Urban Design Quarterly The Journal of the Urban Design Group
** Issue 59 July 1996
Topic: Books on Urban Design
Practice Profiles: David Lock Associates Urban Design Futures
ISSN 0266-6480 HOMELESS POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND LIVES STRANGELY FAMILIAR NARRATIVES OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE CITY ON THE STREETS THE CITY READER Gerald Daly Edited by lain Borden, Joe Kerr; Alicia Pivaro and Jane Rendell Edited by Richard LeGates 'Homelessness reflects a failed housing and Frederic Stout system. This book makes historical and Urban living - the ways we use and 'This is the definitively complete reader international comparisons of responses inhabit places and the way our lives are on urban problems and policies, to homelessness, while their crisis is shaped by those places - is illuminated spanning urban development from the considered short-term. Britain's more in the series of provocative views ancient Greeks to the Internet, ranging refined set of housing presented here. Strangely Familiar is a across the contributory rights is under threat, book about the unexpected, about the disciplines and comparing as New Right ideology vitality and complexity of the everyday. experiences in different increasingly defines From the curious to the popular, from continents and countries. It social policy. Daly the virtuous to the terrifying, the will immediately become a concludes that architectures of modern life are here basic text for any course in permanent, affordable laid bare. Urban Studies and Urban housing must be 1995:96pp every page fully illustrated Planning. Both teachers and building block of any Pb: 0-415-14418-3: £10.99 students will celebrate its solution to publication.' - Peter Hall, homelessness. Shelter URBAN PLANNING University College, London agrees.' - Hannah IN EUROPE March 1996: 544pp Moore, Shelter INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION, NATIONAL Hb: 0-415-11900-6: £50.00 August 1996:312pp SYSTEMS AND PLANNING PROJECTS Pb: 0-415-11901-4: £16.99 Hb: 0-415-12028-4: £45.00 Pb: 0-415-12029-2: £14.99 Peter Newman and Andy Thornley Urban Planning in Europe is the first CONSERVATION AND book to analyse comprehensively the THE CITY THE NEW URBAN FRONTIER influences on urban planning in Europe. Peter Larkham GENTRIFICATION AND THE REVANCHIST CITY Urban Planning is undergoing a period Conservation and the City is a study of Neil Smith of transformation across Europe and the conservation and change throughout New Urban Frontier challenges book identifies the international, the built environment - city centres, conventional wisdom - which holds national and local forces causing this suburbs and even tiny villages - and gentrification to be the simple outcome change. It encompasses all countries in how the activities of conservation of the new middle class tastes and a western and eastern Europe, providing interact with the planning system. Using demand for urban living - to reveal a comprehensive guide to the planning detailed case studies from Britain and gentrification as part of a much larger systems of each country. in the Westernised world, the author shift in the political economy and culture August 1996:304pp examines some of the key social, of the late twentieth century. Hb: 0-415-11178-1: £40.00 Pb: 0415-11179-X: £12.99 economic and psychological ideas Documenting in gritty detail the conflicts which support conservation, as well as that gentrification brings to the new URBAN WORLD/GLOBAL CITY studying the urban landscape and the urban 'frontiers', the book explores the David Clark agents of change. interconnections of urban policy, eviction The last decade of the twentieth century June 1996:352pp and homelessness. marks a symbolic transition in the history Hb: 0-415-07947-0: £50.00 Pb: 0-415-07948-9: £17.99 August 1996:288pp of civilisation: the world's people have Hb: 0-415-13254-1: £40.00 Pb: 0-415-13255-X: £12.99 become more urban than rural. The ENVIRONMENTAL world is now an urban place. This book 2ND EDITION AESTHETICS identifies and accounts for the IDEAS, POLITICS AND PLANNING REMAKING PLANNING characteristics of the contemporary city J. Douglas Porteous THE POLITICS OF URBAN CHANGE and of urban society. The latest This is the first comprehensive, T Brindley, Y Rydin and G Stoker theoretical and empirical developments integrated study of the emerging From reviews of Edition 1: '... the book are synthesised and presented in an interdisciplinary field of environmental identifies a central question, elaborates accessible and engaging way. aesthetics. Porteous takes the reader a simple but effective topology, follows August 1996:224pp through a brief history of both through with appropriate case studies, Hb: 0-415-14436-1: £35.00 Pb: 0-415-14437-X: £10.99 aesthetics and taste, then discusses the delivers clear and accurate accounts of psychology of human-environment the cases and then integrates its findings Routledge titles are available from all good relations, the influences of literary, to produce general conclusions ... as bookshops or can be ordered direct from our artistic and legal activism on city, good a way as any of peering into the Customer Hotline on 01264 342923. For further countryside and wilderness, and future.' - Cities information or a free City brochure, please contact concludes with an analysis of the roles July 1996:216x138:240pp Valerie Rose, Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, Pb: 0-415-09874-2: £14.99 of public policy and of planning. London EC4P 4EE. Tel: 0171 842 2184 or E-mail July 1996:312pp [email protected]. A full listing of Hb: 0-415-13769-1: £47.50 Pb: 0-415-13770-5: £15.99 Routledge titles is available on the Internet by accessing http://www.routledge.com/routledge/html Urban Design Group Contents
Enquiries and change of address: Cover 6 Ashbrook Courtyard, Westbrook Street, Blewbury, Nolli's Plan of Rome used extensively in Urban Design texts Oxon 0X11 9QH News & Events Tel: 01235-851415 Fax: 01235-851410 Millennium Strategies 4 Regional News City Lights Chairman Jon Rowland Safe but Civilised 5 Landscape and Urban Quality Patrons Strangely Familiar Conference 6 Alan Baxter The Integrated Metropolis Symposium 7 Honor Chapman Huddersfield Competition 8 Sir Philip Dowson South Bank Workshop 9 Terry Farrell Annual General Meeting 10 Peter Hall Viewpoints Simon Jenkins The New Village 12 Jane Priestman John Brouwer John Worthington Rural Settlements: A Scottish Perspective UDG Regional Activities John Moir and David Rice 15 Regional convenors: Scotland Mike Galloway 0141-429 8956 Topic / Books on Urban Design North Alan Simpson 0191-281 6981 Yorks/Humber David Black 01482-612352 Introduction 18 North West Andy Farrall 01244-402213 Bob Jarvis East Midlands Steve Tiesdell 0115-951 4874 American Neo-Traditionalism and Suburban Design 19 John Punter West Midlands John Peverley 0121-354 4081 • Roger Evans-A City is Not a Tree 22 South Wales Sam Romaya 01222-874000 An Urban Design Canon 23 South West Andy Gibbins 01179-222964 Tony Lloyd-Jones and Marion Roberts East Anglia Alan Stones 01245-437642 • Derek Abbott - Cities in Evolution 25 South East Roger Evans 01869-350096 Must Objectivity be Dull 25 Chris Smith Editorial Board • Tim Catchpole - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 27 Derek Abbott Ian Nairn: The Missing Art of Townscape 27 John Billingham Graham King Kelvin Campbell • Sebastian Loew - The Planning of a New Town 29 Architecture on the Bookstalls 29 Tim Catchpole Giles Worsley Roger Evans • Marion Roberts-The Country and the City 31 Bob Jarvis The Comix World of Mister X 31 Tony Lloyd-Jones Michael Crilly Francesca Morrison • Alan Simpson - Urban Design in Action 33 Marion Roberts Dealing with Texts 34 Judith Ryser Peter Inch Alan Simpson Tailpiece 35 Bob Jarvis Editor John Billingham Details of Contributors to this issue 35
Book Reviews Reviews by Helen Webster and Peter Howard, Derek Abbott, 36 Book reviews Tim Catchpole Tony Lloyd-Jones, Annabel Downs, Jon Rowland and John Billingham 56 Gilpin Ave, London SW14 8QY 0181 878 0594 Practice Profiles David Lock Associates 40 Art direction Simon Head Urban Design Futures 42
Print production Constable Printing Practice and Education Index 44
Endpiece 47 ©Urban Design Group Songs About Towns ISSN 0266 6480 Joe Holyoak
Material for publication: This should be addressed to Back Cover The Editor, 26 Park Road, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 1DS. UDG Events
Subscriptions: The Quarterly is free to Urban Design Future issues Group Members who also receive newsletters and 60 Leeds Conference • 61 Urban Design Campaign the biennial Urban Design Source Book (Subscription Practice profile pages are available to practices who are asked to contribute £80 to the £25 with students special rate 95/96 £10, Europe £28 production costs. The subscription charge for Practice and Education Index entries is £80 per year covering an inclusion in four issues. and other overseas members £33). Individual issues of the quarterly journal cost £4.00
Neither the Urban Design Group nor the editor is responsible for views expressed or statements made by individuals writing in this journal. News and Events
