful lessons from the study of places of 4has per 1000 population, the parks would relationship of buildings to the ground and ISBN 978 1 84407 467 9 ested in the problems of hot dry environ- to New Urbanism and applications in Latin of cloning. He is confident that if urban cover more than the area of Manhattan. So the public realm, often the Achilles heel of ments, with little discussion of rainfall or America. This review alone is worth the book, designers can produce images of urbanity there wouldn’t be any residents. I am still try- the high-rise. Section B assembles the essen- tropical humidity, and nothing on snow, ice as it is scholarly and comprehensive. capable of stimulating people they will turn ing to puzzle this one out. tial regulations covering zoning, height limits, Much more has been written about urban or driving winds. Still, their sections on air Castello’s personal immersion into the spaces into places. Public Parks doesn’t supersede Alan urban skylines, protected view corridors design’s imponderable social, cultural, psy- quality, vegetation and street canyon design contemporary world of places occurs through Judith Ryser Tate’s 2004 Great City Parks, because its and street set-backs for seven world cities: chological and economic aspects than about are of general interest, and so is the account his extensive travels and his design experi- • purpose and structure is different, but it is London, Frankfurt, Vienna, New York, Hong the physical dimension that can be measured of physical and numerical urban climate ence. He focuses on what he calls the ‘places complementary to it. Like Tate, Alexander Kong, Singapore and Paris. A sequel could and put to scientific test. This book aims models. We end with case studies of a resi- of cloning’ generated by place-making and Garvin has written a hymn in praise of the usefully include Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai to provide a summary of the science-basis dential neighbourhood in the Negev desert, place marketing. For him, snow slopes in Public Parks: the key to public park, and his tone is relentlessly posi- and Delhi as being the current development of outdoor design. It addresses an ancient and (tackling a hot-humid environment with Dubai, urban artificial beaches, Disneyland livable communities tive. The story is all good news. There is a lit- hot spots. type of climate change, in which the scale, shade canopies, wind-pipes and water- and other make-believe fun palaces, includ- tle, but not much, devoted to the darker side Section C covering the environmental density, morphology and typology of a built sprinklers) the Clarke Quay riverside festival ing shopping malls and airports are all induc- Alexander Garvin, W. W. Norton, of parks. The familiar story of the decline and implications of towers, asks ‘Are Towers environment create a microclimate distinct village in Singapore. ing stimulated perception. 2010, $65.00, ISBN 978 0 39373 279 5 renewal of New York’s Bryant Park is includ- sustainable?’ The answer appears to be: ‘it from that of the surrounding landscape. This book attempts translation in a field He combines post-modern ‘starchitect’ ed, but it lacks the deeper cultural and so- depends how you measure sustainability’! By Traditional cultures got this understanding by where scientists tend to speak only to each designed illusions with other paths to cul- In the UK at least, the importance of public ciological perspective that Rosalyn Deutsche the usual LEED/BREAM/HQE assessments, trial, error and custom. Modernism tried but other. It could have ranged more widely and tural memory of the city, such as integrating urban parks – for health, for wellbeing, for brought to the similar story of Union Square towers will inevitably consume more energy failed to put it on a scientific basis, baffled gone further to meet the needs of the non- urban conservation into commodification of ecology, for clean air, for property values Park in her 1996 Evictions. Garvin’s book is up than low-rise buildings and being more com- by the difficulties of meteorological observa- scientific reader. Still, it's a valuable start. space, often used as a city marketing ploy. and for lots of other reasons – has been to date, and the High Line, with its industrial/ plex, will cost more to build and service, and tion and the three-dimensional complexity of Michael Hebbert Such variations of place cloning are often well made for us by the late lamented CABE naturalistic landscape setting for strolling 9m have higher embodied energy costs. The key the physics. Recent advances in observation • successful in economic and cultural terms. Space in its research and many publications. above Manhattan’s lower west side, features benefits are optimising use of land and mak- and modelling have brought the science of Eduardo Rojas is promoting this approach Alexander Garvin sets out to demonstrate the as a new addition to the park typology ing urban transportation more efficient. The urban climatology to a fresh level of utility: in Latin America as it generates positive same case. The task is a no-brainer but in its • Joe Holyoak book does not propose a system or formula to architect-urbanists Erell, Pearlmutter and 48 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 49 Practice Index Practice Index other Contributors Regional contacts Practice Index Allies & Morrison: Urban Barton Willmore Building Design Partnership Colour Urban Design Limited DHA Planning & Urban Practitioners Partnership 16 Brewhouse Yard, Clerkenwell, Milburn House, Dean Street, Design John Billingham, architect and If you are interested in getting Directory of practices, corporate 85 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX Beansheaf Farmhouse, Bourne Close, London EC1V 4LJ Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1LE Eclipse House, Eclipse Park, •planner, formerly Director of Design involved with any regional activities organisations and urban design T 020 7921 0100 Calcot, Reading, Berks RG31 7BW T 020 7812 8000 T 0191 242 4224 Sittingbourne Road, Maidstone, and Development at Milton Keynes please get in touch with the following courses subscribing to this index. E [email protected] T 0118 943 0000 E [email protected] E [email protected] Kent ME14 3EN Development Corporation The following pages provide a service C Anthony Rifkin E Masterplanning@bartonwillmore. W www.bdp.co.uk W www.colour-udl.com T 01622 776226 LONDON AND SOUTH EAST to potential clients when they are W www.urbanpractitioners.co.uk co.uk C Andrew Tindsley C Peter Owens E [email protected] Specialist competition winning urban C Clive Rand BDP offers town planning, Office also in London. Design W dhaplanning.co.uk Sebastian Loew, architect and Robert Huxford and Louise Ingledow looking for specialist urban design T 020 7250 0892 regeneration practice combining Concept through to implementation Masterplanning, urban design, oriented projects with full client C Matthew Woodhead •planner, writer and consultant advice, and to those considering E [email protected] taking an urban design course. economic and urban design skills. on complex sites, comprehensive landscape, regeneration and participation. Public spaces, Planning and Urban Design Projects include West Ealing and design guides, urban regeneration, sustainability studies, and has teams regeneration, development, Consultancy offering a full range Tim Hagyard, Planning Team STREET LONDON Those wishing to be included in future Plymouth East End. brownfield sites, and major urban based in London, Manchester and Masterplanning, residential, of Urban Design services including •Manager, East Herts Council Katy Neaves issues should contact the UDG, expansions. Belfast. education and healthcare. Masterplanning, development briefs E streetlondon@urban-design-group. 