Nicholas Falk (second left) with a group of Dutch town planners

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Most Harkness Fellows on the original rather than replacing the historic brick warehouses on the Rotherhithe site programme returned inspired and structures with apartment buildings, the into craft workshops. These were not exhilarated by their two years in the new owners had converted them into an only renovated but featured in his Ph D US. But for a favoured few, it was much integrated restaurant and retail complex. It dissertation on using action research to more than just being stimulated. They was the first major adaptive re-use project achieve urban regeneration in 1982. experienced a Damascene conversion. in the US opening in 1964. Nick had also joined the Fabian Society One of these is Nicholas Falk (1967-69), Nick returned to the UK with a MBA on his return from the US and produced a whose experiences in California have but also with a desire to see whether pamphlet on inner city redevelopment in steered much of his life for the 45 years he could do something similar to what 1975 drawing on his action research. It that followed. he had seen in San Francisco in . was read by David Sainsbury who gave With a Senior Research Fellowship in the him a three year grant from his Gatsby here once it looked as though Social Administration Department of the Foundation. With this fund he set up he was heading for a top London School of Economics he picked on URBED (Urban and Economic Development Wmanagement job in the private Rotherhithe in London’s Docklands for a ) in 1976 to research and offer practical sector – with his PPE degree from Oxford, series of action research projects. He saw solutions to urban regeneration and local a three-year management period with Ford the potential of Brunel’s derelict Engine economic development. Motor Companies, followed by three years House, which held the steam power pumps with McKinsey management consultants for building the Thames tunnel. Initially An urban renewal enterprise is – all being topped up with a MBA at the used by pedestrians, it was converted launched Stanford School of Business on a Harkness to rail becoming ‘the oldest tunnel in Its first office was in in one Fellowship. the oldest underground of the world’. of many redundant warehouses. URBED’s But while at Stanford he also signed up The steam pumps became redundant in first government contract was into the for a course run by the Free University of 1913 with the introduction of electric feasibility of reusing redundant buildings the West on urban regeneration. On visits versions. The Engine House was restored as a means of promoting sustainable to San Francisco he saw how community and now houses the Brunel Museum. The development and saving energy. In the action – particularly reviving abandoned surrounding area has been landscaped. late 1980s Nick was a key player in the commercial buildings – could help There were at that time only two renovation of another abandoned London transform inner cities. Down in the city’s development trusts in London: Coin Street waterway complex: Abbey Mills. Fisherman’s Wharf area, the Ghirardelli and the 23 acres of land under Westway Sitting on the between Square had just undergone just such a motorway. Nick formed the third in the Tooting and it has been turned transformation. It had been abandoned 1970s, the Industrial Buildings Preservation into a charming arts and craft village in an by the Ghirardellia chocolate factory, but Trust, which converted neighbouring eighteenth century setting. Contd>

July 2014 Harkness Report 3 Continued

At one time there were 100 mills along the current state of urban development in the river. The recreated village was once the UK. They expose the excessive Whitehall main silk printing works of Liberties, the restrictions on towns and cities suggesting famous Regent Street store, that was shut the UK has become “the most centralised in 1970 and not reopened until 1989. Just bureaucratic state in the western world”. up the river was William Morris’s works. They note how demonstrably worse the The Merton Abbey wheel house has been UK is to comparable European countries in fully restored and is now a pottery. A developing the right quantity and quality small theatre now occupies the old Colour of housing. Other fronts where reform House. And an open air mini market along is needed included land supply, land-use with six cafes o ering di erent national planning, the financing of infrastructure, cuisine brings in the crowds. and the design and management of Nick has not just been engaged in practical new settlements. A further five chapters work. He continues to carry out research, looked at how Germany’s cities have writing and advocacy including reports generated growth; the Netherlands created for governments, think tanks and inhouse sustainable suburbs; the French used publications. In the last six months he investment in public transport to help has written a 6000-word essay on how regenerate its cities; and Scandinavia’s older people can add value to lifelong schemes for conserving natural resources neighbourhoods for the Housing Learning and the environment. and Improvement Network. He has just At the age of 70 Nick still runs URBED’S been shortlisted with colleague David London office, the main office being Rudkin for the Wolfson 2014 Economics in Manchester specialising in design, Prize for proposals for Uxcester Garden community engagement and sustainability. City, based on extending historic cities His recent work includes both a policy like York and Oxford through ‘Garden report on the state of town centres for City’ principles using infrastructure bonds. the North and West London Alliances He has also just written a report that and a study for English Heritage involving draws on European experience in building transferring heritage assets to community sustainable urban neighbourhoods for the groups. Other advisory roles have included Smith Institute (‘Funding Housing and Local the joint venture between Oxford City Growth: how a British Investment Bank Council and the Grosvenor Estates for could help’). a new community development of 850 homes at Barton Park, just south of A new urban renewal manifesto Headington. He is a visiting Professor at And then there is his contributions to the School of the Built Environment at Peter Hall’s latest book just published, the University of the West of England; an ‘Good Cities, Better Lives – how Europe Academician of the Academy of Urbanism; discovered the lost art of Urbanism’. and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal The books draws on four decades of Institute of British Architects. But perhaps conversations between them and study most fitting of all he still keeps a link with tours each separately have organised for the country which inspired him to become British town planners to places on the an urbanist. He runs an annual course for continent that have become celebrated masters students in sustainable architecture as examples of best practice. The first five at New York University in London. chapters are a devastating critique of the We met in the cafe of the Building Centre just o Tottenham Road, where URBED has its London base. There is a massive model of London on the ground floor, with side exhibits of the best and the worst developments in the city. He remains the most a able of people, still cherishing conversation, new ideas and debate. He has clearly enjoyed every moment of his 38 years in urban regeneration, even though the monetary rewards have been much lower than his first two jobs after leaving Oxford and his Stanford MBA would have led to. He is still wondering how to celebrate URBED’s 40th anniversary in 2016 and still finds it amazing he has spent four decades pursuing the art of urbanism. He has no regrets.

4 Harkness Report July 2014