Daniel Libeskind's competition entry for Northern Region MA in Urban Environmental Design the V&A extension has drawn many The Urban Design Group is joining with the RTPI Northern At Leeds Metropolitan University D comments both favourable and critical - Branch in promoting and a new Urban Environmental staging a Seminar entitled Design course is planned for (D favourable in terms of an exciting result 'Building in Quality'. September 1996. The focus of the course is on the creation of from what was intended to be merely the This will be held at Gateshead sustainable urban environments Civic Centre on Wednesday 25 through interdisciplinary design. selection of an architect and critical in September and the charge will be £80 per delegate with The programme may be studied terms of its setting. bookings made to Kay Lough at either full-time over one year or the RTPI office on 0191 222 part-time over two years. Part- One wonders whether the V&A's 7812. time students will normally be 3 required to attend one day each concerns for an additional building could Speakers will include Alan week together with a one week Simpson, George Mulvagh and block each semester. <0 have been placed in a wider context representatives from the DoE, Bryant Homes, the Civic Trust Applications are encouraged &) which would have been of greater benefit and other bodies. from a wide variety of graduates or equivalent in architecture, to the wider museum and university landscape architecture, Bibliography of Urban planning, three-dimensional (D campus. That is where an urban design Design design, graphic design or other relevant design-related John Billingham City Lights John Bradley spoke about the subject of 'Lighting in the City' in March, in which he is currently involved as a consultant on a study of the Whitehall area and for which he has recently been appointed to advise on the Palace of Westminster. He described the process of seeing light and the nature of artificial light and fittings and identified the parameters for good lighting. He queried why so much street lighting is designed badly with no coordination between the different agencies and authorities. Badly designed fittings produce glare and in many cases he felt the columns Safe but Civilised space into the frontage which providing bridge links from the were too high - he contrasted would give access to new station to the shopping area. It this with the low level lighting John Lyall gave the evening development in the backland is difficult to comment without used adjacent to Northolt lecture in April which addressed containing a mix of retail, leisure knowing the site but a number Airport. Lighting columns the issue of how you can create and other uses. This part of of comments were made at the needed to tie in with safe environments. He identified Leeds had long standing meeting about the doubtful surroundings and all lighting three basic approaches. problems of a red light district safety of bridge links particularly should be coordinated - and drugs which had at night. particularly as regards lighting Firstly, deliberately adopting a necessitated the redesign of colour. He illustrated his work at tough approach to the design of parts of their first project and By contrast the proposals for Brighton Pavilion where the area and making the right raised the issue in the new Kings Square, Hammersmith architectural features had been selection of materials. Secondly, scheme of whether areas would (see above), which concerned a used to hide lighting sources designing a building and be open to the public 24 hours a more detailed scheme seemed and he fet that no manufacturer environment that people like day or gated by the developer. entirely appropriate. An area produced fittings suitable for all and will want to love and care adjacent to the Lyric Theatre locations. Good lighting could and thirdly using culture or art to A new major open space had with bitty landscaping and be spectacular, enhance the stem the tide of crime - been created in the downtown incoherent pedestrian areas had environment and deter street populated spaces will be self- area of Omaha, Nebraska, a city been affected by mugging crime. He did not feel that an protective. of almost 500,000 people and in incidents but had the bonus of a overall even illumination should which he had been involved with busy street market. Their be the objective as this often He illustrated a variety of the Halprin office. The new open proposals involved clearing the produced a flat uninteresting situations which used these space contained a major space, creating a terrace on a light. He gave examples of the various approaches, a number meandering water feature, roof space outside the theatre good combination of street of which had been produced in bridges crossing over it and with spiral stair access to the lighting and flood lighting in Italy partnership with Will Alsop. In spaces for concerts and sitting new square, a ring of light and emphasised the need for Tottenham Hale Station the first out. This initiative was no doubt identifying the space and good maintenance - for phase of development created a a reflection of the decline of providing psychological security, example misdirection of lighting structural frame across the downtown uses and aiming to a mobile box office for the created glare. tracks and an external glazed create new values but it was theatre which could be moved box with a curved roof outrider. clear that this had been a long out of the space, a multi-screen TV for both security use and The principles of good lighting Natural and artificial lighting term objective which was animation, a new cafe providing he put forward were: allowed people to see into the helped by the continuity of the structure and panels of external planning director - the main 'eyes on the square' and space for the market as part of the • Consider street lighting and art had been designed by Bruce lesson seemed to be the natural overall redesign. It was a new flood lighting together. McLean in which the local policing by people and the use square for Hammersmith and • Colour temperatures should community had been involved. of appropriately tough materials. also a centre of 'temporary art'. be compatible. In addition, they had looked at These proposals seemed to • Think small in terms of the wider area to see how better He and Will Alsop had also encapsulate most of the fittings - smaller and closer. pedestrian links could be produced proposals for principles that John Lyall • Do not use remote provided and glazed canopies Hamburg which sought to described in the introduction to floodlighting - it flattens a designed as lines of light radiate revitalise the central shopping his talk and hopefully may see building. to routes outside the station site. area linking together the key the light of day - as well as the • Look after maintenance. elements of art museum, railway judicious use of good artificial • Do not standardise on a He had worked on a number of station and town hall. The lighting to meet the objective of single manufacturer. schemes in Leeds beginning proposals included the making an area crime-free. • Do not floodlight from with the Corn Exchange and the introduction of public art adjacent structures. latest in Kirkgate where they through providing pavilions in were refurbishing the best key streets, populating other properties and building new streets with public art and News and Events Landscape and Urban scheme. In Central London Quality many watercourses have been piped and lost - would the Alan Tate, current President of Thames Barrier have been o the Landscape Institute, spoke necessary if those had at the meeting held after the remained part of an evident AGM in May. He took the structure of the city? structure of Anne Spirn's book The Granite Garden as the basis Life was examined as change in for his talk seeing that book as the environment - many 19th the urban equivalent of Ian century parks were now in McHarg's polemic 'Design with decay and not regenerating. Nature'. He sought to disabuse Parks needed to be seen as Strangely Familiar: catastrophically and infuriating the view that landscape consists providing habitats which needed Narratives of the last speaker, herself a big of planting alone and suggested to be linked together to promote Architecture in the City name, who was left addressing that it should be seen as an biological diversity. a half-empty hall. One felt that overall visual concept. This series of events, an the old-fashioned practice of The urban ecosystem exhibition, the symposium at the having a chair who passes Anne Spirn's thesis is that represents the cumulative RIBA on 27 January and the notes to,interrupts and even nature is a continuum from impact of various independent accompanying publication cuts off over-enthusiastic wilderness to city and the same actions. Uncoordinated projects promised much: a meeting of speakers has much to natural processes occur in these affect the city through complex architects, architectural recommend it. different habitats. She interactive processes. The urban historians, urban geographers, structured her analysis by form will gain when natural cultural studies academics and Having said this, the day did examining the elements of air, processes are integrated so that even (what street cred) provide stimulation and uplift, earth, water and life in the urban natural values as well as social someone who had designed the despite its frustrations. Doreen ecosystem. values can be reflected. set for Miami Vice, brought Massey gave a finely wrought together to present an and thoughtful presentation He referred to work by Tom understanding of the which, using the example of her Turner, undertaken for LPAC, architecture of the city through own elderly parents' life on a which linked together concepts culture. With the amount of hype peripheral housing estate in of open space standards that seems an obligatory Manchester, examined the (introduced by Unwin), the accompaniment