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ AMEC Environment & and design statements. Joe Holyoak, architect and org.uk T 020 7250 0872 Infrastructure UK Ltd The Bell Cornwell Burns + Nice Conroy Crowe Kelly •urban designer E [email protected] Gables House Kenilworth Road, Partnership 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ Architects & Urban DPDS Consulting Group SOUTH WEST W www.udg.org.uk Leamington Spa, Warwicks CV32 6JX Oakview House, Station Road, Hook, T 020 7253 0808 Designers Old Bank House, 5 Devizes Road, Old Malcolm Moor, architect and Judy Preston C Louise Ingledow T 01926 439 000 Hampshire RG27 9TP E [email protected] 65 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 Town, Swindon, Wilts SN1 4BJ •independent consultant in urban T 07908219834 E [email protected] T 01256 766673 W www.burnsnice.com T 00 353 1 661 3990 T 01793 610222 design; co-editor of Urban Design E [email protected] W www.amec.com E [email protected] C Marie Burns/ Stephen Nice E [email protected] E [email protected] Futures ADAM Architecture C Nick Brant W www.bell-cornwell.co.uk Urban design, landscape W www.cck.ie W www.dpds.co.uk Paul Reynolds is a landscape EAST MIDLANDS 9 Upper High Street, Winchester Masterplanning, urban design, C Simon Avery architecture, environmental and C Clare Burke and David Wright C Les Durrant •architect and principal urban Laura Alvarez Hampshire SO23 8UT development planning and Specialists in Masterplanning and the transport planning. 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W www.amaplanning.com W www.bidwells.co.uk Bass Warehouse, 4 Castle Street C Nicola Brown C Ben Sykes •urban designer C Andrew Martin/ C Helen Thompson Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ Landscape consultancy offering Formed in 1962, FaulknerBrowns is NORTH EAST AECOM Plc Sophie O’Hara Smith Planning, Landscape and Urban T 0161 828 6500 Masterplanning, streetscape a regionally-based architectural Neither the Urban Design Group nor Georgia Giannopoulou The Johnson Building, 77 Hatton Masterplans, urban design, urban Design consultancy, specialising E [email protected] and urban park design, estate design practice with a national the editors are responsible for views T 0191 222 6006 Garden regeneration, historic buildings, in Masterplanning, Townscape Chapman Taylor is an international restoration, environmental impact and international reputation. expressed or statements made by E [email protected] London EC1N 8JS project management, planning, EIA, Assessment, Landscape and Visual firm of architects and urban assessments. 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C Chris Blandford/Mike Martin area development frameworks, Second Floor Studio, 11 Fernside Road E [email protected] BELFAST at large, of streets, buildings and Planning and urban design Also at Uckfield development briefs, design Bournemouth, Dorset BH9 2LA 24 Linenhall Street, Belfast, BT2 8BG places. consultants offering a wide range of Landscape architecture, guidelines, Masterplanning, T 01202 548676 NORTHERN IRELAND T 028 9060 7200 services to support sites throughout environmental assessment, ecology, implementation strategies, E [email protected] James Hennessey From regenerating cities and Assael Architecture the development process: from urban renewal, development environmental statements. 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Our work focuses on Street, E [email protected] We are an international Masterplanning, urban design, strategic planning, masterplanning, London W1T 4JE W www.alanbaxter.co.uk Atkins plc interdisciplinary practice which public realm strategies, way finding urban design codes, EIA, TVIA, estate T 020 7034 2200 C Alan Baxter Euston Tower, 286 Euston Road, believes in the value of place- and legibility strategies, information strategies, public realm design, F 020 7637 5347 An engineering and urban design London NW1 3AT making-led masterplans that are design and graphics. consultation strategies, urban design E [email protected] practice. Particularly concerned with T 020 7121 2000 rooted in local context. audits and expert witness. W www.fletcherpreist.com the thoughtful integration of buildings, E [email protected] Clarke Klein & Chaudhuri C Jonathan Kendall infrastructure and movement, and the C Paul Reynolds Brock Carmichael Architects DEVEREUX ARCHITECTS LTD Work ranges from city-scale creation of places. Interdisciplinary practice that offers a Architects 63-71 Collier Street, London N1 9BE 200 Upper Richmond Road, masterplans (Stratford City, Riga) to range of built environment specialists 19 Old Hall Street, Liverpool L3 9JQ T 020 7278 0722 London SW15 2SH architectural commissions for high- Allen Pyke Associates working together to deliver quality T 0151 242 6222 E [email protected] T 020 8780 1800 profile professional clients. The Factory 2 Acre Road, places for everybody to enjoy. E [email protected] C Wendy Clarke E [email protected] Kingston-upon-Thames KT2 6EF C Michael Cosser Small design-led practice focusing W www.devereux.co.uk T 020 8549 3434 Austin-Smith:Lord LLP Masterplans and development on custom solutions for architectural, C Duncan Ecob E [email protected] Port of Liverpool Building, briefs. Mixed-use and brownfield planning or urban design projects. Adding value through innovative, W www.allenpyke.co.uk Pier Head, Liverpool L3 1BY regeneration projects. Design in Exploring the potential for innovative ambitious solutions in complex urban C David Allen/ Vanessa Ross T 0151 227 1083 historic and sensitive settings. urban design. environments. Innovative, responsive, committed, E [email protected] Integrated landscape design. competitive, process. Priorities: C Andy Smith people, spaces, movement, culture. Also at London, Cardiff and Glasgow Places: regenerate, infill, extend Multi-disciplinary national practice create. with a specialist urban design unit backed by the landscape and core architectural units. Wide range and scale of projects.

