urban design ISSN 0266-6480 Suburbia Viewpoints: Holistic Housing Re:Urbanism Research: Movement Corridors Case Study: Forward Yorkshire Urban Design QuarterlyUrban The Journal the Urban of Design Group / Issue 86 Spring 2003 Topic: 2 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

MAIN CONTRIBUTORS REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

UDAL Urban Design School Christine Carr Derek Abbott UDAL This event planned to be held in Urban morphologist and Lecturer in Architect and Planner involved in Birmingham over a three day the Department of Planning and consultancy, writing and teaching. period in April has been Landscape, University of NEWS postponed. It is now hoped to Manchester John Billingham organise it for the Autumn this year. Architect and Planner, formerly David Chapman, I Dickins, A Director of Design and Urban Design Week 2003 A Letchworth Centenary Dixon, Peter Larkham and Development at Milton Keynes This will be held from September Conference will be held on the Dick Pratt Development Corporation. 15th to 21st. The theme for the 24th and 25th October 2003 At the University of Central UDAL Conference has been with UDAL involvement. One England, Professor David Tim Catchpole proposed as the next generation possibility is to hold Placechecks Chapman is an architect, planner Associate Director of Halcrow in its of urban designers – Tomorrows on different types of space within and landscape architect,Ian Development Planning International People – a focus on people Letchworth. Dickins is a Principal Lecturer team. rather than places. sponsored by CENTRO, Andrew Prescott’s Programme Dixon is a Senior Lecturer in Richard Cole Newcastle/Gateshead could be a UDAL has welcomed the deputy Housing, Peter Larkham is an urban Architect and Planner, formerly possible location working in prime minister’s action programme geographer and Reader in Director of Planning and conjunction with the University. Sustainable Communities: Building Planning and Dick Pratt is a Senior Architecture at The Commission for for the Future because of the Lecturer with a background in New Towns. Government’s commitment to geography and sociology. Design Champions linking housing with regeneration, Rob Cowan Each RDA has been asked to transport and public services, and Martin Crookston Director of the Urban Design nominate Design Champions for to its recognition that good urban Urban economist and planner, and Group, head of the UDAL their area by April 2003. UDAL design is a key to making a director of Llewelyn-Davies, Secretariat and joint project will be investigating how successful places. responsible for the economic, manager of the Placechecks professional bodies can support environment, transport, tourism and Initiative. these champions and what UDAL’s UDAL welcomed the £41 million planning policy fields. role can be. The UDAL objective promised to drive up the quality of Peter Eley of setting up interdisciplinary skills and urban design as it has Roger Evans Architect in private practice events in the regions could consistently made the case for Architect, chartered town planner specialising in the re-use of dovetail with this initiative. urban design to be an essential and urban designer. buildings. element in the training of a wide Micro Initiatives range of professionals. Too many Wayne and Gerardine Bob Jarvis UDAL projects on micro decisions shaping the urban Hemingway Course Director for the initiatives carried out by small environment are made by people Fashion designers of the chain Red postgraduate planning programme self supporting groups such as working in isolation, who is Dead, following which their at South Bank University, London. Designing Streets for People understand little beyond their criticism of the volume housing can have a major impact in narrow specialisms about how to scene led to their being employed Sebastian Loew catalysing other actions. A make villages, towns and cities by Wimpey on a riverside site in Architect and Planner, writer and design manual on urban streets work for people. Gateshead. consultant, teaching at the may follow. The street Universities of Westminster and excellence model seems to be UDAL will work with the government Terry Schwarz Reading. gathering momentum as a in promoting collaboration between Senior Planner at the Kent State means of coordinating street professions, and in making the work University’s Urban Design Center of Jon Rowland management. of the specialists directly relevant to Northeast Ohio. Architect and Urban Designer, runs the lives of the people whose Jon Rowland Urban Design. Research Project environments they are shaping. Alan Simpson UDAL is examining possible topics Architect and Urbanist and Head Judith Ryser for a research study which could UDAL supports the Government’s of Urban Renaissance at Yorkshire Researcher, journalist and writer on look at a one stop shop for people intention to deliver its programme Forward. environmental and design issues. who commission urban design or at a regional level. It offers to help could examine the business case promote the essential collaboration John Worthington for urban design. between different professionals Founder of DEGW, an regionally to target action international design and planning Errata Skills effectively where it is most needed. consultancy concerned with the The review of the Liverpool Ideas being considered include: workplace and its urban context. Conference - Creating Successful 21st Century Cities which • Commissioning CPD courses appeared in UDQ 85 pages 6-7 across the professions was credited to Dr Rob UDAL web site: MacDonald. However the original • Foundation Courses in Urban www.udal.org.uk Websites text was prepared by Dr Rob Design for all environmental The Urban Design Group provides Urban Design Group Website: MacDonald, Dr Athanassiose courses the secretariat for UDAL. It can be www.udg.org.uk Migos and Professor Mads contacted by fax and phone on The Resource for Urban Design Gaardboe. The photos are the • Core resources in urban design 020 7251 5529 and by email on Information (RUDI): www.rudi.net copyright of Dr Athanassiose teaching [email protected] UDAL website: www.udal.org.uk Migos. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 3

CONTENTS

Enquiries and change of address: Cover Email [email protected] Newhall neighbourhood, Harlow, looking towards UDG Administrator: Grace Wheatley the neighbourhood centre. By Roger Evans Associates 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ News and events Tel: 020 7250 0892/Fax: 020 7250 0872 Leader 4 Director’s Column UDG Director: Robert Cowan Tall Buildings Conference 5 Tel: 020 7250 0872 Urban Design and Regeneration in Hastings 6 Email: [email protected] Centralisation versus Dispersal 7 Re:Urbanism Chairman Alan Stones Walking Plan for London 8

Patrons Letters Alan Baxter Ann Petherick 9 Tom Bloxham Simon Rix Sir Terry Farrell Philip Stringer Nicky Gavron Dickon Robinson Viewpoints Les Sparks Holistic Housing, Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway 10 John Worthington Re:Urbanism, Part 2 13

UDG Regional Activities Topic Suburbia: A Challenge to Prejudice Regional convenors: Introduction, Richard Cole 15 16 Scotland Leslie Forsyth 0131 221 6175 Processes and Issues, Christine Carr 20 Northern Ireland Barrie Todd 01232 245587 Richard Rogers has a Plan for You, Martin Crookston 24 North Bill Tavernor 0191 222 6015 A View from the USA, Terry Schwarz 27 Yorks/Humber Lindsay Smales 0113 283 2600 Urbanism on the Edge, John Worthington 31 North West Chris Standish 01254 587272 Newhall, Harlow, Roger Evans West Midlands Peter Larkham 0121 331 5145 Research East Midlands Nigel Wakefield 0116 252 7262 Movement Corridors, Urban Form and Urban Design, South Richard Crutchley 01793 466 476 D Chapman, I Dickins, A Dixon, P Larkham and D Pratt 36 South Wales Sam Romaya 02920 701150 East Anglia Elizabeth Moon 01245 437646 Case Study Towards Urban Renaissance, Alan Simpson 38 Editorial Board Book Reviews Derek Abbott Reinventing the Skyscraper, Ken Yeang 40 John Billingham Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment, LI & IEMA Matthew Carmona Planning for a Sustainable Future, A Layard, S Davoudi & S Batty 41 Tim Catchpole After the World Trade Center, M Sorkin & S Zukin Richard Cole Great City Parks, Alan Tate 42 Peter Eley Greyfields into Goldfields, S Sobel, E Greenberg & S Bodzin Bob Jarvis Working Capital, Life and Labour in Contemporary London, 43 Sebastian Loew N Buck, I Gordon, P Hall, M Harloe and M Kleinman Tony Lloyd-Jones Judith Ryser Practice Index 44 Education Index 51 Editors: John Billingham and Sebastian Loew Endpiece Wandering, Bob Jarvis 51 Editor for this issue: John Billingham Back cover Diary Topic Editor: Richard Cole Future issues Book reviews Tim Catchpole 87 Healthy Cities 56 Gilpin Ave, London SW14 8QY 88 25th Anniversary Issue

Design consultant Simon Head Current subscriptions: The Quarterly is free to Urban Design Group members who also receive newsletters and the biennial Source Book at the time of printing. Print production Constable Printing Annual rates: Individuals £35 Students £20. Corporate rates: Practices, including listing in UDQ practice index and Sourcebook £200. © Urban Design Group ISSN 0266 6480 Libraries £40 Local Authorities £100 (2 copies of UDQ). Overseas members pay a supplement of £3 for Europe and £8 for other locations. Material for publication: please send text preferably by Individual issues of the journal cost £5. email to the editors at the UDG office. Images to be supplied Neither the Urban Design Group nor the editors are responsible for views expressed or as high-resolution (300 dpi), eps, tif or jpeg format. Contact statements made by individuals writing in this journal. editors for further details. 4 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS

Director’s Column possibilities of manipulating two- Care in the and three-dimensional space? Urban designers have never been in greater demand, yet many The answer is that it depends on Communities? young professionals are finding it the person and the circumstances. difficult to get the sort of job they There are roles for every sort of The government’s “Sustainable Communities” want. urban designer. Unfortunately there is a great deal of confusion announcement has a major impact on the south east Drawing and graphic about what skills are needed and it appears, so far, to have been accompanied presentation is often an important where, and who is best able to provide them. by an astonishing lack of detail in the technical issue. Take a recent example of someone who wrote to the UDG press. Only if people delve more deeply will they for advice. Originally a planner, Take a typical master plan. The find some of the information about the large amounts she had since taken an urban coloured plans look very design course. She applied for a professional. Are they the work of of housing identified for particular areas. This may job as an urban designer in a talented designer whose well- have something to do with the government not private practice. To the practice, founded, highly creative, intuitive it turned out, an urban designer leaps have been refined through wanting to make it clear that the only way their was someone who could an iterative process into a solution programme can be realised involves large amounts produce detailed site drawings. that will prove to be workable ‘You are not an urban designer,’ and robust? Or are they the work of greenfield land - whatever their brownfield the interviewer told her. ‘You are of someone with a computer objectives or achievements may be. It was always a planner.’ Ouch. graphics programme who has slotted in and coloured up some clear that potential existed for expansion of the Our correspondent commented: standard diagrams of perimeter Milton Keynes area and to see it and other growth ‘In my present office I see urban blocks and a few other favourites from the urban designer’s box of points as a proper part of a sub regional strategy is design work being given to an architect or landscape architect tricks? fundamental. who can produce the required The Milton Keynes and South Midlands Study Area drawings, but who has no The difference may not at first be training in urban design and very apparent on the printed page. includes an additional 370,000 dwellings by little understanding. It’s really But whereas the first plan may be 2031 and covers major expansion at Milton frustrating.’ a real contribution to making a successful place, the value of the Keynes, Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Bedford, What can she do? Take another second may lie solely in Luton, Aylesbury Vale and some other locations. It university course – in landscape convincing the client that the brief architecture, perhaps – to learn has been fulfilled and that it is will require major investment in transport and social some of the necessary skills? time to pay the fee. provision using special agencies to be able to Take a course in graphics, so as These are issues that the UDG is deliver what is planned. to be able to produce convincing presentations? Find grappling with. UDAL’s Urban Nevertheless it is part of a bold statement but so far a job as a policy-type urban Design Skills Summit last year gave the thumbs down to the without the benefits of the longer term strategy of the designer, writing design policy and guidance (and drawing the idea of accrediting post- Dutch Vinex programme referred to by John occasional simple diagram)? graduate urban design courses. Worthington in this issue. Accept that she is, after all, a But we still need to provide planner? guidance to local authorities, The research pages by UCE emphasise the need for consultants, professionals, urban form and urban design to be considered at The role of drawing is at the heart students and many others who of it. Does the urban designer ask: what is an urban designer? the earliest possible stages and this is desperately need specialist graphic design needed in the Milton Keynes and South Midlands skills so as to be able to present There is no simple answer. The his or her urban design thinking in health of urban design depends area as well as in the other major growth points. The the familiar graphic language of on us spelling out what skills are government are to be commended for recognising urban design frameworks, needed in what circumstances, and how a potential employer or the need for urban design skills and making a development briefs and the rest? Or are the drawings needed as a client can tell who has them. # significant amount of funding available to develop means of giving instructions to the Robert Cowan the skills of urban design. They will certainly be people who will develop the project in its later stages? needed to achieve a successful form of development in all the “Sustainable Communities” that are Or are the drawing skills an aspect of something much more proposed as well as in those parts of the country than communicating? Are they, in where the built framework is likely to be downsized. fact, essential to the creative process of design – of John Billingham experimenting on paper with the Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 5

architecture”. Architects are e.g. conservation areas and generally giving more attention to viewing corridors, and of the appearance and cladding but tall opportunities, e.g. areas close to buildings are still hitting the ground existing clusters and underground badly in London, unlike in New stations. WCC is very proud of its York. heritage; there had been a few disasters, vis. Hilton, Knightsbridge Paul Velluet of English Heritage Barracks, Marsham Street, but all (London Division) felt that tall had been allowed by higher buildings had some part to play in authorities against WCC’s the vision of urbanism but that they recommendations. were not essential. The Millennium Tower would have had a massive After the lunch break Paul Finch, overarching impact if allowed. Deputy Chairman of CABE and English Heritage did not object to Editorial Director of the AJ, was its replacement, the Swiss Re, and determined to prevent the audience it saw good examples of high rise from taking a siesta and he made in the Economist Building and his talk -What’s the fuss all about – Millbank Tower, both now listed. deliberately controversial. Tall The London Eye has an impressive buildings are like any other quality of design and intricacy of buildings except taller. Why should detail. Heron should have been the viewing corridor from King lower (and hence fatter); Henry VIII’s Mound in Richmond Tall Buildings: What is the Some of these issues were taken up Broadgate is a worthy example of Park be protected when St Paul’s is 21st Century vision for London? in the key note speech given by high density that is not high rise. not visible for 85% of the year? UDAL/UDG/IHBC/RICS Peter Wynne Rees, Director of Why shouldn’t the Heron Tower Conference, 25 Nov 2002 Planning at the City Corporation. Ricky Burdett, Director of the Cities stick out from the dome of St Paul’s Cities need tall buildings for various Programme at the LSE and a seen from Somerset House when This conference was timely. A new reasons. In Hong Kong and member of the Mayor’s Architecture one of the Barbican Towers (now generation of tall buildings is hitting Manhattan there is no alternative and Urbanism Unit, was most listed) sticks out of the same dome the capital, the 600ft Swiss Re but to build tall because space is concerned about the way in which in the view from across the Tower (the gherkin) is nearly constrained. London is more tall buildings hit both the ground Millennium Bridge? The audience complete, the 600ft Heron Tower spread out but the Square Mile is at and the sky. London has an was stunned. (I subsequently wrote has just been given the go-ahead the hub of a radial transport system organic and anarchic structure, to the speaker and pointed out to after a public inquiry and the and there is a logic in building high sprawling and multi-centred around him that according to Met Office application for the 1000ft London on a hub. Tall buildings do not numerous transport nodes. Tall records St Paul’s is visible from King Bridge Tower has just been called necessarily make a city a world buildings have hit this structure Henry VIII’s Mound on 73% of the in. The Mayor’s Draft London Plan city. Frankfurt has allowed buildings badly while in Paris and Berlin they days of the year and he has replied is urging the promotion of taller than those in London but they have been sensibly concentrated that he actually supports the additional tall buildings in the are empty. By contrast the Square into districts on the fringe. London protection of this view, so don’t be capital and also the protection of Mile thrives and a new generation needs to accommodate another alarmed!). certain views including all viewing of tall buildings is taking root. 400,000 households by 2016 corridors identified in RPG3A but Objectors to the Heron Tower who without encroaching onto the John Worthington of DEGW and with the highly controversial lopped TPO trees next to Somerset Green Belt and open spaces. UDG Patron talked about the exception of the view from King House in order to reveal a view of Existing clusters of tall buildings changing London, its changing Henry VIII’s Mound, Richmond St Pauls Cathedral that would be need to be consolidated and more functions and the need to manage Park. A House of Commons Select marred by the development should positive planning tools are the change, tall buildings being Committee has recently published be reprimanded. required. one element of the management a report on Tall Buildings. agenda. Like other speakers before Rowan Moore of the Evening Rosemarie McQueen of him he drew comparison with Paris Chairman Alan Stones launched Standard spoke on a similar theme. Westminster City Council (WCC) and Frankfurt but he also discussed the conference by flagging up Some say that tall buildings are launched her talk with an attack on both Dublin and Rotterdam which some of the issues addressed in the essential in the 21st century but the keynote speaker: the lopped had been the subject of tall Select Committee’s report: Are tall they are no longer heroic feats of trees next to Somerset House did building policy studies undertaken buildings necessary or are they just engineering; the heroism is now in not have TPOs. She then rose to the by DEGW. In essence the pressure expressions of developers’ virility? micro-engineering. The Petronas challenge of the last speaker and for commercial high rise is Are tall and thin buildings preferred Towers in KL may be a grand demonstrated that WCC had predictable and can be controlled to the short and fat? What is the nationalistic gesture but generally already introduced those “more in terms of both location and impact of tall buildings on the tall buildings are for wannabee positive planning tools”. In the design. However, the pressure for London Underground – and on cities. Swiss Re and Heron seem to aftermath of LPAC’s policy residential high rise is not so views above ground? What can confirm the trend that big banks document of the late 90s which predictable and it could occur be done to prevent tall buildings want 1 million sq ft of floorspace had urged London Boroughs to almost anywhere. from ‘hitting’ the ground and sky on a single site, however since identify areas where tall buildings ‘badly’? Are there likely to be new 9/11 this may no longer be the could be accommodated, WCC Paul Burgess, Director of the British tall residential buildings? And what case. The Square Mile looks better commissioned a study which did Land Corporation, devoted much is being done to improve with Swiss Re than without it but just that. It identified such areas of his talk to statistics about take-up evacuation and safety procedures? Heron is “not an amazing piece of through a sieving of the constraints, and vacancy rates in the central 6 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS

London office market and there UDG will have to invite him again Urban Design and university centre in Hastings and an was little, if any, mention of tall for another occasion. To make up Regeneration in Hastings arts quarter in Saint Leonards, a buildings. Professor Geoff Marsh of for this, there is a review of his 20 Nov 2002, London ‘beach community’ at Bulverhythe, London Residential Research filled latest book ‘Re-inventing the a countryside park at Pebsham the gap left by the last speaker. He Skyscraper’ in this same issue of the Three speakers gave a full review of between the two towns, and a hill was part of the team that had journal. the process and proposals leading based community based around a undertaken the recent LPAC study towards a masterplan for Hastings new station at Upper Wilting. on tall buildings in London where The conclusion of the conference and Bexhill. Barry Shaw, Chief his remit had been to respond to was that the pressure for tall Executive of the Kent Architecture Roger Zogolovitch Architect and the question of whether London’s buildings in London is set to Centre spoke first explaining the Developer had been economy would suffer if there were continue, that there is no proven purpose and role of the Kent commissioned together with MBM a lack of tall buildings. He need for commercial high rise other Architecture Centre (KAC). He Arquitectes, Barcelona to produce indicated there was no evidence to than vanity, that there is a need for referred to their work in the wider a Masterplan for the overall area. show a loss of tenants to Frankfurt. more residential high rise, and that area including regeneration Roger Zogolovitch described this There is a projected demand for an London Boroughs need to brace proposals in Margate and stressed work and stressed the need to additional 81 million sq ft of themselves for the new pressures the benefits of urban designers generate a single vision to commercial floorspace to with more positive planning leading redevelopment teams. He crystallise the concept and ideas accommodate the 400,000 extra controls in terms of both location felt that the main problem with inherent in the project. He office jobs predicted for the next and design following the WCC Hastings was its inaccessibility thus portrayed the vision of the two 20 years. Even so it is far from example. making transport the underlying communities( which are in separate clear that this floorspace has to be issue. Hastings is a relatively local authority areas) as two half accommodated in tall buildings – My own views are first that the deprived area as although the oranges facing the sea. Located far and this is confirmed in the Select London Boroughs should be made South-East has 16% of the national south of the M25 in the fine High Committee’s report. It seems that aware of a considerable body of GDP, the town contains 20% of the Weald landscape designated as the main argument for a tall work that was carried out by the most deprived areas of the UK. an Area of Outstanding Natural building is the Toad of Toad Hall GLC in the late 60s identifying Barry Shaw considered that since Beauty, approaching Hastings one mentality, namely vanity. However, areas of London that are sensitive the original over-designed dual gets the sense of entering a this does not apply to residential to tall buildings or where a more carriageway by-pass proposal had ‘forgotten land’. He developed this high rise; here the demand for flexible or positive approach is been rejected, the discussion vision of Hastings and Bexhill as a Montevetro-type developments possible and secondly that the concerning Hastings and Bexhill’s figure of eight or a bow tie; with the could be on the increase. protected view from King Henry transport infrastructure should be Sea and Country Avenues knitting VIII’s Mound should be re-instated. technical rather than political. the two towns together, providing a Will Pank from Faber Maunsell better choice of transport options added the very necessary The omission of King Henry’s view Carolyne Lwin, Head of and relieving the severe congestion engineering dimension to the was clearly the work of the Mayor Regeneration at Hastings Borough along the single road which conference. Do tall buildings offer himself who wants to allow tall Council, looked beyond Hastings connects the two towns. Now that advantages over the Broadgate- buildings on the Bishopsgate and contacted Barry Shaw at the the by-pass is history, how can the type groundscraper development Goodsyard site in the backcloth of Kent Architecture Centre. Together proposed links for Hastings and in terms of sustainability and energy St Pauls within the viewing corridor. they worked up some concepts, Bexhill work? The first priority must efficiency? His practice has This will turn the tables on the and eventually came up with the be to relate these two seaside recently undertaken a study of tall Secretary of State’s decision to idea of designing a linear towns via their beach, which means building sustainability for the City of refuse tall buildings on the Liverpool community. This concept would link regenerating the seafront from London. The study has revealed Street Station site in 1979 so that Hastings with Bexhill with a new Hastings to Bexhill, and removing that tall buildings in London have a this same backcloth could be transport infrastructure consisting of heavy goods traffic from the A259 poor record in terms of energy preserved (the upshot of which was a new Metro service along the South Coast Trunk Road which efficiency compared with those in the groundscraping Broadgate existing rail network with five new passes through Hastings and Bexhill other European cities. There is development). I was at the stations: Glyne Gap, Bulverhythe, adding to the congestion. scope for improvement. In addition Liverpool Street Station public Marina and Ivy House on the it is more cost-effective to refurbish inquiry in 1976, as was the coastal line, and Wilting on the In general these ideas seem tall buildings than to demolish and Chairman Alan Stones. We do not London line. The project would excellent, but surely the proposed rebuild them as the costs of have short memories. provide new sustainable linear hill community centred on the demolition and disposal are high. neighbourhoods on unused New Wilting Station is out of scale In winding up the conference the brownfield land around these and far too intrusive on the fine The final speaker, Ken Yeang, was Chairman noted that very little, if stations, and in July 2002, the gently rolling hilly landscape, in expected to develop further the anything at all, was said about the Government agreed to designate it which it is proposed it should be argument for tall building vulnerability of tall buildings to as one of five Millennium located. However Roger sustainability and to illustrate his talk terrorist attacks and about the Communities, with funds allocated Zogolovitch concluded that his with slides of some of his unique evacuability of such buildings and to assist project delivery. vision is a flexible framework for ‘bio-climatic skyscrapers’ in the concerns of insurance diverse activities and zones. Malaysia, for which he has companies. It seems there are The main objective of this concept is become famous. Unfortunately, some things we would rather to link Hastings and Bexhill by Questions raised following the talk however, there was a forget. # improving their relationship with included the following: Concern technological hitch, namely an each other and with the sea, that any future housing should be incompatibility between his Tim Catchpole beach, and surrounding within the existing urban area, and powerpoint and the conference countryside. Within the proposed that the Country Avenue should not projector. As a result there was no infrastructure the key ideas are, result in pressure for business parks presentation, nor address, and the ‘Country and Sea Avenues’, a new within the AONB whose boundary Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 7

sits tightly up to the northern edge of The uneven geographical Hastings; Concern as to how the distribution of housing need was proposed transport infrastructure the other subject dealt with by would be implemented and why Breheny. The greatest demand for there does not appear to be a new housing is precisely in the pedestrian link between the two NIMBY areas, the home counties, towns? What about empty and not in those areas where buildings? And surely the brown fields abound. And if the revitalisation of Hastings needs underprovision of housing more detailed studies? continues the consequences are all negative; prices are likely to rise, The event was well attended, lively people may be forced to share and a topical issue because the when they would prefer not to, the whole problem of regenerating shortage of key workers will historic seaside resorts is a major threaten the economy and more issue facing creative planners, people will be forced into renting architects, and urban designers either in the squalid private sector today. After a long period of or in the underprovided public one. decline Hastings and Bexhill are being totally revitalised thanks to Breheny believes in the urban Local Authorities, Government, and renaissance and the compact city, the community working together, but he does not believe that brown and backed by substantial fields are sufficient to cope with the resources being allocated to a need. Therefore he advocates Re:Urbanism, a Challenge to even the two most influential ‘anti- range of major projects. # addressing the need to build on the Urban Summit city’ theories or ideologies of the green fields head on, instead of 15 Jan 2003, London 20th century, Ebenezer Howard’s Derek Abbott and ignoring it as a taboo subject. He garden city and Le Corbusier’s John Templeton recognises that there are no votes Kelvin Campbell and Rob Cowan radiant city were neither garden in housing but plenty in defending presented their views on the urban suburbs nor radiant parkscapes green fields, but wants to change condition at a meeting at The but physical settings with urban Centralisation versus Dispersal this. Questions from the floor Gallery. The document was a qualities despite their aversion of 4 Dec 2002, London interrupted Professor Breheny’s flow contribution to the government’s the city of streets and mixed uses. and indicated that not everybody Urban Summit. Inspired by their First used in 1880 in the UK, the Professor Michael Breheny’s talk at was convinced by his argument. ‘Cities Design Forgot’ and Rob notion of urbanism equated with the Gallery dealt fundamentally Unfortunately, time ran out before Cowan’s ‘Connected City’, they modern thought. Now Campbell with the housing crisis, that he feels, he could explain his ideas about evoke the notion of ‘re:urbanism’ to and Cowan want to go beyond is being ignored. People don’t decentralisation and give his influence the government’s the American New Urbanism with want to know because they don’t alternative view of how to develop promised follow up actions of its its urban villages, home zones and want more housing near them. the green fields, some of which he urban summit, as well as CABE’s gated communities. For them, sketched out in a chapter of and UDAL’s programmes. urban design has to stop being a Breheny concentrated on Echenique and Saint’ s Cities for Optimistically they focus on large ‘pollyfilla’ profession, population projections and the New Millennium (see review in cities and towns. Their credo is perpetuating, for example, the ills showed the gap between the UDQ 83). # deliberately provocative to break of old ‘new towns’ in the guise of current provision of dwellings and the cycle of what they consider high density places like the needs. Nationally the backlog Sebastian Loew professional detachment. They Docklands. Instead of extreme is of about 1 million and we need obtained 30 responses to their rationalism they want to introduce 50,000 more dwellings per Sadly Michael Breheny died in thought provoking pamphlet and a new philosophy to guide annum than we actually build. February at the early age of 54. over 90 professionals signed up to practice and education of urban Locally, in those small towns that His contribution to research work their deliberately evocative ideas of design which focuses on beauty, refuse to accept the need for new will be greatly missed. changes needed in practice, sensitivity, flexibility and, most of houses, the decline in household process and policies to achieve all, a clear vision of a good city. size could mean the gradual Making Cities Liveable urban renaissance. Their However, the audience wanted to death of the community. Measures Conference presentation to the UDG took the know what the basis of a to reduce the growth in the 14/15 May 2003, Burslem - shape of a lively debate with the designed city actually is. For some number of separate households Stoke on Trent. The list of audience engaging in a running our cities are a conglomerate of include keeping students at home, speakers includes:- commentary. The outcome could slow evolution over time with stopping immigration altogether Dr Jan Gehl, Jon Rouse, Judy form a basis for a ‘Charter of isolated sporadic planned parts and undersupplying housing Ling Wong, Rt Hon Frank urbanism’. and current in-fill thinking on brown (which is what happens at Dobson MP, John Edwards, sites. Others are not sure whether present). Measures to increase the Kevin Murray, Trevor Beattie The authors identified ten ills which cities grow organically or number of available dwellings victimise cities. They are: mechanically, and others still without building new ones, Tickets are £155 plus VAT specialisms, the planning system, propose to rediscover beauty include living over the shop, including Conference lunch & ‘bigness’, quick fixes, where it has been eliminated, changes to the VAT system to refreshments. For further details unchallenged truths, rulebooks, sometimes even by urban encourage conversions, but their contact Marco Forgione on one-eyed environmentalism, designers, such as culverted rivers effect would not be sufficient to 020 7350 5206 or email unenlightened clients, lost streets or indeterminate spaces brought close the gap. [email protected]. and the ‘wow’ factor. In their view, back to order. 8 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS

The proposed value system raised the city scale the professionals the most heated responses. should be in charge. Finally, the Whose values have to be public interest had to come into adopted, do they have to emerge this equation, but while people from existing cities and their agree that cars should not destroy inhabitants, or are they imposed the planet in the long run they in reality by developers, want to own and use them for the landowners, those with power time being, and that includes and control? The scale of urban urban designers. design was equally scrutinised. Is urban design simply an attribute The most intractable contradiction of large scale developments of the debate remained the need incorporated in masterplans, or to operate at the city scale, while can buildings generate urban dividing urban interventions into quality on their own? How handleable parcels. According to prescriptive should urban design ‘re:urbanism’ urban designers principles be or would talent and have to understand complex understanding of the complex connections throughout the urban workings of cities suffice? Some fabric while being sensitive to London Walking Plan occur and whether leaving it to the rules were considered useful but context and resources at the local 19 February 2003 London Boroughs to implement schemes they had to be weighed against level as a prerequisite of their would work - e.g Trafalgar Square demands for deregulation from intervention. This principle runs Steve Worrall from Transport for where Westminster had been developers and excessive security contrary to current practices of London presented the Draft opposed to the closure. Brian claims by users. Is poor urban developers who assemble land Walking Plan for London at the Richards quoted his experience in design the fault of planners who into large scale developments for Gallery in February. This follows on Kensington and Chelsea where he impair architectural design, that which they seem unable to get from the Mayor’s vision to make had tried to get pavements of engineers who overdesign either political or popular consent London one of the world’s most widened - unsuccessful because the roads, or of politicians who aim despite deferring to the latest walking friendly cities by 2015. car is considered king. TfL needed at shot gun deliveries? urban design credos. An There are 7 million daily walking to find ways to get the Boroughs to illustration is the concept of mixed trips, 80% under a mile and do something - perhaps special The discussion on urban design development, dear to urban surprisingly cars account for 20% prototype grants might get things education rehearsed the designers which managed to find of trips under 500 metres. Strong moving to test ideas. arguments of vested interests of its way even into government arguments in favour of walking are: The relationship between the both educational and professional policy. In reality, mixed use no cost, healthy activity, space separate road plan and the institutions, entrenched practices projects proposed on sites like efficiency and safety. walking plan was self evident as and the difficulties to turn them Kings Cross or Elephant and The objectives of the plan include could be seen in Shoreditch where round. Was urban design to be a Castle may not necessarily improving coordination, promoting a previously one way road scheme generalism or a specialism based develop into a genuine mixed use walking, better street conditions, had become two way and better on a broad foundation course for urban fabric as different user improving developments and facilities for pedestrians had been all the building professions?. Old groups tend to convert such interchanges and improving safety included. thinking and the dichotomy schemes into self-contained parts, plus improving performance It appeared that the final Walking between learning processes and separated from each other with management. The budget for this is Plan would include examples of vocational skill acquisition of little or no public realm among significant - £16.8 million for area- good practice - but how many temporary use, the idea of urban them. Increasingly, these parts are based schemes in 2003/4. would be from this country ? One design accreditation as an aim of gated and locked and the public A new organisation - the London couldn’t help comparing London to more secure employment were all spaces between them are not Walking Partnership is to be places like Hamburg and Munich invoked again without reaching accessible to all at all times. responsible for delivering much of where there were well designed, any conclusion. Liberalism was this and their role is to develop fashionable places to walk considered fraught with problems The authors of re:urbanism guidance, set local targets and although this idea needed to be while restricted practices would acknowledge that during the last identify steps toward achieving the balanced by safety at night. One stultify innovation and new hundred years, suburbs sprawled vision. Actions include Walking conclusion of a visit to Barcelona is thinking about the public realm. despite urban design and maps, a Walkability Index - in that none of the barriers and Education without a value system compact cities were disliked. For which Jan Gehl is involved as an railings controlling pedestrian was seen as unrealistic, thus the them, time has come to make advisor. The importance of different movement, so beloved by UK educational process needed to cities work. Instead of new green agencies working together was engineers, exist there without any know whether it was driven by papers action plans need to stressed. apparent undue effects on economic values, or the values of derive from public debate. The A chart showing objectives, pedestrian safety - although the population which often do not problem with plans, even action measures and outcomes and an Kensington and Chelsea now have coincide with those of the plans, area action plans, analysis of an individual objective a programme to remove some professionals. If the value system is sustainable plans and any other with performance indicators were barriers. The mayor’s vision is a tall there to make good places, it has currently fashionable plans is that illustrated. These demonstrated the order indeed but it affects not been very successful over the they are a far cry from reality. complexities of analysing everybody, is fundamental to urban last decade or two. The scale Implementation remains the key, performance and one hopes that design objectives and there is factor was also revisited. At the but can urban designers become this doesn’t get in the way of much that can be done to improve small scale local values should the janitors? # getting things on the ground. London’s walking environment. # prevail. However, not everything The discussion expressed the can be run by focus groups and at Judith Ryser concern about what action would John Billingham Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 9

LETTERS

Adams in her article (Childs play: ‘evolutionary playwork’ (Routledge the high street is ‘looked after’ by urban change for beginners, winter 2000) and he shows that children’s a town centre manager. I would 2003), which was forwarded ability to learn will be reduced as argue that urbanists must be to me by a colleague. well as their experience of the world. involved too, to help enrich this culture and enhance the sense of Eileen’s introduction gave a good What I’m arguing for, then is the place. Above all they should be explanation of the role and value of provision in the urban environment providing a body of knowledge play in life of the child and she of dedicated children’s spaces, and enlightened opinion to points out that the process of secure, free from hazard and improve political and funding learning is cumulative and looked after and supported by policies for our small towns. experiential. She goes on to say workers who are able to facilitate that the starting point of learning is the children’s activities. I don’t think Small town problems how the environment is that the school environment is Today in the UK the smaller town is experienced, what sense is made necessarily most suitable for this, in dire straights. It is being called of it, the response and how the just as the play environment is not upon to help solve the nation’s child is able to impact on the the most suitable for education. You housing shortage. Some environment. I would like to point would be surprised how many populations are being expanded out that this is what adventure urban developments forget about by 50%, with no expanded town Visual Damage playgrounds are for... children altogether. I’m sure that programme, and little extra none of the designers who read expertise or resource provision. It is I always enjoy reading UDQ and A good adventure playground your publication would do that, far more dependent on, and issue 85 was no exception. attempts to create as many now, would they. # threatened by the car than inner-city However I have to say that I begin environmental possibilities as areas. Here the problem of the car to read this and other journals on possible and contains a supply of Simon Rix is not the congestion it creates, but urban design with an increasing ‘loose parts’ or materials which are Play Development Worker its facility to travel quickly and feeling of unease. I travel regularly available to the children to modify Haringey Play Association comfortably to out-of-town or city throughout this country – rural those environments. shopping centres. Because of small areas, small towns, large towns populations and low densities and cities. Am I the only person to Engagement with these Re:Urbanism public transport is uneconomic, be utterly horrified by the visual components is freely chosen, and inadequate despite subsidies. damage which has been wrought personally directed and intrinsically The welcome appearance of To help combat this many of these by the introduction of the hideous motivated – at the childs discretion Kelvin Campbell and Robert town centres have been ripped wheelie bin in residential and and as many times and as many Cowan’s Re:urbanism is timely apart by ring roads to improve car commercial areas ? variations as is needed. Activities and thought-provoking, as shown access, and tarmaced over to such as digging and damming by the recent lively discussion at provide more and more car Is there any point in discussing the water courses, camp building and the UDG. It is a comprehensive parking. Most of them now need a finer points of architectural and the modification and redesign of guide to a better profession and a healing period – attended, urban design when the reality of major structures can become better urban environment. My only hopefully, by urbanists trained to many people’s lives is a squalid bin enormous projects which can take objection is one of scale. It deal with the situation. (or several) in every front garden or over a whole site and last all dismisses smaller towns, although, – worse still – on the pavement ? summer holiday. The german to be fair, it never defines what it Many city workers now live in This is not the case just on bin ‘construction playgrounds’ actually means by ‘smaller’. these towns, putting up with collection day but every day for develop as shanty towns where dreadful, expensive commuting, to those householders who have each group of children have a In its second paragraph it says, live in a ‘real’ place. Some of nowhere else to store their bins. patch on which they can build Others are looking after our them have leap-frogged the Burrell Road in Ipswich (photo) using the huge amounts of scrap smaller towns (and villages). – my banality of the suburbs. Now they illustrates what happens when a wood available as Berlin is rebuilt. brackets. The ‘city’ is the main find expansion is bringing the local authority imposes these bins On one of these sites I saw children subject of this book, and by banality to them, and the town on residents who have no front building a two storeyed house with implication that of urban designers centre is either struggling to gardens and rear access. a pitched roof and timber shingles and urbanists. The question of survive, or has given up the – wow. On another site in south who should be looking after our struggle. Is the only future left to Are we fiddling while Rome burns? London, the children created a smaller towns is not addressed. our small towns that of discrete, And who will join me in a national beach, bringing shells and other dormitory suburbs, with campaign to rid the country of things collected on the shore from And yet the authors deal continuously reducing commercial these monstrosities? # home – all on a Sunday when the enthusiastically and intelligently and cultural activity? site was closed! Quite a surprise with the need to revive the ‘street’. Ann Petherick for the playworkers when they Look at any small town’s high Local authorities would have returned to work the next week. street on a Saturday – it may not difficulty dealing with this situation be 24 hour urbanism, but at the best of times. Currently with Play Facilities It goes without saying that most urbanism it certainly is, with all its many of them in the red, with children do not have access to a commercial, social and cultural reduced technical staff and As a play development worker playspace which is free from hazard complexity. Look again at the budgets, some still struggling to involved in working with children and accessible at all, let alone an many festivals and events held in adjust to the privatisation of on the design and provision of environment in which they can build these high streets when they services, with single-issue facilities for children in an inner city and modify.The effects of play become the social heart of the community groups reducing their setting, I was interested in the point deprivation are comprehensively town, and often of the surrounding leeway, with very little leverage of view expressed by Eileen discussed in Bob Hughes’ villages too. Sometimes, with luck, for bargaining about the form and 10 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

VIEWPOINT detail of incoming investment, and design, to manage complex with regional reforms unresolved, change, produce relationships that Holistic Housing their task is nigh on impossible. work, environments that are civilised, and places that are This is a real and growing problem. stimulating and beautiful. Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway describe the Some towns are trying to deal with way they influenced a volume builder to alter the it through town centre management, Education standard approach to housing development but by its very nature (currently) this Having, hopefully, established the can only treat part of the problem. need for small towns to be kept It has been two and a half years since we criticised Wimpey Whether ‘urbanists’ yet have the within the remit of the changing in the National Press for the ‘Wimpeyfication’ of Britain. required skills, or the resources are profession, a word about available to hire them is doubtful. education – and scale, again. In January, Phase 1 of The Staiths South Bank, the project that led directly from our criticism of the massive housing industry Perhaps the reason for the authors’ Re:urbanism calls for urban went on sale. There were over 700 enquiries for one hundred avoidance of the small town is studies to form the foundation of and fifty three units of predominantly affordable housing and related to Reyner Banham’s education for the built apartments set in a human friendly environment by the Tyne in definition of urban design – urban environment professions, and Dunstan, Gateshead and those released were sold in days situations about half a mile square, decries the bolt-on nature of with queues starting two days before the release date! Whilst implying something embedded in current urban design courses. there has been significant local and national media coverage a larger urban mass, rather than a How such a major reversal could of the project we believe that the Staiths is selling because we complete urban entity. Such a half be achieved is difficult to have got more right than most housing developments in recent a mile square site would give a understand, given the entrenched times. This may seem big headed but there has been an worthwhile fee to an ‘urban attitudes of some academic and attention to detail and an incredible amount of hours put into designer’. Unfortunately small professional establishments. It this project by a large team of people who have been towns tend to offer much, much would need re-organisation on a committed to producing an affordable housing development smaller sites, and often problems grand scale, at a time when that added to our landscape. that do not even need design university funding is sparse. To solutions. Funding is a hassle. Fees start the process it may be better It was very easy for me to criticise house builders for giving us are lower. Job prospects are fewer. to concentrate on one semester- soulless, identikit, red brick rabbit hutches but incredibly Small towns may not, therefore, be long element to be included early challenging to change the system. It’s a system that works for a good context for the current on in appropriate courses. It the housebuilder in that it generates acceptable profits, it urban design profession to practice would be far easier to persuade results in speedy return on capital and it’s easy. Repetition is in. Re:urbanism calls for changes in schools and professional bodies easy for everyone involved in the process from the employee the education and role of the to incorporate this within the of the homebuilder to the labourers. What is more it sells. profession, and perhaps its re- curriculum. For example in an With a housing shortage and blind desire by a big enough naming. These changes must architecture degree course, the minority of the population to own their ‘castle’ it worked for respond to the needs of small second semester of the first year, enough consumers to keep the housebuilders busy. towns, as well as cities. (And, or thereabout, could be devoted some would argue that this to an urban study. It could So what are we getting right with the Staiths? Firstly we have redirection should pay more include analytical mapping, tapped into a will from the housebuilder to move on. attention to the suburbs too.) proposals for urban Wimpey, like some of the other big boys had been building improvement, it should include a some more adventurous stuff at the upper end and were now There is a possible conflict here for community workshop, and it open to try and produce something more forward thinking the professional. Arguably, the would be backed up by with their affordable production. Whilst not being ‘pushovers’ definition of ‘urban designer’ tends appropriate lecture courses. and remaining true to their margin requirements they have towards processes with a top-down Where possible it would be been open to change. approach, with designers shared by other built environment controlling the process to achieve courses, with multi-disciplinary Another major factor is having a local council who care. their own visions. On the other teamwork encouraged. Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council was already hand, town centre management proving to be a model for other local councils. This is a council suggests a consensus approach, Arguably such a project would be that has given its inhabitants and the region nationally and achieving the best compromise best sited in a small town. Students internationally important and feted public architecture and solution to suit the needs of all would then have a far better facilities in terms of the Stirling Prize winning Millennium Bridge, parties. Neither approach, on its chance to begin to understand the the Baltic Mills art development and the Sage National Music own, provides a reliable key to whole range of complex Academy. Arguably these are the three most important aspects good urban places in small towns. relationships between the built of the Newcastle/Gateshead bid for the 2008 European City What is needed is urbanists with environment and society. Making a of Culture and have made it the favourite to win the bid. design and management skills, detailed study of a small town and a detailed working knowledge gives the opportunity for students to In all our meetings with the council, from talking about refuse of the urban environment, urban develop an holistic approach early collection through public transport, parking, cycle routes and economics, sociology, culture, on in their academic career, giving adoption of infrastructure, it’s not been a case of going home ecology, landscape, services, a solid foundation for even more at 4.30 p.m. Gateshead Council have been part of the transport, fund raising etc. complex work later. design process, rather than being rigid and saying ‘no’ there is a culture of trying to come up with innovative solutions and They should be urbanists, not Small towns are important! # a commitment to trying new ways. The council was Polyfilla professionals but ones who instrumental in working our streetscape ideas into a format can use their skills, including Philip Stringer that allowed them to obtain Britain’s first new build ‘Home Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 11

Zone’ grant on behalf of the Staiths been developed at a density of 63 development. dwellings per hectare. The vision was for an affordable With a willing client and a housing development where dynamic council our ideas about people came first, where the car what makes a desirable affordable didn’t get in the way, where housing scheme had a fertile bed children could play in relative on which to grow. safety and were stimulated to play, where residents could interact with their neighbours if they so chose to, Family Friendly Developments where you could cycle, walk, where you could recognise and A few years ago when we sold our describe your own front door, fashion company Red or Dead we where the buyer had choice. We took the kids out of school and wanted a development that made travelled. In Australia and the residents feel good to return to, especially northern Europe we kept rather than just a development that coming across examples of contained a ‘refuge’, their house, housing developments that we as a that they had invested their family could quite happily live in financial lives in. and which added visually interesting aspects to the Our vision was for every tiny aspect environment rather than detracting to be pored over, tested and from it. In Malmo and Melbourne researched wherever possible. The we found family friendly vision quickly became a crusade. developments, where human The sale of Red or Dead had interaction, child play and the released us from money chasing, visual environment were placed far we were free to put our effort into higher up the pecking order than projects that stimulated us and the the car. Again in Malmo and on Staiths began to dominate our lives. Sporonberg Island in Amsterdam we found affordable housing To bring such a large-scale project solutions that were visually to fruition and to attempt to reach stimulating and allowed the the degree of change that we resident to recognise and describe desired we would need a team their house by virtue of its who were equally committed. individuality. We found attention to Wimpey introduced us to the Top: Terraces in Above: Waterfront detail in matching downpipe to talented and hard working Jane Amsterdam showing apartments in Malmo window frames and coordinated and Mark Massey of IDP and their excellent use of form and street furniture that was lacking in team who in turn brought in materials the UK. Using this inspiration and Gordon Mungal of Ove Arup and the good aspects of the Gerry Kemp of Glen Kemp Below: The Staiths, environments that we grew up with Landscaping. It sounds like the site location before in N. E. Lancashire (the small ‘Magnificent Seven’ but with these, development gardens of our houses backing into Gateshead Council, Wimpey and communal ‘recs’ – spaces for kids the marketing and research team to play and residents to get Cool Blue we were saddled up together) and using the knowledge and ready to roll. we had gained from building our own family home, we set about As a result of underground coming up with a vision for a large obstruction the only section of the scale, people friendly affordable site suitable for piling is the strip housing development. along the riverbank. Here six storey apartment blocks with parking under raised recreational decking The Staiths are being built.

The Staiths South Bank is a 700- Happily the restrictions on piling unit development on the banks of have enabled us to turn our the Tyne, on a brown field site attention to what many in planning formerly the site of the Garden influence don’t want people to live Festival in the late 80s and prior to in, but the majority of Titchmarsh that used for heavy industry such as and garden centre loving British coke. It is 11 hectares of which people do want, houses with some is given over to wetland gardens. We have designed south habitat and a salt marsh. The area facing, U shaped, groups of 15 to where housing is allowed has 20 houses containing half a dozen 12 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

VIEWPOINT

different home types (which the vehicle free aspect and instead purchaser can have further choice designed in walkways and cut over by selecting different interior throughs that ensure that everyone layouts) all with a garden, a shed is within 400 metres of the existing and individual access to a bus route that skirts the site. communal pocket park that all Similarly our policy of no resident contain communal ‘free’ barbecues having individual refuse collection and contain some of the following: and all refuse having to be placed play areas, contemplation areas, 5 in recycling points will reduce the a-side, short tennis. The pocket impact of refuse collection lorries. parks are accessed via your own In future phases we are hoping to back garden or via a locked gate introduce delivery drop off facilities accessible only by the residents of to further dampen vehicle impact the housing backing into each on the development. Throughout park. You get a degree of ‘gated’ the development there is an security without it being a ‘gated emphasis on walking and cycling, community’ per se. with view and access corridors to the Tyne and to Britain’s largest This is an updated and ‘designed’ wooden heritage structure that version of the ‘recs’ that we were gives the development its name, brought up with and this concept is The Dunston Staiths. We are proving very popular with early working with the council and purchasers. This design along with Sustrans in upgrading and the landscaping outside the fronts of reinstating walkways and cycle the housing that is taking Home ways, both into the city centre and Zone thinking further than before to the Baltic Quays and the has obvious implications on car Millennium Bridge. Apart from the parking and car ownership number. design of the houses every piece of (Working with Gateshead MBC street furniture will be carefully we received the largest grant for a designed, infrastructure such as new build Home Zone thus far). electricity sub-stations are to be artistically clad in projects we have There is only 1 parking permit instigated with Northern Arts and allowed per household, and in local artists and crafts people. many cases you can’t overlook your car. This has proven very unpopular with crime prevention officers who Community Involvement advise us that if we do not have individual drives we are inviting car By looking at every aspect in detail crime and that when the local and involving the local community criminals get away with car crime and all the organisations that they will come back and commit contribute to a community the more personal forms of crime. We housing development is becoming have withstood their pressure and part of the local community before believe in not thinking the worst and residents move in. With hard work will probably use the Community and the will of a number of key Warden Scheme to give some form parties, something that is for most, of protection. The feedback from the largest investment they will customers has backed our thinking make in their lives and after up, with potential purchasers marriage and kids, their biggest agreeing with our view that commitment can become more overseeing your kids, contact with than just a ‘roof overhead’. The neighbours and the visual amenity extra effort we have all put into of car free vistas is preferable. Our sourcing of materials and the biggest concern is the one car developments we have asked parking permit per household, and suppliers to undertake has kept the landscaping of the home zone pricing relatively affordable and is areas into true seating and play allowing Wimpey to make areas in the streets will be the key to acceptable profits. The speed of preventing residents from risking a sales increases return on capital parking ticket and sticking their and hopefully we are contributing Top: Axonometric of Middle: Waterfront second car anywhere. to shareholder value by making central part of development Wimpey synonymous with development Whilst the scheme will eventually innovation and not synonymous Bottom: Layout of central house over 2000 people we have with amorphous anonymity. # section of site decided not to have a bus route through the development as this Wayne and Gerardine would compromise the relative Hemingway Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 13

With planning having lost Re:Urbanism, Part 2 confidence in its ability to get to grips with its physical dimension, mixed use has been adopted as This is the second of four summaries of the major the panacea. The new orthodoxy arguments contained in the book written by is that land uses should no longer Kelvin Campbell and Rob Cowan. See also the be neatly packaged in specific report of the talk to the UDG (page 7) and a locations: the local centre, the business park, the housing estate. letter concerning the issues (page 9). Instead, the idea is to mix the uses up, regardless of context, and regardless of the Cities are victims of the planning system interdependencies and viability of certain uses. Too often the result is We need to find a new confidence in the planning not integrated, mixed-use places process, firmly based on understanding how cities work. but isolated, mixed-use projects. The current planning system needs to be radically restructured to support an approach to urban design Viable mixes of uses are a based on the physical structure of the whole city region. consequence of a whole series of The new planning will have a town or city plan at its heart, factors, most of which relate to a supported by detailed design frameworks for districts, combination of urban intensity and quarters, neighbourhoods and corridors. accessibility. These include the density of development; the nature The planning system is not working for cities. We have a of its urban grain; the ability of development control system, not a development planning buildings to adapt to alternative system. Generally planning is reactive rather than proactive. uses; ownerships and tenures; and, When it does manage to be take the initiative, it has to justify most important of all, the itself by creating special policy areas, as if to make clear that connections through and within the this is the exception not the rule. area.

The planning system is tortuously quasi-legal, doing its best to Mixed use is not something that avoid any basis in physical design. It does not look to urban can be specified. It is something structure, except where a new road scheme is proposed. It that happens when the conditions can not deal with parts of a city beyond thinking of each part are right. Yet however often as a large site. It fails to give a vision of a place except planners gaily colour in an area on through words. A development plan ‘map’ does little more a plan as ‘mixed-use development’, than define policy areas or constraints. The system is geared they rarely concern themselves with for thinking about new towns, where places can be neatly helping to create the social, zoned into discrete areas. The planning system can not deal economic and market conditions with complexity. that will support it.

No matter what immediate changes are made to help the Rather than being scared of planning system work better, the problems lie deep in the anti- physical planning because of city origins of modern town planning. They are at the heart of previous failures, we need to invest the Town and Country Planning Act (no mention of city there). a new confidence in the process: Like the Windows interface on a personal computer, the this time, rooted in a clear planning function sits on top of a flawed and outdated understanding about how cities operating system. In recent years, what we know as urban work. The first step is to understand design has been adopted as the friendly interface to the the overall structure of a city region planning system. That has been a big step forward. Further and its component parts – the progress depends on changing the operating system. district, quarter, neighbourhood and corridor – and how they fit The conservation movement has for many years been the real together to make beautiful and defender of good urbanism. The local authority’s urban successful places. designer is often the conservation officer, or at least part of the conservation section. In practice, though, the philosophies of conservation and modern town planning Cities are victims of bigness have been in opposition to each other. This fundamental conflict is one the planning system must come to terms with if We need to discover the lost art of it is to evolve. subdivision. Areas where significant change is expected, The government’s current proposals for reforming the planning and large sites are due for system amount to tinkering with the mechanics rather than development, should be planned facing up to the need for fundamental change. Today plans with public infrastructure as are called ‘spatial development strategies’ in the hope of integrated extensions or repairs of distancing them the failures of the past. There is very little the city’s physical fabric. Such a ‘spatial’ in them, though. They are still words with abstract planning framework will treat those diagrams. 14 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

VIEWPOINT areas and sites as parts of the town who instigate and fund Cities are victims of quick fixes scale. The pressure is always to or city, not stand-alone sites, development feel at ease only if deliver quickly. The immediate allowing them to be developed in they can draw a firm red line round Cities are the dynamic products of outputs are ticked off and the smaller increments than is usual. a large development site. processes of social, economic and regeneration circus moves on. We must make a city of a thousand technological change over long designers. The recent debacle over London’s periods. Focusing solely on short- Run-down areas and sites are Elephant and Castle is as good an term measures to tackle failure automatically identified as zones of Bigness is a recurring theme in example as any. The 1960s-built misses the big picture on which change. That gives them status in many urban projects: big sites that megastructure had failed. When success depends. We need far- the system, demanding investment need big solutions; big buildings megastructures fail, they fail sighted visions backed by forward and priority. But we need to ask that need big developers; and big disastrously. The council’s proposed planning, investing in actions today whether they automatically require pictures that need big walls. Our solution: replace it with an even that will set the framework for long- fixing because they are run-down, fascination lies in their sheer scale larger megastructure. This one term change. and whether in striving for equity and bravado, in their ambition and would have a level of complexity we are being fair to other places in their failure. These are the that depended on everything Living cities simmer like pots of which could benefit from that projects that hold our cities to significant happening together, porridge. Who knows where the investment. An obsession with ransom. In their bigness they rather than taking an incremental, next bubble will burst? Contrary to neatness may be preventing us prevent positive things happening fine-grain approach. After months the impression given by many a from recognising that many such at a smaller scale. They are the fire of preparatory work, the plan master plan, the aim of planning is areas offer new ventures the first that sucks the oxygen out of the unravelled. not to visualise – and then achieve rung on the economic ladder. room. Surely we know that – a permanent end state. Every Sometimes turning a blind eye or giantism is often the final stage of A big site should be treated as a place is always changing, either managing the process of decline total decline? piece of town rather than a for the better or for the worse. (Not may be more appropriate. conventional development site. that it is always be clear at the time Beyond a certain scale, Places like Kings Cross, Stratford whether the change is for good or Everyone is agreed: as much architecture acquires the properties and Greenwich peninsula in ill: and different people may have development as possible should be of bigness. The best reason to London are big enough to different views on the matter.) directed to sites that have been broach Bigness is the one given by change the shape and operation Unless we accept that fact, we will built on before – the brownfield the climbers of Mount Everest: of entire parts of the city. They are succeed neither in managing sites. But as well as asking if a site ‘because it is there’. big enough to create their own decline in the places where that is has been used previously, we internal world. Yet the planning appropriate, nor in supporting should be asking two further These days, big projects get big system treats each almost as success in the places where there is questions. Does this site have what architecture. A fevered debate though it were an infill site in a the most potential for that. it takes to become a successful about the merits of tall buildings is local town centre – a small site so urban place? If not, are we willing currently helping to deflect us from strongly predetermined by its Successful cities may evolve slowly, to invest in it sufficiently to create the real issues. The proposed new context that it requires very little to but decline can come fast. That is that potential? towers are manifestations of guide its design. no excuse for focusing only on a ‘bigness’ in all its forms: the short-term view. The anti-urban Beneath many brownfields is a megastructure, the hype and the Many of the large housing landscape is shaped by funding greenfield waiting to get out. The ego. The protagonists, confident in projects recently completed or regimes favouring quick fixes, and disused airfield is – let’s face it – a the power of flagship underway on the Thames, for by the breathless timetables of field. The isolation hospital is, well, development, forget that flagships example, have not been planned political expediency and isolated. As for the brownfield site sink quickest. within a new urban structure for opportunism. in an urban setting, why has it the area. The disconnected blobs become available for We must think of cities in a different of development are as foreign to We hear the mantra: ‘outputs, development? Probably its previous time-frame from architecture: one another as they are to their outputs, outputs.’ The aim is use became redundant, having centuries rather than decades. The surroundings. Although they are investment at all costs. The cost is failed to adapt to today’s structures of the city must survive supposed to be publicly bad urbanism. conditions, perhaps compounded independently of its buildings. ‘Big accessible, their entrances are – as with many brownfield sites – architecture’ imposes an often gated and their internal Competing cities must understand by poor access. architectural time-frame on the roads are designed to feel the threats they face but resist the urban structure, frustrating the city’s private. This is the realm of the temptation unthinkingly to mimic the No brownfield site is beyond potential to develop the kind of CCTV camera, that gloomy competition. If the threat to the city reclamation and reuse – at a price. emergent, higher-order behaviour emblem of urban dysfunction. is an out-of-town shopping centre, But to make continuous, successful that Jane Jacobs celebrated. Connections to the surrounding the answer is not to try to turn the urbanism out of them needs road network are kept to a city centre into something similar something more than the run-of-the- An inability to see beyond the big minimum. The developments turn but to fight back by offering mill skills of site development that picture can create a proposal for a their backs on their neighbours or something very different: a more are usually applied in such places. development scheme that only a build buffers between them. The welcoming and friendlier place handful of major developers are developer, offering exclusivity, with good, mixed-use urbanism. If our development policy is to build capable of delivering. The result is has excluded urbanity. on failure, we need some credible that such projects rarely happen. The long-term success of cities evidence that we are capable of Often they are delayed to the next Good urbanism depends on depends on infrastructure creating the conditions for success economic cycle. Occasionally a planning such large sites as investment that may bear fruit only this time round. # major project slips through, but the seamless parts of the city, laying in 25 years or more. But these days rest are doomed to endless out streets and spaces as essential there seems to be little faith in Kelvin Campbell and redesign. Yet still too many of those public infrastructure. forward planning on any large Rob Cowan Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 15

TOPIC Suburbia: A Challenge to Prejudice?