to this sort of connections and contradictions green belt, the interconnected event nowadays, it is inevitable between personal identity and park system (Abercrombie), that hopes should be raised place, social advancement and open space hierarchies and only to be disappointed. regression, freedom and nature conservation (GLDP) and security. Sandy McCreery invited his own concept of green us to consider the Westway, This reviewer approached the chains. Work in the USA had relating the symbolism of the linked events through the defined stages in the provision car as a feature of modernity to Air quality and microclimate and symposium, taking in the of public open space seeing the the protest and solidarity that its relation to urban form can be exhibition and the publication ecological park as the next united a local community in seen in the photochemical afterwards. The very word stage which recognised all opposition to the construction of smogs of LA, in the way urban symposium suggests an forms of life in its objectives. the elevated section above heat islands create comfort or elevated discourse, a dialogue, Notting Hill Gate. discomfort, downdrafts from tall reaching new depths of buildings contrasted with pocket understanding and perceptive park oases in New York (as Hong Kong Project insight. Expectations ran high. Although the event's title above). Urban form and referred to narrative, it was only landscape can be integrated as He illustrated those points later What we got of course, was Barry Curtis who formally for example in Stuttgart, where by slides and then indicated indeed achingly familiar to the considered the city as a green spurs of landscape how he felt they could be taken experienced flaneur of the narrative, making the tantalising provide microclimate benefits. into account by outlining a new conference scene. A series of suggestion that aspects of town project in Junk Bay, Hong big names and some lesser methodologies from film studies Earth landslides and Kong in which he is involved. known, stood up and gave us a might be applied to the city. subsidence are often acts of The proposals consist of lecture about their current Elisabetta Andreoli reminded us man rather than God as is the overlapping networks of open preoccupations, loosely related that the stories of urban life case in LA where development space and movement, retained to the organisers' themes. One cannot be generalised from the occurred too close to natural forest areas, breezeways taking or two ignored all that sterling Northern hemisphere; her study run-off. The value of soil needed advantage of south easterly air stuff which the educational of Sao Paulo reminded us of the to be recognised so that flows and visual corridors to the innovators would have us desperate ingenuity that urban undesirable compaction did not sea. Anne Spirn's principles academics practise nowadays dwellers may exercise to carve occur. seemed highly relevant to that in terms of audience out a subversive and semi- approach although it was quite involvement and simply read visible living in the most Water affects our lives in the surprising to see the later slides their contributions, eschewing pompously designed of public extremes of shortages and of models showing a typically visual aids and even eye spaces. flooding and surely planning high rise high density Hong contact. More importantly, most should seek to overcome those Kong solution overlaid on the contributors ignored the The experience of place, its difficulties. The emerald ecological framework. organisers' injunction to speak perception and representation necklace in Boston was an for 15 minutes only, causing the was filtered through the lens of integral part of a flood control entire day to overrun postmodernised theory. In this context Lynne Walker's account contrasted strongly with the Crowther also picked up on the of the population has not of the importance of the more optimistic outlook of computer modelling work of prevented mayors and proximity of clubs and their own those whose interests are Marcial Echenique and Partners governors spending inordinate residences to the early focused at the local, urban which was initially developed sums on grand and wasteful suffragettes was more design scale. under March's direction at the schemes in other cities in Brazil. immediate, centring as it did on Martin Centre. Echenique's the area around Portland Place. Professor Breheny's talk recent study of efficient linear Most of the stress in Meurs' talk elaborated on his familiar urban forms for the city of was on Curitiba's effort to Times Square, Sao Paulo, argument that market forces Santiago in Chile was directly educate and involve the Manchester, Venice - the event are strongly at odds with relevant to the sustainability population in the transformation took us on a tour of identity and planners' ideas of creating debate and should, it was of their city and on the use of experience, memory and sustainable cities through argued, form the basis of further symbolism to create a sense of narrative, representation and density and compaction. He research. municipal identity and solidarity. simulation. The exhibition was suggested that fairly radical too pristine, the publication too policies, like those underlying Perhaps the most striking of Paul Quarterman, a lecturer at expensive and much was the Government's PPG 13 on figures presented by Crowther the University of Westminster, baffling or tedious. Yet the transportation, need to be were those relating to the who recently practised as a organisers have touched on a subject to proper research. thermal performance of the planner in Seattle, gave an raw nerve, a rich seam of Such research at Reading, for housing stock. Only 15% of the entertaining presentation on the research and practice which example, suggested that petrol UK's housing stock dates from LUTRAQ project in Portland, urban designers ignore at their price was a more significant the 1970s onwards when Oregon. This was a good peril. The symposium talked of factor than density in insulation standards started to example of how coordinated architects and architecture - it is determining modes of travel improve. As buildings use more research, in this case time that urban designers got in use. energy than transport, an awful commissioned by the charity, on the act. lot of work needs to be done in the Thousand Friends of However, Breheny also picked this area and huge costs are Oregon, could be used as a Marion Roberts up on the theme of the ever being incurred through the weapon to pressure the local rising projections of household subsidisation of heating costs authority to abandon plans for a growth in the south east, raised for those on low incomes. major road scheme. The Integrated in the chair's opening remarks, Metropolis Symposium and suggested that the agenda Paul Meurs from Utrecht gave The LUTRAQ project engaged for higher density development an inspiring talk on the first of the services of modelling was changing. If 'big ideas' the integrated metropolis case experts, Cambridge were needed in the 1970 studies - Curitiba in Brazil. The Systematics, to carry out Strategic Plan for the South achievements of this city in computer-based studies using East, with two thirds of the terms of integrated urban techniques that were transit- current projected growth in planning and management orientated and sensitive to households, how much more since the 60s were illustrated pedestrian movements. A necessary were such ideas through a series of excellent particular feature of their today? The question was slides. The starting point for modelling approach was the whether suburban areas could Curitiba's plan, exactly as in the use of an air quality model. be retro-fitted to accommodate work of researchers at the the 50% of new housing that Martin Centre and at more or The modelling exercise was the Government has targeted less the same time, was linked to a conceptual land use The first of a series of one day for existing urban areas and is creating a spatially and energy- model of 'transit-oriented workshops on integrated this figure realistic? Again, efficient urban form. The idea of development' (TOD), similar in approaches to urban design, recent research at Reading, focusing on environmental essence to the early ideas of land use and transportation whilst confirming the sustainability came as a later garden suburban developments planning was held at the relationship between density but an entirely natural spin-off. around local railway stations. A University of Westminster at and public transport use in the strategic plan was developed Regent Street on February 23rd. higher density inner urban Meurs illustrated Curitiba's based on the existing transit The UK-wide audience was areas, cast doubt on it in approach to urban management development proposals for the drawn from the full range of suburban areas. with slides showing how the western part of the city. The professions and also included bus-based public system had concept, in turn, was interpreted local politicians, civil servants Dr David Crowther from the evolved and how it worked in in a series of urban design case and academics. With a full Martin Centre in Cambridge practice (see UDQ 57). One of studies by Peter Calthorpe and house the focus of this first shifted scale sharply in his talk the most striking aspects of the Associates. These have led symposium, which was on urban form and Curitiba approach was the high some of the communities in the integrated planning for microclimate and considered degree of ingenuity that had