50 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 51 Practice Index Practice Index

FPCR Environment GM Design Associates Ltd HOK international Ltd John Thompson & Partners Lavigne Lonsdale Ltd Loci Metropolis Planning and NJBA A + U & Design Ltd 22 Lodge Road, Coleraine Qube, 90 Whitfield Street 23-25 Great Sutton Street, 38 Belgrave Crescent, Camden 1 Butlers Court, Sir John Rogerson's Design 4 Molesworth Place, Dublin 2 Lockington Hall, Lockington, Co. Londonderry BT52 1NB London W1T 4EZ London ECIV 0DN Bath BA1 5JU Quay, Dublin 2 30 Underwood Street, London N1 7JQ T 00 353 1 678 8068 Derby DE74 2RH Northern Ireland T 020 7636 2006 T 020 7017 1780 T 01225 421539 T 00353 1 881 4062 T 020 7324 2662 E [email protected] T 01509 672772 T 028 703 56138 E [email protected] E [email protected] TRURO E [email protected] E [email protected] W www.12publishers.com/njba.htm E [email protected] E [email protected] C Tim Gale W www.jtp.co.uk 55 Lemon Street, Truro W www.loci.ie W www.metropolispd.com C Noel J Brady W www.fpcr.co.uk W www.g-m-design.com HOK delivers design of the highest C Marcus Adams Cornwall TR1 2PE C Conor Norton C Greg Cooper Integrated landscapes, urban C Tim Jackson C Bill Gamble quality. It is one of Europe’s leading Edinburgh T 01872 273118 Urban design, architecture and Metropolitan urban design solutions design, town centres and squares, Integrated design and Architecture, town and country architectural practices, offering 2nd Floor Venue studios, 15-21 E [email protected] planning consultancy dedicated to drawn from a multi-disciplinary strategic design and planning. environmental practice. Specialists planning, urban design, landscape experienced people in a diverse Calton Road, Edinburgh EH8 8DL W www.lavigne.co.uk working for better places: places studio of urban designers, architects, in Masterplanning, urban and mixed architecture, development range of building types, skills and T 0131 272 2762 C Martyn Lonsdale with a real sense of identity, a better planners, and heritage architects. Node Urban Design use regeneration, development frameworks and briefs, feasibility markets. E [email protected] We are an integrated practice of quality of life. 33 Holmfield Road frameworks, EIAs and public studies, sustainability appraisals, C Alan Stewart masterplanners, Urban Designers, Mouchel Leicester LE2 1SE inquiries. public participation and community Holmes Partnership Addressing the problems of physical, Landscape Architects and Product LSI Architects LLP 209-215 Blackfriars Road T 0116 2708742 engagement. 89 Minerva Street, Glasgow G3 8LE social and economic regeneration Designers. Experienced in large The Old Drill Hall, 23 A Cattle Market London SE1 8NL E [email protected] Framework Architecture T 0141 204 2080 through collaborative interdisciplinary scale, mixed-use and residential Street, Norwich NR1 3DY T 020 7803 2600 W www.nodeurbandesign.com and Urban Design G.M.K Associates E [email protected] community based planning. Masterplanning, health, education, T 01603 660711 E [email protected] C Nigel Wakefield 3 Marine Studios, Burton Lane, 1st Floor Cleary Court, C Harry Phillips regeneration, housing, parks, public [email protected] W www.mouchel.com An innovative team of urban design, Burton Waters, Lincoln LN1 2WN 169 Church Street East, Urban design, planning, renewal, Jon Rowland Urban Design realm and streetscape design. C David Thompson C Ludovic Pittie landscape and heritage consultants T 01522 535383 Woking, Surrey GU21 6HJ development and feasibility studies. 65 Hurst Rise Road, Oxford OX2 9HE Large scale Masterplanning and Integrated urban design, transport who believe that good design adds E [email protected] T 01483 729378 Sustainability and energy efficiency. T 01865 863642 LDA Design visualisation in sectors such as and engineering consultancy, value. Providing sustainable urban C Gregg Wilson E [email protected] Commercial,residential,leisure. E [email protected] 14-17 Wells Mews, London W1T 3HF health, education and business, and changing the urban landscape in a design and masterplan solutions Architecture and urban design. A C George McKinnia W www.jrud.co.uk T 020 7467 1470 new sustainable settlements. positive manner, creating places for at all scales of development with a commitment to the broader built HOMES & COMMUNITIES AGENCY C Jon Rowland E [email protected] sustainable living. focus on the creation of a sense of environment and the particular Grontmij (HCA)-MILTON KEYNES Urban design, urban regeneration, C Colin James MacCormac Jamieson place. dynamic of a place and the design 33 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AA Urban Design Team, National development frameworks, site Multidisciplinary firm covering all Prichard Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners opportunities presented. T 020 7820 0388 Consultancy Unit, Central Business appraisals, town centre studies, aspects of Masterplanning, urban 9 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ Ltd Novell Tullett E landscape.architecture@grontmij. Exchange, design guidance, public participation regeneration, public realm design, T 020 7377 9262 14 Regent’s Wharf, All Saints Street, 18 Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RH Garsdale Design Limited co.uk 414-428 Midsummer Boulevard, and Masterplanning. environmental impact and community E [email protected] London N1 9RL T 0117 922 7887 High Branthwaites, Frostrow, C Lindsey Whitelaw Milton Keynes MK9 EA involvement. W www.mjparchitects.co.uk T 020 7837 4477 E [email protected] Sedbergh, Cumbria, LA10 5JR LEEDS T 01908 692692 Kay Elliott C Liz Pride E [email protected] W www.novelltullett.co.uk T 015396 20875 16 Globe Road, Leeds LS11 5QG E louisewyman@englishpartnerships. 5-7 Meadfoot Road, Torquay, Devon Levitt Bernstein Major masterplans to small, bespoke W www.nlpplanning.com C Maddy Hine E [email protected] T 0113 237 7200 co.uk TQ1 2JP Associates Ltd buildings. Acclaimed contemporary C Nick Thompson Urban design, landscape W www.garsdaledesign.co.uk C Guy Denton C Louise Wyman T 01803 213553 1 Kingsland Passage, London E8 2BB buildings designed for historic Also at Newcastle upon Tyne and architecture and environmental C Derrick Hartley Urban regeneration, streetscape E [email protected] T 020 7275 7676 centres of London, Cambridge, Cardiff planning. GDL provides Masterplanning and design, public space, high HTA Architects Ltd W www.kayelliott.co.uk E [email protected] Oxford, Bristol and Durham. Urban design, Masterplanning, urban design, architecture and quality residential and corporate 106-110 Kentish Town Road, C Mark Jones W www.levittbernstein.co.uk heritage/conservation, visual Paul Davis & Partners heritage services developed through landscapes. Facilitators in public London NW1 9PX International studio with 30 year C Glyn Tully Macgregor Smith Ltd appraisal, regeneration, daylight/ Mozart Terrace, 178 Ebury Street 25 years wide ranging experience in participation. T 020 7485 8555 history of imaginative architects Urban design, Masterplanning, full Christopher Hse, 11-12 High St, sunlight assessments, public realm London, SW1W 8UP the UK and Middle East. E [email protected] and urban designers, creating architectural service, lottery grant Bath BA1 5AQ strategies. T 020 7730 1178 Halcrow Group Ltd C James Lord/Sally Lewis buildings and