Can we really ignore 86% of our nation’s living space ? Is Suburbia so hostile to the principles of good urban design that it is beyond redemption ? Or is it that the suburbs are so fixed and unchangeable that they are beyond the pale. The quintet of papers that follow present some answers to these questions and explore approaches to the problem of creating identity at the edge of our cities.

Christine Carr suggests in her review of the morphology of the suburbs that they are not immutable and will naturally evolve. Not always in ways that are positive, it seems. There are tensions in introducing change and skill will be needed to find the best route. Martin Crookston shows how the principle established in the Rogers Report can guide us in the “retrofitting” and “resurrection” of the problem area of “Corporation Suburbia”.

We are not alone in having to deal with the legacy of the “Suburban Dream” - in Cleveland Terry Schwarz and his urban design colleagues have been seeking ways of revitalising the “middle aged” suburbs of “middle America”. A challenge that closely follows the problems of the northern part of the UK as they are working in a climate of falling property values and the tensions of owners trapped in a potential spiral of decline. Can urban design restore confidence in these areas? In the Netherlands and Australia John Worthington finds evidence of an emerging network society without a single focus. Truly a challenge to the traditional desire to create a sense of identity but it’s that sense of identity and a feeling of “neighbourhood” that Roger Evans seeks to create in Harlow.

Yes, the suburbs will always be with us. City life changes, new opportunities develop and locations fall from grace in the league table of demand. What of the demands of sustainability and the contrasting needs of the over heated south and the neglected fringe estates of our industrial heritage ? Can we rise to the challenge for as the government concluded, “...... The urban renaissance will count for little unless suburban problems are recognized,addressed and resolved....”

Richard Cole 16 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC Processes and Issues Surrounding Suburban Environments

Christine Carr highlights the processes ongoing in suburban environments and the issues and tensions that arise in those areas.

Suburbs are of undeniable importance in England, both in numerical and however, are three facts that, in psychological terms, both of which may be attributed to the fact that, despite combination, point to the important role its recent rise to prominence, there is no real tradition in England of city- suburban developments will continue to centre living. Drawing primarily on the findings of research into early play in meeting the nation’s housing twentieth-century English suburbs1, this article aims to highlight the requirements. processes ongoing in suburban environments, and highlight issues and tensions that arise from these. First is the fact that the UK has a poor tradition of replacing older housing. It has been estimated that, since 1850, 25 Definitional concerns million new dwellings have been added to the housing stock, but only 4 million have Suburbs are variously described according to the socio-economic been lost. Sixty-three per cent of extant characteristics of their residents and / or by their form and function, with British housing was built before 1971; varying degrees of emphasis placed upon each of these aspects. this includes forty-eight per cent of the Commentators frequently draw attention to the middle-class character of stock of detached housing and seventy per suburbs, although this is highly debatable; indeed, much literature on English cent of semi-detached housing4. In other suburbs relates to municipal suburbia, more closely associated with the words, much of our housing stock is old, working classes2. The issue of class is therefore a highly contested one. and aging. Similarly, suburban forms are extremely varied, ranging from low-density residential areas of bespoke detached houses, through areas of speculatively- Second, while some regions (such as the built houses, to municipal estates. No simple definition can adequately North West) have housing surpluses reflect the variations that exist within English suburbia. which manifest themselves in areas of low-demand and unpopular housing, Nonetheless, when talking about suburbs, it is almost automatic to conjure overall the picture for the country is one up a mental picture of a certain kind of environment. Broadly speaking, a of demand increasingly outstripping ‘suburb’ is synonymous with a group of houses, built at low- to medium- supply. Current housing starts5 are at densities (say, up to 30 houses per hectare), each of which is set in its own their lowest level (excluding war years) garden. Moreover, there is usually an assumption that houses within a since 1924, yet household projections particular development will be broadly similar in terms of their size and suggest that an additional 3.8 million style. There is also an assumption that limited services will be provided households will have formed between within the development, and residents will commute to work. 1996 and 2021. This suggests that, in all probability, there will be absolute shortages of housing in the future. The The importance of the English suburb implications are clear; the majority of our existing housing stock will have to be Just as there is no clear definition of ‘suburb’, no official dataset exists to retained for the foreseeable future. delimit the boundaries of suburbs from urban or rural environments. It is Demolition of older properties should difficult to quantify the importance of suburbs, therefore; in order to do so, only occur if careful thought is given to we have to look at proxy measures, such as the numbers of dwellings of how it is to be replaced and households those types most closely associated with suburban areas, taken here to be will be accommodated. detached and semi-detached dwellings. Across the United Kingdom, these two dwelling types account for over fifty per cent of all dwellings. Figures The third fact relates to people’s vary significantly between regions, however, from a low of twenty-two per aspirations. Householders, especially cent within London, rising to a high of seventy per cent in the East those with children, attach importance to Midlands3. ‘suburban’ environments, to houses with gardens6. In other words, the success of These figures provide only a very crude measure of suburbanisation; many of certain city-living initiatives these houses are located in environments that readers – or their residents – notwithstanding, a majority of the might more properly identify as being either rural or urban. Conversely, the population aspire to a home in the exclusion of terraces undoubtedly leads to an underestimation of suburbia’s suburbs. importance within the U. K. – London’s suburbs, for example, contain a higher than anticipated proportion of terraced housing. Moreover, suburban Thus, suburban housing forms are corporation / council housing, which is widespread throughout the country, pervasive and desired, and are set to is characterised by short terraces, each of four to six dwelling units. remain a dominant housing form for the Suburbs are thus extensive. Perhaps more significant than these numbers, foreseeable future. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 17

Changing suburbs

Suburbs are not immutable. Rather they are affected by a range of evolutionary processes. This is true both in terms of the styles and layouts that have been adopted by developers over the last century and the processes by which houses, once constructed, are altered over time. While it is true that suburban housing has proved to be remarkable durable, with houses surviving beyond their original design life, it is nonetheless subject to change. There are various explanations for this, including the shifting of policy environments over time, the need to maintain and improve existing housing stock (either because owners choose to individualise their properties or because they seek to maintain the value of their investment), and through a desire to capitalise upon investment potential more generally.

The creation of new dwellings

Two overlapping areas of concern are identifiable with regard to the creation of new dwellings: those that relate to the townscape aspects of suburban development, whether of entirely new areas or of infill, and those that relate more broadly to the current policy agenda, which advocates increasing residential densities.

It is self-evident that the greatest impact a suburb can have upon the landscape occurs at the time of its original construction. This determines the character of the townscape at its inception and also sets morphological constraints as to the types of physical change that will be possible in years to come.

Under certain circumstances issues surrounding townscape value and the sustainability agenda may come into conflict with one another, as an example from Stockport illustrates. An examination of planning policies, as expressed in various iterations of the borough’s Unitary Development Plan (both draft and adopted) and Supplementary Planning Guidance indicates that the LPA have been, and continue to be, supportive of certain types of intensification. Most noticeably, it has encouraged living over the shops initiatives and subdivisions of large detached houses to create flats; over the last decade support for suburban infill has been more cautious, however. Concern for the latter has broadened over time from being confined to specific areas in the borough to being a more generic area of policy concern.

Low density areas such as in Bramhall, Stockport, are valued by local planners. On the face of it, such areas offer the potential for the insertion of houses in the existing morphological frame, but this would be to the detriment of the existing townscape character. Such tensions are not new, although the manner in Typical inter-war houses which they are articulated is changing as broader policy concerns also illustrating changes likewise change. made to porches, windows and front While the LPA was in the process of putting together the first gardens. draft of its UDP in 1991, the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport conducted a survey of residential areas, including Bramhall, in 18 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC

order to identify those that were deemed Figure 1: The nature and agents of suburban change to be of ‘spacious character and landscape’, a response to concerns being Scale of development Agents of change Principal concerns of agents Decreasing expressed about the consequences of infill / change scale of change. in such areas. While these concerns were Creation of new housing Property developers and • Land availability primarily articulated in terms of the need estates/ housebuilders • Market demand to protect the townscape, the underlying areas • Maximising investment returns Increasing root of disquiet appears to have been how freedom of Planners / Policy makers • Meeting national and regional individual. best to ensure the continuing attraction of housing targets inward investment into not just Stockport, • Meeting brownfield / but into the Manchester conurbation more sustainability targets Increasing • Ensuring form of development is importance widely. Infilling in these areas was seen to acceptable pose a threat to their attractiveness to the of individual agency. kinds of business leaders who would move Infill or rebuilding within Property developers and • Land availability / suitability of into the area in conjunction with any new existing residential areas individual householders site for infilling in terms of size, or relocating companies. acting as developers configuration and access • Market demand • Maximising investment returns Attention to an area’s attractiveness – which is related to so-called ‘liveability’ Planners / policy makers • Meeting brownfield / and quality of life concerns – is now sustainability targets • Townscape concerns providing tensions with wider sustainability issues. Current planning Micro-scale changes to Individual property owners • Desire to maintain or improve policy, as set out in PPG3: Housing individual properties property (either according to the (2000), advocates the reuse of urban land (including gardens) whim of the householder, or to and the use of higher building densities maintain / maximise property’s value). Tenure may act as than has been the case over the last eighty- constraining factor. odd years. PPG3 (2000) recommends a minimum density of 30 houses per Planners / policy makers • Townscape concerns (as hectare. implemented through designation of Conservation Areas, use of Article 4 directives, In 2001, overall density of residential Supplementary Planning development in England was 25 Guidance etc) dwellings per hectare. This overall figure masks the reality that, driven by economic and land availability constraints, the 30 houses per hectare Figure 2: Tensions within suburban development and change agendas minimum was already being achieved in certain areas, including parts of Sustainability agendas Liveability considerations Stockport, long before PPG3: Housing Recycling and densification of Quality of life considerations; (2000) came into force. This is significant development retention of high-class as the densities at which developments neighbourhoods were originally constructed has implications for the ability of such areas to absorb additional dwellings at a later date. Housing areas laid out at such densities have individual plots that are usually too small to accommodate Conservation Individual agency additional dwelling units. In other words, experience suggests that where houses are Desire to maintain character of Freedom of householders to alter existing townscapes properties according to personal built at even the lowest densities deemed taste acceptable in the current iteration of PPG3 future infill will be precluded. It will be impractical to come back to such areas to increase residential densities at a later date. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 19

It should be recognised that, even at in areas of speculatively built terraced and References densities lower than 30 houses per hectare, semi-detached houses, but is rare in areas 1Whitehand, J. W. R. and Carr, C. M. H., Twentieth- it may be hard to incorporate houses into of large, frequently bespoke, detached Century Suburbs: A Morphological Approach, existing layouts. In order to create plots of houses9. Routledge, 2001 adequate dimensions, it is sometimes 2For examples, see: Bayliss, D. ‘Revisiting the Cottage necessary to bring parts of neighbouring Changes to properties are affected, again, Council Estates: England 1919-1939’ Planning plots together. This generally requires the by a range of factors. Plot size and Perspectives 16, 2001, 169-200; Daunton, M. J. co-operation of neighbours, and configuration is a major determinant upon (ed.), Councillors And Tenants: Local Authority Housing In English Cities, 1919-1939, Leicester developments may be put on hold for the construction of extensions just as it is University Press, 1984; Swenarton, M., Homes Fit years until either one of the neighbours with infill. Those changes that do not alter For Heroes: The Politics And Architecture Of Early moves or has a change of heart. the footprint of the house will be affected State Housing In Britain, Heinemann, 1981 by the durability of the original house and 3Office of National Statistics (ONS), Regional Trends. In the case of lower density suburbs, where the priority attached by residents to its Available at: www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase plots are larger, teamwork becomes less of maintenance and improvement, as well as 4ONS, Type of dwelling: by construction date, 1998- a consideration as individual householders the aspirations and tastes of owners. 99: Social Trends 30, Available at: have plots that are large enough to Minor changes are relatively cheap to www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase accommodate one or more new dwellings. implement, and therefore are not 5Planning 11 January 2002) ‘New housing at lowest particularly sensitive to household income, level since 1924’ p1 Although undoubtedly tenure is a barrier another reason why they occur in higher 6 to infill, empirical data suggests that it is density, lower cost, housing. Having said For example, see HBF (2000) PPG3: The Consumer Response, The Housebuilders Federation, London not a major constraint. One reason for this that, in areas of negative equity and 7 is that owner-occupiers (covenants and abandonment, even minor maintenance Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), Land leases notwithstanding) have the greatest and improvement tasks may well be Use Change in England: Residential Development to 2001 Statistical Release LUCS-17, May 2002, freedoms for changing their properties, ignored by property owners, as, in www.planning.odpm.gov.uk/lucs17 and levels of owner-occupation are highest extreme cases, the cost of changes (e.g. to 8 in detached- and semi-detached properties. windows) will exceed the value of the Whitehand and Carr, 2001, op. cit. properties in question. 9Ibid

Changes at the micro-scale Agents of change and issues arising While changes involving the submission of planning applications (be these related to The degree and level of control exerted by infilling, or the construction of garages different groups varies according to the and extensions) have been found to occur scale of development being undertaken, most frequently in lower-density areas, the with planners and business interests converse is true with regard to smaller exerting the most influence where changes8. That is to say, the smaller types developments are largest, and individuals of change – including the replacement of where developments are smallest (figure windows and doors, and paving over of 1). Moreover, the principal concerns of front gardens – are most apparent in these various agents, and the tools higher-density suburbs. Not only do more available to them to facilitate or constrain piecemeal changes occur in higher-density change, varies according to the types of areas, but the impact of these changes on development being undertaken. At all the streetscape, both individually and levels of change, however, tensions exist cumulatively, is more pronounced than is (figure 2). It is necessary for urban the case where such changes are hidden designers – along with anyone else with an from view by high hedges or large gardens. interest in the built environment – to Indeed, the very prominence of the understand the kinds of issues and changes in higher-density suburbs may dilemmas raised by these changes. Even lead to an increase in the incidence of more challenging is the task of negotiating changes, as residents follow the examples paths through them, finding compromises set by their neighbours. Contagion is also that are acceptable to most, if not all, increased where groups of very similar groups and individuals concerned. # houses are situated together. Such replication of elevations is most common Christine M H Carr 20 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC Calling Suburbia: Richard Rogers has a Plan for You...

Martin Crookston examines how the principles of the Urban Task Force report can be applied equally to developments in suburban locations.

The ‘Urban Task Force’ set up by John Prescott under architect Richard Rogers The Urban Task Force Principles put its report in to the Deputy Prime Minister during June 1999. The focus of press attention was very much on the messages for the declining industrial The ‘10 principles for Urban Design’ in cities, the brownfield land, and the signs of revival in city centres like Chapter 2 of the Report are, in summary: Manchester, Leeds and London Docklands. Respect Site and Setting But it’s very important to recognise that a debate about British cities can’t Design from a basis of understanding, simply be about the inner areas. The approach of the Urban Task Force isn’t don’t import standard solutions and just a way of looking at existing and older towns even though some pattern-book layouts. commentators have suggested that a missing element in the Rogers approach has been in relation to that very important part of Britain in which so many of Respect Context & Character us live: the Suburbs. Not slavish reproduction, but understand local vernacular styles, It’s fundamental that the principles (see table right) of good urban design, set conditions and skills. out in the Task Force report, shouldn’t just apply in Ancoats, or Limehouse, or even Chelsea. They should also apply to thinking about the suburbs. If they are Create a real Public Realm the principles that we need for a quality environment, then suburban This is vital: there must be a hierarchy of development too should aim at similar objectives. spaces; buildings must relate to them; otherwise we just get SLOAP- the ‘Space A Suburban People Left Over After Planning’ About half the population of Britain lives in ‘the suburbs’, as defined by Paul Oliver in his delightful book ‘Dunroamin: the Suburban Semi and its Enemies. Plan at a ‘People’ scale So what goes on there matters: to the people who live there, of course; but also Make walking easy – keep the scale and to issues like how much new ‘greenfield’ land we are going to build on, and the ‘grain’ quite small; link up easier indeed to the wider future of our urban life. That means that John Prescott’s routes in existing places; improve the ‘Urban Renaissance’ should be trying to get the best out of the existing suburbs balance between pedestrian and car too. We should certainly stop treating the suburbs as ‘A Bad Thing’. This has been a recurrent theme of Britain’s discussion of housing and town planning Use Land Efficiently for a hundred years, lan Davis in Dunroamin recalls: ‘....On my first day in a Look for intensity; relate development school of architecture I handed my tutor the usual form indicating name, age logically to transport and community and home address: Hillside Drive, Edgware, Middlesex. He read my form and services; stop panicking about density. gave me a probing stare, followed by:’ I take it that you live in one of Edgware’s semi-detached houses?’ My affirmative prompted the observation Mix Activities that I should make early plans to move to a more civilised address, such as Accept that most modern activities can Camden Town....’ co-exist, and design out problems; but look for genuine interactions, not a Wrapped up in genuine concerns (loss of farmland, longer travel, and so on) tokenistic ‘mix’. there has been a lot of architectural and social snobbery about suburbia, which makes it hard to reassess with an open mind. Paul Oliver again, Mix Tenures ‘....Professional designers found it impossible to accept the reality that Avoid single tenure, build in rent / sale Dunroamin represents not escape but arrival, not status-seeking so much as flexibility at block, street, achievement, not anomie but neighbourliness, not isolation but identification, neighbourhood levels not anonymity but individuality. They, and the majority of their successors today, have not been prepared to consider that the buildings in their original Build Durably form, and the ways in which they were extended and modified, have been Adaptable flexible models – learn for expressive of the changing values within Dunroamin – but seldom of example from our Georgian past, the dissatisfaction with it.’ Dutch present

Build to High Quality Celebrate the strengths, repair the weaknesses Durable in a second sense – built to last, not a one-shot 30-year life Well, we should indeed celebrate, enjoy and renew the Suburbs. Many British suburbs are amongst the country’s most popular and successful urban forms. Respect the Environment They exist in dozens of varieties, and they have adapted and changed over All development has some impact: time. Houses have sprouted porches, or garages with granny-flats above, or minimise it, maximise sustainability. conservatories; streets and gardens have softened with maturing trees and Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 21

Left: Example from Sustainable Residential Quality Study by Llewelyn-Davies et al. showing how local centres can be strengthened

Below: Dunroamin symbol – book by Paul Oliver

shrubs; sometimes subdivision has allowed quite got. They would be retrofitted at the question of clearance and rebuilding the same stock to meet new markets, such these focal points, around improving will then loom large...’ (London 2001) as starter flats or student housing. But some public transport, places where housing parts of suburbia have not adapted. They densities might be increased, and new Even if things aren’t as serious as that, in have slipped gently from being ‘places of sorts of residents (younger people, singles, many cases, the issue is often one of choice’ to ‘places of rejection’. Areas all flat-sharers) attracted. The aim would not outdated structure. One of the things over the country – London examples might be major reconstruction or ‘building in suburbia is often criticised for is its be Southall, or Acton, maybe even back gardens’ – it would be looking for formlessness, its endless monotony, its lack Stanmore – were built as the desirable new extra potential where it would help of a ‘sense of place’. This can be overdone – suburb for one generation, yet have shown breathe new life into areas. The but it does reflect one of the truths, which is a tendency to be rejected by the next. An Government Office for the South East that quite a few of our suburbs were laid indefinable feeling of decline sets in, and the commissioned the Llewelyn-Davies out without any ‘hierarchy’ of place: so area is soon ‘not what it was’ planning consultancy to apply their there is no real local centre, and the places ‘Sustainable Residential Quality’ that are not just housing are little more than This rejection isn’t just a problem for the approach illustratively to three towns in feeble shopping parades. A major outer particular area. We are too short of the region. Their study shows how an suburban area like North Sheffield, for urban land to treat places like paper tissues: existing local centre could be instance, contains some 20,000 houses – use once and then throw away. Suburbs strengthened in just this way. say 40,000 people; but it has no focus that are on the slide – and those that might where those 40,000 people might meet or be starting to slip-will benefit, socially and spend money and time, just a series (over environmentally, from being analysed and Restructuring 20) of depressing and failing strips of shops, rethought against urban design principles. dotted about. For anything other than chips There are a number of ways that we think The ‘retrofit’ thinking points to another or a hairdo, it’s the city centre or this can be done. thing that some of the suburbs need -which Meadowhall. Yet a ‘real’ town of 40,000 is restructuring. They aren’t necessarily life- people would have a core of shops, services, expired yet: though some of them may soon and leisure; plus a few viable local parades; ‘Retrofitting’ be. Sir Peter Hall, one of the Urban Task plus a recognisable clustering of activity Force members, wrote in 1989 that; ‘.... the and intensity around these central places. The first approach is what we might call suburbs will not last for ever. In the late Their re-planning needs to ‘start at the ‘retrofitting’: looking at some of the 1980s, they are between 50 and 70 years centre’: not mimicking what Central existing suburbs (sometimes the fading old. Not all were well built; not all have Sheffield offers, but creating reasonably 20s ones, but possibly also postwar been well maintained. The cost of attractive centres at each level, and then examples), and redesigning their local maintaining them will surely rise, and their thinking out what the rest of the area’s shopping parades to provide them with owners may not be able to meet it. Some structure will be as change comes to these the better local services that they never may well degenerate into new slums, and areas in future – as it will. 22 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

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Relearning (from Dunroamin?) Examples of three design concepts from Sustainable Another vital concern for the Rogers Task Residential Quality Study Force has been the waste of land showing ways to increase - and thus the unnecessary use of new housing density. ‘greenfield’ land. Suburbia’s image is of unmitigated wasteful sprawl. But even Suburban houses in an here, we can do better than present edge of town centre practice without being at all radical. Look setting. Front garden at what the housing density figures tell us. parking giving harsh car Dunroamin’s classic inter-war ‘Semi-D’ dominated environment. suburbs were built at around 10-12 houses Density and parking per acre (25-30 per hectare). This policies mean only 6 contrasted with perhaps 30 to the acre (75 houses and 14 parking per hectare) in the towns people were spaces. leaving, and perhaps 50-60 houses to the acre in the little terraces of Hulme or Stepney. So people were getting a very different product, without doubt. But look at the postwar suburbs: Urban Framework. Street Government figures record that 60% of frontage, good recent British housing (early 90s) was built surveillance of the street. at less than 8 houses per acre (20 per Site potential increased to hectare). So even a return to pre-war 14 houses and flats with suburban practice would save us land on a one parking space per big scale. And we can do better than that, unit. by intelligent use of good urban design, by less clumsy highway requirements on our estate roads, and by throwing away the town planners’ density standards.

‘Rethinking’ within the plot

Britain’s suburbs are very varied, and very adaptable. Some of the older suburbs are now so far embedded In the towns and cities that we’ve forgotten they ever were suburbs. But Holloway, in North London Car Free Urbanism. was a suburb once (it’s why Mr. Pooter – Quality environment in the ‘Diary of a Nobody’ – lived there). It without town cramming. shows an interesting variant on the No car parking but public ‘suburban’ form, that we might also learn transport close by. Site from. potential increased to 32 houses and flats. Each biggish house occupies a lot of its plot, leaving a small back garden and an even smaller front one. The density looks quite low -12 to 15 houses per acre, not very different from 30’s Dunroamin. But the feel is very different – much more ‘urban’. And so is the potential: these are big houses, with a lot of space, and a lot of rooms. With 7 or 8 habitable rooms each, they contain twice the number of rooms, Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 23

Left: Suburban Community Planning in action.

and so in a busy city probably twice the The Rowntree study emphasises the need developers in Morris Green; major number of people, that an inter-war semi for gradualism rather than any sort of ‘big restructuring in Sheffield. Some lessons are street will house. (They had to – think of bang’ approach. Suburbia may not clear – a mixture of tenures is essential, at the servants the Pooters needed). What generally be in a state of crisis like parts of all but the most local level, and never this suggests is that as suburbia changes, it the Inner City, but that doesn’t mean that again must we build in a way that allows can draw on these models too: so that in all is well; or, just as important, that we the sort of area stigma to emerge that is places where transport and services are shouldn’t be acting carefully and affecting some of these areas. Others less good (like in Holloway, like near the local thoughtfully now to head off incipient so: what is social housing now for? who is centres and transport nodes of outer problems. We may be able to spot the it to house? how have we ended in this suburbia)- we can build in this slightly problems, but we haven’t necessarily got almost-American position of the ‘housing more urban, but still very English, way. the tools (the organisations) to solve them of last resort’, where only losers rent, This will help to create activity and at local level. despite a long tradition of decent and well- intensity of use, at the same time as saving built estates for ‘ordinary families’? Dr. land and energy. Turkington’s conclusion for Norris Green ‘Resurrection’ is that ‘....only radical physical and social restructuring can prevent it from further ‘Recycling’ Some of the most difficult problems in the decline and an uncertain future....’. The suburbs – and the most complex mix of need is indeed for a resurrection in many So far, the problems and solutions that physical and social problems – are of these cases – coming back from the very we have been discussing are about the emerging in what Dr. Richard Turkington nearly dead. physical nature and form of suburbia. We of UCE has called ‘Corporation suburbia’. also need to think about ‘recycling’ the He has looked in great detail at suburbs, in the sense of their ability to Liverpool’s leafy inter-war estate at Morris And finally... look after themselves. For many Green. Similar things are happening in suburban areas, especially the Manchester’s Wythenshawe (designed by So the Rogers Task Force is full of comfortably-off districts, this isn’t an one of the country’s then most eminent messages for the half of Britain that is issue. But the care and maintenance of architect-planners)- North Sheffield, and suburban. Making them more many suburban areas, before they indeed all over the big Council estates put structured, more like towns, yes; but approach the threshold of rejection, up outside the industrial towns before and doing it in a way that reflects the definitely fs an issue for urban policy and just after the war. For the first time ever, peculiar balance between Town and management, as shown by a recent study there is a surplus of social housing. Country that the English so like about (by the Civic Trust and Arup) for the their best suburbia. Going with the grain Joseph Rowntree housing research Tenants can pick and choose, where once wherever we can; but being prepared too charity. The study observed ‘significant they needed to wait on ‘The List’ and to accept the need for major change in stress, with deteriorating community accumulate ‘points’ for years. Individual some cases: provided always that the facilities, declining local centres, car houses stay unlet (‘voids’) for months; next ‘solution’ doesn’t just contain the domination and monotone housing that certain streets start to show clusters of seeds of another failure, and that it is does not reflect population and social empty boarded homes; a spiral of decay based on thoughtful application of urban change’. They argue for careful sets in, and only the desperate, or the anti- design principles, and on community intervention, working with local social, accept offers in such streets; involvement. Our suburbs really do communities, and their suggestions Councils start to consider demolitions; a matter to our ‘urban’ debate, and we included: litter of vacant sites adds to the impression cannot go on just taking them for of decline. All familiar from the inner city; granted or regarding them as the boring • local authorities to develop positive all now starting to affect suburbia. These bits that will look after themselves. community-based programmes for their are areas which, only a generation ago, suburban areas; were home to the respectable and This will take real attention and skill, upwardly-mobile working-class; now, pointedly put in this last word from Paul • suburban ‘parish councils’ with local older tenants shake their heads and would Oliver: ‘....Dunroamin is not a bran-tub fund-raising powers for community gladly support the Council in no matter offering easy prizes for any designer who development purposes; and how severe a behaviour and eviction dips into it. The lessons that are to be policy. Drastic solutions are now being found there are not so casually • close involvement of the voluntary canvassed: over 50% clearance and learned....’. # sector, in helping communities build up rebuild in Edinburgh’s Craigmillar; a creative thinking about suburban mixture of demolition and transfer of Martin Crookston renewal. stock to Housing Associations and private 24 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC Reclaiming the Suburbs: A View from the USA

Terry Schwarz describes initiatives being taken in Northern Ohio to improve suburban neighbourhoods.