Western suburbs of Portland to sustainable urban development, the issues of what the been adopted in devising radically revise their local clearly struck a note of major integrated city might look like at simple, low cost but multi- planning policies. concern in British urban policy. the level of the urban block. purpose solutions to a variety of Interestingly, he linked the urban problems. As someone Several themes emerged in the As the keynote speaker, Michael recent research at Cambridge, pointed out, perhaps the very afternoon workshops. One was Breheny from Reading with its focus on environmental absence of large amounts of a sense of total frustration at the University pointed out, the rather sustainability, to work by March money to spend had helped the local planning level and the pessimistic view of strategic and Martin in the 60s which planners avoid the high cost need for a big idea, or perhaps planners like himself (also argued the spatial efficiency of solutions adopted in other cities. for a series of big ideas with a reflected in the afternoon lower rise perimeter blocks over It should be remembered, degree of local experimentation workshop on transport planning) high rise point blocks. however, that the relative poverty and the opportunity to test out a News and Events variety of new solutions in Huddersfield Cultural Right: Town Centre practice. This reflected a need Connections road structure with to manage change and for closed part of ring proactive planning rather than Kirklees Metropolitan Council road shown by simply remaining transfixed by held an urban design dashed line. D A 629 the market. competition for ideas to connect Middle and below: the University with the town Amphitheatre linking The virtual absence of home- centre and for a conceptual two levels of the town generated investment in recent design for a footbridge over the centre with a years is perhaps another reason ring road as part of the DoE's promenade link to the why cities in the UK have Urban Design Campaign. University. remained so much at the mercy of global capital movements. Bruges Tozer as part of the The discussion of the need for Queensgate Consultants urban renewal and new consortium were joint winners of housing, for the replacement the competition and took the and upgrading of out-of-date view that a bridge would do building stock, for densification permanent harm to the town and integration of the transport and that it was more important system all point in the direction to aim at a better pedestrian of a vital need to invest for environment. The other joint future sustainable development. winner, Abbey Hanson Rowe with Kump & Takeda, Another theme was the quality concentrated on the design of of life in urban areas, regarded the footbridge. by many as of even more immediate importance than long Part of the ring road was closed term sustainability. A difference in the proposals, taking advice in the interpretation of what from Colin Buchanan & quality of life actually meant to Partners. An amphitheatre is people revealed the familiar included to link the two levels of north-south divide among the town centre, a promenade members of the audience. Ernie and gardens linking the Grice from Salford University university and safe water suggested that for many people features. The recommended quality of life meant having a circulation pattern integrated a job, and contrasted the proposed new shopping centre. perspective of the 'iron brew culture' with the 'cappuccino A concert hall in a former culture' which coloured most of church is immediately adjacent the discussion of what dense to the ring road. It suffers from urban living was all about. noise and the audiences Somebody else suggested that emerge into a harsh traffic- the best way to make cities dominated environment. Without more attractive was to improve the ring road, St Paul's Hall the quality of schools in inner would be in quiet surroundings urban areas. and the space outside could be a meeting place and encourage The transport planning open air happenings. The town workshop focused on the needs to decide on the relative adverse economic effects of values of free-flowing traffic or restricting car use but came up its cultural life. with some positive suggestions for making public transport Before any decision was made, more attractive and easy to the shortlisted schemes were use,improving integration exhibited for a fortnight. The through better use of public responded interchanges. Another overwhelmingly in favour of suggestion was that sustainable omitting the ring road at this urban development was only position because of the possible, in the long term, environmental benefits. through the education of users and investors. It is encouraging that the Council should accept that the Tony Lloyd-Jones dream of a bridge, which it has held for twenty years, can give way to a more environmentally friendly approach in which the requirements of pedestrians take precedence. Below: ideas for new Right: Workshop event urban spaces at which considered Waterloo International alternative proposals and the Festival Hall of informal squares and plan indicating and outdoor spaces, D possible landmarks / examining the area gateways and from the Jubilee improved frontages. Gardens to the National Theatre. South Bank Workshop Fundamental to the area is the riverside walk which is one of During a weekend in April, the the, if not the, best quality urban University of Westminster's spaces in London, with the river, Urban Design Unit brought trees and architectural backdrop together 25 artists, architects of some of London's strongest and urban designers at the urban images. A primary Royal Festival Hall to explore purpose of the workshop was to alternative schemes for find a way to improve the public London's South Bank. The spaces linking the pedestrian workshop offered a platform for walk to the buildings and to the an exchange of creative ideas area to the south. This would be for this important site. Funded a case of the urban designer by the Enterprise in Higher utilising civic pride as a tool of Education programme, this was urban repair in one of the few the first of a series of workshops car free zones in London. that the Unit will be running to explore how the urban designer Participants worked in three can best serve the community's multi-disciplinary groups to needs. brainstorm ideas and develop proposals for these urban This particular workshop, led by spaces. In slightly different ways the University's postgraduate each group generated students, sought to examine proposals that dealt with the alternative, 'urbanist' schemes problems of walkways, for the South Bank, from the entrances and spaces between perspective of arts-led the buildings. These included regeneration and key small the extension of the Hayward at scale interventions; making the ground floor level and the spaces between the Festival reinforcement of existing Hall, Purcell Room and the activities such as the NFT Hayward Gallery, the Museum of entrance, the book market and the Moving Image and the NFT, outdoor public performances and the National Theatre to the and had urban sustainability at east, and Jubilee Gardens to their heart. the west, work as a cohesive and unified sequence of public The proposals included the open spaces. enhancement of the riverside walk with a series of new The workshop started with an informal squares, recognising illustrated introduction to the the ways in which people South Bank by David Seex and actually use the outdoor space; Andrew White highlighting the a new Dance centre; an 'English constraints and opportunities. garden' planted in the existing Lea Anderson and Drew Jubilee gardens for the next Plunkett then spoke of the value Millennium. These proposals of outdoor spaces for both were seen as alternatives to the formal and informal current scheme which had performances and as settings gained Lottery funding and for human activities. John East some of that finance could be of the Twentieth Century Society used to secure and expand the expressed misgivings about the future of arts in this area and proposed setting for the Royal defuse some of the current Festival Hall, one of the few 20th criticisms of the 'elitist' use of century grade 1 listed buildings Lottery funds. # and spoke about the development of the later buildings. drawings by Roger Cullimore News and Events thought we had got a small We continue to make use of our grant from them, this appears expanding network of reciprocal not to be the case - mainly organisations. Art and because of what appears to be Architecture, The Institut D internal Arts Council problems. Frangais, Urban Villages Forum, The Landscape Institute and Living Over the Shop are Future Agenda organisations with which we now have mutual arrangements. The results of our manifesto workshop last year have ended This, on top of other up as a draft agenda which was organisations such as BURA, Chairman's Report published in the Quarterly. We and the Civic Trust, keep us in by Jon Rowland are looking forward to getting touch with people with similar responses from you before interests. Our relationship with If the previous year was the finalising the agenda. So please the RTPI is consolidating into period when the words 'urban comment. what looks like an annual joint 10 design' finally entered our conference. This year's A summary of income and Administration expenditure over two years is Subscriptions 21,478.00 given below. COIF Interest 1,271.36 £22,749.36 Income 94/95 95/96 £36,114 £32,263* Events 'omitting approximately £9,200 Leeds