places that enhance bid advice, interior design, urban T 01225 464690 E [email protected] Globe Consultants Ltd Elms House, 43 Brook Green W www.hta-arch.co.uk their surroundings and add financial renewal consultancy and landscape E [email protected] New Masterplanning Limited W www.pauldavisandpartners.com 26 Westgate, Lincoln LN1 3BD Hammersmith, London W6 7EF Design-led housing and value. design. W www.macgregorsmith.co.uk 2nd Floor, 107 Bournemouth Road, C Pedro Roos T 01522 546483 T 020 3479 8000 regeneration consultancy offering C Michael Smith Poole, Dorset BH14 9HR New Urbanist approach establishing E [email protected] F 020 3479 8001 inter-disciplinary services including Land Use Consultants LHC Urban Design A broad based landscape/urban T 01202 742228 a capital framework with a C Steve Kemp E [email protected] architecture, Masterplanning, urban 43 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD Design Studio, Emperor Way, Exeter design practice with particular E [email protected] subsequent incremental approach. W www.globelimited.co.uk W www.halcrow.com design, graphic design, landscape T 020 7383 5784 Business Park, Exeter, Devon EX1 3QS emphasis on high quality prestige W www.newMasterplanning.com Bridging the divide between urban Provides urban design, planning, C Robert Schmidt design, sustainability and planning. E [email protected] T 01392 444334 landscape schemes. C Andy Ward design and architecture. economic and cultural development Asad Shaheed C Luke Greysmith E [email protected] Our skills combine strategic planning services across the UK and Award winning consultancy, Hyland Edgar Driver GLASGOW C John Baulch Malcolm Moor Urban Design with detailed implementation, Paul Drew Design Ltd internationally, specialising in integrating planning, transport and One Wessex Way, Colden Common, 37 Otago Street, Glasgow G12 8JJ Urban designers, architects and 27 Ock Mill Close, Abingdon design flair with economic rigour, 23-25 Great Sutton Street sustainable development solutions, environment. Full development cycle Winchester, Hants SO21 1WG T 0141 334 9595 landscape architects, providing an Oxon OX14 1SP independent thinking with a London EC1V 0DN masterplanning and regeneration. covering feasibility, concept, design T 01962 711 600 E [email protected] integrated approach to strategic T 01235 550122 partnership approach. T 020 7017 1785 and implementation. E [email protected] C Martin Tabor visioning, regeneration, urban E [email protected] E [email protected] Gillespies W www.heduk.com Urban regeneration, landscape renewal, Masterplanning and W www.moorud.com Nicholas Pearson W www.pauldrewdesign.co.uk Environment by Design Hankinson Duckett C John Hyland design, masterplanning, sustainable public realm projects. Creative, C Malcolm Moor Associates C Paul Drew GLASGOW Associates Innovative problem solving, driven development, environmental knowledgeable, practical, Master planning of new communities, 30 Brock Street, Bath BA1 2LN Masterplanning, urban design, 21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP The Stables, Howberry Park, Benson by cost efficiency and sustainability, planning, environmental assessment, passionate. urban design, residential, urban T 01225 445548 residential and mixed use design. T 0141 420 8200 Lane, Wallingford OX10 8BA combined with imagination and landscape planning and capacity and ecofitting studies, E [email protected] Creative use of design codes and E [email protected] T 01491 838 175 coherent aesthetic of the highest management. Offices also in Bristol Livingston Eyre Associates design involvement with major W www.npaconsult.co.uk other briefing material. C Brian M Evans E [email protected] quality. and Edinburgh. 35-42 Charlotte Road, international projects. C Simon Kale MANCHESTER C Brian Duckett London EC2A 3PG Masterplanning, public realm The Paul Hogarth Company T 0161 928 7715 An approach which adds value Jacobs Lathams T 020 7739 1445 Matrix Partnership design, streetscape analysis, Unit 3 Potters Quay, 5 Ravenhill Road E [email protected] through innovative solutions. Tower Bridge Court, 224-226 Tower St Michael’s, Queen Street, Derby DE1 F 020 7729 2986 17 Bowling Green Lane, concept and detail designs. Also full Belfast BT6 8DN C Jim Gibson Development planning, new Bridge Road, London SE1 2UP 3SU E [email protected] London EC1R 0QB landscape architecture service, EIA, T 028 9073 6690 OXFORD settlements, environmental T 020 7939 1375 T 01332 365777 C Laura Stone T 0845 313 7668 green infrastructure, ecology and E [email protected] T 01865 326789 assessment, re-use of redundant E [email protected] E [email protected] Landscape architecture, urban E [email protected] biodiversity, environmental planning W www.paulhogarth.com E [email protected] buildings. W www.jacobs.com C Derek Latham/ Jon Phipps design, public housing, health, C Matt Lally and management. C James Hennessey C Paul F Taylor C Dan Bone Urban regeneration. The creative education, heritage, sports. W www.matrixpartnership.co.uk EDINBURGH Urban design, landscape Hawkins\Brown Multidisciplinary urban design, reuse of land and buildings. Masterplans, regeneration strategies, Nicoll Russell Studios Bankhead Steading, Bankhead Road, architecture, architecture, planning, 60 Bastwick Street, London EC1V 3TN Masterplanning and architecture as Planning, landscape and Liz Lake Associates development briefs, site appraisals, 111 King Street, Broughty Ferry Edinburgh EH30 9TF environmental assessment, T 020 7336 8030 part of the integrated services of a architectural expertise combining the Western House, Chapel Hill urban capacity studies, design Dundee DD5 1EL T 0131 331 4811 planning supervisors and project E [email protected] national consultancy. new with the old. Stansted Mountfitchet guides, building codes and concept T 01382 778966 E [email protected] management. W www.hawkinsbrown.co.uk Essex CM24 8AG visualisations. E [email protected] Integrated urban design and C David Bickle JMP Consultants T 01279 647044 W www.nrsarchitects.com landscape architecture practice, Multi-disciplinary architecture and 8th Floor, 3 Harbour Exchange Square E [email protected] Melville Dunbar Associates C Willie Watt providing Masterplanning, urban design practice specialising in London E14 9GE W www.lizlake.com Studio 2, Griggs Business Centre Design led masterplanning and regeneration and public realm mixed-use regeneration, educational T 020 7536 8040 C Matt Lee West Street, Coggeshall, Essex CO6 1NT town centre studies which seek to consultancy to the public and private Masterplanning, sustainable rural E [email protected] Urban fringe/brownfield sites where T 01376 562828 provide holistic solutions to complex sectors. development frameworks, transport W www.jmp.co.uk an holistic approach to urban design, E [email protected] challenges, creating sustainable infrastructure and public urban realm C Riccardo Bobisse landscape, and ecological issues C Melville Dunbar ‘joined up’ and enjoyable design. Integrating transport, planning and can provide robust design solutions. Architecture, urban design, planning, communities. engineering, development planning, Masterplanning, new towns, urban urban design, environmental regeneration, conservation studies, assessment, water and drainage design guides, townscape studies, throughout the U.K. design briefs.