A house in the suburbs is the embodiment of the American dream. Suburbs without upgrading, or even adequately have always been seen as a way to escape the ills of the city. In the suburbs, maintaining their homes. Because of you can be the king of your own single-family detached castle, far away from deferred maintenance and the lack of the noisy, dirty, crowded, and crime-ridden city. American tax laws and upgrades, post-war houses typically attract transportation planning practices have consistently supported and encouraged buyers with lower incomes than the suburban patterns of development and today, more than 40% of the U.S. previous owners. The new owners have population lives in the suburbs.1 fewer resources to devote to their homes and, as this cycle repeats itself, the decline Although suburbs remain the housing location of choice for many Americans, of a neighbourhood can rapidly ensue.3 there is an increasing sense of urgency about suburban decline and the onset of a ‘post-suburban era.’ This apparent disparity stems from the fact that the Given the current dynamics of suburban suburbs are not a homogeneous entity and, while some suburbs are indeed housing markets, a major policy debate is facing dramatic decline, others are experiencing explosive growth. What shaping up around the issue of what to do separates a successful suburb from an endangered one is largely a factor of the with communities that are being left behind. age, location, and housing configuration. With a few notable exceptions, American cities lack effective forms of regional Housing in the newest suburbs is always in demand. Even metropolitan governance, so market forces are often the regions with little or no population growth have seen considerable increases in only determining factor in what housing housing starts, as families continue to move to newer dwellings farther away gets built and where. So the debate amounts from the urban core. Decentralised employment centres, an extensive freeway to whether scarce state and federal resources system, and low-priced gasoline make it easy and convenient for people to live should be devoted to renewing the most at increasingly large distances from the central city. Even so, the oldest inner- vulnerable suburbs, or whether these places ring suburbs appear to be holding their own. The early suburb-building era, should be left to decline, eventually reaching dating from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, was a highpoint in a point that makes wholesale land clearance American architecture and urban design. Suburbs of this era, including Forest and redevelopment by the private sector Hills, New York, Shaker Heights, Ohio, and Riverside, Illinois, are beautiful economically feasible. communities with substantial architecture, gracious tree-lined streets, ample park facilities, compact, walkable commercial areas, and excellent public transit. These suburbs have retained much of their appeal to contemporary The First Suburbs Consortium homebuyers and continue to inspire reinvestment. Are the post-war suburbs worth saving? The most vulnerable suburbs are sandwiched between the old and the new. From an environmental standpoint, a These ‘middle aged’ suburbs (built in the post-World War II period from the policy of allowing entire communities to late 1940s through the 1960s) lack the aesthetic appeal and cachet of their decline with the intention of widespread more historic older neighbours. And they cannot compete effectively with demolition and redevelopment is troubling. newer versions of suburban living being built at the periphery, where houses Enormous landfills would be needed to are larger, garages are attached, and gated cul-de-sacs provide a sense of contain the waste materials generated by security--all features that are demanded by many of today’s suburban this level of suburban renewal. From a homebuyers. As the post-war suburbs creep toward obsolescence, the factors social standpoint, simply abandoning these that put these communities most at risk include population mobility, aging older communities seems both callous and housing stock, changes in housing preferences, and the lack of any sort of sad. To an outsider, all post-war suburbs competitive edge in the regional market place. may look the same, but each has its own unique history, culture, and pattern of Population mobility remains high in the U.S. Between 1985 and 1990, 52% of development. This is not to say that metropolitan residents moved. This level of mobility creates the need for a selective demolition and redevelopment is steady supply of replacement residents.2 Unfortunately, demand for housing in out of the question. In fact, this strategy is the post-war suburbs is typically low because these are no longer seen as essential to producing a greater variety of desirable, particularly for households with the means to live elsewhere. housing options. But to throw away entire communities and start from scratch would Housing in the post-war suburbs is reaching a critical transition point. These be politically untenable and morally houses were originally built quickly and inexpensively. As they pass the fifty- objectionable, not to mention very costly. year mark, many will require substantial reinvestment to keep them from falling into ruin. Reinvestment, however, can be a shaky proposition as the The First Suburbs Consortium, a group of housing is in low demand on the resale market and the funds invested are 14 suburbs surrounding the City of rarely recouped when the house is sold. As a result, many people move Cleveland, Ohio, is attempting to address Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 25

Below left: Early suburbs Bottom right: Designs for renovating one of the Below right: Post war house prototypes to homogeneous suburbs provide more accommodation and Bottom left: Map showing responding to the street member cities of the First frontage Suburbs Consortium

these issues. Because the individual municipal boundaries in a collaborative on the inner-ring, the housing initiative municipalities that make up the Consortium effort stimulate new demand for housing sought to increase the flexibility of are much smaller than Cleveland and have, throughout the inner-ring. A specific focus individual housing units so they will appeal for the most part, experienced a milder and of the initiative was the post-war to a broader market. Originally, these more gradual kind of decline, they cannot ‘bungalow.’ (In the U.S., the term homes were designed to accommodate the readily tap into the federal and state ‘bungalow’ is used to describe a modest, needs of the traditional nuclear family--a resources available to Cleveland for large- single-storey house built between 1945- household type that has declined relative to scale redevelopment. And, unlike newer, 1970.) The primary goal was to attract the overall population and whose members outer ring communities, the First Suburbs new residents to inner-ring housing that are now choosing places other than the have little vacant land for development, so has lost its original market niche. inner-ring to make their homes. By they have few opportunities to attract the increasing the flexibility of these houses new housing and businesses needed to shore One point was clear from the beginning. It through design changes, they are more up their declining tax bases. is not possible, or even advantageous, to likely to attract a wider range of force the development patterns and prospective residents, including single Unwilling to simply watch and wait while housing types found in newer suburbs on parent families, elderly empty nesters, the physical condition and economic health inner-ring neighbourhoods. The lots in professionals seeking to operate home- of their communities slowly but steadily traditional inner-ring neighbourhoods are based businesses, and other non-traditional deteriorate, elected officials and staff from too small to accommodate the sprawling household types. Proposed housing the First Suburbs have united to gain houses being built in newer suburbs. And improvements include opening up floor support for their common concerns and to increasing lot sizes through selective plans to create larger, more fluid living lobby for resources to help reverse the demolition would undermine one of the spaces, adding small extensions and decline. Recently, the Consortium best qualities of inner-ring porches to increase the size of these houses commissioned a housing initiative to look neighbourhoods-their compact, walkable, while preserving the architectural rhythm at ways to revive inner-ring suburban pedestrian-friendly pattern of of the neighbourhood, and upgrading housing and neighbourhoods. The development. Instead of imposing the kitchens and baths, and enhancing the initiative intentionally disregards values and characteristics of newer suburbs exterior appearance-or kerb appeal. 26 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

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Top left: Typical street in Middle and bottom: Garfield Heights Possible future form of Crudele Park in Garfield Heights where the existing park is divided into two and reconfigured to provide 16 new town houses on a central parkway

streetscape improvements. In some cases, where the retail areas are actually a detriment to nearby housing, the neighbourhood plans propose landscape buffers and modifications to the street grid in order to protect residents from the adverse impacts of adjacent large-scale, auto-oriented retail uses.

The plans for each neighbourhood also look at increasing the quantity and quality of parks and recreational amenities available to residents. The plans propose small parks in neighbourhoods where they are lacking, and link residents to a regional green space network via designated bike routes and enhanced pedestrian connections. The plans attempt to capture every bit of unused open space, including vacant lots, traffic circles, and freeway interchanges, and convert them into landscaped features for each neighbourhood.

Implementation efforts are now underway; phasing plans and funding tools are being created to bring the housing designs and the neighbourhood plans to life. The Cleveland First Suburbs Housing Initiative may serve as a model for reinvigorating inner-ring suburbs throughout the country, although an essential question remains: can any design improvement, short of full-scale redevelopment, cause these places to Improving neighbourhood conditions of the neighbourhoods, new residential recapture their former appeal, or will development will require the selective efforts to improve inner-ring communities The housing initiative also addressed acquisition and demolition of a small merely slow an inevitable and unstoppable neighbourhood conditions and proposed number of existing houses. In other cycle of suburban decline and urban many quality of life improvements to neighbourhoods, new housing can be sprawl? Heroic efforts are needed to increase the market appeal of each accommodated on underutilised open reverse the outward migration of residents community. Most significantly, perhaps, space, such as the large green space in the and resources and to nurture a new breed was an effort to accommodate new suburb of Garfield Heights, illustrated of ‘suburban pioneer’ to repopulate and residential construction on infill sites in above. The neighbourhood design revitalise the inner-ring. # each neighbourhood. New construction is concept proposes that the park be divided important for post-war neighbourhoods in two and reconfigured to accommodate Terry Schwarz as a way to reduce the monotony of block 16 new town houses on a central after block of virtually identical houses parkway. Each of the residential References and to increase the variety of housing in neighbourhoods in the housing initiative 1US Census, 2000. order to attract a more diverse residential is adjacent to a retail area. The 2The Brookings Institution, Valuing America’s First population. New construction generates neighbourhood design concepts Suburbs: A Policy Agenda for Older Suburbs in the excitement in older suburbs. It gives demonstrate ways of improving the Midwest, 2002. current residents more confidence in their integration of residential and retail uses 3William Lucy and David Phillips, Confronting neighbourhood, often leading them to through landscaping and pedestrian Suburban Decline: Strategic Planning for reinvest in their existing homes. In some amenities, such as crosswalks and Metropolitan Renewal, Island Press, 2000. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 27

Urbanism on the Edge: Giving Meaning to Sprawl

John Worthington draws on recent experience in the Netherlands and Australia to reach conclusions for an urban design agenda to meet the needs of the 21st Century.

Peripheral development has never seemed as exciting a design prospect as the The Randstad provides probably the most challenge of infilling, or regenerating, the fabric of the existing urban articulated example of a phenomenon structure. The very word sub-urban, or ex-urban – conjures up images of a which we can now recognise across world outside the remit of urban designers. Asked to provide a commentary Europe and globally – the networked city. on the Dutch housing programme, which is rapidly emerging at the periphery The economic hub of mainland Europe of many of those cities, made me reflect on the thrust of DEGW’s development with improved rail, road and air planning work over the last five years. A portfolio of work which has connections, is becoming an increasingly increasingly been focussed on the city fringe. overlapped, integrated and networked community. Copenhagen/Malmo, with In Copenhagen, we have been advising the Danish Government on the the new Oresund Bridge, is a networked rationalisation of the Government administrative office building stock, with a community of 3.5 million people; core of accommodation close to the central parliament, and three Helsinki and its three surrounding administrative clusters at the periphery, linked by an excellent public transport communities, a network of nearly 2 system. In Dublin, in a city region growing at the rate of 1,000 new million people and the Ruhrgebeit inhabitants a week, the focus of our work has been the expansion of existing (Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne, Essen) a towns such as Swords, an airport location adjacent to the new Dublin-Belfast conurbation of 10 million people. In the motorway and earmarked for metro connection. In Australia, a country of 19 UK, if we were to follow the logic of million, with 8 million located in the two conurbations of Sydney and collaboration and competition, and invest Melbourne, the challenge is to find meaning for the commuter towns growing in infrastructure which integrates across like topsy in the urban hinterland. Fringe localities in metropolitan historical boundaries, I could envision a conurbations, which are still being driven by the model of a single Central networked community from Liverpool to Business District, fed from its suburbs. Hull and Sheffield to Leeds that would be of sufficient critical mass to compete with It is in the Netherlands where I have experienced the clearest vision of the any of the emerging European networked twenty first century city. Edge and periphery have become blurred into a communities. European regionalism is networked city1, the Randstad, composed of four historical cores; Amsterdam, breaking down the barriers of centralised Utrecht, Rotterdam and the Hague, with an emerging fifth, Schiphol ‘airport political capitals, to support the city’. This dispersed world ranking city of 6.5 million population is, as emergence of economic clusters that have Professor Dirk Frieling2 so elegantly expresses it, ‘not high density land use but critical mass and a strong expertise to a low density city’. The challenge is to recognise Holland’s ‘sprawl’, or become the dynamos of a ‘New Europe’. Melbourne’s ‘burbs’, as the fabric of a new network city, and find a fresh To achieve the union, however, will paradigm for its expression. Can the established Urban Design theory of require a new way of thinking that can placemaking, founded on the work of Gordon Cullen, Krier and Tibbalds, be dismantle the barriers of historical rivalry, transposed to the periphery? Are the centralist models of urban form still old geographical constraints, political valid? Is placemaking in a placeless world primarily about physical form and boundaries and ingrained perceptions, visual appreciation, or more about the meaning forms, space and functions whilst retaining the best of the past. transmit? The model of the network city provides a new paradigm, a dispersed urban Network Cities conurbation with many centres, reduced centrality, a network of convenient and The heart of the Netherlands, due to its man made qualities and network of connected public and private transport waterways, has grown up as a collection of fiercely proud and independent and non hierarchical structures. The cities which, to counteract the hostile sea, have worked together. Today, the challenge for urbanists is considerable in Randstad, or Delta Metropolis,3 is a conurbation of 6.5 million inhabitants, re-evaluating how we perceive the city; comparable with Paris or London, but taking up over five times the land area. the expression of continuity between It is made up of 12 communities of over 100,000 people, dominated by the places; the balance between public realm four major cities and one ‘inner city’ airport, Schiphol. Within the and semi public space and a conurbation, as with Paris or London, it has distinctive ‘quarters’; reaffirmation of what makes place. By Amsterdam, for finance and culture; Utrecht, for learning and media; the focussing on recent experience in the Hague, for government and Rotterdam/Delft for work and learning. Though Netherlands and Australia4, I aim to set separated by distance, they are close in convenience and time. The highway out issues and draw some conclusions becomes ‘main street’, inter city rail ‘the metro’ and it is effectively 40-50 for an urban design agenda to meet the minutes between any two nodes within the city. 21st Century. 28 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

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Right: The Randstad network city, including Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht, and the inner city of Schiphol.

The Netherlands – Dis-Urbanisation

In the Netherlands, with its strong tradition of public housing, the boundaries between architecture, urbanism and landscape have always been blurred. From the early nineteen twenties, housing layouts were synonymous with city planning. This tradition continues, strengthened by the majority of land being in municipal ownership. The change has been, with the impact of the new information and communication technology, that we no longer need to work, play and support ourselves where we live. The CIAM (Team 10) model5 of the neatly zoned self- sufficient community is largely irrelevant. New drivers are required to create identity and vitality. The Netherlands is finely tuned to this debate, supported by government subsidies for design Above left: Leidsche Rijn, competitions, publications and exhibitions. Utrecht. Masterplan for a Publications such as Post Ex Subdis-Urban Vinex site Fragmentation and Constructions, a collection of essays edited by GUST6, Above: West 8 scheme address the phenomena of sprawl and the for the 70 ha. local park challenges of ‘designing contemporary cityscapes’. Whilst the work of MVRDV, Left: Langerak by KCAP a both in print and built form7, explores the montage of different outcomes of a new sort of place-making solutions within an urban which draws on a close understanding of framework ‘programme’, content and function. Below: Ypenburg near the The most insightful commentators on the Hague designed by emerging condition are Maarten Hajer, a MVRDV providing planner and political scientist, and Arnold diversity within a Reijndorp, an urban sociologist and regulated framework independent researcher. Their essay In Search of New Public Domain8, describes the placeless world that characterises an emerging urban landscape of the disintegrated city and sets the agenda for a new language. They set out an agenda which requires a new perspective that recognises the need to produce both place and ‘non place’. They describe place as a consumer commodity and the urban field as an archipelago of enclaves. The authors recognise the difference between public spaces; the ‘Urban Realm’, owned and controlled by the city, and the ‘Urban Domain’, or semi-public space, that is privately owned and managed, but used as a public space (the retail mall, art gallery, airport or stadium). This public domain is not so much a place as an experience. The Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 29

essay argues that currently these emerging institutes necessary. More and more people motorway and a light rail system; nodes fail through over-functionalisation, a are working with other people and with ‘sustainability’, through providing a robust lack of authenticity and insufficient information; fewer and fewer people are planning framework that can respond to diversity within a dominant culture. The required for physical production. As a changing circumstances and ‘identity’ challenge for urbanists, they argue, is to result, all the elements of communication through reinforcing the sense of building in provide ‘more friction, please’, a looser fit are becoming more important, and the an historical rural landscape (see figure). of functions and opportunity for economy is increasingly taking on the West 8 competition’s winning scheme for the connectivity between different sub-cultures character of a network economy, at both focal park proposes an enclosed 70 hectare within a dominant theme. It is heartening the international and regional scales.’ urban park within a larger 300 hectare that Dutch urbanists and sociologists are recreation zone (see figure). The urban park, embracing the phenomena of periphery as a The Fifth Report recognises that to meet as with the Forbidden City or Kremlin, is set key component of our future cities. these needs and overcome the lack of space apart from its surroundings and creates and diminishing car accessibility in cities identity through contrast. The natural and The Netherlands is a country of paradox; ‘more and more businesses are moving to artificial elements will be managed by a creative tension between centralist strategic the urban periphery or locating along ‘curator’ and provide ‘a cherished, secluded planning and local city implementation, infrastructure routes’. The report and introvert retreat within a continually urban and rural, rationalism and concludes ‘the development into a network growing metropolitan web’; a pointer to the romanticism, liberalism and conservatism. society is evidenced spatially by the city park of the twenty first century. It is full of contrast, diversity and emergence of urban networks; no longer is contradiction on a small area of land. everything centred around one city or one Two of the developments – Langerak by conurbation. Instead, various centres are KCAP and Kleuten-De Meern and Setting the national spatial agenda happens developing and citizens are zig-zagging Vleuterweide by VHP, both aim to use the on a ten year cycle, with the National Policy across greater distances based on their quality of the existing waterways, Document on Spatial Planning9. The individual choices and desires.’ The report integrated with the old elements. Both aim fourth document, published in 1990, set an proposes the Delta Metropolis as the key to create identity within a framework and agenda for strengthening the Netherlands’s hub, with sub networks around Groningen, neighbourhood typology. In VHP area competitive position in the European arena, the regions of Twente, Arnhem-Nijmegen, there are five areas breaking down into by focussing on the quality of space and Breda-Tilburg-T’Bosch-Eindhoven and distinct groupings of between 50 – 1,000 environment. The 1990s saw an Maastricht. Under the direction of Jo dwellings. Each area will have a distinct unprecedented public investment in Coenen, the State Architect, the debate on character e.g. ‘the De Scheg neighbourhood infrastructure (roads, rail and airports) and the future form and character of the Delta will consist of 25 ‘fields’, the Strip will major residential construction. The Metropolis has already begun. consist of 10 ‘woonerven’ (traffic calmed National Government, through its VINEX enclaves)….the houses in the Langs de programme, identified 26 locations Heycop area will be arranged in five ‘green associated with existing communities for Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht – A Vinex Location chambers’. KCAP area will consist of one million new homes to be constructed 1,600 dwellings at an average density of 36 by 2015 . The Government, reviewing the Of all the expansion schemes proposed in dwellings per hectare. The complete plan is outcomes ten years later in the introduction the 1990 fourth report, Leidsche Rijn at the a montage of different solutions within an to their fifth report Making Space, Sharing edge of Utrecht and abutting the villages of urban framework (see figure) and Space, recognised its strengths to be the Vleuten and De Meern, was the largest. A controlled by plot development guidelines. clarity of concepts and incentives, and 2,500 hectare site, for 30,000 dwelling financial assistance for municipalities to units and a population of 100,000, At Ypenburg, another Vinex location near rapidly create tangible results. Its failings supported by 220 hectares of industrial the Hague, MVRDV have explored the were perceived to be its lack of criteria to land, 700,000 square metres of office space theme of diversity within a regulated control quality, inflexibility of process and and a 300 hectare park. Planning began in framework12 (see figure). Maximising the inadequate safeguards for controlling 1994, and construction on the first house in water body they provide an archipelago of development in rural areas. The fifth report 1998, with the Papendorp business area lifestyles. With the simplest of elements (2000-2020) addresses the new knowledge beginning on site in 1999. Today, 200,000 they have created diversity by shuffling economy and the networked city within the square metres of houses have been plots and changing colour and texture. The networked region10. completed and the form of a new architecture is stripped down to the community can be recognised. minimum, following the Rem Koolhaas ‘Business processes are becoming dispersed dictum ‘no money, no detail’. It is the spatially within the Netherlands……The The master plan by Riek Bakker aimed to ultimate of contrast and diversity with no growing competition and costs of provide compactness, sustainability and fronts and backs, no beginning and end. knowledge development render increased identity11: ‘Compactness’, by linking back to Identity is created through the ambiguity of co-operation between business and Utrecht with a green bridge over the A2 paradox. 30 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

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Below: Concept diagram and masterplan for Papendorp, business district of Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht

With Donald van Danzig of OMA as master Life in the Burbs New Agendas planner, DEGW were responsible for the development brief for Papendorp, the Australia celebrates the outdoor life and the The Netherlands, with its ambitious urban business district of the Leidsche Rijn. The ‘freedom’ of suburbia. Much of DEGW’s programme and desire to innovate, is strategy was to focus on its unique features development briefing work, whether it is providing a beacon for a ‘new urbanism’. compared with Utrecht central area7. the work, learning or transport The way forward is far from clear. Being a green field site, it could provide for environment, is located at the periphery14. However, within a cacophony of speedy development, ease of access and a The common theme is finding meaning and approaches some pointers can be variety of building typologies to reflect identity in a faceless world. Building on recognised. Firstly, that the framing of changing ways of working. However, unlike work we had undertaken with Total urban problems will be less about defining the central area which, with its old and new Identity for Utrecht Central Area15, we are alternatives (it is either this or that) but building stock and close proximity to the developing a model to help communities more about accommodating alternatives station and city shops and restaurants, it define their values and envision an identity. (both this and that) by celebrating paradox. cannot provide the same level of variety, Through assessing the resources, concerns Secondly, to ensure authenticity, rather than transport accessibility and economic and historical associations of the area, the themed Disneyesque environment of the diversity. The model for Papendorp was a through the use of words and images retail mall, we should search for a mixture of business areas, ranging from (references) we build up a matrix of the dominant culture, around which sub corporate headquarters in a parkland setting, themes (ambitions) and values cultures can flourish. Precision in function, to commerce and technology parks (expectations) of the community. This is with no space for the unprogrammed, associated with a mixed use high density core then supported by a typology of reduces spontaneity and the opportunity to (see figures). The weakness of Leidsche Rijn, accommodation types (tenure, space type create a lived-world of places, ‘giving pace, like so many of the other Vinex and amenity) that reflect different user variety and orientation to man’.16 Finally, developments, has been its disassociation profiles. Our experience is that these are master plans as blueprints are being with the existing urban core. To achieve the both valuable tools in establishing the superseded by frameworks that set building programme of 1 million homes in 20 character of place and then helping to infrastructures, typologies and value years, the solution was to choose ‘green field’ structure the appropriate building response. systems within which a programme of built sites. The result, which is now becoming The outcome is less about elegant patterns projects and events can unfold. The clear at Utrecht, is a low density ‘no man’s on paper (plan making) and more about periphery offers a challenging canvas for land’ between the central core and the new establishing community values and a urbanists. # developments, breaking the continuity of framework within which meaningful urban grain from core to fringe. designs can thrive (community building). John Worthington Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 31

Redefining suburbs: Newhall, Harlow Roger Evans describes the approach taken to create a real neighbourhood through a master plan, design codes and a high quality public realm.