Seminar 282.55 for Spanish Tour Spanish Tour 9,263.61 Broadly this splits as follows: RTPI/UDG Seminar 365.00 Subscriptions 70% 1,225.00 Treasurer's Report Student Exhibition Publications 20% 420.00 by Simon Rendel RTPI Conference '94 (mostly from Practice Index) Lecture Programme 593.07 Events 10% Administration £12,149.23 Expenditure Publications The Administration office of the £31,850 £38,201* UDG has now been in operation Practice Profiles 1,040.00 * omitting Birmingham for four years with Susie Turnbull Sale of UDQs 550.00 as Group Administrator and is conference payment carried Adverts 320.00 now located at Blewbury. over from 94/95 Practice Index 4,717.50 Broadly this splits as follows: £6,627.96 Admin 28% Publications 47% Overall Total Membership £41,526.55 Events 12% Regions/Publicity/ We at present have 939 Promotion 13% members, an increase of 84 EXPENDITURE since last year partly gained The decrease in income is through a special circulation to Administration mainly due to the fact that in students. The membership Salaries 4,304.00 94/95 there were conference breaks down as follows: Rent 500.00 receipts in hand of £6,000. B.T. 656.80 Refunds 176.00 Individual full members 587 The increase in expenditure is Bank Charges 377.37 Students and retired 181 mainly due to the office move New Office 2,360.21 Corporate 52 (£2024) and Exhibition Boards £10,602.19 Overseas individual 62 (£4,626). Libraries 57 Events Leeds Seminar 387.98 Balance Sheet for Year Spanish Tour 9,215.00 Finance Ending 29 February 1996 RTPI/UDG Seminar 300.00 Student Exhibition 1,149.28 The 1995/96 accounts have Total income 95/96 £41,526.55 Birmingham been audited in accordance Total expenditure £52,820.71 Conference 5,401.34 with the requirements of the Deficit for year Lecture Programme 1,778.75 Charities Commission and a ending 29.2.96 £11,294.16 Manifesto Day 167.00 copy sent to them. Manchester Conference 170.00 Balance at bank The Group relies almost entirely RTPI Conference 155.80 as at 28.2.95 £6,845.93 on subscriptions for the main Annual Conference '96 82.50 Deficit for year costs which are the production BURA Exhibition 205.00 ending 29.2.96 £11,294.16 of the Quarterly and £19,012.65 Cash deficit £4,448.23 administration. Generally it is estimated that with a more or Publications Transfer from COIF less self-funding events £8,000.00 UDQ 14,260.56 programme we are now running Design 3,513.25 Cash at bank at break even. By comparison EP Insert 65.00 as at 29.2.96 the real surplus for 94/95 was £3,551.77 Practice Index 126.00 estimated at £3,400. We are not £17.964.81 Remaining amount in proposing any rise in personal Charities Fund subscriptions this year - the Publicity & Marketing fourth year running. 29.2.96 £14.306.00 Printing 1,713.00 Design 2,912.63 General 407.16 £5.032.79 Regions Expenses 208.27 £208.27 Overall Total £52,820.71 Viewpoint Two pieces published in the H pages of UDQ, separated by exactly twelve months, illustrate the importance that is now D Time and evolution The most obvious difference between developments such as Cambourne and true villages is the dimension of time. According to Hoskins3 almost all villages extant today were established by the eleventh century and were mentioned in the Domesday Book. The obvious exceptions are the planned or estate villages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The model for Cambourne is clearly stated as the 'traditional' English settlement, one which is 'informal and relaxed in its nature'.4 Without the element of time, can this be achieved, or would the planned village be a more appropriate precedent to follow? It may help to examine what tools and influences are available to the builders of complete new settlements. The first, the relationship between built form and its environment was vividly described by Kenneth Frampton writing in 1983: '...the specific culture of the region - that is to say its history in both a geological and agricultural sense - becomes inscribed into the form and realisation of the work (i.e. distinctiveness has been the change in planning - it is developer-led and therefore buildings). This inscription, which arises out relationship between the village centre and needs fiscal certainty above all else. Has of 'in-laying' the building into the site, has its surroundings. Sprawling estates have this led to a conservatism beyond the many levels of significance, for it has the infilled orchards, fields and paddocks and bounds of reason? Popular taste is judged capacity to embody, in built form, the have crept along back lanes, blocking by what will sell as its only measure - what prehistory of the place, its archaeological outward views and destroying the peripheral developers' agents refer to as 'kerb appeal' past and its subsequent cultivation and transition zone from village to field. In the is primary, and the current best-seller is transformation across time. Through this published illustrations of Cambourne, the 'Vicwardian'. In the face of such market- layering into the site the idiosyncrasies of surrounding land seems to have been speak, we should perhaps rejoice in the place find their expression without falling treated as an exercise in emparkment with quality of intent that underpins the into sentimentality.'5 no hint that agriculture is welcome. In Cambourne scheme, but the eventual traditional flatland villages, the clustering outcome in its blanket rejection of anything Thus, the building or settlement helps us to and introspection of building groups was a contemporary in favour of 'tradition' is form an interpretation of place, rather than necessity and, in the absence of external profoundly depressing. merely being a place itself. We can all think dominants such as wooded hillsides or of outstanding examples of this relationship looming castles, the glimpses out through So, is there any way for all parties involved - Cornish fishing villages set deep in their gaps between buildings gave a wonderful in the genesis of a new settlement to gain coves or Tuscan Hill towns high on the sense of 'inside' and 'outside'. This clarity the confidence to adopt a less defensive skyline - but this quality is also present in of separation is an essential formative stance on architectural approach? This is less obvious form in all small-scale influence in settlements of this type. where the work of Bishop's practice, BDOR settlements and is critical to their identity. Ltd, and the experiments carried out under The meaningful relationship with its site is The strategy for Cambourne is based on a the sponsorship of the Countryside fundamental to its eventual success. model of a concentrated development at the Commission may be relevant. village centre with a gradually decreasing density towards the outer edge. Whereas Settlement and nature this seems to be a logical concept, if utilised Local Distinctiveness everywhere it will deny surprise and may The second factor is the relationship of the reduce the clarity and connectivity referred For more than ten years now the notion of settlement to natural influences such as to above. Local Distinctiveness has been seeping into landform, hydrology, climate and vegetation. the consciousness and, in recent times, into In historic settlements, the relationship was official policy documents of planners, urban intimate and critical to the sustenance of life. The past is a foreign country... designers and architects. From the work of Villages arose out of the need to be within Common Ground8 and others, definitions walking distance of food-producing fields According to Jonathan Glancey,6 Farrell has have emerged which by the very nature of and to provide compounds for domestic rejected the Leon Krier approach being the concept are diverse and irritatingly animals during times of threat. The executed at Poundbury because it is 'too difficult to put into a neat package. It is availability of supplies of water and fuel were European' with its encircling perimeter road nonetheless crucial to the process of primary, and general and local climatic and 'quarters': 'this denies natural, organic understanding and criticising proposals influences shaped both building form and growth, precisely the quality that gave our such as Cambourne. the design of spaces between buildings. loveliest villages the face we so admire'. Because every site is unique in its However, he feels that the proposals for Sue Clifford and Angela King, co-founders combination of natural influences, every Cambourne 'play many of the same tricks as of Common Ground, have emphasised village developed its own unique response, the Prince of Wales' architects' in their human action and interpretation as being tempered by trial and error and by evolution employment of historical architectural crucial to distinctiveness, and Kevin Lynch of type and morphology. idioms. wrote: The deepest meaning of any place is its sense of connection to human life and The new villages, if they are to adopt The concern here is less with purely indeed the whole web of living things...'9 In traditional, relaxed and informal patterns, architectural issues and more with the these definitions, place is invested with will seek to synthesise, or perhaps clone, the macro scale of the design, the relationships value by its relationships with social and evolutionary process. This is obviously a between buildings and public space, and biological factors. dubious and possibly an impossible pursuit, the architectural expression is the clearest and calls into question the integrity of the guide to the whole underlying philosophy. A proposal such as Cambourne immediately