52 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 53 Practice Index Practice Index

PD Lane Associates Pollard Thomas Edwards Random Greenway SAVILLS (L&P) LIMITED Sheppard Robson studio | REAL Tibbalds Planning & Urban Urban Initiatives 1 Church Road, Greystones, Architects Architects Lansdowne House, 57 Berkeley Square 77 Parkway, Camden Town, 59-63 High Street, Kidlington, Oxford Design 1 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 5HE County Wicklow, Ireland Diespeker Wharf 38, Graham Street, Soper Hall, Harestone Valley Road London W1J 6ER London NW1 7PU OX5 2DN 19 Maltings Place, 169 Tower Bridge T 020 7380 4545 T 00 353 1287 6697 London N1 8JX Caterham Surrey CR3 6HY T 020 7353 0202 T 020 7504 1700 T 01865 377 030 Road, London SE1 3JB E [email protected] E [email protected] T 020 7336 7777 T 01883 346 441 E [email protected] E charles.scott@sheppardrobson. E [email protected] T 020 7089 2121 W www.urbaninitiatives.co.uk C Malcolm Lane [email protected] E rg@randomgreenwayarchitects. W www.savills.com com W www.studioreal.co.uk E [email protected] C Kelvin Campbell Urban design, architecture and W www.ptea.co.uk co.uk C Ben van Bruggen W www.sheppardrobson.com C Roger Evans W www.tibbalds.co.uk Urban design, transportation, planning consultancy, specialising C Robin Saha-Choudhury C R Greenway SOUTHAMPTON C Charles Scott Urban regeneration, quarter C Andrew Karski regeneration, development planning. in Masterplanning, development Liverpool Architecture, planning and urban 2 Charlotte Place, Manchester frameworks and design briefs, town Expertise in Masterplanning frameworks, site layouts, Unit S204, Second Floor, Merchants design. New build, regeneration, Southampton SO14 0TB 27th Floor, City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza centre strategies, movement in towns, and urban design, sustainable Urban Innovations applications, appeals, project co- Court, Derby Square, Liverpool L2 1TS refurbishment and restoration. T 02380 713900 Manchester M1 4BD Masterplanning and development regeneration, development 1st Floor, Wellington Buildings, ordination. T 0151 703 2220 E [email protected] T 0161 233 8900 economics. frameworks and design guidance, 2 Wellington Street, Belfast BT16HT E [email protected] Richard Coleman C Peter Frankum Planners, urban designers and design advice. T 028 9043 5060 PEGASUS C Roo Humpherson Citydesigner Offices throughout the World architects. Strategic planning, urban Taylor Young Urban Design E [email protected] Pegasus House, Querns Business Masterplanners, urban designers, 14 Lower Grosvenor Place, Savills Urban Design creates value regeneration, development planning, Chadsworth House, Wilmslow Road, Townscape Solutions C Tony Stevens/ Agnes Brown Centre, Whitworth Road, Cirencester developers, architects, listed building London SW1W 0EX from places and places of value. town centre renewal, new settlement Handforth, Cheshire SK9 3HP 128 Park Road, Smethwick, West The partnership provides not only GL7 1RT and conservation area designers; T 020 7630 4880 Masterplanning, urban design, planning. T 01625 542200 Midlands, B67 5HT feasibility studies and assists in site T 0128 564 1717 specialising in inner city mixed-use E [email protected] design coding, urban design advice, E [email protected] T 0121 429 6111 assembly for complex projects but E [email protected] high density regeneration. C Lisa Gainsborough planning, commercial guidance. Smeeden Foreman C Stephen Gleave E [email protected] also full architectural services for W www.pegasuspg.co.uk Advice on architectural quality, Partnership Liverpool W www.townscapesolutions.co.uk major projects. C Mike Carr Powell Dobson Urbanists urban design, and conservation, Saunders Partnership 8 East Parade, Harrogate HG1 JLT T 0151 702 6500 C Kenny Brown Masterplanning, design and Charterhouse, Links Business Park historic buildings and townscape. Studio Four, 37 Broadwater Road, T 01423 520 222 Urban design, planning and Specialist urban design practice URBED (Urban and Economic access statements, design codes, St Mellons, Cardiff CF3 0LT Environmental statements, listed Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL7 3AX E [email protected] development. Town studies, housing, offering a wide range of services Development Group) sustainable design, development T 029 2079 9699 buildings/area consent applications. T 01707 385 300 C Trevor Foreman commercial, distribution, health and including masterplans, site layouts, Manchester briefs, development frameworks, E [email protected] E martin.williams@sandersarchitects. Ecology, landscape architecture transportation. Specialist in urban design briefs, design and access 10 Little Lever Street, expert witness, community W www.powelldobsonurbanists.com Richards Partington com and urban design. Environmental design training. statements, expert witness and 3D Manchester M1 1HR involvement, sustainability appraisal. C James Brown Unit 1, 12 Orsman Road C Martin Williams assessment, detailed design, illustrations. T 0161 200 5500 Offices at Cirencester, Birmingham, Masterplanning, design frameworks, London N1 5QJ contract packages and site Terence O’Rourke LTD E [email protected] Bristol, Nottingham, Leeds, Bracknell design codes, town centre strategies, T 020 7033 4422 Scott Brownrigg Ltd supervision. Everdene House, Deansleigh Road, TP bennett LLP W www.urbed.co.uk and Cambridge. housing renewal. A commitment to E [email protected] St Catherines Court, 46-48 Portsmouth Bournemouth BH7 7DU One America Street, London SE1 0NE C David Rudlin people, places, sustainability, design C Simon Bradbury Road, Guildford GU2 4DU Soltys: Brewster Consulting T 01202 421142 T 020 7208 2029 London Philip Cave Associates and delivery. W www.rparchitects.co.uk T 01483 568 686 4 Stangate House, Stanwell Road, E [email protected] E [email protected] 26 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8HR 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ Urban design, housing, retail, E [email protected] Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan CF64 2AA W www.torltd.co.uk C Mike Ibbott T 020 7436 8050 T 020 7250 0077 Pringle Brandon Drew education, sustainability and W www.scottbrownrigg.com T 029 2040 8476 Town planning, Masterplanning, Development planning, urban Urban design and guidance, E [email protected] 10 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4QJ commercial projects that take C Luan Deda E [email protected] urban design, architecture, design, conservation and Masterplanning, sustainability, W www.philipcave.com