References Towns and cities have for millennia grown by creating sub-urban districts. The 1. See paper given to the Association of Dutch Urban villa suburbana on the seven hills of Rome were opened up for the masses Designers and Planners (Gn SP) at the 5th Van departing the historic centre. Fortified Roman colonia such as Cologne Eesteren/Van Lohuizen memorial lecture at the Technical University, Delft, April 2000. John expanded by walled faubourg areas within 1,000m of the core. Paris grew Worthington, Urban Planning in a Networked suburban accretions within successive rings of fortification up to the middle of Economy bn SP 2000 the nineteenth century with extremities 5 km from Ile de la Cité. Many 2. Chapter by Dirk Frieling on Delta Metropolis in European cites laid out Renaissance gridiron patterns to accommodate new Echenique and Saint Cities for the New Millennium Spon 2001, London housing such as the Friedrichstadt and Dorotheenstadt districts of Berlin which 3. See Delta Metropolis website line a grand avenue which connected the old town, Altstadt, to the countryside. (www.deltametropool.com), major study being It is commonplace for our most treasured cities to have grown by absorbing undertaken with case studies by OMA andTeun surrounding villages, as did Vienna, areas which were subsequently subject to Koolhaas. medieval regeneration. Closer to home, the Covent Garden district was 4. DEGW over the last 5 years have undertaken studies for the Ministry of Planning and Housing originally a suburban redevelopment of a convent’s vegetable garden. The port (VROM) on high speed rail interchanges and their cities of northern Europe bolted on suburban growth by extending canal impact on urban planning; a development briefing systems such as at Copenhagen and Goteborg. study for the Van Eesteren, West Amsterdam area, Papendorp, Utrecht and development at Hoofdorp adjacent to Schiphol Airport. The garden city suburbs of Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes promoted 5. The Dutch section of CIAM (Van der Broek and this romance of the suburb while insisting that they were self-sufficient Bakema with Van Eyck) prepared a plan for Nagele communities in their own right and not dependent upon the urban core. in the N.E. Polder, which reflects these principles. Frederick Law Olmsted’s development of Back Bay, Boston, is a city extension See Three Schools in Nagele, Aldo van Eyck. and street-car suburb of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and essentially a Architects Year Book 9, Elek books, London 1960 6. Ghent Urban Studies Team (Ed) Post Ex Subdis- model for the new urbanists. Urban Fragmentation and Constructions. OIO Publishers, Rotterdam 2002 As the 20th century progressed city planning seems to have lost the plot of 7. See MVRDV at VPRO. Actar Barcelona, as well as what creates good suburbia where the term is today a shorthand for low, their publications FARMAX Excursions on Density OIO Publishers, Rotterdam 1998 uniform density of low-rise detached housing; poorly served by public 8. Hajer and Reijndorp, In Search of New Public transport and neither containing or contained by large areas of natural Domain, Analysis and strategy. MAI Publishers, environment. ‘Suburban’ has come to mean un-hip (or so far out it’s in). I Rotterdam. suggest that the term suburban is no longer relevant to urban design issues. The 9. Spatial Planning and the Environment historical examples to which I refer have generally all created high quality Communication Directorate. English Summaries of both fourth and fifth reports. urban form, some of such high quality that they no longer match our current 10. See John Worthington Learning to Live with the definition of ‘suburban’. Network City in proceedings of conference organised by Dutch Institute of Technology (DIT) The Harlow Context and Harvard University. Graduate School of Design Metropolitan Corridors: Planning for the Future, Dublin 2001 Sir Frederick Gibberd conceived Harlow new town as a series of 11. Landscape Architecture and Town Planning in the neighbourhoods of 6 – 10,000 people with a range of amenities at the centre of Netherlands, 95-97, p98-109. article on Leidsche the neighbourhood. The neighbourhoods are separated by ‘green wedges’ and Rijn. Uitgeverij THOTH, Bussum 1998 are connected to the town centre core by public transport and cycle corridors. 12. Density, Special Issue of a + t, 19 Spring 2002 13. DEGW, Two Sites One City Strategic brief for Newhall is a new neighbourhood within that structure; it will have amenities UCP and Papendorp sites, Utrecht, DEGW and some employment at its heart and will be distinct as a neighbourhood London 1997 contained by a clear landscape structure. Many of the anticipated population 14. In Sydney DEGW prepared the development brief of 6,000 people will be present during the day for work or leisure, all will be for the new community of Rouse Hills in the Western suburbs. In Melbourne DEGW have been responsible to a large degree for the management of their environment. undertaking briefing and site feasibility studies for the housing development agency and the state of Housing developers, by and large, have built out our local plans, whether as Victoria. new greenfield neighbourhoods or as urban extensions. This role for housing 15. DEGW have been members of a team preparing is nothing new. Many of our most treasured towns and cities were originally the development brief for the Utrecht central station area, setting up the communication process developed as residential areas – think of Georgian housing at Bath, of and preparing information for a public English villages and market towns or just about any holiday village or town referendum. destination. If these are the places where we choose to spend our precious 16. E. Relph, Place and Placelessness, Pion, London leisure, why can’t we live like this all the time? Would you spend a fortnight’s 1976 holiday on a volume builder’s estate? Well no; as the American urbanist Kevin Lynch noted ‘We have the means of producing an enjoyable environment for everyone. It need not be saved for vacations but can be achieved in our everyday world’. 32 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC

I would suggest that this notion is that • Conserve natural assets Define streetscapes and character part of the urban design agenda that • Create a legible street structure areas informed PPG3. Good design, social mix, • Focal points within the plan walkable neighbourhoods, efficient use of • Define streetscapes and character areas Consistency and quality in the design land, lifestyle, places for people – all • Develop housing typologies for and detailing of the public realm these terms are used in that document. locations throughout a scheme is essential. Local PPG3 boils down to one thing, making • Local distinctiveness authorities have for the past few years legible, or recognisable, places e.g. a • Housing mix been able to designate 20mph zones hamlet, a village, a market town or a without recourse to central government. neighbourhood quarter. Furthermore, Over the last 18 months ‘Home Zone’ these places, the very same ones we Conserve natural assets legislation has brought further scope to choose to visit on holiday, tend to be built street design that promotes walking and at higher densities than housing of recent Higher density development places cycling. Newhall’s master plan preceded decades. For years the planning system greater significance on retained trees, both pieces of legislation but has laboured under the notion that low woodland or green spaces. Established subsequently been adopted as a 20 mph density produced high quality vegetation provides a maturity to new zone. Informal courts or small squares environments. The truth is that not only development without which a generation (technically pedestrian tables) are do higher densities raise values by of young children could grow up without created at street junctions. These are the building more square metres of floor seeing a full-grown tree. Land retained as places at which pedestrians want to cross space per hectare, but the value per parkland enables high-density, high value and walking takes priority over driving square metre is likely to be higher as development along its edges. at these locations. Some squares have interesting and liveable places result: trees at their centre, all are intended to design is key. provide sitting and informal play space, Create a legible street structure and motorists must proceed with caution. A tree in the middle of the road The creation of Newhall The street structure generates the form of ahead is usually enough to convey the the plan. Streets should be first and message. The intention at Newhall has been to foremost designed as a safe, convenient create a real neighbourhood where and pleasant public realm. Linkages to I think it makes little sense to try and people will enjoy living (and working). surroundings should be maximised. There reduce car ownership through a The development is, unusually, being should be a logical hierarchy of streets reduction in the provision of car managed by the land-owners through a from mews to quiet lanes, avenues and a parking. People will continue to own specially founded company, New Hall ‘high street’ for larger developments. This cars and the issue is not one of Projects Ltd, to ensure the long term hierarchy of use should be considered ownership but of usage. If the layout stewardship of the land and the before any classification based on local favours walking and cycling and if development. Harlow District Council highway standards. public transport is good, then more has been a key player in the planning and people may leave their cars at home. design of the neighbourhood from the That still leaves the issue of where to outset. With a planned population of Locate public focal points within the park them. At Newhall we are working about 6,000 people, the concept of the plan to realistic levels of car ownership and neighbourhood is not just a matter of are using various tactics for design but also one of delivery. It is being Within the street structure will be accommodating parking. On-plot designed and built by many architects appropriate locations for major and parking is generally hidden from view and developers. There are mistakes and minor public spaces. A main square or but we are also providing a significant compromises alongside the showpieces; central green would be located at the amount of street parking. The rule of it’s not a stage set built with a historical intersection of the most important routes; thumb is that the street environment pattern book. The master plan has quieter courts and small informal squares can absorb a fair amount of parking if it applied some fundamental urban design would be located at the intersections of is in small groups. Kerb lines follow principles which are translated into land the minor routes. Imagine parachuting in buildings lines to either side and are not parcel briefs through design codes. The to any historic village or town on earth; it therefore parallel. This creates wider master plan effectively creates ‘location’ would be possible to instinctively find parts to the street that facilitates within which individual architects can one’s way to the centre of the settlement, parking but does not look like an empty explore suitable responses. The principles yet this universal ‘legibility’ is often car park or over-wide street when applied by the master plan are: missing from much new development. empty. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 33

Top left: Newhall location Pavements and squares at junctions are plan surfaced in bound gravel, denoting pedestrian use. The gravel is separated Right: Sketch showing from tarmac street surfaces by granite- main lines of movement sett details. Street trees are owned by the and character areas Residents’ Association, but all other within the new parts of the street are adopted. Spare neighbourhood telecom ducts are being laid at all street junctions to accommodate future Middle: Detail of Phase 1 technology. masterplan

Bottom: Bird’s eye view Develop housing typologies for looking across part of appropriate locations Phase 1 toward the neighbourhood centre Within the planned layout of streets, squares and parkland there will be different character areas, each suitable for different house types. Three or four storey town houses might be appropriate close to the pavement along a ‘high street’, while similar height buildings capable of turning a corner could be required at major street intersections. At the centre of a neighbourhood one would expect to find the highest density of dwellings and this might be achieved by apartments. Away from the main streets a mix of detached and linked dwellings may be appropriate; although less formal than town houses, the density may be comparable or higher.

Each dwelling is unique by virtue of its location and need not therefore be subject to elevational ‘add-ons’ in a forlorn attempt to make a house look distinctive.

Local distinctiveness

I would argue that local distinctiveness is better achieved through colour and materials palettes derived from a careful study of local buildings than a copying of local architectural features. We worked with the artist Tom Porter at Newhall who prepared palettes based on the soils and materials of the area. Separate palettes were produced for walls, roofs, floorscape and door / window elements. The palettes are being applied across all development parcels to provide cohesion across different architectural approaches. 34 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

TOPIC

Top: Land parcel 1A Middle right: Land parcel Bottom: Land parcel 1D apartments. Density 70 1B townhouses illustrating with landmark”Sun Mill” dwellings/ha. flexible live/work addressing the main Architect REA accommodation on the square. Density 44 ground floor. Density 45 dwellings/ha. Middle left: Phase 1 dwellings/ha. Architect Architect PCKO masterplan showing early Proctor and Matthews phases of development

Housing mix and live-work accommodation

Towns and villages have historically provided a rich social mix with, for example, large detached houses found next to a terrace of cottages. We accept this in a village because the setting is likely to be of high quality and the size of accommodation more likely to be indicative of stages in life than social order. There is no reason why such a mix is not appropriate in new development. Indeed, it provides choice, and makes for a richer street scene.

Density

Higher densities should not be achieved by simply moving houses closer together; new house types need to be developed for certain sites and greater care and attention needs to be paid to issues such as overlooking. Old standards defined minimum distances between houses. Such problems can be solved more creatively and providing that all design issues have been adequately addressed, a numerical measurement of density is unhelpful. Design a scheme that is truly relevant to its context and then measure the density. Density measured as dwellings / hectare has been given greater importance by PPG3 yet is really a poor indicator of density compared to floorspace / hectare.

Housing typologies

Alternative housing typologies to those generally applied by the house building industry are being explored such as: Live work units; Courtyard blocks; Courtyard houses; Mews return frontages.

Delivery

The project has tested several methods of delivery. The first land parcel (1A) of 100 dwellings was offered to a design / tender competition. Six developers were selected from a long list of 40 expressions of interest and invited to tender. The choice of architect was left to the developer. Bids were first rated according to sample designs submitted Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 35

before tenders were opened. The general developers may take on a single construction costs are also higher. Land level of design submission was ordinary development comprising designs by prices have certainly not suffered due to with most developers proposing to different architects. Design codes are the design approach and associated codes. recycle fairly standard designs. The applied by the legal agreement which There must surely be a lesson here for industry perceived the project as more accompanies the land sale. Once concept public sector land-owners too. risky than a site with fewer constraints designs have been agreed, the land owner and some major house builders withdrew requires that drawings are approved by The following conclusions can be drawn: from the process. The selected developer, ourselves prior to planning and building Barratt, ultimately felt compelled to use regulation applications. Those • The master plan is crucial a more standard product on half the requirements are not there to monitor The master plan creates confidence and parcel to reduce exposure. individual architects but rather to ensure certainty, not just with the local that developers don’t depart from agreed authority but also with the different For the second land parcel (1B) of 80 architectural intentions between concept developers who may be developing on dwellings a design / tender competition and construction. Even then, it has adjacent land parcels within a single was again held but this time architects become common practice in the house plan. It is the master plan that can were first approved by the Newhall team. building industry to depart from agreed create location and a real sense of place. The winning entry came from Copthorn plans on site, often with no more than a with Proctor and Matthews architects. foreman’s instruction. We have been faced • Design codes can speed consents This scheme is now on site and will in many cases with the choice of enforcing Design codes are the ‘working deliver a density of about 45 dwellings per the legal agreement and causing severe drawings’ of master plans. They ensure hectare in a mixed-use scheme including disruption to purchasers and occupiers or that all the parts fit together into a apartments, town houses, detached letting some mistakes stand. coherent whole. The codes are devised houses and live-work units. Copthorn and agreed with the local authority have let it be known that city investors All this takes time and a great deal of with the result that individual detailed have not been keen to back an innovative perseverance. It requires close working planning applications complying with scheme of this nature when they can with the planning and engineering officers the codes can be processed speedily. invest in ‘standard’ schemes. and a very large number of site meetings with the developer’s team and • Start early – design takes time It was felt that there was a better prospect subcontractors. Compared to running a The problem with innovative schemes is of ensuring high design standards if a single architectural project where there is a that regulators such as highway concept design scheme was produced clear relationship between client and adoption authorities work from before the involvement of a developer. A contractor, implementing a master plan manuals of ‘standards’. It takes time to commissioned architectural competition through design codes and legal agreements get everyone on board – district, was therefore held for the third land parcel through developers and their own teams is county, planners and highway (1D) of 80 dwellings with three practices, like using a joystick which is attached to engineers. The land owner persevered Jestico + Whiles, Allford Hall Monaghan controls with long lengths of elastic; there here but many house-builders would Morris and PCKO selected from a long list is some control but it’s not always have felt obliged to take the simplest of ten firms. The competition was won by responsive. As each parcel completes a route to an approval by following set PCKO and the developer ultimately piece of the master plan jigsaw puzzle it standards. selected to undertake the development was will take another two years and the CALA Homes in a joint venture with New completion of the third parcel to establish • A high quality public realm is Hall Projects Ltd. Construction began at a legible place; as with a jigsaw, a few essential the start of the year. pieces need to be in place before the People paying a premium for town picture becomes clear. houses on smaller plots will expect to It has been decided to pursue the route of see a high quality public realm outside commissioning architects for parcels their front door. before agreeing land sales to developers Land and development values and design work is underway on the next The real product of urban design is the parcels. We are confident that the master Densities at Newhall for the early parcels places made and the life opportunities plan and design codes are able to co- are 35, 44 and 78 dwellings / hectare opened up. Places need time to evolve; ordinate and create the places we want (dph) for different character areas whatever the merits of the architecture, it while promoting innovative architecture. compared to 31 dph for a nearby is ultimately the quality of life that can be With the first three parcels committed, we development. Selling prices at Newhall, lived there that is the true measure of are now reducing the size of architectural expressed as £ / sq. m.) are significantly success. # parcels in order to achieve a finer grain higher than for neighbouring schemes development. It is possible that some although it must be acknowledged that Roger Evans 36 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

RESEARCH

Secondly, in the light of the inter-war spread of Movement corridors, ribbon development, ‘corridors’ are usually seen in the UK as phenomena to be resisted (as the fate of plans for linear settlement forms urban form and urban design in the UK generally demonstrates). The traditional view, of a close bunching of David Chapman, Ian Dickins, Andrew Dixon, Peter Larkham and infrastructure, has also led to arguments that Dick Pratt describe work on the recent INTERREG-llc project traffic accidents would either rise or be more serious (reviewed in Rosmuller and van der ‘Corridesign’. Heijden, 2002). Yet the corridor studied by the UCE team, the swathe of land south of the M42 in the English Midlands and north of the This project explored issues of trans-national spatial development and dynamics in a M25 around London, turns out to be structured series of ‘corridors’ within the North-West Metropolitan Area of Europe. It also provided around a complex matrix of braids of physical the opportunity to review the nature of urban development affecting those corridors. infrastructure. However, this matrix is also bounded by two major conurbations which The project’s formal objectives were to: function as ‘movement barriers’: the conurbations of Birmingham and London • promote multi-modality in the corridors, improving the inter-connectivity of road/rail; (although this was refuted in UK responses to • improve the spatial organisation of the corridors, enhancing competitiveness and the European Spatial Development quality of life; Perspective). Patterns of movement and use are • promote synergies between spatial, infrastructure, economic and environment policy; changing according to perceptions of this • promote synergy between ‘corridor’ policies at European, national, regional and barrier effect: movement from the NW may local levels; cross the Pennines to Hull; SE/NW traffic may • promote public/private partnership in plan-making, policy implementation, by-pass the West Midlands by using the enhancing multi-modality, promoting competitiveness, sustainable mobility and M1/A50; otherwise the A14 to the east-coast ecological quality; Ports, and the A34 to Southampton, outweigh • Promote better cross-border relations; and the supposed convenience of the Channel • produce building-blocks for a spatial vision for the North-West Metropolitan Area. Tunnel link via London.

The project’s lead partner was the University of Delft, with selected corridors being Thirdly, policy may change both in response to, studied by teams at the Universities of Leuven, Lille, Dortmund, UCL, LSE (later University and in attempts to control, such pressures. For of Bristol) and UCE. Details of the project are forthcoming in a theme issue of the Journal example the construction of the M40 through of Transport Geography and in publications from the University of Delft Press. rural Oxfordshire, to relieve the M6/M1 to London, was designated a low-growth area; yet It is plain that a number of these research objectives are common to the general themes there is, clearly, urban/suburban growth in the of contemporary urban design. The UCE team discussed the urban design and towns adjoining its junctions. Likewise the development aspects of the project on a number of occasions, but these issues Chiltern rail line (Birmingham to London represented only a small part of the final project report. This text allows some discussion Marylebone) was originally a short-distance of our findings on these issues. line, but now actively attracts London-bound commuters from the metropolitan West Midlands First, there is the issue that urban design can and should be – but frequently is not – and south Warwickshire, making use of new seen at a range of scales. Most publications review processes and places at park-and-ride ‘parkway’ stations. To the north relatively micro-scales (plots, streets, neighbourhoods, quarters). Even thinkers such and east of Birmingham the ‘M6 toll’ motorway as Calthorpe (1994), developing micro-scale concepts such as the ‘transit-oriented by-pass was originally a high-speed toll route development’, have been arguable rather less successful at applications at regional around the congested conurbation. As built, it and trans-national scales. This issue of scales mirrors a contemporary debate in the will now have 7 junctions, sought by local study of urban form more generally (Moudon, 2002). This project allowed a planning authorities to facilitate local macro-level view: a national region, with its trans-national linkages. In the current development, but which will inevitably increase economic and political climate, such links form possibly the most significant engines short-haul traffic. This decentralised, and to some for growth. Traditional urban hierarchies and networks may well be overtaken by extent unplanned, urban growth, and the mixing new growth-poles in these ‘corridors’. Yet the concept of ‘corridors’ is anathema to of long- and short-haul traffic whether by road or most stakeholders interviewed in this research (Chapman et al., 2000), and the rail, inevitably compromises the functioning of fragmented nature of UK governance and planning tends to reinforce this restricted the corridor. This issue may also raise significant view (Chapman et al., forthcoming). challenges for recent proposals for substantial additional growth at Milton Keynes, which is The project suggested four elements of inter-regional corridors, which may be located on the main road and rail route through defined as: the corridor (ODPM, 2003). New urban development, located because of good • bundles of transport infrastructure – road, rail, water and air – for local, national and infrastructure links, may then prejudice the trans-national journeys. Movement along these axes defines the corridor; functioning of those links. • axes of economic development. Economic growth may spread along a corridor, following lines of efficient transport accessibility, such as motorways; Fourthly, any corridor is not restricted to • axes of urbanisation, which may themselves be consequences of economic movement in one direction. Significant trends of development along the corridor or a result of regional/national decision-making; or movement, economic development and • an area of governance, the fact or desirability of which may be derived from the urbanisation are developing east-west across existence of the other three (after Trip, 2000). the corridor’s lengthwise braids, producing a Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 37

The seven corridors Transport flows in central England Infrastructure and settlement

much more complex pattern. The routes Oxford- areas into much higher-value mixed-use areas, urban design. The complex settlement pattern Milton Keynes-Cambridge, and Oxford- for example by diversifying uses in business and and braided infrastructure, and the fragmented Northampton-Peterborough, are becoming retail parks, peripheral estates, and by releasing governance, have led to decades of ad hoc more heavily used. New clusters of space uses agricultural land for strategic new integrated development and attempts to control are emerging. These are clearly represented in, mixed-use developments. development. Successes in one part of the and set to be developed and sustained by, the corridor region merely move pressures working-out of the ODPM’s proposals for the Fifthly, the compact city concept pales into elsewhere. What is badly needed in these south of England (ODPM, 2003). This is related insignificance under the weight of recent and ‘corridor’ areas is a form of governance and to the trans-national movement patterns, as the proposed urbanisation in this region. A new planning that will link urbanisation (including severity of London as a barrier produces orbital form of sprawl is occurring, fuelled partly (in this location, scale and form/design), and diversionary routes to by-pass it. And the trans-regional corridor) by evident north-south industrialisation (for employment-generating land trans-national movement is vital for the economic inequalities. Housing targets set by regional and uses are becoming distanced from residences), competitiveness of the region: it cannot be national bodies cannot be met, in much of this and movement (at local, regional, national and diminished nor moved without significant region, from brownfield sites. Yet there is, so far, trans-national scales). Further work is needed, adverse side-effects. little evidence that new designs for new suburbs but it is clear that new mechanisms for spatial are high-density, highly-supplied by public planning, development, design and In terms of urban form and design, this study transport, or otherwise sustainable. infrastructure implementation are required at the clearly demonstrates that past, current (and, it trans-regional scale, for it is this scale that will seems, future) policies produce development During the course of the research the UCE team ultimately dictate the form and function of the patterns that increase the need to travel through developed and applied some new concepts. most local urban neighbourhoods. # their decentralised locations. Although First, we suggest that the concept of ‘armature’ environmental designations have, to an extent, could be more positive given the complex References constrained urbanisation, there is a complex braided ‘corridor’ and the negative Calthorpe, P. (1994) ‘The region’, in Katz, P. (ed.) The new web of passenger and goods movement connotations of the very term ‘corridor’ urbanism McGraw-Hill, New York through and across this complex network, (Chapman et al., 2001). The armature can be Chapman, D., Dickins, I., Larkham, P. and Pratt, D. (2000) breaking down traditional hierarchies. Current conceptualised as multi-dimensional, Stakeholders’ perceptions of the West Midlands – London proposals may also break down designations representing complex interactions between corridor Working Paper no. 82, School of Planning, such as green belts, with pressures for linear infrastructural, urban and institutional systems at University of Central England economic development (and, probably, various nodal points. It has also recently been Chapman, D., Pratt, D., Larkham, P. and Dickins, I. consequent urbanisation). New pressures are used in other complex urban design (forthcoming) ‘Concepts and definitions of corridors: also emerging, for example between applications (Roberts et al., 1999). evidence from England’s Midlands’, Journal of Transport Birmingham and Worcester, and along the Geography Birmingham-Coventry-Rugby axis, where ever- We also adapted the concepts of ‘spread’ and Myrdal, G. (1957) Economic theory and under-developed increasing pressure for new infrastructure (new ‘backwash’ (from Myrdal, 1957) to these issues regions Duckworth, London runway, West Coast mainline widening, etc) of urban form, location, and relationships with Moudon, A.V. (2002) ‘Thinking about micro and macro may well be followed by further urban communications. ‘Spread’ effects occur when urban morphology’, Urban Morphology vol. 6 no. 1 pp. development. the communication system allows many points of 37-39 connection. ‘Backwash’ effects occur when the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2003) Sustainable If the increased needs for mobility is allowed to system not only permits fewer points of communities: building for the future Stationery continue, then new urban forms will need to pay connection, but also when it concentrates Office/ODPM, London much greater heed to higher-density public connectivity in the established urban centres. Roberts, M., Lloyd-Jones, T., Erickson, B. and Nice, S. transport than is the case at present. The likely The use of the concepts in this way could prove (1999) ‘Place and space in the networked city: need for more multi-modal interchanges, a powerful tool in design assessments aimed at conceptualising the integrated metropolis’, Journal of Urban including land-using features such as park-and- resisting decentralisation and promoting Design vol. 4 no. 1 pp. 51-66 ride facilities, will increase. Congestion charging sustainable urban location and form. Rosmuller, N. and van der Heijden, R.E.C.M. (2002) ‘The in urban centres may dictate the location of such impact of spatial clustering of transport infrastructure on risk’, features immediately outside the charge zone. In conclusion, ‘Corridesign’ has, in the West Environment and Planning A vol. 34 pp. 2193-2210 But an alternative could be to consider more Midlands-London region, produced a strong Trip, J.J. (2000) ‘Exploring the corridor’, Corridesign Action 3 active ways of transforming the many mono-use indirect critique of urban policy, urban form and report, OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology 38 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

CASE STUDY Towards Urban Renaissance Barnsley The scheme for Barnsley should have a time- span of at least 30 years, beginning with a Alan Simpson reflects on the overall objectives of the Yorkshire halo that mirrors the perimeter of an inhabited Forward’s strategy for implementing changes in the region. wall that will develop over the years.

Specific short-term building projects have been identified to provide a confidence- Yorkshire Forward’s renaissance teams are working with local communities through building start to the process, providing a recently formed Town Teams, assembled to represent amenity, business and political structure through which Barnsley can interests. Together we are creating long term environmental, social and economic regenerate itself. and become again the renaissance strategies for the region’s towns and cities built upon rising aspirations and successful, forward-looking and optimistic enhanced skills in citizenship and civic leadership.’ place it has historically been. Barnsley now faces the challenge of The recently launched renaissance market towns initiative will sit alongside the urban reinventing itself into a 21st Century Market renaissance programme and the three urban regeneration companies in the region to Town. The encirclement, definition and complete the trio of programmes that will regenerate our towns and cities from the intensification of Barnsley’s urban centre into a smallest to the largest. Yorkshire Forward has worked with Local Authorities in the cities model for a sustainable town – for a living of Sheffield, Hull and Bradford to establish Urban Regeneration Companies (URC), environment that is energy efficient and can three of just 14 in the country. URC’s are independent business led companies that support itself, with a clear identity, in a place work in partnership with the public sector, and with a two-year head start, Sheffield where which people exchange skills, good One is setting the standard for urban regeneration in the region. Bradford and Hull are and information. charting Sheffield’s progress with interest, learning from methods and mechanisms being employed in South Yorkshire’s steel city. Doncaster Sheffield’s £65 million Heart of the City project was the foundation for the wider regeneration of the city, creating award-winning public spaces like the Peace Gardens Arising from the Doncaster Renaissance and the Millennium Galleries, and a vibrant commercial centre (see UDQ 84). These Charter, the master plan for the urban centre will be complemented by a new retail quarter, improvements to public transport highlights a number of short, medium and facilities, and redevelopment of the area around the City Hall. long term plans. The Waterfront will locate Doncaster’s Education City and a mixed-use Hull Citybuild have recently revealed the master-plan to increase the £1bn currently development. Linkage to the town centre via a being invested in the city, bringing forward developments in 2003, including two key new market square will provide connection to waterfront locations, offices on Island Wharf and the re-development of the Fruit Market. the main shopping street, a new marina and a The Ferensway scheme is Britain’s second largest urban development project, a mixed- waterfront park. An Urban wall of use development that includes the first integrated transport interchange in the UK. development along the town-side of the waterfront will create a new civic circus as an Bradford’s bid to become European Capital of Culture 2008 revealed to thousands of arrival point. people the city’s industrial heritage, modern art, cultural icons, beautiful landscape and architecture. Despite the disappointed of not being short-listed the work undertaken will A new civic and cultural quarter in the not be wasted, forming the basis of the transformation of the city’s fortunes over the next Waterdale area is proposed, based around a 20 years. new performance venue and the creation of a new public space. In an innovative response to the Government’s Urban White Paper, the other urban centres in Yorkshire and Humber are being offered the opportunity to work with some of the best architects, designers, urbanists and environmental planners in the world. Huddersfield Yorkshire Forward has brought together a panel of experts to work with ‘town teams’ made up of local residents, business people and local authorities to draw up long-term A Master plan and Public Realm Strategy will ‘visions’ for each town. To date, 12 towns in the region are involved in the urban explore the concept of Huddersfield as an renaissance programme, the latest to join are Bridlington, Castleford and Pontefract, open gallery with key open spaces ‘on Halifax, Rotherham, Selby and Scunthorpe. display’, animated with uses, and able to fulfil a variety of uses. This visioning document will These six towns are currently in the process of building their ‘town teams’, before identify objectives providing short, medium embarking on the process of public consultation that will see them seeking the views of and long-term projects, allowing early actions people from all sectors of the community. The original six towns to enter the to be identified and implemented. programme, Barnsley, Doncaster, Grimsby, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Scarborough will all have completed the preparation of their master-plans by April, but it is the plan An early project will convert a large for Barnsley that has captured the imagination and hit the headlines. warehouse to the rear of the railway station to town centre live/work space and commercial The interest shown has come from the fact that Barnsley has been the subject of many a ‘innovation spaces’ where companies joke in the past, and the team’s vision to turn the much maligned town into a walled city requiring flexible workspace can expand, that will resemble a Tuscan hill town has certainly put the town back on the map. building upon Huddersfield’s reputation as an Innovation Town. The Strategy will now be New ideas are what the urban renaissance panel is all about, and why you will taken forward in close partnership with continue to hear the word ‘vision’ used frequently in relation to this programme. As Kirklees Metropolitan Council prior to its Yorkshire Forward’s chairman Sir Graham Hall is often heard to say, ‘If you do what presentation to a wider public audience. you always did, you get what you always got’. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 39

Top: Doncaster Central Area Opportunities by Urban Initiatives

Below left: Barnsley ideas by Will Alsop

Below right: Scarborough, potential for increasing density in the Old Town. John Thompson and Partners and West 8.