approach. This, in the case of both Poundbury and denies one of these elements - the social Cambourne may be summed up by quoting dimension - by its very nature of being architect John Cooper, writing about his developed as a piece, each component and Settlement and setting approach in a different context, where he the whole representing a finished 'solution' rejected '...eclectic and unspecific approach to a defined need. The future inhabitants of The third factor to be interrogated is the to urban design that treats history as a the hamlets will have no contribution to the synergy between the village and its dressing-up box to be used initial process and nothing to do by way of immediate setting. The plan of Cambourne indiscriminately....'7 communal effort to achieve a commonly is conceived as three 'lobes' of built agreed objective. However, local development occupying higher ground, with In other words, one might politely enquire knowledge, opinion and advice needs to be the two intervening river valleys to be utilised whether designers alive and kicking in 1996 sought as a central component in the as country park and golf course. Apart from have nothing at all to say about life today in planning brief. As a brand-new imposed these, there is little indication of how the a language appropriate to their own age. settlement, there are no existing residents to surrounding land will be used. consult, but the district is sure to contain Whereas Poundbury is driven by Princely many groups and individuals with interest in In the waves of expansion that many English convictions about which we have heard what actually appears. The publication of villages have experienced in the post-war plenty over the last decade, Cambourne is a 'Design in the Countryside Experiments'10 period, the single most important threat to true child of the Thatcherite approach to and Countryside Design Summaries and Viewpoint Village Design Statements offer a References tremendous incentive to engage with local communities. Local knowledge can enrich 1. Countryside Commission, 'Design in the and add sophistication to design responses Countryside Experiments', Technical D and, if imaginatively encouraged, can be Report CCP473,1994. more forward-looking than planners and 2. Terry Farrell & Partners, Cambourne: architects may expect. Master Plan Report and Design Guide, 1995. Justification for this claim can be found in 3. Hoskins, W. G., The Making of the the Village Design Statement prepared by English Countryside, Hodder & residents for the village of Cottenham, Stoughton, London, 1995. coincidentally also located in 4. Terry Farrell & Partners, op. cit. Cambridgeshire. In it, they make clear their 5. Frampton, K., 'Towards a Critical forward-looking attitudes: 'It is important to Regionalism', published in Postmodern ensure positive opportunities for high quality Culture, Hal Foster (ed.), Pluto Press, contemporary architecture. Imaginative and London 1983, p. 26. original design can extend and renew the 6. Glancey, J., 'England, Whose England?' 14 distinctive character and traditions of in The Independent on Sunday, 29th 11 Cottenham's built environment.' October 1995. 7. Cooper, J., quoted in 'Street Life - Housing in Bloomsbury', Ruth Evans, Presumptions of populism Architects Journal, 2nd October 1991. 8. Various, Common Ground, Common So there will be a gulf between what Ground, London, 1993. fSMgp^S developers, planners and professionals 9. Lynch, K., Managing the Sense of a believe to be popular and therefore Region, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 1976, p. appropriate forms of design in the 34. countryside and what the public actually 10.Countryside Commission, op. cit. want if they are consulted. Market research 11 .Cottenham Village Design Group, follows buying patterns, but these are Cottenham Village Design Statement, inevitably shaped by what is currently 1994. available. What this country desperately 12.Glancey, J., op. cit. needs are some good modern examples of domestic, and indeed of urban design, to set the agenda for the next century. The design guide for the business park segment of Cambourne is unreservedly modernist in its intention, but any intrusion of such dangerous thinking into the residential areas of the village is firmly resisted. Is it true that we are content or even eager to work in the best of contemporary design but wish to turn our back on it at the end of the working day? Are we still so wounded by the experience of post-war mass housing disasters that never again will architects and urban designers be allowed to suggest Top: Proposals for anything other than historical mimicry as Cambourne Village suitable for living in? Square by Terry Farrell and Partners. Jonathan Glancey accused those Below: First phase responsible for Poundbury of 'trying to build housing in Poundbury. the equivalent of a tightly-packed Italian hill- town in Dorset before handing it down, as if by royal decree, to grateful bumpkins'.12 This may be so, but if it is, then it at least has the quality of honesty. Can the same be said for Cambourne? # Stephen Owen, in an edition of Aberdeen - but not Dundee's rural suburbs Urban Design' and also where there has been no 'green belt' since 2 elsewhere is critical of the 1980s and where the Rural Areas Local planning for its overcautious Plan and draft District Plan incorporated approach to rural housing differing levels of control on development development because he throughout the plan area. Finally strict believes it has stifled the socio- controls have been applied in some scenic economic opportunities and areas such as Arran, considered to be under vitality of the village. Owen's is pressure from non-local housing demands. not a lone voice on this. Over the last fifteen years at least, Yet throughout much of Scotland's rural some academics such as periphery, local authorities are displaying a 34 Newby and the Rural willingness to accept small-scale and Development Commission have individual housing development not only in questioned what is seen as the the (sometimes small) nucleated settlements 'blanket' restraint on but also in 'countryside development zones' development in the countryside or the open countryside in general. Such a and it is little wonder that this relaxed approach is fairly widespread and issue has become so central to can be seen in much of Highland and 5 the DoE's Rural White Paper. Grampian Regions, and parts of Angus and the Borders. Local authorities justify their Owen1-2 is also critical of planning's willingness to allow small scale and isolated apparent failure to promote quality design in housing development on the grounds that it: rural settlements. Design policy relies on: 'meaningless exhortations towards "high • promotes the economic/demographic 1 standards of design"(0wen, p. 11 ) and revitalisation of areas which have 'negative phraseology...[paying] lip service suffered from long-term decline; and to the need for good design but rarely • reflects the characteristic dispersed 2 [promoting] it effectively' (Owen, p. 14). nature of rural settlement. He calls for a more 'discriminatory' Interestingly too, with certain exceptions (for approach to restraint complemented by the example Highland's Black Isle Local Plan introduction of a rural design initiative. Alteration and Perth and Kinross's Perth Area Local Plan), such a relaxed approach Our intention here is not to reject Owen's has not generated great controversy. view. Indeed the empirical work which we have recently undertaken in Scotland, Therefore, there is no universal practised provides some justification for Owen's policy of restraint on housing in the Scottish criticisms of planning policy. However, our countryside. Controls on development are work also suggests that Scottish rural local applicable in some areas but more relaxed authorities may have already moved away policies are being applied in others. from 'blanket restraints' on the location of housing in the countryside and are taking initial steps towards improving the design of Design Guidance rural housing. Of course, the local plan has also been used as a vehicle for setting out local authority Levels of Restraint policy on the design of rural housing. Virtually all of the local plans in our sample Our research examined the policies of six had design policies which were generalised regional, twenty three district and four and brief, more than conforming to the unitary authorities in relation to the location limitations highlighted by Owen. Policies and design of housing in the countryside.6 such as: The results revealed that a protectionist stance is still clearly discernible throughout '...new building should pay attention to rural Scotland. All local authorities had layout and design.' some form of policy for protecting the '...the design of development should countryside with strong restraints effectively maintain and enhance the visual amenity of limiting most housing development in its setting.' 