T 020 7466 1000 a responsible approach to the Integrated service of architecture, W www.soltysbrewster.co.uk landscape architecture, Masterplanning – making places consultation and capacity building, C Philip Cave E pbmarketing@pringle-brandon. environment and resources. urban design, planning, C Simon Brewster environmental consultancy, complex and adding value through creative, housing, town centres and Design-led practice with innovative co.uk Masterplanning, involved in several Urban design, masterplans, urban design problems. progressive, dynamic and joyful regeneration. yet practical solutions to C John Drew Richard Reid & Associates mixed-use schemes regenerating design strategies, visual impact, exploration. environmental opportunities in urban Offices, hotels, workplace design. Whitely Farm, Ide Hill, Sevenoaks, inner city and brownfield sites. environmental assessment, Terra Firma Consultancy URS/SCOTT WILSON ltd regeneration. Specialist expertise in Kent TN14 6BS regeneration of urban space, Cedar Court, 5 College Road Turley Associates 6-8 Greencoat Place landscape architecture. Project Centre Ltd T 01732 741417 Scott Tallon Walker landscape design and project Petersfield GU31 4AE 25 Savile Row, London W1S 2ES London SW1P 1PL Saffron Court, 14b St Cross Street, E [email protected] Architects management. T 01730 262040 T 020 7851 4010 T 020 7798 5137 PLANIT i.e. LTD London EC1N 8XA C Richard Reid 19 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 E contact@terrafirmaconsultancy. E [email protected] E [email protected] The Planit Group, 2 Back Grafton Street T 020 7421 8222 T 00 353 1 669 3000 spacehub com W www.turleyassocaiates.co.uk W www.urs-scottwilson.com Altrincham, Cheshire WA14 1DY E [email protected] Roger Griffiths Associates E [email protected] Anchor Brewhouse, C Lionel Fanshawe C Matt Quayle (Head of Urban Design) C Ben Castell T 0161 928 9281 W www.projectcentre.co.uk 4 Regent Place, Rugby W www.stwarchitects.com 50 Shad Thames, London SE1 2LY Independent landscape architectural Offices also in Belfast, Birmingham, Also at Birmingham, Leeds, E [email protected] C David Moores Warwickshire CV21 2PN C Philip Jackson T 020 7234 9831 practice with considerable urban Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Plymouth W www.planit-ie.com Landscape architecture, public realm T 01788 540040 Award winning international practice E [email protected] design experience at all scales from Leeds, Manchester and Southampton. Urban design, planning, landscape, C Peter Swift design, urban regeneration, street E [email protected] covering all aspects of architecture, W www.spacehubdesign.com EIA to project delivery throughout UK UKintegrated urban design, economic and architectural Public realm solutions informed by lighting design, planning supervision, W www.rgalandscape.com urban design and planning. C Giles Charlton and overseas. masterplanning, sustainability design expertise supported by robust urban design. We create traffic and transportation, parking C Roger Griffiths spacehub is a newly established and heritage services provided comprehensive multidisciplinary quality spaces for people to live, and highway design. A quality assured landscape Shaffrey Associates design studio, specialising in Terry Farrell and Partners at all project stages and scales skills. work, play and enjoy. consultancy offering landscape 29 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1 landscape and urban design, which 7 Hatton Street, London NW8 8PL of development. Services include Quartet Design architecture, land use T 00 353 1872 5602 is passionate and committed to T 020 7258 3433 visioning, townscape analysis, Vincent and Gorbing Ltd +Plus Urban Design Ltd The Exchange, Lillingstone Dayrell, planning, urban design, project E [email protected] collaborative working and creative E [email protected] design guides and public realm Sterling Court, Norton Road, Spaceworks, Benton Park Road Bucks MK18 5AP implementation, EIA and expert C Gráinne Shaffrey thinking. W www.terryfarrell.com resolution Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2JY Newcastle upon Tyne NE7 7LX T 01280 860500 witness services. Urban conservation and design, with C Max Farrell T 01438 316331 T 0844 800 6660 E [email protected] a particular commitment to the Spawforths Architectural, urban design, planning Tweed Nuttall Warburton E urban.designers@vincent-gorbing. E [email protected] C David Newman RPS regeneration of historic urban Junction 41 Business Court, East and Masterplanning services. Chapel House, City Road, co.uk W www.plusud.co.uk Landscape architects, architects and Bristol, Cambridge, London, Newark, centres, small towns and villages, Ardsley, Leeds WF3 2AB New buildings, refurbishment, Chester CH1 3AE W www.vincent-gorbing.co.uk C Richard Charge / Tony Wyatt urban designers. Masterplanning, Southampton & Swindon including new development. T 01924 873873 conference/exhibition centres and T 01244 310388 C Richard Lewis Specialist practice providing strate- hard landscape projects in urban T 0800 587 9939 E [email protected] visitor attractions. E [email protected] Masterplanning, design statements, gic masterplanning, urban design areas achieving environmental E [email protected] Sheils Flynn Ltd W www.spawforth.co.uk W www.tnw-architecture.co.uk character assessments, development guidance, analysis, character sustainability. W www.rpsgroup.com Bank House High Street, Docking, C Adrian Spawforth Tetlow King C John Tweed briefs, residential layouts and urban assessment and independent design Part of the RPS Group providing a Kings Lynn PE31 8NH Urbanism with planners and Lone Barn Studios, Stanbridge Lane Architecture and urban design, capacity exercises. advisory expertise. Randall Thorp wide range of urban design services T 01485 518304 architects specialising in Romsey SO51 0HE Masterplanning. Urban waterside Canada House, 3 Chepstow Street, including Masterplanning and E [email protected] Masterplanning, community T 01794 517333 environments. Community teamwork West & Partners Pod Manchester M1 5FW development frameworks, design C Eoghan Sheils engagement, visioning and E [email protected] enablers. Visual impact assessments. Isambard House, 60 Weston Street, 99 Galgate,Barnard Castle, T 0161 228 7721 guides and statements. Award winning town centre development frameworks. W www.tetlowking.co.uk London SE1 3QJ Co Durham DL12 8ES E [email protected] regeneration schemes, urban C Gary Rider Urban Design Futures T 020 7403 1726 T 0845 872 7288 C Pauline Randall Rummey