North East Lincolnshire and Grimsby The Action Plan is based on the five key vehicular streets around the town centre that knits elements of the Master plan: the urban fabric together and eliminates the need A detailed master plan of the town centre and • A new regional role: placing Scarborough at for through-traffic to traverse the city centre. Streets docks area is underway, following a presentation the hub of the Yorkshire Coast within the heart of the town will be taken back into with the Town Team in December. The • Green gateways: welcoming the visitor, the public realm and re-orientated to people. development of the Freshney Forest concept is enhancing the valleys and connecting also progressing. A workshop with the town team communities is to be held in late January to explore the key • The seaside string of pearls: linking the assets Other Initiatives themes which have to be addressed, and to build from North Bay to South Bay ownership of the urban design agenda across the • Streets, squares and public spaces: a The Renaissance Market Towns programme is a public sector, as well as business community and qualitative change that will connect people ten-year plan to develop the region’s rural centres development professionals. The intention is to and places and trigger investment designed to give a similar level of support to the hold a second workshop in later February, to • The living heart: removing the blight, region’s smaller towns and surrounding villages, work up more detailed themes of the emerging increasing densities, changing the image and Once again, ‘town teams’ will be guided by master plan with this group, so that ownership of breathing life into the town. specialists in small town and rural regeneration to principles and application is secured. develop a vision and action plan to be translated into physical development. Wakefield Scarborough Yorkshire Forward will continue to build Proposals will provide new social, economic and relationships with potential joint venture partners Following the creation last Autumn of the environmental opportunities for all. Countryside in the property sector. Our high profile strategic Renaissance Vision and Charter for enhancement coupled with strategies for development projects like the redevelopment of Scarborough, the Town Team is continuing to improved transportation are intended to aid the Barnsley town centre and major city centre work with West 8 and John Thompson and conversion of rural Wakefield District into a developments in York and Leeds cannot be Partners to finalise the master plan and Public ‘Green Heart of Urban Yorkshire’ as a new undertaken in isolation, and will need the Space Framework, whilst simultaneously destination for leisure and culture. In Wakefield support of innovative and high quality property prioritising the various elements of the City the countryside will enter the City as a green developers. # Renaissance Action Plan for drawing down boulevard or emerald ring of densely planted, investment for 2003 and beyond. tree-lined, pedestrian and cyclist-oriented Alan Simpson 40 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

BOOK REVIEWS

The author demonstrates his point impact of development projects, by devoting chapters of his book which can be adapted to specific to the different vertical elements – circumstances and uses a number land uses, public realm, of case studies as examples of landscaping, neighbourhoods, good practice. movement, ecosystems and concluding with a chapter which In part 2, the authors describes the new form of acknowledge that LVA cannot rely skyscraper with all elements on quantitative evaluations only combined. Needless to say the and has some qualitative book is copiously illustrated with components; it combines the author’s fine works, some objective and subjective built, some proposed and some judgements and therefore it is just thumbnail sketches. particularly important to take a transparent and consistent My only concern about the book approach. The book outlines such is that there is no mention made an approach and carefully of the costs, as opposed to defines the terms it uses and the benefits, of the urban design principles of good practice. Part elements. By how much will rents 3 covers the legislative framework have to increase in order to cover and the EIA process. It then the provision of plazas, parks follows several steps needed in a and landscaping? Will tenants LVA, from the description of the be prepared to pay such extra proposed development, through value-added costs? And what if how ‘to avoid, reduce and where the owner fails to manage and possible remedy or offset any maintain the public realm (which significant negative effects on the Reinventing the Skyscraper ecosystem, his latest book gives a is in effect not public unless the environment arising from the – A Vertical Theory of Urban much wider coverage of all building is in public ownership)? proposed development’, to Design vertical elements, of which the identifying and assessing these Ken Yeang ecosystem in Chapter 11 is The second reason why the book effects. Ways of communicating Wiley Academy, 2002 merely one part. makes an interesting postscript to the results of an assessment are £34.95 the conference is that on page offered in part 8 and methods of This is not to say that the potential 107 there is a section drawing of consultations in part 9. It was a great pity that owing to a has not yet been realised. There a tall building proposal for Throughout, the case studies are technological hitch the are already numerous mixed use Bishopsgate designed by the presented following the same UDAL/UDG conference on Tall tall buildings in the USA (though author. It has 66 floors (16 more format: their context, the details of Buildings, held in November not yet in the UK) with tall than Canary Wharf Tower) which the proposal, an analysis of the 2002 and reviewed elsewhere in landscaped atria and vertical would make it by far the tallest assessment and a critique, some this journal, was denied the transportation systems (elevators) building in Europe. Is this illustrations. And there are opportunity of hearing Ken commanding views of the atria or proposal still a goer? If so, will it appendices with additional Yeang’s talk on Tall Buildings and the world outside rather than no be seen behind the dome of St material and advice. Sustainability. However, views inside vertical tunnels. Paul’s Cathedral in the view from disappointed delegates who felt However, Ken Yeang is arguably Richmond Park? # Such a book should be a like reclaiming their conference the only architect who has taken welcome partner to the various fees will be pleased to know that the theme further and introduced Tim Catchpole good practice guidance they can obtain in lieu a book a plaza on the 36th floor or a produced by CABE and more which provides a fuller park with trees on the 49th. recently by the UDG. Yet perhaps authoritative account of what Guidelines for Landscape and because of its format, its would have been his 20-minute In so doing, the author adds an Visual Impact Assessment wordiness, or some other reason presentation. urban design dimension. He The Landscape Institute with (no author is mentioned), it seems regards most skyscrapers as dull; the Institute of Environmental worthy rather that stimulating. It The book makes an interesting they are ‘nothing more than a Management and Assessment may be very useful for those postscript to the conference for series of stacked trays piled £35.00 working on EIA, but it fails to two reasons. First, there was no homogeneously and vertically … inspire. other speaker who highlighted the that ultimately only expeditiously The title says it all: Environmental potential of a tall building to satisfies the real estate Impact Assessment (EIA) has been Sebastian Loew become a self-contained city in developer’s financial returns on part of the statutory planning the sky complete with a vertical his investment.’ Instead, ‘starting process since 1985 as a result of mix of land uses, vertical as an urban design endeavour at a European Union Directive, transportation, vertical public the outset, skyscrapers can amended in 1997 which justified realm, vertical landscaping, become more humane, more the second edition of this text. vertical community facilities, etc. communally focused and more Landscape and visual assessment Whereas in his earlier book, salubriously acceptable and (LVA) are part of EIA and this book Bioclimatic Skyscrapers (reviewed habitable environments for the gives advice on how best to in UDQ52, October 1994), the new denser urban communities implement the directive. It offers a author focused on the vertical within our cities.’ methodology for assessing the Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 41

Planning for a Sustainable The challenges and issues are The material is detailed, suitable and suggests that the site provides Future complex. Peter Hall discusses for undergrad, post grad students, an opportunity to create a real Edited by Antonia Layard, urban densities for sustainable and the practitioner. It is somewhat public civic space for the post- Simin Davoudi and Susan cities and the downside of town monotonously presented, as a industrial age. She would like to Batty cramming. Others cover Housing reviewer who more easily absorbs see a place that responds ‘to the Spon Press 2001 £18.99 and the psychological meanings visual material, more breaks in the different experiences and of homes, balanced communities text: tables, more boxes, bullets, reactions of people throughout the This book is a contribution to the versus the erosion of choice; a and selected illustrations would city’, that expresses diversity and debate, compiled by many greener agenda for provision have helped the dense text. not one that is surveyed and planners in research practice, and which compares the conventional However there is much serious controlled. Robert Paaswell also other disciplines, from the Bartlett approaches with sustainably investigation across a wide range looks at the opportunities opened School of Planning, University orientated transport; planning for of topics for the sustainability by the destruction, in terms of the College London, and other more flexible use, users bearing agenda. A useful primer. # transportation policies for the city. colleagues from a variety of more of the environmental and He argues that fresh thinking is environmental perspectives. There social costs they generate, housing Peter Eley needed to consider the role of are 17 papers, an index and a improvement strategies and also Lower Manhattan, the trips its comprehensive bibliography. conservation legislation; and activities generated, and the waste management infrastructure investments needed Rafts of issues are raised, but the considerations, to combat After the World Trade Center in the future to create a more experts generally do not have problems of ever increasing Michael Sorkin and Sharon pleasant environment. Equally conclusions. There is no single landfill. Matthew Carmona Zukin (eds) Michael Sorkin makes suggestions definition of sustainability. It is a presents a possible agenda, for Routledge £16.99 for the future of the area and reflection of the diversity of urban design- concerning relates it to other parts of the city. interpretations that surround the buildings, spaces, quarters and September 11th and its global sustainability principle and the settlements, involving issues of; consequences are likely to be Michael Wallace –Pulitzer Prize difficulties that implementation stewardship, resource efficiency, debated for years to come. This winner for his Gotham: A History entails. The book is in 3 parts: diversity and choice, resilience, collection of essays is mainly of New York City to 1898 – also • principles of sustainable pollution reduction, distinctiveness, about the effects on New York looks at the future in the light of development-theoretical, biototic support and self City; the editors are both past history. He argues that Lower political, legal and policy sufficiency. Manhattan residents who were Manhattan had lost is • contemporary debates on how there when the outrage predominant role as financial to best implement in practice In the third part of the book, the happened. They have written centre a long time ago, when • new ways that the theory of theory of sustainable development about their city before and here businesses moved to other parts of sustainable development is is being put to the test in practice they have assembled a variety of the city or out of the city being put to the test. with 3 case studies- the testing of points of view about its past and altogether. He also finds that New an additional 10,000 households its future. York’s economy is too reliant on Issues discussed are: Should we located according to different the service and financial sectors. build on green or brownfield?, is it development strategies, in Kent Mark Wigley’s Insecurity by His vision for the future is a mixed better to cycle or drive? and Leicestershire, at the sub Design for instance deals with the use neighbourhood, with Sustainability is more than the regional level; methods used symbolism of the twin towers: it residents, light industry, retail (on current quality of life, it also to,determine housing development emphasises the way that the the street and not as previously in requires consideration of the thresholds for services and destroyed buildings have been a subterranean mall), in addition interests of strangers in time and accessibility, applied to described as people, ‘hurt’, to some high quality office. The space, as well as ecological limits Gloucestershire, using catchment ‘wounded’, ‘tortured’ or ‘dead’ encouragement of manufacturing and other species. Policy issues area analysis; and the concept of (death of the twins). It indicates industry and the revival of port need to resolve the redistribution town centredness, looking at that this was not accidental since activities are suggestions that go of scarce and limited resources. Wolverhampton. ‘at some level, an extraordinary against the current grain, but These issues are not new, but they identification with the buildings Wallace argues that they are have become more urgent. With The virtuous path towards took place’. And this was in spite feasible and that the money is an increased focus on public sustainable development is set of their anonymous design and the there; what is lacking is the participation, it is easier to out at the end, by David panning from the architectural political will. redefine, than implement Banister, balanced between establishment when they were progress. A local area Agenda Quality (vitality, secure built. There are few illustrations in this 21 can, and does inspire, the environment, more attractive and thought provoking book. Though book assures us, but there have better quality city environment) Other essays deal with not specifically an urban design been failures. and Actions (employment Manhattans’s past; with previous text, its interest lies in the width opportunities, affordable calamities that affected it, and depth of the debate that the The book engenders the notion housing, local services and including terrorist attacks; with attack on the Twin Towers has that we are eye witnesses, as facilities/open space). Useful ethnicity in the city; with the role of provoked in relation to the most subjects and objects, of a break boxed summaries for ‘Barriers to the public sector. Most of them try urban of contemporary cities. with modernity, which is freeing successful implementation of to draw lessons for the future and Unfortunately the shortlist of itself from the contours of a sustainable development’ are some, specifically debate what competition entrants recently classical industrial society to form presented and scored, under should be done with ‘ground announced, a series of high rise an industrial risk society where three headings for unresolved zero’. Setha M. Low returns to a architectural ego-trips, has no modern technologies are debates on the city, the regions, subject previously discussed by connection with this debate. # themselves the cause of risk to and institutional and the editors, the commercialisation ecosystems. organisational debates/issues. and privatisation of public space, Sebastian Loew 42 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

BOOK REVIEWS

Great City Parks pictures are immensely satisfying, Alan Tate sculpture, steps, water, colours. I Spon Press 2001 £49.50 wonder that this ‘rurality’ can really exist in urban areas. The book has This is a book on a selection of Parc de Buttes Chaumont Paris, urban parks within a city’s which I’d known from ‘The Parks boundary. The narrative illustrates and Gardens of Paris’, 1890 by 20 case studies, which are from Robinson, and I visited, in the the USA and Europe – big cities 1970’s, which was very predominate. These are analysed neglected. Now its magical under the headings of History (time according to this book. It’s a good of designation, reasons for example of reuse of an old Quarry. building, and subsequent development); Planning and The book has a good blend of neat Design (location in the city, shape, diagrams, site plans and attractive size and landform); Management and well taken photographs, (some and Usage (who appoints them, are coloured –stunning aerials, how views are canvassed, how with little ‘set piece’ details in black funded, and patterns of use); Plans and white). grouped all together on for the Park, and Conclusions. the page as a supporting narrative, so that one’s perception of each The author did this research Park is easily assimilated. Greyfields into Goldfields: because he was designing for retail developers moved on from Dead Malls become living Hong Kong’s New Territories, and Lastly the author reflects at the end the standard jurassic mall to neighbourhoods needed better documentation. He of the book on his study on some of something more relevant to our S. Sobel, E. Greenberg and S. spoke to authorities on landscape, the current issues and trends urban fabric? The mind-set has Bodzin consulted the standard works on relating to parks, which cover the yet to be changed. However, in Published by: Congress for Parks and visited examples. He benefits of travelling to them on the US the opportunities for New Urbanism 2002. selected those which allowed free foot, the ‘sustainable discussion’, change are being explored, and Available through website admission, chose significant ‘faithful restoration’, conservation, with them – courtesy of new www.cnu.org examples of park planning and ‘successful parks’, ‘park event- thinking by the New Urbanists – design, and also those which driven/business management new forms of retail masterplans It is a sobering thought that one of maintained a balance between regimes’, use by ethnic minorities in for mixed-use centres are the key players in out-of-town differing sizes, ages, and a wide large groups, etc. All of which are emerging. shopping centres such as range of characteristics. universal tests for the environment Bluewater Park, Lend-Lease, as a whole, and will continue to This new approach is the result of should provide the prologue for It documents a wide range, and test the park as a concept for the changing market demand, this book. The message is stark. gives a great deal of interesting future. overvalued land and a information. Malls have been dying since the perceptual shift back towards late 1980s. A good piece of work, well streets and squares. Issues such Each park is dimensioned in acres researched and well produced. as fragmented ownership, ‘The heyday of the great and hectares. It’s amazing how Very topical too, these are Good changes in leaseholder patterns, suburban mall is over. Regional small they can be-Paley Park, 53rd Places (see the recent excellent poor local authority and private shopping centres will live on. In Street, New York, 1967, a tenth of UDG Guide) indeed, with fewer sector skills are identified. Twelve fact the larger so called ‘future an acre), and the Village of buildings, but consist of all forms of case studies are examined. The malls’, embedded on main drags Yorkville Park Toronto from 1974, display and invention made of other key messages that emerge near the most prosperous and can work satisfactorily; to the materials, and nature in the raw. involve: bedroom communities with top largest-Stanley Park Vancouver When is a park not a place? # 1000 acres (a trapped tenant line-ups, should thrive. • ‘stopping the cycle of wilderness), and two park systems- Peter Eley But..many tired, also-ran centres obsolescence and start building the Amsterdamse Bos, Amsterdam, in secondary locations are durable neighbourhoods’ from the 1850’s, (2310 acres), doomed.’ • property advisers and and the Minneapolis Park System developers ‘must break out of (6500 acres). This sets the order of The demise of department stores the single-use development play for the text. and the rise of on-line shopping is model’ not helping. We seem to consider • sophisticated redevelopment There’s a good blend of new parks the idea of reinforcing our failing strategies rather than including Freeway Park Seattle, a centres with additional shopping conversions are required roof garden over a transport route, floorspace in the same way that • local needs such as housing, Park de Bercy Paris, with 2 other we planned for the continuation public space and recent ones, and Landwshaftspark of ‘real jobs’ when the metal- neighbourhood retail need to Duisberg Nord, one good way bashing or mining industries died. be addressed. with dealing with the industrial The issue of what to do with heritage), and the old (the 1840’s under performing town and out-of- CNU principles for a more town centres is timely, with the Paxton’s Birkenhead in Merseyside, Above right: Santana Road in San Jose traditional approach using the Secretary of State refusing major Grant Park Chicago, Prospect Park will provide hundreds of housing units town centre as a model are projects such as the renewal of Brooklyn NY, Tiergarten Berlin. The above retail development presented. These include such Bracknell’s town centre. Have our exhortations as establishing a Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 43

street pattern, re-orienting activity cohesion by regulating systems of London’s economy) which supply powers to other bodies and to face the street, linking with across the public private and more third parties than Tokyo and resources, local government surrounding communities and voluntary sectors? New York. Thus economically, remains weak. In more affluent creating a fine grain of London is more of a capital than a areas it is arguable whether there is connecting streets that provide a Building on a rich existing world city. Why firms locate in a need to foster competitiveness more comfortable experience not literature, the research London may have more to do with and cohesion and in more solely geared to shopping. methodology links broad trends at firm-internal characteristics than deprived areas the main demand the macro level derived from agglomeration economies, is for improved services. The Black and white illustrations take secondary data and quantitative although they have a positive research concludes that for political us through 12 case studies, statistical sources (without the impact despite high costs. The latter reasons London governance is describing the challenges and benefit of the 2000 census data) also affect the available pool of bound to remain fragmented. highlights, forms of consultation to life and business at the local skilled flexible labour to which and stakeholder roles. It is a level on London. The latter was Londoners could make a better It is true that planners who would useful ‘catalogue’ of proposals revealed from extensive qualitative contribution through improved greatly benefit from the book tend that shows how CNU has been interviews with residents, education. Clustering does not to focus more on physical spatial moving from residential businesses, educators and the seem to increase cohesion among aspects of cities instead of its development to include other public sector in eight localities, businesses whose links are more people than sociologists and complex urban components. If ranging from Reading in the West diffuse with suppliers and markets. economists whose conceptual developers of failed shopping to Dartford in the East with, more frameworks are abstract and centres read this book they might or less along the Thames. The more diffuse concept of social arguably a-spatial. Besides its save themselves, and all of us, cohesion includes notions of social economic and social dynamic, time, money and pain. # Both recent urban policy and exclusion and social capital and is London has also a long standing urban research are using the new examined in terms of inequality, physical fabric which must have an Jon Rowland concepts of competitiveness, connectedness and social order. influence on London’s future. social cohesion and governance, The researchers stress the tenuous Property is seen at the most in terms arguably akin to the old notions of relation between competitiveness of housing tenure not a commodity Working Capital economic, social and political and social exclusion or market. Infrastructure and physical Life and Labour in performance. By discussing recent polarisation. Inequality is expressed characteristics of areas influence Contemporary London research and studying both by much more than London’s share people’s locational choice as well Nick Buck, Ian Gordon, Peter regional quantitative trends and of the really affluent and more than as good schools or personal safety. Hall, Michael Harloe and local qualitative change the its share of the poor. Ethnic While the area studies reflect many Mark Kleinman research was able to dispel many minorities (29% non white in 2000) spatial locational strategies of Routledge 2002 £70.00 unchallenged ‘truths’ about have also increased in London with individuals, especially owner London, for example that it is the distinct areas of concentration for occupiers who operate in a much Amidst myths, paucity of facts and most globalised city on earth, most different groups. The inelastic more flexible environment and political spin ‘Working Capital’ is economically competitive and, as public housing market contributes move (on average every seven compulsory reading for anyone a result, deeply polarised with a to persistent pockets of deprivation years) with physical criteria in mind with a genuine interest in London growing underclass. The diversity in Inner London. Rising levels of their emphasis is on social and its future. A short review cannot and complexity of London presents unemployment and non characteristics. Many specific do justice to the differentiated a more subtle story. In order to employment due to national aspects of Inner London including arguments and empirical confront theory with evidence the recessions and industrial decline those which attract tourists are also verification presented in over 400 researchers divided the key have cumulative effects on long missing, although they constitute a pages of this scholarly book. It is concepts into measurable entities. established sources of labour part of London’s competitiveness. based on ESRC financed research market inequality. It is these circular The concluding agenda for cities by five experienced academics in Competitiveness, the dominant processes which reinforce focuses on socio-economic association with a team of young factor, is understood as growth, deprivation at the level of processes from which the physical researchers (Belinda Brown, Karen productivity (in terms of earnings) individuals, households and dimension is almost absent. O’Reilly, Gareth Potts, Laura and export success. The researchers neighbourhoods. Smethurst and Jo Sparkes) who argue that London’s economy and It would be unfair though to carried out much of the field work. labour market as a whole determine In terms of governance, these criticise such a comprehensive Approached from a city region London’s competitiveness which is trends are supported in some areas piece of work for having left out perspective and spanning over 20 only just at par with other major by local level strategies deliberately certain aspects. Nevertheless, an years the research encompasses European cities, despite attracting more affluent residents executive summary could have Greater London and the Outer employment growth over two from whom the weaker existing guided decision makers. In terms Metropolitan Area (OMA) with an business cycles. Productivity is population is expected to benefit. of readers other than researchers estimated population of 12.8 difficult to assess in the service Others try to balance economic who, moreover, are perhaps million in 2000. It addresses three sector which has grown while and social requirements from within unfamiliar with London, the book questions relevant to both urban manufacturing has declined seemingly with less success. could have done with a little more research and policy making in the continuously (to 5% employment). Governance was aimed to ‘is-state’ (in the absence of an context of globalisation: can Earnings levels and export implement labour’s modernisation annual abstract of London), use economic success only occur at the propensity of service trades and agenda expected to work through more explicit captions of tables, cost of social cohesion? Would publishing/ printing are double partnerships and networks. Besides shown a London region map at a such success be sustainable or self- those of the rest of the UK. Strikingly, improving service delivery it was to larger scale with more names of destruct by creating social 74% of exports go to the UK and constitute an effective vehicle to places and perhaps, dare one maelstrom? Or could new network only 9% to Europe and 17% to the deliver local aspects of say it, even some pictures of the governance reconcile urban rest of the world, despite the competitiveness and social case study areas. # competitiveness with social international financial services (16% cohesion. However, having lost Judith Ryser 44 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

PRACTICE INDEX

Directory of practices, Acanthus Ferguson Mann Aukett Associates The Beckett Company Royal Colonnade, 18 Gt George Street, 2 Great Eastern Wharf, Architecture and Urban Design corporate organisations and Bristol BS1 5RH Parkgate Road, London SW11 4NT Beauchamp Lodge urban design courses Tel: 0117 929 9293 Tel: 020 7924 4949 73 Coten End, Warwick CV34 4NU subscribing to this index Fax: 0117 929 9295 Fax: 020 7978 6720 Tel: 01926 490220 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Fax: 01926 490660 Website: www.acanthusfm.co.uk Contact: Nicholas Sweet Email: beckett.architecture@ Contact: George Ferguson btinternet.com The following pages provide a Specialisms: We are a multi-disciplinary Contact: Roger Beckett D.Arch, Dip TP, Dip service to potential clients Specialisms: Registered architects and design group offering architecture, urban Urban Design or Sarah Grierson urban designers. 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Wirral C443 24Z Architects Designers Planners Tel: 0151 647 5511 Landscape Architects The Bell Cornwell Partnership Fax: 0151 666 2195 5-6 Bowood Court Calver Road Oakview House, Station Road Those wishing to be included Email: [email protected] Warrington Cheshire WA2 8QZ Hook, Hampshire RG27 9TP in future issues should contact Website: www.ainsleygommonarchitects.co.uk Tel: 01925 654441 Tel: 01256 766673 Fax: 01925 414814 Fax: 01256 768490 Specialisms: Architecture, Urban Design, the UDG office Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Masterplanning and Landscape 70 Cowcross Street, Contact: Andy Smith Website: www.bell-cornwell.co.uk Architecture, conservation of historic Also in London Cardiff & Glasgow Contact: Simon Avery London EC1M 6EJ buildings, community projects and Tel: 020 7250 0892 environmental improvements. 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RG2 9XG Fax: 020 8399 7903 Profile: innovative responsive committed Tel: 0118 988 1555 Email: [email protected] competitive. Process: strategy framework Fax: 0118 988 1666 Contact: Gordon Bell DipLA ALI masterplan implement. Priorities: people Email: [email protected] spaces movement culture. Specialisms: Landscape architects with Contact: Bettina Kirkham Dip TP BLD MLI Places: regenerate infill extend create specialisms including urban design, urban Paul Townsend BSc (Hons) regeneration and environmental planning CEng MICE MCIT MIHT Arup Scotland throughout the UK and overseas. Quality Scotstoun House, South Queensferry, Specialisms: A truly ‘one-stop’ consultancy assured practice. 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London W6 OSJ Specialisms: An engineering and urban Tel: 020 8563 9175 Michael Aukett Architects design practice with wide experience of Fax: 020 8563 9176 Atlantic Court new and existing buildings and complex Email: [email protected] 77 Kings Road, London SW3 4NX urban issues. Particularly concerned with Website: www.blampied.co.uk Tel: 020 7376 7525 the thoughtful integration of buildings, Contact: Clive Naylor Fax: 020 7376 5773 infrastructure and movement, and the Specialisms: Architectural masterplanning, Email: [email protected] creation of places which are capable of urban design, tourism, education, Website: www.michaelaukett.com simple and flexible renewal. commercial expertise United Kingdom and Contact: David Roden RIBA Overseas. Specialisms: Architectural, urban design and masterplanning services. Regeneration and development frameworks for mixed use, commercial, retail, residential, leisure, cultural, transport and business park developments. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 45