'designated countryside', for example prime 'siting and design [of new housing]... should agricultural land, National Scenic Areas, be sympathetic and not appear Nature Reserves and SSSIs. But there is incongruous.' also noticeable spatial variation in the level of restraint applied to 'non-designated' are only three from a large number which countryside. Strict controls on virtually all could have been chosen to illustrate this development (with the usual and long- point. established caveats for development such as that required for 'operational need') are However, many local authorities are also being used in 'green belt' and 'urban fringe' going beyond the statutory local plan in an locations around Edinburgh, Glasgow and attempt to address rural design issues - Viewpoint though in a way which reflects the distinctive Illustrations from § characteristic of Scottish rural settlement Moray District Plan. ^ and therefore, representing a refinement on (q- what Owen advocates. Owen equates rural 1 Traditional domestic o settlement with villages; this is entirely dwellings § appropriate and valid in England where the Rural dwelings have ® village has been so significant in the evolved in response to rr settlement pattern for centuries.7'8 In their setting and cn £ Scotland, historical and cultural factors have function in the m led to a different form and pattern of countryside. The -- settlement. As Millman,9 Naismith,10 Perry architecture is simple and Slater11 have stressed, although but functional, yet has ^ nucleated settlements, particularly those a distinctive style, §> arising from eighteenth and nineteenth which gives the Moray century 'improvements', are widespread, the countryside its village is not the characteristic settlement individual identity. form - except perhaps in south-east Scotland. Dispersed settlement is more a feature of the Scottish countryside. 2 Catalogue Therefore a 'design initiative' for rural bungalows housing needs to be orientated more Belongs to nowhere towards dispersed and isolated housing in yet found everywhere. the countryside. Easily absorbed into the city suburbs, Despite this distinction between Scotland where it can blend and England, the 'design problem' is similar. more effectively with The quality of modern rural housing has the built-up area. In generated as much controversy in Scotland the Scottish as it has in England.10'12'13 The problem has countryside, however, become so acute that it has stimulated a it appears 'out of series of responses from the Scottish Office. place' and unable to It has sponsored research into timber blend with its natural framed housing in the countryside14 and has surroundings. also produced advice for local authorities on how to accommodate the extension of settlements into the landscape.15 But preceding both of these initiatives, was an 3 A Suburban Advice Note16 urging local authorities to Approach prepare design guidance for housing in the Bulldoze the site, countryside. removing all contours, trees and hedgerows. Our own research looked at the guidance Add a sweeping offered by local authorities as a means of driveway, a modern setting design standards for housing in the bungalow on a countryside. In our sample of local platform with an authorities, nineteen (districts and unitary absence of landscaping and you authorities) had prepared design guidance create an insensitive for prospective applicants. A further four development which indicated their intention to prepare design irrevocably damages guides. It is also known that at least two the natural features of other authorities not covered in our survey the countryside. have prepared guidance. Only four in our sample gave no indication of a commitment to the preparation of a design guide for rural housing. 4 A Rural Approach A much more Three authorities (Angus, Argyll and Gordon) successful result, had prepared design guidance before PAN providing the same 36(1991), but the majority had prepared or level of updated their guidance after 1991. It seems accommodation, can that PAN 3616 has acted as a catalyst for be achieved by a local authority action on the rural housing better selection of site, design issue and indeed several authorities a more sensitive made it quite clear that their design guides house design, and a were prepared in response to PAN 36. more thoughtful use of Interestingly though, the local authorities contours and appear to have elaborated on PAN 36 by landscape features. adding to the siting and design considerations set out in the Advice Note. 4 The local design guidance which has been Conclusions References produced does vary considerably in content and quality of presentation. In cases where It is not suggested here that Stephen 1. Owen, S. (1995), 'Rural Settlement authorities have used 'Housing in the Owen's plea for a 'rural design initiative' will Design' Urban Design, Issue 54, April, Countryside' development control policy be satisfied if he simply looks north. The pp. 9-11. notes, guidance covers only a few siting and Scottish approach presented above still 2. Owen, S. (1995),'Rural Rethink', design considerations. These cases hardly leaves a number of questions unanswered. Planning Week, Vol. 3, No. 11,16 March, constitute what was envisaged by the For example, how effectively will the design pp. 14-15. Scottish Office. Moreover a minority of guidance be implemented? Will it lead to a 3. Newby, H. Bell, C., Rose, D. and authorities refer prospective applicants to 'better' outcome in terms of the design of Saunders, P. (1978), Property Paternalism PAN 36. Clearly this is entirely rural housing? Moreover, there is room for and power: Class and Control in Rural inappropriate. It was never the Scottish refinement, particularly in the case of England, Hutchison. Office's intention for their advice which is 'regional and local character', where a more 4. Newby, H. (1980), Green and Pleasant 'general' and has no specific locational precise definition should be developed. Land, Pelican, Harmondsworth. setting, to be translated so literally into any 5. Department of the Environment (1995), local context. Finally, whilst the Scottish Nevertheless, despite this, there are clear Rural England - A Nation Committed to A Office and a number of rural authorities signs that Scottish local planning Living Countryside, HMSO. recognise the importance of regional and authorities: 6. Moire, J., Rice, D. and Watt, A. (1995), local 'character', relatively few design guides 'Housing in the Countryside: The explain what this means in detail. • have adopted a more selective and Locational and design Policies of discriminatory stance on restraint policies Scottish Local Authorities', Centre for Nevertheless, despite these limitations, there so that small scale developments are Planning Research. Research Paper No. is also much to commend the design encouraged in parts of the countryside 1, School of Town and Regional guidance which has been produced. • are placing a new emphasis on rural Planning, University of Dundee. Scottish local authorities are adopting a design in their policies 7. Hoskins, W. G. (1970), The Making of the more positive and pro-active role on design English Landscape, Pelican, standards. Many provide a clear statement Indeed the increased significance attached Harmondsworth. r+ of what should (and should not) be to the design of rural housing in Sr land 8. Taylor, C., (1983), Village and Farmstead incorporated into the siting and design of offers an interesting opportunity for planning - A History of Rural Settlement in England, rural housing. Although Owen is critical of to switch direction on its housing in t; George Philip, London. county-wide design guides for promoting countryside policies. Instead of attempting 9. Millman.R., (1975), The Making of the standardisation and suburbanisation in to maintain countryside amenity through a Scottish Landscape, Batsford. housing design, this may not apply to the 'safety-first' approach involving a virtual 10. Naismith, R., (1985), Buildings in the newly emerging Scottish design guidance. block on housing development, it may be Scottish Countryside, Victor Gollancz. The origins of the latter can be traced back possible to adopt a more flexible and 11. Perry, M. L. and Slater, T. L. (eds) (1980), to the works of Naismith,10 Fladmark et al12 relaxed approach which permits housing The Making of the Scottish Countryside, and PAN 36 which were specifically geared development in the countryside because, if Croom Helm, London. towards promoting the maintenance of, or well designed, housing can make a positive 12.Fladmark, J., Mulvagh, G. and Evans, B. revival in, the Scottish rural vernacular. The contribution to landscape - as it has for (1991), Tomorrow's Architectural Heritage concept of Scottish rural housing design is centuries. # - Landscape and Building in the very much part of the local design guides. A Countryside, Mainstream Publishing, model in this respect must be Moray District Edinburgh. Council's Local Plan (c1993)17 which 13. Jarman, D. (ed) (1993), Field of Vision: illustrates: New Ideas on Rural House Design, RIAS, Edinburgh. • the demise of the rural vernacular 14. Richards, J. and Richards, M. (1994), tradition towards the 'suburban' house Timber Frame Houses in the Scottish style Countryside, HMSO, Edinburgh. • what constitutes 'character' in rural 15. Scottish Office Environment (1994), settlement and buildings, highlighting 'Fitting New Housing Development into particularly the variety of designs and the Landscape', PAN 44, Scottish Office, styles which can occur even at the local Edinburgh. (Moray) level 16. Scottish Office Environment (1991), 'The • siting and design matters which should Siting and Design of New Housing in the be considered in renovation, new build Countryside, PAN36, Scottish Office, and locating within a rural community. Edinburgh. 