Design Associates strategies and design guidance. Stuart Turner Associates Award winning multi-disciplinary 97c West Bow, Edinburgh EH1 2JP E [email protected] E [email protected] Masterplanning for new South Park Studios, South Park, Specialists in community consultation 12 Ledbury, Great Linford, practice encompassing architecture, T 0131 226 4505 C Michael West W www.designbypod.co.uk developments and settlements, Sevenoaks Kent TN13 1AN and team facilitation. Milton Keynes MK14 5DS urban design, masterplanning, E [email protected] Masterplanning within the C Andy Dolby infrastructure design and urban T 01732 743753 T 01908 678672 design coding, regeneration, W www.urbandesignfutures.co.uk creative interpretation of socio- Newcastle renewal, design guides and design C Robert Rummey Shepheard Epstein Hunter E [email protected] development frameworks, C Selby Richardson economic, physical and political 10 Summerhill Terrace, briefing, public participation. Masterplanning, urban design, Phoenix Yard, 65 King’s Cross Road, W www.studiost.co.uk sustainable design/planning and Innovative urban design, planning urban parametres: retail, leisure, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 6EB landscape architecture, architecture, London WC1X 9LW C Stuart Turner construction. Residential and and landscape practice specialising commercial, residential. C Craig van Bedaf environmental consultancy. T 020 7841 7500 Architecture, urban design and retirement care specialists. in Masterplanning, new settlements, Masterplanning, site appraisal, Responsible place-making that E [email protected] environmental planning, the urban regeneration, town and village layout and architectural design. considers social, environmental and C Steven Pidwill design of new settlements, urban studies. Development frameworks, urban economic issues. SEH is a user-friendly, award- regeneration and site development regeneration, design codes, briefs winning architects firm, known for studies. and design and access statements. its work in regeneration, education, housing, Masterplanning, mixed-use and healthcare projects.

54 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 Issue 121 – Winter 2012 – Urban Design — 55 Practice Index / Education Index

WestWaddy: ADP Education Index Oxford Brookes University University of Strathclyde The Malthouse, 60 East St. Helen Joint Centre for Urban Design, Department of Architecture, Street, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5EB ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY Headington, Oxford OX3 0BP Urban Design Studies Unit, T 01235 523139 Department of the Built Environment T 01865 483403 131 Rottenrow, Glasgow G4 ONG E [email protected] Faculty of Science & Technology C Georgia Butina-Watson/ T 0141 548 4219 W westwaddy-adp.co.uk Faculty Building, Rivermead Campus Alan Reeve E [email protected] C Philip Waddy Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ Diploma in Urban Design, six months W www.udsu-strath.com Experienced and multi-disciplinary T 0845 196 3952/3962 full time or 18 months part time. MA C Ombretta Romice team of urban designers, architects E [email protected] / one year full-time or two years part- The Postgraduate Course in Urban and town planners offering a full [email protected] time. Design is offered in CPD,Diploma and range of urban design services. W www.anglia.ac.uk/urbandesign MSc modes. The course is design C Gil Lewis / Dellé Odeleye University College London centred and includes input from a White Consultants Graduate Diploma in Urban Design & Development Planning Unit, variety of related disciplines. Enterprise House, 127-129 Bute Street Place Shaping. Innovative, one year, 34 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9EZ Cardiff CF10 5LE workplace-based course. Developed T 020 7679 1111 University of the West of T 029 2043 7841 to enable built environment E [email protected] England, Bristol E [email protected] professionals to better understand, C Camillo Boano Faculty of the Built Environment, W www.whiteconsultants.co.uk design and deliver great places. MSc in Building and Urban Design Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, C Simon White in Development. Exploring the Bristol BS16 1QY A holistic approach to urban Cardiff University agency of design in coordinating T 0117 328 3508 regeneration, design guidance, Welsh School of Architecture and organisational and spatial strategies C Janet Askew public realm and open space School of City & Regional Planning, in moving toward cohesive, just, and MA/Postgraduate Diploma course in strategies and town centre studies Glamorgan Building, King Edward V11 sustainable development at both Urban Design. Part time two days per for the public, private and community Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA the architectural and urban scales fortnight for two years, or individual sectors. T 029 2087 5972/029 2087 5961 in contested urbanisms of the Global programme of study. Project-based E [email protected] South. 1 year full time or 2-5 years course addressing urban design Willmore Iles Architects Ltd [email protected] part time. issues, abilities and environments. 267 Hotwell Road, Bristol BS8 4SF W www.cardiff.ac.uk/cplan/ma_ T 0117 945 0962 urbandesign University of Greenwich University of Westminster E [email protected] C Allison Dutoit/Marga Munar Bauza School of Architecture & Construction, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS W www.willmoreiles.com One year full-time and two year part- Avery Hill Campus, Mansion Site, T 020 7911 5000 x3341 C Andrew Iles time MA in Urban Design. Bexley Road, Eltham, London SE9 2PQ E [email protected] Architecture, town planning, urban T 020 8331 9100/ 9135 C Bill Erickson design, campus development Edinburgh College of Art W www.gre.ac.uk/schools/arc MA or Diploma Course in Urban frameworks. Architects and urban School of Architecture C Duncan Berntsen Design for postgraduate architects, designers with specialisms in Lauriston Place, Edinburgh EH3 9DF MA in Urban Design for postgraduate town planners, landscape architects education and student residential T 0131 221 6175/6072 architecture and landscape and related disciplines. One year full design. W www.eca.ac.uk/index.php?id=523 students, full time and part time with time or two years part time. C Leslie Forsyth credit accumulation transfer system. WYG Planning & Design Diploma in Architecture and Urban Floor 5, Longcross Court, 47 Newport Design, nine months full-time. University of Newcastle Road, Cardiff, CF24 