Chris Blandford Associates Building Design Partnership Philip Cave Associates Clarke Klein & Chaudhuri Architects 1 La Gare PO Box 4WD 16 Gresse St 5 Dryden Street Covent Garden 5 Dryden Street, London WC2E 9NW 51 Surrey Row, London SE1 0BZ London W1A 4WD London WC2E 9NW Tel: 020 7829 8460 Tel: 020 7928 8611 Tel: 020 7462 8000 Tel: 020 7829 8340 Fax: 020 7240 5600 Fax: 020 7928 1181 Fax: 020 7462 6342 Fax: 020 7240 5800 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Contact: Wendy Clarke Website: www.chris-blandford-assoc.com Contact: Richard Saxon BArch (Hons) Website: www.philipcave.com Specialisms: Small design-led practice Contact: Chris Blandford and Philip Bonds (L’pool) MCD MBIM RIBA Contact: Philip Cave BSc Hons MA (LD) MLI focusing on custom solutions for Also at Uckfield Specialisms: Planning policy and area Specialisms: Design led practice with architectural, planning or urban design Specialisms: Landscape architecture, regeneration studies. Development innovative yet practical solutions to projects. Emphasis on research and environmental assessment, ecology, urban frameworks for mixed-use, commercial, environmental opportunities in urban detailed briefings to explore the potential renewal, development economics, town residential, sports, leisure, educational and regeneration, town centre projects, urban for appropriate and innovative urban planning, historic landscapes, conservation industrial development. Transport and parks, community art, public participation. design proposals. of cultural heritage. public realm design. International practice Large scale site/master planning through with offices in London, Manchester, to small scale detailed design, from studies Richard Coleman Consultancy Trevor Bridge Associates Sheffield, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, to constructed projects. Specialist expertise Bridge House, 181 Queen Victoria St 7-9 St Michaels Square Grenoble, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid. in landscape architecture. London EC4V 4DD Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs OL6 6LF Tel: 020 7329 6622 Tel: 0161 308 3765 B3 Burgess Partnership Limited CDN Planning Ltd Fax: 020 7329 6633 Fax: 0161 343 3513 Castle Buildings, Womanby Street 77 Herbert Street, Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Cardiff CF10 1RG Pontardawe, Swansea SA8 4ED Contact: Lewis Eldridge Contact: Trevor Bridge Dip LA Tel: 029 20 342688 Tel: 01792 830238 Specialisms: Independent advice on DA FFB MI Hort MLI Fax: 029 20 384683 Fax: 01792 863895 architecture, urban design, conservation, Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Landscape Architecture, historic buildings, design assessments, Website: www.b3.co.uk Website: www.cdnplanning.com Urban Design, Environmental Planning, commissioning of architects, planning Contact: Paul Vanner Contact: Kedrick Davies DipTP DipUD(Dist) Ecology, expert witness. Landscape for issues and how most effectively to MRTPI housing, industry, urban renewal, Specialisms: Architecture, planning, urban approach the local and national bodies environmental improvement, visual impact design, site appraisals, master plans, Specialisms: Urban design, planning and involved in these fields. assessment, masterplanning and context studies, urban frameworks, development. Integration of land-use implementation. development briefs and implementation planning and urban design. Collaborative Colvin & Moggridge strategies. Offices in Cardiff, Basingstoke, and community working to enhance the 6 Seymour Place, London W1H 6BU Broadway Malyan Architects Newtown and Newcastle upon Tyne. environment. Feasibility studies and Tel: 020 7724 2417 3 Weybridge Business Park design. Fax: 020 7724 2757 Weybridge, Surrey KT15 2BW Burns + Nice Email: [email protected] Tel: 01932 845599 70 Cowcross Street Chapman Taylor Contacts:Martin Bhatia (London) / Fax: 01932 856206 London EC1M 6EJ 96 Kensington High Street Michael Ibbotson (Glos) Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 7253 0808 London W8 4SG 01367 860225 Website: www.broadwaymalyan.com Fax: 020 7253 0909 Tel: 020 7371 3000 Specialisms: Long established practice of Contact: David Moore Email: [email protected] Fax: 020 7371 1949 landscape architects with expertise in full Website: www.burnsnice.com Email: [email protected] Specialisms: A multi-disciplinary practice range and complexity of projects including Contact: Marie Burns BA (Hons) MAUD Website: www.chapmantaylor.com providing the highest quallity services in planning and design of public and private DipLA MLI MIHT FRSA or Stephen Contact: Adrian Griffiths and Paul Truman masterplanning, urban regeneration and space in towns and cities. Nice BA (Hons) MAUD Dip LD MLI funding. Planning, architecture, Specialisms: Chapman Taylor are an MIHT landscaping, interior design and international firm of architects and urban Conroy Crowe Kelly Architects sustainable energy efficient design. We Specialisms: Urban design, landscape designers specialising in mixed use city 65 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland also have offices in London, Reading, architecture, environmental and transport centre regeneration projects throughout Tel: 00 353 1 661 3990 Southampton, Manchester, Lisbon, Madrid planning. Masterplanning, design and Europe. Fax: 00 353 1 676 5715 and Warsaw. public consultation for community led Email: [email protected] regeneraton including town centres, public Civic Design Partnership Website: www.cck.ie Brock Carmichael Architects open space, transport, infrastructure and 22 Sussex Street Contact: Clare Burke B Arch MSc UD MRIAI Federation House, Hope Street, commercial development projects. London SW1V 4RW David Wright Dip Arch (Hons) Dip Liverpool L1 9BS Tel: 020 7233 7419 UD MRIAI Tel: 0151 709 1087 Burrell Foley Fischer Fax: 020 7931 8431 Specialisms: Architecture, urban design, Fax: 0151 709 6418 York Central, 70-78 York Way Contact: Peter J. Heath masterplanning, town village studies, Email: [email protected] London N1 9AG Architect and Town Planner urban frameworks. The practice advocates Contact: Michael Cosser Tel: 020 7713 5333 Specialisms: Led since 1990 by architect the design of mixed used residential Fax: 020 7713 5444 Specialisms: Masterplans and development and town planner Peter Heath, the practice developments with a strong identity and Email: [email protected] briefs. Mixed-use and brownfield undertakes all aspects of public realm sense of place Website: www.bff-architects.co.uk regeneration projects. Design in historic projects throughout the UK for public and Contact: John Burrell MA AADip and sensitive settings. Integrated private sectors. Recent London projects RIBA FRSA Conservation Architecture & environmental and landscape design skills include proposals for the setting of Planning via BCA Landscape. Specialisms: Urban regeneration and Arts Parliament, regeneration in Fulham and Wey House, Standford Lane and Cultural buildings – Museums, pedestrianisation, plans for Trafalgar and Headley, Hants GU35 8RH Colin Buchanan & Partners Galleries, Theatres, Cinemas. Parliament Squares. In addition to the Tel: 01420 472830 Newcombe House, Redevelopment of Redundant Estate Land, integrated services of planning and design, Fax: 01420 477346 45 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3 PB Urban housing. New settlements. New specialisms include lighting strategies, Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 7309 7000 design in Historic Contexts. Waterfront product design, street furniture manuals Contact: Jack Warshaw, BArch Dip TP Fax: 020 7309 0906 buildings and strategies. Innovative Urban and design guides. AADipCons ARB RIBA RTPI IHBC Email: [email protected] Design and Planning. Specialisms: CAP connect urban design Contact: Kevin McGovern BA (Hons) Dip CIVIX and conservation of good places. CAP are TP MRTPI AMTS Business Location Services Ltd Exton Street government approved. CAP’s clients cover 2 Riverside House, Heron Way London SE1 8UE Specialisms: Planning, regeneration, urban all sectors nationwide. CAP accept historic Newham, Truro, Cornwall TR1 2XN Tel: 020 7620 1589 design, transport and traffic management areas, regeneration, topic studies, Tel: 01872 222777 Fax: 020 7620 1592 and market research from offices in buildings, settings, new design, Fax: 01872 222700 Email: [email protected] London, Edinburgh, Bristol and conservation solutions and expert witness Email: [email protected] Website: www.civix.co.uk Manchester. Specialism in area based commissions. Website: www.bls.co.uk Contact: Daniel Bone MA DipArch RIBA regeneration, town centres and public Contact: Russell Dodge BSc(Hons) MRTPI MRTPI MAPM realm design. DEGW plc Architects & Consultants Specialisms: BLS provides a multi- Specialisms: Urban design, development 8 Crinan St., London N1 9SQ disciplinary approach to town planning, planning and project management Tel: 020 7239 7777 urban regeneration, grant funding, devising town centre appraisals, urban Fax: 020 7278 3613 economic development and property design frameworks, site development Email: [email protected] consultancy. briefs, design guide-lines, masterplans and Website: www.degw.co.uk management strategies for implementation. Contact: Lora Nicolaou Specialisms: Development planning and briefing. Masterplanning and urban design. Strategic briefing and space planning. Architecture and interiors. 46 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS

DNA Consultancy Ltd ENTEC UK Ltd Faulks Perry Culley and Rech Gillespies Dulwich House Gables House Kenilworth Road Lockington Hall, Lockington, Environment by Design 24 North Malvern Road, Malvern Leamington Spa Warwicks CV32 6JX Derby DE74 2RH GLASGOW Worcestershire WR14 4LT Tel: 01926 439 000 Tel: 01509 672772 Tel: 0141 332 6742 Tel: 01684 899061 Fax: 01926 439 010 Fax: 01509 674565 Fax: 0141 332 3538 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Website: www.marknewey.co.uk Website: www. entecuk.co.uk Website: www.fpcr.co.uk Contact: Brian M Evans Contact: Mark Newey Contact: Nick Brant or Roger Mayblin Contact: Tim Jackson MANCHESTER Tel: 0161 928 7715 Specialisms:Urban design practice Specialisms: Urban design, landscape Specialisms: Integrated design and Fax: 0161 927 7680 providing a responsive and professional architecture and development planning environmental practice of architects, Email: [email protected] service by experienced urban designers combined with broad based multi- landscape architects, urban designers and Contact: Fraser Teal from both landscape and architectural disciplinary environmental and ecologists. Specialists in masterplanning, OXFORD backgrounds. engineering consultancy. Related expertise urban and mixed use regeneration, Tel: 01865 326789 in sustainable development, ecology, development frameworks, EIA’s and public Fax: 01865 327070 archaeology, urban capacity studies, inquiries. 45 years experience of working DPDS Consulting Group Email: [email protected] transportation, risk assessment, extensively throughout the UK and Old Bank House, 5 Devizes Road, Contact: Paul F Taylor Old Town, Swindon, Wilts SN1 4BJ contaminated land remediation, air and overseas. Tel: 01793 610222 noise quality assessment. Specialisms: Urban design, landscape Fax: 01793 512436 FIRA Landscape Ltd. architecture, architecture, planning, Email: [email protected] Roger Evans Associates Jewellery Business Centre, environmental assessment, planning Website: www.dpds.co.uk 59-63 High Street 95 Spencer Street, Birmingham B18 6DA supervisors and project management. Contact: Les Durrant Kidlington Oxford OX5 2DN Tel: 0121 523 1033 Tel: 01865 377 030 Fax: 0121 523 1034 GMW Architects Specialisms: Town planning, environmental Fax: 01865 377 050 Email: [email protected] PO Box 1613, 239 Kensington High Street, assessments, architecture, landscape Email: [email protected] Contact: Sue Radley London W8 6SL architecture and urban design: innovative Contact: Roger Evans MA (UD) RIBA MRTPI Tel: 020 7937 8020 solutions in masterplanning, design Specialisms: The practice, formed in 1976, Fax: 020 7937 5815 guidance and development frameworks. Specialisms: A specialist urban design has a tradition of quality and excellence. Email: [email protected] practice providing services throughout the Specialisations include urban design and Website: www.gmw-architects.com UK and abroad. Expertise in urban townscape improvements, healthcare Melville Dunbar Associates Contact: Terry Brown The Mill House, Kings Acre, Coggeshall, regeneration, quarter frameworks and projects including landscape therapy, Essex CO6 1NN design briefs, town centre strategies, major office headquarters and light rail Specialisms: Land development appraisals. Tel: 01376 562828 movement in towns, master planning and transportation. Urban planning and regeneration Email: [email protected] development economics. strategies. Formulation of development and Contact: Alan Stones Fitzroy Robinson Ltd design briefs including packaging to suit Farmingham McCreadie Partnership 46 Portland Place, London W1N 3DG appropriate funding strategies. Master Specialisms: Architecture, urban design, 65 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3JD Tel: 020 7636 8033 plan design studies. Architecture and planning, master planning, new towns, Tel: 0131 525 8400 Fax: 020 7580 3996 design management skills relevant to new neighbourhoods, neighbourhood Fax: 0131 525 8484 Email: [email protected] project partnering, framework agreements centres, urban regeneration, conservation Email: [email protected] Contact: Alison Roennfeldt and multi-disciplinary teamwork. studies, design guides, townscape studies, Contact: Donald McCreadie design briefs. Specialism: Fitzroy Robinson is an Greater London Consultants Specialisms: Fully integrated multi- internationally established firm of architects 127 Beulah Road, disciplinary practice which specialises in who work primarily, though not exclusively, Eaton Waygood Associates Thornton Heath, Surrey CR7 8JJ delivering a high quality service in in the workplace, retail, hospitality, 8 High Street, Stockport, Cheshire SK1 1EG Tel: 020 8768 1417 Masterplanning, Urban Design, Landscape residential and masterplanning sectors. Tel: 0161 476 1060 Fax: 020 8771 9384 Design, Development Planning, Fax: 0161 476 1120 Email: [email protected] Architecture, Sustainable Design and Email: terry@eatonwaygood 4D Landscape Design Contact: Dr John Parker Dip Arch ARIBA Energy Efficient Buildings and associates.co.uk PO Box 554, Bristol, BS99 2AX DipTP FRTPI FRSA Contact: Terry Eaton BA (Hons) Dip LD transportation – from inception through to Tel: 0117 942 7943 implementation and management. Fax: 0117 914 6038 Specialisms: Town planning, architecture, Specialisms: Environmental artists Email: [email protected] urban design and conservation related to: concerned with the fusion of art and public Terry Farrell and Partners Contact: Michelle Lavelle traffic schemes, pedestrians, townscape, space in urban regeneration including 7 Hatton Street London NW8 8PL security, town centres, master plans, sculpture, lighting and landscape Specialisms: Our design decisions are not Tel: 020 7258 3433 marina development and environmental architecture. based on any systematised approach, Fax: 020 7723 7059 impact assessment. rather a considered response to the client, Email: [email protected] brief, site and budget. We endeavour to EDAW Ltd Website: www.terryfarrell.com Halcrow Group Ltd create spaces that make people feel Commercial Wharf, 6 Commercial St, Contact: Maggie Jones 44 Brook Green special. Manchester M15 4PZ Hammersmith, London W6 7BY Specialisms: Architectural, urban design, Tel: 0161 832 9460 Tel: 020 7603 1618 planning and masterplanning services. Fax: 0161 839 0424 Framework Architecture and Urban Fax: 020 7603 5783 New buildings, refurbishment, Email: [email protected] Design Email: [email protected] conference/exhibition centres, art Website: www.chapmanrobinson.co.uk 140 Burton Road Website: www.halcrow.com galleries, museums, studios, theatres and Lincoln LN1 3LW Specialisms: Involved in the regeneration of Contact: Asad A Shaheed BA Arch MArch visitor attractions: offices, retail, housing, Tel: 01522 535383 Manchester, acting as design team leader industry, railway infrastructure and Fax: 01522 535363 Specialisms: Award winning urban design for a multi-discipline team implementing development. Email: [email protected] consultancy, integrating planning, the public realm, and advising the City of Contact: Gregg Wilson transport and environment. Full Liverpool on Urban Design. The practice FaulknerBrowns development cycle covering feasibility, specialises in Urban Design and Specialisms: Architecture and urban Dobson House Northumbrian Way concept, design and implementation. Regeneration projects, alongside the design. The fundamental approach of the Newcastle upon Tyne NE12 0QW conventional architectual services. practice is charactised by its commitment to Tel: 0191 268 3007 Halpern Partnership the broader built environment. Work is Fax: 0191 268 5227 The Royle Studios, 41 Wenlock Road, born out of an interest in the particular EDAW Planning Email: [email protected] London N1 7SG dynamic of a place and the design 1 Lindsey Street London EC1A 9HP Contact: Andrew Macdonald BA(Hons) Dip Tel: 020 7251 0781 opportunities presented. also at Glasgow and Colmar, France Arch (Dist) RIBA Fax: 020 7251 9204 Tel: 020 7700 9500 Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Architectural design services Fax: 020 770 9599 Website: www.halpern.uk.com from inception to completion: Stages A-M Email: [email protected] Contact: Greg Cooper DipTP DipUD MRTPI Contact: Bill Hanway BA M Arch AIA or RIBA Plan of Work. Expertise in transport, Jason Prior BA Dip LA ALI urban design, masterplanning, commercial Specialisms: Multi-disciplinary practice and leisure projects. Interior and furniture focussed on producing urban design, Specialisms: Part of the EDAW Group design. CDM-planning s upervisors. planning and architectural solutions for the providing urban design, land use planning, metropolitan areas. environmental planning and landscape architecture services throughout the UK and Europe. Particular expertise in market driven development frameworks, urban regeneration, masterplanning and implementation. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 47

Hankinson Duckett Associates Hyder Consulting Ltd Land Use Consultants Arnold Linden: Landscape Studio, Reading Road 29 Bressenden Place 43 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD Chartered Architect Lower Basildon. Reading RG8 9NE Victoria London SW1E 5DZ Tel: 020 7383 5784 54 Upper Montagu St, London W1H 1FP Tel: 01491 872185 Tel: 020 7316 6000 Fax: 020 7383 4798 Tel: 020 7723 7772 Fax: 01491 874109 Fax: 020 7316 6138 Email: [email protected] Fax: 020 7723 7774 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Website: www.landuse.co.uk Contact: Arnold Linden RIBA Contact: Ian Hankinson Dip Arch Contact: David Wilson Contact: Mark Lintell Dip Arch Dip TP Moira Hankinson B Sc(Hons) DipLD FLI Specialisms: Urban design and Specialisms: Urban regeneration, Specialisms: Integrated regeneration, Brian Duckett B Sc(Hons) M Phil MLI regeneration expertise within a multi- landscape design, masterplanning, through the participation in the creative Specialisms: An environmental planning disciplinary infrastructure engineering sustainable development, land use process of the community and the public at consultancy with landscape architects, consultancy. Specialists in strategic plans, planning, EIA, SEA in UK and overseas. large, of streets, buildings and places. architects and ecologists, providing a streetscape and public open space design Offices in London, Glasgow, Bristol. comprehensive approach which adds and implementation, impact assessments, Livingston Eyre Associates value through innovative solutions. consultation and action planning. 80 Latham Architects 35-42 Charlotte Road, Development planning, new settlements, offices in 23 countries. St. Michael’s Queen St London EC2A 3PD environmental assessment, re-use of Derby DE1 3SU Tel: 020 7739 1445 redundant buildings. Hyland Edgar Driver Tel: 01332 365777 Fax: 020 77729 2986 Furzehall Farm, Wickham Road, Fareham, Fax: 01332 290314 Email: [email protected] GL Hearn Planning Hants, PO16 7JH Email: [email protected] Contact: Laura Stone Leonard House, 5-7 Marshalsea Road, Tel: 01329 826616 Contact: Derek Latham Dip Arch RIBA Dip Specialisms: Landscape architecture, urban London SE1 1EP Fax: 01329 826138 TP MRTPI Dip LD MLI IHBC IHI design, public housing, health, education, Tel: 020 7450 4000 Email: [email protected] FRSA heritage, sports. Fax: 020 7450 4010 Website: www.heduk.com Specialisms: The creative reuse of land and Email: [email protected] Contact: John Hyland buildings. Planning, landscape and Contact: David Beardmore Llewelyn-Davies Specialisms: Hyland Edgar Driver offers architectural expertise. Town and city Brook House 2 Torrington Place Specialisms: Masterplans and development innovative problem solving, driven by cost centres, national parks, conservation London WC1E 7HN briefs for new communities and brownfield efficiency and sustainability, combined with areas, listed buildings, combining the new Tel: 020 7637 0181 sites; urban design framework studies; fine imagination and coherent asethetic of the with the old. Master planning, development Fax: 020 7637 8740 grain studies addressing public realm highest quality. proposals, EIAs. Email: [email protected] design and improvement. Specialists in Contact: Simon Gray retail and economic regeneration. Intelligent Space Levitt Bernstein Associates Ltd Specialisms: Architecture, planning, urban 68 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3JT 1 Kingsland Passage, London design, development and masterplanning; Hepher Dixon Tel: 020 7739 9729 Tel: 020 7275 7676 urban regeneration, town centre and 100 Temple Chambers, Temple Avenue Fax: 020 7739 9547 Fax: 020 7275 9348 conservation studies; urban design briefs, London, EC4Y OHP Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] landscape and public realm strategies. Tel: 0207 353 0202 Contact: Elspeth Duxbury Website: www.levittbernstein.co.uk Fax: 0207 353 1818 Contact: Patrick Hammill Specialisms: Planning analysis and Email: [email protected] David Lock Associates Ltd support, pedestrian modelling, GIS and Specialisms: Levitt Bernstein are Website: www.hepherdixon.co.uk 50 North Thirteenth Street Central Milton specialists in retail and urban acknowledged leaders in the fields of Keynes Milton Keynes MK9 3BP Specialisms: Helper Dixon offers a full masterplanning. urban renewal, housing and buildings for Tel: 01908 666276 range of town planning and urban design the arts and winners of many awards. Fax: 01908 605747 services. These include housing capacity Koetter, Kim & Associates (UK) Ltd Services offered include Urban Design, Email: [email protected] studies, masterplan work and development 71 Kingsway, London WC2B 6ST Master Planning, Full Architectural Service, Contact: Will Cousins DipArch briefs. Tel: 020 7404 3377 Lottery Grant Bid Advice, Interior Design, DipUD RIBA Fax: 020 7404 3388 Urban Renewal Consultancy and Specialisms: Planning, urban design, Holmes Partnership Email: [email protected] Landscape Design. architecture, land use and transportation 89 Minerva Street, Glasgow G3 8LE Website: www.koetterkim.com planning. Urban regeneration, urban and Tel: 0141 204 2080 Contact: David Chapman Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners Ltd suburban mixed use projects including Fax: 0141 204 2082 14 Regent’s Wharf, All Saints St Specialisms: KKA is pre-eminent in the town and city centres, urban expansion Email: [email protected] London N1 9RL planning movement of new urbanism, areas, new settlements and historic districts. Contact: Harry Phillips Tel: 020 7837 4477 which seeks to enhance the sense of place, Strategic planning studies, area Fax: 020 7837 2277 Specialisms: Urban design, planning, historical context and cultural continuity in development frameworks, development Email: [email protected] renewal, development and feasibility the city. briefs, design guidelines, masterplanning, (also Newcastle upon Tyne & studies. Sustainability and energy implementation strategies, environmental Cardiff) efficiency. Commercial, industrial, statements and public inquiries. KPF Contact: Nick Thompson BA BPI MA residential, health care, education, leisure, 13 Langley Street, London WC2H 9JG (UrbDes) MRTPI conservation and restoration. Tel: 020 7836 6668 Derek Lovejoy Partnership Fax: 020 7497 1175 Specialisms: Independent planning 8-11 Denbigh Mews, London SW1V 2HQ Huntingdon Associates Ltd Email: [email protected] consultancy, analytical and creative. Tel: 020 7828 6392 50 Huntingdon Road, London N2 9DU Website: www.kpf.co.uk masterplans, heritage/conservation Fax: 020 7630 6958 Tel: 020 8444 8925 Contact: Marjorie Rodney studies, visual appraisal, urban Also in Edinburgh Fax: 020 8444 9610 regeneration, residential, town centres, Tel: 0131 226 3939 Specialisms: Architecture, urban planning, Email: [email protected] sunlight/daylight studies. and Birmingham space planning, programming, building Contact: Neil Parkyn MA Dip Arch RIBA Tel: 0121 329 7976 analysis, interior design, graphic design. Dip TP (Dist) MRTPI FRSA Liz Lake Associates Email: [email protected] William Robinson Buildings Contact: Jo Hammond Specialisms: Civic Design, public realm Landscape Design Associates Woodfield Terrace planning, feasibility studies, development Specialisms: Specialist international 17 Minster Precincts Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex briefs, masterplanning, site assessment and masterplanning, planning, landscape Peterborough PE1 1XX CM24 8AJ technical reports, backed by 30 years of architecture and urban design practice, Tel: 01733 310471 Tel: 01279 647 044 experience in 15 countries. creating value by offering a Fax: 01733 53661 Fax: 01279 813 566 comprehensive, imaginative and Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] sustainable approach to public and private David Huskisson Associates Contact: Robert Tregay Website: www.lizlake.com urban regeneration projects. 17 Upper Grosvenor Road OXFORD Contact: Matt Lee Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 2DU Tel: 01865 887050 Tel: 01892 527828 Fax: 01865 887055 Specialism: Urban fringe/brownfield sites Lyons + Sleeman + Hoare Fax: 01892 510619 Email: [email protected] where we can provide an holistic approach Nero Brewery, Cricket Green Email: [email protected] Contact: Roger Greenwood to urban design, landscape, and ecological Hartley Wintney, Hook, Hampshire RG27 Contact: Rupert Lovell EXETER issues to provide robust design solutions. 8QA Tel: 01392 411 300 Tel: 01252 844144 Specialisms: Landscape consultancy Fax: 01392 411 308 Fax: 01252 844800 offering master planning, streetscape and Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] urban park design, landscape design and Contact: Colin Darby BSc DipTP implementation, estate restoration, Specialisms: Urban design, urban Dip Urban Design MRTPI environmental impact assessments and regeneration, development expert witness. Quality assured practice. masterplanning, public realm strategies Specialisms: Architecture, planning, master and town centre appraisals. development planning, urban design – commercial briefing, design guidance, design enabling practice covering broad spectrum of work and community initiatives. – particularly design of buildings and spaces in urban and historic contexts. 48 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS

MacCormac Jamieson Prichard Tony Meadows Associates MWA Partnership Pringle Brandon 9 Heneage Street, 40-42 Newman Street London W1P 3PA Tweskard Mews, 313 Belmont Road 10 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4QJ Spitalfields, London E1 5LJ Tel: 020 7436 0361 Belfast BT4 2NE Tel: 020 7466 1000 Tel: 020 7377 9262 Fax: 020 7436 0261 Tel: 028 9076 8827 Fax: 020 7466 1050 Fax: 020 7247 7854 Email: [email protected] Fax: 028 9076 8400 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Contact: Tony Meadows Email: [email protected] Contact: Alison Anslow Website: www.mjparchitects.co.uk Contact: John Eggleston Specialisms: TMA specialise in resolving Specialisms: Offices, hotels, workplace Contact: David Prichard DipArch (Lond) the urban design implications of transport Specialisms: The planning and design of design. RIBA infrastructure projects, enhancing the the external environment from feasibility Specialisms: Range from major masterplans existing and integrating the new in an stage through to detail design, The Project Centre to small bespoke buildings. We have appropriate and contemporary way. implementation and future management. Saffron Court, 14b St Cross Street designed acclaimed contemporary London EC1N 8XA buildings for historic centres of London, Miller Hughes Associates Ltd Nicholas de Jong Associates Tel: 020 7421 8222 Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and Durham. In Old Post Office Mews, South Pallant, 39 Sydenham Villas Road, Cheltenham Fax: 020 7421 8199 Dublin, our Ballymun Regeneration Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1XP GL52 6EE Email: [email protected] masterplan won the Irish Planning Institute’s Tel: 01243 774748 Tel: 01242 511071 Website: www.theprojectcentre.com Planning Achievement Award. Fax: 01243 532214 Fax: 01242 226351 Contact: Mark Templeton Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Multi-disciplinary consultancy Macgregor Smith Website: www.miller-hughes.co.uk Website: www.dejong.uk.com providing quality services including The Malthouse, Sydney Buildings Contact: David Aplin Contact: Nicholas de Jong landscape architecture, urban design, Bath BA2 6BZ Specialisms: We are committed to the Specialisms: Landscape planning and urban regeneration, street lighting design, Tel: 01225 464690 delivery of urban solutions which recognise urban design. planning supervision, traffic and Fax: 01225 429962 cultural diversity and maximise social and transportation, parking, highway design, Email: [email protected] economic benefits within a connected traffic signal design and road safety audits. Contact: Jan Webb, Practice Manager NJBA Architects & Urban Designers community. 4 Molesworth Place, Dublin 2 Specialisms: A broad based landscape/ Tel: 00 353 1 678 8068 PRP Architects urban design practice with considerable Willie Miller Urban Fax: 00 353 1 678 8066 Ferry Works Summer Rd experience of masterplanning, detail Design & Planning Email: [email protected] Thames Ditton Surrey KT7 0QJ design for construction, EIA work and 20 Victoria Crescent Road Website: http://homepage.eircom.net/ Tel: 020 8339 3600 urban regeneration studies, with particular Glasgow G12 9DD ~njbrady1 Fax: 020 8339 3636 emphasis on high quality prestige Tel: 0141 339 5228 Contact: Noel J Brady Dip Arch SMArchS Email: [email protected] landscape schemes. Fax: 0141 357 4642 MRIAI Contact: Peter Phippen Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Integrated landscapes, urban Specialisms: Multi-disciplinary practice of Andrew Martin Associates Contact: Willie Miller Dip TP Dip UD MRTPI design, town centres and squares, strategic architects, planners, urban designers and Croxton’s Mill Little Waltham Specialisms: Conceptual, strategic and design and planning. landscape architects, specialising in Chelmsford Essex CM3 3PJ development work in urban design, housing, urban regeneration, health, special Tel: 01245 361611 masterplanning, urban regeneration, needs, education and leisure projects. Fax: 01245 362423 NOVO Architects environmental strategies, design and Email: [email protected] 2 Meard Street, London WIV 3HR development briefs, townscape audits and Website: www.amaplanning.com Tel: 020 7734 5558 Quartet Design public realm studies. Contact: Andrew Martin Fax: 020 7734 8889 The Exchange Richard Hall Contact: Tim Poulson Lillingstone Dayrell Bucks MK18 5AP Mono Consultants Tel: 01280 860 500 Specialisms: Urban design and Specialisms: Strategic, local and 32-34 Great Titchfield Street Fax: 01280 860 468 masterplanning, creative and innovative masterplanning, urban design, project London W1W 8BG Email: [email protected] design solutions for brownfield and other coordination and implementation, Tel: 020 7462 6940 Contact: David Newman complex sites to realise single or mixed use development briefs and detailed studies, Fax: 020 7462 6941 development opportunities. Specialisms: Landscape Architects, architects historic buildings, conservation and urban Contact: Simon Chapman and urban designers with wide experience regeneration and all forms of Email: simon.chapman@ of masterplanning, hard landscape projects environmental impact assessment. monoconsultants.com Terence O’Rourke plc Everdene House in urban areas and achieving environmental Specialisms: Planning consultancy; sustainability objectives. Mason Richards Planning Wessex Fields Deansleigh Road economic development and regeneration 155 Aztec West Almondsbury Bournemouth BH7 7DU strategies. Provision of funding advice and Bristol BS32 4NG Tel: 01202 421142 Randall Thorp application to a range of sources; Tel: 01454 853000 Fax: 01202 430055 105/7 Princess St. Manchester M1 6DD environmental consultancy and advice Fax: 01454 858029 Email: [email protected] Tel: 0161 228 7721 including EIA. Email: [email protected] Contact: Terence O’Rourke Fax: 0161 236 9839 Website: www.masonrichards DipArch DipTP RIBA MRTPI Email: [email protected] Moore Piet + Brookes Contact: Pauline Randall planning.co.uk Specialisms: Town planning, 33 Warple Mews Contact: Roger Ayton masterplanning, urban design, Specialisms: Masterplanning for new Warple Way London W3 ORX architecture, landscape architecture, developments and settlements, infrastructure Specialisms: Sustainable strategies for Tel: 020 8735 2990 ecology and environmental assessment. design for new developments and urban residential and commercial development: Fax: 0208 735 2991 Urban regeneration, town centre studies, renewal, design guides and design briefing, brownfield regeneration, site promotion, Email: [email protected] new settlements and complex urban design public participation and public inquiries. development frameworks: detail design Contact: Peter Piet and implementation: development guides, problems. design statements and planning enquiries Specialisms: Regenerating the public realm Random Greenway Architects for public and private sector. environment to enhance the quality of PMP 3a Godstone Road, people’s lives: strategies, masterplans, Wellington House, 8 Upper St. Martins Caterham, Surrey CR3 6RE community participation, design guides, Matrix Partnership Lane, London WC2H 9DL Tel: 01883 346 441 imaging and legibility. Implementation of 70 Cowcross Street, Tel: 020 7836 9932 Fax: 01883 346 936 town centre, streetscape, park, waterway, London, EC1M 6EJ Fax: 020 7497 5689 Email: [email protected] environmental and business area Tel: 020 7250 3945 Email: [email protected] Contact: R Greenway improvements. Contact: Tessa O’Neill Fax: 020 7336 0467 Specialisms: Architecture, planning and Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Medium sized practice urban design. New build, regeneration, Murray O’Laoire Architects Contact: Matt Lally specialising in retail and urban architecture, refurbishment and restoration. Fumbally Court, Fumbally Lane, Dublin 8 interior design and project management. Specialism: Matrix Partnership provides a Tel: 00 353 1 453 7300 fully integrated approach to urban design – Fax: 00 353 1 453 4062 Anthony Reddy Associates combining planning, architecture and Email: [email protected] Pollard Thomas & Edwards Dartry Mills, Dartry Road landscape. Work is focused on Website: www.murrayolaoire.com Architects Dublin 6 masterplans, regeneration strategies, Contact: Sean O’Laoire Diespeker Wharf 38, Graham Street, Tel: 00 353 1 498 7000 development briefs, site appraisals, urban London N1 8JX Fax: 00 353 1 498 7001 capacity studies, design guides, building Specialisms: TRANSFORM is Murray Tel: 020 7336 7777 Email: [email protected] codes and concept visualisations. O’Laoire Architects’ urban design and Fax: 020 7336 0770 Website: www.anthonyreddy.com planning unit. This multi-disciplinary unit Email: [email protected] Contact: Tony Reddy / Brian O’Neill synthesises planning, urban design, Website: www.ptea.co.uk Specialisms: Architecture, planning, urban architecture and graphic design to produce Contact: Stephen Chance innovative solutions in comprehensive master design, project management. planning, urban regeneration, strategic Specialisms: Masterplanners, urban Masterplanning, Development Frameworks, planning and sustainable development. designers, developers, architects, listed Urban Regeneration, Town Centre Renewal, building and conservation area designers; Residential, and Mixed Use Development. specialising in inner city mixed-use high density regeneration. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 49