0AD Diploma in Urban Design, nine upon Tyne T 029 2082 9200 months full time or 21 months part- Department of Architecture, Claremont E [email protected] time. MSc in Urban Design, 12 months Tower, University of Newcastle, W www.wyg.com full-time or 36 months parttime. MPhil Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU C Jonathan Vining and PhD, by research full and part- T 0191 222 6004 Creative urban design and master time. C Georgia Giannopoulou planning with a contextual approach MA/Diploma in Urban Design. Joint to place-making and a concern for Leeds Metropolitan programme in Dept of Architecture environmental, social and economic University and Dept of Town and Country sustainability. School of Architecture Landscape Planning. Full time or part time, & Design, Broadcasting Place, Arts integrating knowledge and skills Yellow Book Ltd Building, Woodhouse Lane, from town planning, architecture, 39/2 Gardner’s Crescent Leeds LS2 9EN landscape. Edinburgh EH3 8DG T 0113 812 1717 T 0131 229 0179 E [email protected] University of Salford E [email protected] W www.leedsmet.ac.uk/courses/la The School of the Built Environment, W www.yellowbookltd.com C Edwin Knighton 4th Floor Maxwell Building, C John Lord Master of Arts in Urban Design Salford M5 4WT Place-making, urban regeneration consists of one year full time or T 0161 295 4600 and economic development involving two years part time or individual E [email protected] creative and cultural industries, programme of study. Shorter W www.sobe.salford.ac.uk tourism and labour market research. programmes lead to Post Graduate C Julia Cannon Diploma/Certificate. Project based MSc Urban Design develops course focusing on the creation of physical digital design expertise sustainable environments through in sustainable design and policy. interdisciplinary design. Suitable for architecture and urban planning graduates and London South Bank practitioners. University Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, University of Sheffield 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA School of Architecture, The Arts Tower, T 020 7815 7353 Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN C Bob Jarvis T 0114 222 0341 MA Urban Design (one year full E [email protected] time/two years part time) or PG Cert W www.shef.ac.uk/architecture/ Planning based course including study/pgschool/taught_masters/ units on place and performance, maud sustainable cities as well as project C Florian Kossak based work and EU study visit. Part of One year full time MA in Urban RTPI accredited programme. Design for postgraduate architects, landscape architects and town planners. The programme has a strong design focus, integrates participation and related design processes, and includes international and regional applications.

56 — Urban Design – Winter 2012 – Issue 121 EndpieceNews

Above all, landscape years). Since then, the idea of the viaduct’s The viaduct does not require to be reanimation has occasionally surfaced, and transformed all at once. An initial interven- as a result it is now included in the Big City tion could open up a small part of it– we Plan as a proposed linear park. have an idea for using it for a film festival The 160 year old structure has persisted next year. This would establish the idea of The Great Western Railway line between – industry has burrowed into its arches, a a new public space, a new destination, one Birmingham and London shoulders its way jungle of native flora grows on top, and it per- with a unique spatial relationship with the through Digbeth on a big blue brick viaduct. forms something of the function of a Lynchian city, which could grow and be established Branching off it is the Duddeston Viaduct, an edge as it articulates the industrial quarter incrementally. The Viaduc Daumesnil and historical curiosity. It is not only unfinished, it marches through. Now a colleague has the High Line pass between taller buildings, but never used – a train has never run along bought it on a 999 year lease. Work that out and one can stroll along and enjoy peering it. Its history is confused, and there are – it is his until the year 3008. His intentions into people’s second-floor windows. The contradictory accounts of how and why the towards the viaduct are rather unspecific – scale of buildings in Digbeth is smaller, and viaduct was built. One version: it was built well, there is plenty of time to decide. To help from the top of the viaduct views are largely in the 1840s for the Birmingham and Oxford him, earlier this year I ran a design project uninterrupted. 1960s planners’ fantasies of Junction Railway, as a result of a deal done with four students from the Birmingham MA high-level pedestrian walkways proved to be with the London and North Western Railway Urban Design course, setting them the task thoroughly impractical and unpleasant (the to share its Birmingham terminus at Curzon of proposing a future for the viaduct which fragment built in Bristol comes to mind). But Street. But the viaduct never reached there, makes it an attractive public asset. They pedestrians replacing railway trains (even as LNWR meanwhile closed Curzon Street, proposed housing, sculpture parks, cinemas, if only trains that never existed) on top of and bypassed the station to lead to a new studios, but above all (literally), space for robust 19th century engineering, and strolling city centre station at New Street. The Dud- people to wander through a landscape and through gardens and public art, surveying deston Viaduct met the new line at a right enjoy extensive views over the rooftops. the distant horizon, is an idea both practical angle, and stopped dead. There are three wonderful precedents and delightful. What to do with the viaduct has for 30 which we discussed. In Paris there is the park Joe Holyoak years been a personal project for me. In of Viaduc Daumesnil (La Promenade Plantée) • 1979 I made a design for building student near the Bastille. More recently in New York housing and pocket parks on top, reached by there is the celebrated High Line, whose staircases and lifts, and threaded together by second phase opened in June 2011. And near walkways. It was a winner in the 1980 Art into Dumfries there is Charles Jencks’ and Mag- Landscape 3 design competition organised gie Keswick’s Garden of Scottish Worthies, by the Arts Council (a wonderful and populist on the disused railway viaduct which runs annual event, which sadly ran for only three through their garden. 30 years

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