RMJM RTKL-UK Ltd Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Inc. Taylor Young Urban Design 83 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NQ 22 Torrington Place 30 Millbank Chadsworth House Tel: 020 7251 5588 London WC1E 7HP London SW1P 3SD Wilmslow Road Fax: 020 7250 3131 Tel: 020 7306 0404 Tel: 020 7798 1000 Handforth Cheshire SK9 3HP Email: [email protected] Fax: 020 7306 0405 Fax: 020 7798 1100 Tel: 01625 542200 Website: www.rmjm.com Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Fax: 01625 542250 Contact: Bill Grimwade Website: www.rtkl.com Contact: Roger Kallman Email: [email protected] Contact: Gregory A Yager Also Chicago, New York, Washington, San Contact: Stephen Gleave MA DipTP (Dist) Specialisms: International architects and Francisco, LA, Hong Kong DipUD MRTPI urban designers with a strong track record Specialisms: Multidisciplinary practice of in the masterplanning, design and urban designers, planners, architects and Specialisms: International multi- Specialisms: Urban Design, Planning and implementation of major developments and environmental designers with expertise in disciplinary practice. Master Planning, Development. Public and Private Sectors. individual buildings. urban regeneration, mixed use developent, Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering Town studies, housing, commercial, urban residential design, master and and Urban Design. Urban regeneration distribution, health and transportation are John Rose Associates corporate masterplanning. schemes, business park master plans, current projects. Specialist in Urban Design The Old Pump House, Middlewood Road, university campus, transportation planning. Training. Poynton, Cheshire SK12 1SH Scott Brownrigg & Turner Associated services: environmental impact Tel: 01625 873356 Langton Priory Portsmouth Road assessments, design guidelines, Tetlow King Group Fax: 01625 859459 Guildford Surrey GU2 5WA infrastructure strategies. Lone Barn Studios, Stanbridge Lane, Email: [email protected] Tel: 01483 568686 Romsey, Hants SO51 OHE Contact: Colin Parry Fax: 01483 575830 Smith Scott Mullan Associates Tel: 01794 517333 Email: [email protected] 378 Leith Walk Fax: 01794 515517 Specialisms: We have an enviable record Contact: Stephen Marriott Edinburgh EH7 4PF Email: [email protected] of success including: development Tel: 0131 555 1414 Contact: Melvyn King MA (Urban Design) appraisals and strategies. Development Specialisms: Value added and design led Fax: 0131 555 1448 MSAI MCIOB FRSA plan representation and review. Planning approach to architecture, planning, urban Email: e.mullan@smith-scott- appeals, enforcement and negotiation. design and interior architecture. Specialisms: Multi disciplinary practice mullan.co.uk Urban design, master planning and Experienced in large scale commercial incorporating urban design, architecture, Contact: Eugene Mullan BSc Hons Dip conservation. Urban capacity studies. mixed use masterplans with the resources town planning and landscape. Specialising Arch ARIAS RIBA MSc UD and ability to realise our concepts. in urban design strategies in Master Rothermel Thomas Specialisms: Architects and urban Planning and Development Frameworks for 14-16 Cowcross St., London EC1M 6DG Scott Wilson designers dedicated to producing high both new development areas and urban Tel: 020 7490 4255 3 Foxcombe Court, Wyndyke Furlong, quality design solutions for our clients. regeneration. Fax: 020 7490 1251 Abingdon Oxfordshire, OX14 1DZ Particular experience of working with Email: [email protected] Tel: 01235 849 710 communities in the analysis, design and WynThomasGordonLewis Ltd Contact: Anne Thomas Email: [email protected] improvement of their urban environment. 21 Park Place Contact: Louise Thomas / Ken Jores Cardiff CF10 3DQ Specialisms: Urban design, conservation, Soltys: Brewster Consulting Tel: 029 2039 8681 historic buildings, planning, architecture. International multidisciplinary consultancy, 87 Glebe Street, Penarth Fax: 029 2039 5965 Design input in collaboration with also in London, Edinburgh, with 12 offices Vale of Glamorgan CF64 1EF Email: [email protected] developers/architects. Expert witness at in UK. Integrated design services- Tel: 029 2040 8476 Contact: Gordon Lewis planning inquiries. masterplanning, urban design, landscape Fax: 029 2040 8482 architecture, architecture, town and Specialisms: Urban design, town planning, Email: [email protected] environmental planning, tourism and economic development, architecture and Jon Rowland Urban Design Website: www.soltysbrewster.co.uk leisure, plus transportation, railways, landscape architecture for public and 65 Hurst Rise Road, Oxford OX2 9HE Contact: Mr Simon Brewster Tel: 01865 863642 airports, ports environment and cad private sector clients. Regeneration and Fax: 01865 863502 flythrough. Specialisms: Assessment: design: planning, development strategies, public realm Email: [email protected] UK & Ireland. Expertise includes urban studies, economic development planning, Website: www.jrud.co.uk Sheils Flynn Ltd design, master plans, design strategies, master planning for urban and rural Contact: Jon Rowland AADipl MA RIBA Bank House High Street, Docking, visual impact, environmental assessment, locations and brownfield land Kings Lynn PE31 8NH regeneration of urban space, landscape redevelopment. Specialisms: Urban design, urban Tel: 01485 518304 design and project management. Award regeneration, development frameworks, Fax: 01485 518303 winning design and innovation. John Thompson and Partners site appraisals, town centre studies, design Email: [email protected] 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ guidance, public participation and master Contact: Eoghan Sheils Space Syntax Tel: 020 7251 5135 planning. 11 Riverside Studios Fax: 020 7251 5136 Specialisms: Creative urban design taken 28 Park St, London SE1 9EQ Email: [email protected] from conception to implementation. Award RPS Planning Transport & Tel: 020 7940 0000 Contact: John Thompson MA DipArch RIBA winning town centre regeneration schemes, Environment Fax: 020 7940 0005 urban strategies and design guidance. Specialisms: Multidisciplinary practice, 118 Southwark Street Email: [email protected] Specialists in community consultation and working throughout the UK and Europe, London, SE1 OSW Contact: Tim Stonor MSc DipArch RIBA Tel: 0207 928 1400 team facilitation. specialising in architecture, urban design Fax: 0207 928 5631 Specialisms: Spatial masterplanning and and masterplanning, urban regeneration, Email: [email protected] Shepheard Epstein and Hunter research-based design; movement, new settlements and community Contact: Colin Pullan Phoenix Yard 65 King’s Road connectivity, integration, regeneration, consultation; addressing the problems of London WC1X 9LN safety and interaction. Strategic design and physical, social and economic 71 Milton Park, Abingdon Tel: 020 7841 7500 option appraisal to detailed design and in- regeneration through collaborative Oxon, OX14 4RX Fax: 020 7841 7575 use audits. interdisciplinary community based Tel: 01235 838 200 Email: [email protected] planning. Fax: 01235 838 225 Contact: George Georgiou TACP Email: [email protected] 10 Park Grove, Cardiff, CF1 3BN Tibbalds TM2 Contact: Jonathan Dixon Specialisms: The provision of services Tel: 029 2022 8966 Long Lane Studios, 142-152 Long Lane, related to architecture, planning, Fairwater House, 1 High St, Fax: 029 2039 4776 London SE1 4BS landscape architecture and the CDM Wroughton, Swindon, SN4 9JX Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 7407 8811 regulations. Tel: 01793 814 800 Contact: Gareth D West, Hilary F Morgan Fax: 020 7407 8822 Fax: 01793 814 818 Email: [email protected] Sheppard Robson Specialisms: An inter-disciplinary practice Email: [email protected] Contact: Andrew Karski BA (Hons) MSc 77 Parkway in Cardiff and Wrexham with an Contact: Mike Carr (Econ) FRTPI Camden Town, London NW1 7PU associated office TACP Design in Liverpool. Part of the RPS Group providing a wide Tel: 020 7504 1700 A range of in-house disciplines and Specialisms: Multi-disciplinary practice of range of urban design services including Fax: 020 7504 1701 consultancy services including architecture, architects, planners, urban designers, masterplanning, regeneration, Email: [email protected] landscape architecture, highway design landscape designers, tourism specialists architecture, and environmental planning Website: www.sheppardrobson.com and planning, reclamation, urban design and interior architects. The firm provides throughout the UK and Ireland Contact: Nick Spall and conservation architecture, planning, consultancy services to institutional, public quantity surveying and interior design. sector and corporate clients. Specialisms: Planners, urban designers and architects. Strategic planning, urban regeneration, development planning, town centre renewal, public realm planning, new settlement planning, tourism development. Associated offices across USA. 50 Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

NEWS AND EVENTS CORPORATE INDEX

Todd Architects & Planners Urban Innovations West & Partners Broxap Limited 41-43 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2PB 1st Floor Wellington Buildings Isambard House 60 Weston Street, Rowhurst Industrial Estate Chesterton Tel: 028 9024 5587 2 Wellington Street, Belfast BT16HT London SE1 3QJ Newcastle-under-Lyme Staffs ST5 6BD Fax: 028 9023 3363 Tel: 028 9043 5060 Tel: 020 7403 1726 Tel: 01782 564411 Email: [email protected] Fax: 028 9032 1980 Fax: 020 7403 6279 Fax: 01782 565357 Contact: Mrs Paula Gibson Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Contact: Tony Stevens and Agnes Brown Contact: Michael West Contact: Mr R Lee Specialisms: Architecture, urban design, project management, interior design, Urban Innovations provides specialised Specialisms: Masterplanning for Specialisms: The design and manufacture planning supervision urban and building design services to a achievable development within (and of street furniture, cycle and motorcycle limited range of top quality clients who sometimes beyond) the creative storage solutions and decorative Turnbull Jeffrey Partnership need confidential, creative and lateral interpretation of socio-economic, physical architectural metalwork in cast iron, mild Sandeman House 55 High Street Edinburgh thinking applied to their projects. The and political urban parameters: retail, steel, stainless steel, concrete, timber, EH1 1SR partnership provides not only feasibility leisure, commercial, residential, listed Duracast™ polyurethane, plastic and Tel: 0131 557 5050 studies and assists in site assembly for buildings, expert witness evidence, recycled plastic. Fax: 0131557 5064 complex projects but also provides full statutory development plan advice. Email: [email protected] architectural services for major projects. Island Development Committee Contact: Geoff Whitten BA(Hons) MLI, The breadth of service provided includes White Consultants PO Box 43 St. Peter Port Guernsey Karen Esslemont BA(Hons) MLI keen commercial awareness, which is Studio 1Mill Lane Studios, 10 Mill Lane GY1 1FH Channel Islands Dip UD essential to achieving creative solutions Cardiff CF10 1FL Tel: 01481 717000 and for balancing design quality with Tel: 029 2064 0971 Fax: 01481 717099 Specialisms: Award winning design led market requirements. Fax: 029 2066 4362 Email: [email protected] Landscape Architect practice. Expertise: Email: [email protected] Contact: W Lockwood Landscape architecture, urban design, Urban Practitioners Contact: Simon White MAUD Dip UD (Dist) masterplanning. Landscape design and Specialisms: The Island Development 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ (Oxford Brookes) Dip LA MLI implementation; environmental/visual Committee plays a similar role to a local Tel: 020 7253 2223 impact assessment; urban regeneration; Specialisms: A qualified urban design authority planning department in the UK. Fax: 020 7253 2227 environmental strategies practice offering a holistic approach to Email: [email protected] urban regeneration, design guidance, Contact: Antony Rifkin NEP Lighting Consultancy Stuart Turner Associates public realm and open space strategies 6 Leopold Buildings 12 Ledbury Great Linford Specialisms: Specialist competition winning and town centre studies for the public, Upper Hedgemead Road Milton Keynes MK14 5DS urban regeneration practice combining private and community sectors. Bath BA1 5NY Tel: 01908 678672 economic and urban design skills. Projects Tel: 01225 338 937 Fax: 01908 678715 include W. Ealing Neighbourhood Whitelaw Turkington Landscape Fax: 01225 338 937 Email: [email protected] Regeneration Strategy, Plymouth East End Architects Email: [email protected] Website: www.studiost.demon.co.uk Renewal Masterplan, Walthamstow Urban 354 Kennington Road London SE11 4LD Contact: Nigel Pollard Contact: Stuart Turner Dip Arch (Oxford) Design Strategy. Tel: 020 7820 0388 Specialisms: Lighting strategies and Dip UD (PCL) RIBA Fax: 020 7587 3839 detailed designs which co-ordinate street Urban Splash Projects Ltd Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Architecture, urban design and architectural lighting to achieve 56 Wood Street Liverpool L1 4AQ Contact: Ms L Oliver-Whitelaw and environmental planning, the design of cohesive urban nightscapes. ‘NEP’ brings Tel: 0151 707 1493 new settlements, urban regeneration and Specialisms: Award winning, design led together the art and science of lighting. Fax: 0151 798 0479 site development studies for commercial practice specialising in urban Email: [email protected] and housing uses. regeneration, streetscape design, public Contact: Jonathan Falkingham St George North London Ltd space, high quality residential and Bill Maynard 81 High Street Tweed Nuttall Warburton corporate landscapes. Facilitators in public Potters Bar Hertfordshire EN6 5AS Chapel House City Road Specialisms: Property development and participation and community action Tel: 01707 664000 Chester CH1 3AE investment. Project management, planning events. Fax: 01707 660006 Tel: 01244 310388 implementation and construction. Contact: Stephen Wood Fax: 01244 325643 Architecture, interior design and graphic Denis Wilson Partnership Specialisms: London’s leading residential Email: [email protected] design. Multi-discipline urban regeneration Windsor House developer. Contact: John Tweed B Arch RIBA FRSA specialists concentrating on brownfield 37 Windsor Street regeneration projects. Chertsey Surrey KT16 8AT Specialisms: Architecture and Urban Tel: 01932 569566 Design, Masterplanning. Urban waterside URBED (The Urban and Economic Fax: 01932 569531 environments. Community teamwork Development Group) Email: [email protected] enablers. Design guidance and support for 10 Little Lever Street Contact: Les Rivers rural village appraisals. Visual impact Manchester M1 1HR assessments and design solutions within Specialisms: DWP provides a Tel: 0161 200 5500 delicate conservation environments. comprehensive transport and infrastructure Email: [email protected] consultancy service through all stages of Contact: David Rudlin BA MSc development progression, from project Urban Design Futures Website: www.urbed.com conception, through planning, to 97c West Bow Also at: implementation and operation. Transport Edinburgh EH1 2JP 19 Store Street, London WC1E 7DH solutions for development. Tel: 0131 226 4505 Tel: 020 7436 8050 Fax: 0131 226 4515 Email: [email protected] Specialisms: Urban design and guidance, Website: www.urbandesignfutures.co.uk masterplanning, sustainability, consultation Contact: Selby Richardson DipArch DipTP and capacity building, housing, town MSc ARIAS MRTPI centres and urban regeneration. Specialisms: Innovative urban design, Vincent and Gorbing Ltd planning and landscape practice Sterling Court Norton Road specialising in masterplanning, new Stevenage Hertfordshire SG1 2JY settlements, urban regeneration, town and Tel: 01438 316331 village studies, public space design, Fax: 01438 722035 environmental improvements, design Email: urban.designers@vincent- guidelines, community involvement, gorbing.co.uk landscape design and management. Website: www.vincent-gorbing.co.uk Contact: Richard Lewis BA MRTPI Urban Initiatives 35 Heddon Street London W1B 4BP Specialisms: Multi-disciplinary practice Tel: 020 7287 3644 offering architecture, town planning and Fax: 020 7287 9489 urban design services for private and Email: [email protected] public sector clients. Masterplanning, Website: www.urbaninitiatives.co.uk design statements, character assessments, Contact: Kelvin Campbell BArch development briefs, residential layouts and RIBA MRTPI MCIT FRSA urban capacity exercises. Specialisms: Urban design, transportation, regeneration, development planning. Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86 51

EDUCATION INDEX ENDPIECE: BOB JARVIS

University of the West of England, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Bristol Department of Architecture Faculty of the Built Environment Claremont Tower, University of Newcastle Wandering Frenchay Campus Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU Coldharbour Lane Bristol BS16 1QY Tel: 0191 222 7802 Tel: 0117 965 6261 x3206 Fax: 0191 222 8811 When you’ve been trained for years to see places in a Fax: 0117 976 3895 Contact: Tim Townshend particular way, to address your versions of it to particular Contact: Richard Guise MA/Diploma in Urban Design. Joint audiences, to use a certain vocabulary, to focus on some things MA/Postgraduate Diploma course in programme in Dept of Architecture and Urban Design. Part time 2 days per Dept of Town and Country Planning. Full and not mention others, whether you are a travel agent or an fortnight for 2 years, or individual time or part time, integrating knowledge programme of study. Project based course and skills from town planning, architecture, urban designer, it might be necessary,or it might be traumatic addressing urban design issues, abilities landscape. (or irrelevant as I suspect some believe) to see places from other and environments. Oxford Brookes University perspectives, to read what these invaders of ‘our’ (self claimed Edinburgh College of Art/ Joint Centre for Urban Design in xenophobia) intellectual and professional territory of ‘place’ Heriot Watt University Headington Oxford OX3 0BP School of Architecture Tel: 01865 483403 have to say. Especially when, as the two cases here do, they Lauriston Place Edinburgh EH3 9DF Fax: 01865 483298 start not from any ‘problem’ or ‘brief’ but set off on arbitrary and Tel: 0131 221 6175/6072 Contact: Jon Cooper Fax: 0131 221 6154/6006 random paths and tell their own and others stories. Which is Diploma in Urban Design 6 months full Contact: Leslie Forsyth time or 18 months part time. MA in Urban just why they should be in ‘our’ literature, to subvert and Diploma in Architecture and Urban Design Design 1 year full time or 3 years part time. challenge the professional norms. 9 months full-time. Diploma in Urban MPhil/PhD by research (full time and part Design 9 months full time or 21 months time). part-time. MSc in Urban Design 12 months Whether urban designers need to read a ‘demented magus of full-time or 36 months part-time. MPhil and Sheffield Hallam University PhD by research full and part-time on and School of Environment and Development the sentence, the de Quincey of contemporary English letters, off-campus. City Campus Howard St. Sheffield S1 1WB who can outgun virtually any writer in England’ (to elide the University of Greenwich Tel: 0114 225 2837 quotes on the jacket of London Orbital, Iain Sinclair’s latest School of Architecture and Landscape Fax: 0114 225 3179 Oakfield Lane Dartford DA1 2SZ Contact: Debbie French book) even his publishers clearly doubt, for I am still waiting for Tel: 020 8316 9100 MA/PGD/PGC Urban Design full and the review copy to arrive. But having recommended the M25 Fax: 020 8316 9105 part-time. A professional and academic Contact: Richard Hayward for inclusion in The Good Places Guide and put Sinclair’s earlier programme to improve the built MA in Urban Design for postgraduate environment, enabling a higher quality of novel Downriver in my reading list for Myths and Narratives of architecture and landscape students, full life and economic growth by sustainable the City for the third year planners, how could I resist something time and part time with credit accumulation development. transfer system. as crazy as a walk round the M25 – anti clockwise. London South Bank University Leeds Metropolitan University London Orbital starts as an attempt to escape from the pervasive and School of Art, Architecture and Design Faculty of the Built Environment dominating manipulations of place and language that Brunswick Terrace Leeds LS2 8BU Wandsworth Road London SW8 2JZ Tel: 0113 283 2600 Tel: 020 7815 7353 produced the Millennium Dome, by tracing the outer rim ‘the Fax: 0113 283 3190 Fax: 020 7815 7398 point where London loses it, gives up its ghosts’ (p3). Sinclair Contact: Edwin Knighton Contact: Dr Bob Jarvis and his fellow artist/walkers have no truck with the hypocrisy Master of Arts in Urban Design consists of PG Cert (Design and Physical Planning) a 1 year full time or 2 years part time or one year part-time project based urban they unravel in the ring of urban design projects along their way individual programme of study. Shorter design programme in a planning context. -regeneration and Best Value, shady land fill deals and hospital programmes lead to Post Graduate Includes European based project. Flexible Diploma/Certificate. Project based course timescale for CPD. Can be extended to development sell outs, this road to Bluewater lined with fake focusing on the creation of sustainable PGDip or MA in town planning (RTPI heritage pennants and CCTV Cameras. Their heroes are the environments through interdisciplinary accredited). design. last archivists of empty sanatoria, the greasy snack stop University of Strathclyde University College London Dept of Architecture and Building Science proprietors and graffiti writers, and the hermit of Shepperton, JG Development Planning Unit Urban Design Studies Unit Ballard, who in Concrete Island (1974) had already imagined The Bartlett 9 Endsleigh Gardens, 131 Rottenrow Glasgow G4 0NG London WC1H 0ED Tel: 0141 552 4400 ext 3011 this landscape of alienation. Tel: 020 7388 7581 Fax: 0141 552 3997 Fax: 020 7387 4541 Contact: Dr Hildebrand W Frey Contact: Babar Mumtaz Forced Entertainment’s perambulations documented in The Urban Design Studies Unit offers its M Sc in Building and Urban Design in Postgraduate Course in Urban Design in Travels was structured only by chance – a series of travels to Development. Innovative, participatory and CPD, Diploma and MSc modes. Topics unlikely streets and sites taken at random from A-Z’s : a responsive design in development and range from the influence of the city’s form upgrading of urban areas through socially and structure to the design of public landscape of encounters outside seedy hotels and cheap theme and culturally acceptable, economically spaces. viable and environmentally sustainable parks out of season, a lone woman on Rape Lane at midnight, interventions. University of Westminster a stationers shop on Story Street. The actors/reporters have no 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS London School of Economics Tel: 020 7911 5000 x3106 choice other than to follow the trail : ‘if you don’t say yes there is Cities Programme, Houghton Street, Fax: 020 7911 5171 nothing to tell’ and The Travels grows out of the conversations London WC2A 2AE Contact: Marion Roberts Tel: 0207 955 6828 and memories and meetings these arbitrary but poetic MA or Diploma Course in Urban Design Fax: 0207 955 7697 for postgraduate architects, town planners, destinations unravel. Contact: Michelle Langan landscape architects and related We run a MSc in City Design and Social disciplines. 1 year full time or 2 years part Science which can be studied full time over time. If only we would listen. a 1 year period or part-time over 2 years. The course is designed for social Bob Jarvis scientists, engineers and architects.

1Iain Sinclair (2002) London Orbital : A Walk round the M25 Granta, London, ( ISBN 1 86207 547 6, £25) 2Forced Entertainment (2002)The Travels Performance piece at various venues, Autumn 2002. For details contact Forced Entertainment on 0114 279 8997 or www.forced.co.uk Urban Design Quarterly / Spring 2003 / Issue 86

DIARY OF EVENTS

Unless otherwise indicated, all LONDON events are held at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1 at 6.30pm. All tickets purchased at the door from 6.00pm £4.00 non-members, £2.00 members, £1.00 students.

Wednesday 16 April Paddington Basin – Talk and Site Visit Graham King – City of Westminster Meet at left luggage area, Paddington Station at 6.30pm

Wednesday 14 May AGM @ 5.00pm Followed at 6.30pm by ‘Solar Urbanism’ Bill Dunster from BedZed Development

Wednesday 11 June Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture Our Cities: Image, Rhetoric and Reality David Lunts, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Friday 11 July Annual Urban Design Lecture Study Trip to Copenhagen The Ecological Design of Large Buildings and Sites Dr Ken Yeang, Hamzah & Yeang, Malaysia Provisional dates: Thursday 11 September to Sunday 14 September

Denmark has for many years attracted urban designers because of its STUDY TOURS high standards of design. After the war Copenhagen’s finger plan provided a growth strategy for new suburban areas and the recent 24 May – 1 June 2003 extensive pedestrianisation in the city centre has been developed over a Study Tour to Piedmont forty year period. The Tivoli Gardens which are open mid April to mid Piedmont: Turin, the Langhe September add a unique feature to the city. The new Oresund link and Ligurian hill towns connects the city to Malmo providing a new subregional dimension and Price: £575 the Orestad neighbourhood near the airport is opening up for science, Contact: Alan Stones 01376 562828 business and educational developments. Louisiana is a well established museum and new extensions to two major galleries and a new Museum of Modern Art combine exciting architecture and high quality exhibitions.

John Billingham will be leading this study trip. It is hoped to arrange introductory talks on the development of the city as well as the Updates and further events can be found on www.udg.org.uk pedestrianisation work and to explore the city centre, docklands and regeneration work and suburban developments. The following is an outline of a provisional programme.

OTHER CONFERENCES Thursday 11 September Early departure from London 14/15 May 2003 General walk around centre and dockland. Talk about City Development Making Cities Liveable Conference Friday 12 September Burslem - Stoke on Trent Talk about pedestrianisation and walk around city centre The list of speakers includes:- Dr Jan Gehl, Jon Rouse, Tours by boat. Tivoli Gardens in the evening Judy Ling Wong, Rt Hon Frank Dobson MP, John Edwards, Saturday 13 September Kevin Murray, Trevor Beattie Visit to suburban development possibly including work by Utzon. Tickets are £155 plus VAT including Conference lunch & End visit at Louisiana Museum refreshments. For further details contact Marco Forgione Sunday 14 September on 020 7350 5206 or email [email protected]. Opportunity to visit city museums or possible trip to Malmo Evening flight to London

The cost of the study tour is expected to be in the region of £420 sharing a twin room. Firm arrangements will not be available until about June but people who are interested in taking part are asked to let Susie Turnbull know as soon as possible on [email protected] so that an indication of potential numbers can be obtained.