17. Moray District Council (c1993), 'Moray District Local Plan 1993-1998, Housing in the Countryside, Moray District Council. Topic/ Books on Urban Design Dedicated to the memory of John Barrick, 1946-1995, RTPI Librarian 1972-1995. HaV- ^ stf&te^ When I undertook to edit this special feature for UDQ I'd o etSeVd hoped that I'd be able to involve John Barrick, then the RTPI o Librarian. Sadly he died suddenly, before I'd even mentioned it to him. But I like to think that the contents of this issue R would have appealed to the man who put Jazz Monthly and The New York Review of Books on the shelves of the RTPI (even if no one apart from myself read them, as he remarked (/> when we first met). o John's widow sent me some of John's unpublished notes which serve uncannily well as an introduction. 'One of the things that continues to make me happy is the fact that there is always a new writer to discover, or an old writer to rediscover... my main love is literary fiction, I do like other books as well, but the whole business of putting books into genres is absurd as it means that something is missed because it seems to come within a certain genre. Many books transcend genres anyway.' In seeking contributors and planning the content of this issue, I avoided the conventional focus on the latest and flashiest publications in our sub-discipline. Instead, I invited (or asked for) wide-ranging essays on all aspects of 'the literature' from people I knew cherished books or relished language. Just as when I was instructed to update my reading lists by deleting anything prior to 1980,1 added Alberti's Ten Books, and gave their original publication date of 1485 (even if all I had was the Dover reprint), so there are very few new books here. Even John Punter's 'review article' 5 features books that were published a couple of years ago that he sought out rather than the publishers promoted. We use books in different ways: for some they are a way of •• life. Peter Inch is a dealer in specialist second hand and rare o editions, previously a lecturer in planning history and his D" piece blurs the distinctions between art and trade and life. If c_ you ask an academic almost any question you get a reading list and Tony Lloyd Jones and Marion Roberts attempt to < sketch a definitive canon for urban design. Which will be disputed even before it's read. Giles Worsley is editor of Perspectives in Architecture, the magazine that has put architectural debate on the popular bookstalls, to reach a wider non-professional public. Chris Smith's plea for more vivid and evocative (though no less accurate) language in describing places and their qualities is a reminder of just how dull (and incomprehensible) or technical talk can become. Graham King celebrates one of the few architectural writers who vividly transcended the conventions (and yet still collaborated on The Buildings of England). Some years ago Robert Riley wrote in Landscape1 of the importance of looking at trade papers and enthusiasts magazines to really understand the way places are: here Michael Crilly rereads Mister X comic magazines to see the future of urban design. Amongst these longer essays are shorter, more personal sketches, 'books that changed my life' (a little, even). They serve as a reminder that books should be valued not for what they are but what they do for us. # 1. Robert B. Riley, 'Speculations on the New American Landscape', Landscape, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1980, pp. 1-9. Left: The ghost of Ian Nairn looks out from the fog of great literature over the fading dreams of urban design. Designing a Place Called Home: Reordering The four books that are the focus of this the Suburbs, James Wentling, Chapman review all essentially rework, amplify and and Hall, New York, 1995, £39.95 extend both the critique of suburban Yard-Street-Park: The Design of Suburban development and the revisions proposed by Open Space, Cynthia Girling and Kenneth the neo-traditional movement in different Helphand, John Wiley, New York, 1994, £50 ways. As the titles suggest, the focus is Visions for a New American Dream: Process, different in terms of scale and context - Principles and an Ordinance to Plan and home; yard; street and park; community and Design Small Communities, Anton Nelessen, suburbia; and, finally, small town and American Planning Association, Chicago, exurban hamlets and villages. None of the 1994, £60 books provides a coherent overview of neo- Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town traditionalism (fortunately this is available Character, Randall Arendt et al, American elsewhere: see notes 1,7,10), but each Planning Association, Chicago, 1994, £35 makes a contribution to more intelligent planning and design of American suburbia. These four volumes constitute some of the latest American Designing a Place Called Home is written by writing on the design of an architect, James Wentling, sympathetic contemporary American to the neo-traditional design movement, but suburbia. Drawing heavily on firmly rooted in current market practices. It the neo-traditionalism of focuses on the design of mass produced or Andrew Duany and Elizabeth production houses, and this is one of its Plater-Zyberk, and the transit- strengths. Subtitled Reordering the Suburbs, oriented development/ it does not really address the broader issues traditional neighbourhoods of of estate (subdivision) design, but instead Peter Calthorpe, these books concentrates on siting and lot patterns, floor- represent the latest stage of a plans and layouts, building design and major reappraisal and re- exterior details, and interior details. It begins evaluation of American with an historical overview which is selective suburbia. but very accessible, and then discusses the contemporary housing design problem - This re-evaluation rejects the all-pervasive affordability, density, zoning, marketability, Federal Housing Agency models of the community, developer conservatism, 1930s and 1950s, the planned unit consumer expectations. It sees the neo- developments of the 1970s, and the master- traditional approach as a response to planned communities of the 1970s, and consumer dissatisfaction with community seeks to rediscover and adapt the traditions design, or rather the lack of it. It proceeds to of community and environmental design discuss principles of community design, promulgated by Olmsted, Howard, Unwin, embroidering six principles of neo-traditional Nolen, Stein, Wright, Whyte and McHarg to community design with brief discussions suburban and exurban environments. using illustrated examples. There have been a number of major books A whole chapter is devoted to siting and lot on American suburbia published in the last patterns, focusing on key issues like set five years that are of major relevance to backs, accentuated entrances, garaging urban design. These include the excellent and parking, small lot configurations, syntheses of neo-traditionalism available in community and privacy, patios and decks. Peter Katz's The New Urbanism'1 {UDQ53, Another chapter is devoted to building floor- p. 33), and projects and critical essays plans, focusing particularly on their role in entitled 'Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater- the generation of building forms and Zyberk: Towns and Town-Making Principles'2 facades, and their relationship to different lot and 'Seaside: Making a Town in America'3; configurations and constraints; issues of the work on pedestrian and transit-oriented use, circulation, lifestyle, furnishing, storage, development in The Pedestrian Pocket or recycling are not neglected. A chapter on Book* and Peter Calthorpe's The Next interior details focuses on 'special features', American Metropolis6 (see UDQ 53, pp. 26- while the chapter on exterior details seeks to 28) supplemented by David Solomon's more identify and correct common failings of architectural Re-Building.6 A major facade design. Emphasis is placed upon the academic analysis of America's suburbia importance of establishing a focus for the has been attempted by Peter Rowe in elevation, and appropriate roof profile and Making a Middle Landscape/ and a more trim, 'veneers', fenestration and choice of journalistic but still useful overview by Peter colours, and the argument is convincing. Langdon in A Better Place to Live: 8 Reshaping the American Suburb, while Regrettably, the concluding chapters on Anne Vernez Moudon has edited a volume multi-family housing, manufactured housing, 9 on Master-Planned Communities. Alexander and housing for tomorrow become 10 Christoforidis's review of neo-traditionalism progressively thinner so that the latter is is one of the most useful articles in barely an afterword. Nevertheless, this is a academic journals. valuable book because of its marriage of distilled experience of commercial practice Topic / Books on Urban Design and its constructive criticism of suggestions particularly important because it was for design improvement. The author designed using the ecological design D provides clearly elaborated lists of points, principles of Ian McHarg. criticisms, rules, principles or components O that are invariably well illustrated with The book goes on to review the neo- photographs, site plans and, best of all, traditional suburbs, noting Duany and Plater composite sketch plans. This, combined Zyberk's debt to Raymond Unwin and John with a large typeface and double-column Nolen (but curiously not their debt to Leon format, makes the book particularly easy Krier), examining three of their projects and and pleasurable to read. The focus on noting their slowly-developing awareness of middle-class housing means that, despite the ecological concerns in open space its claims, the book is not really able to planning. Peter Calthorpe's work is also address issues of affordability that would reviewed with similar criticisms of his make it more relevant to contemporary neglect of open space as a community housing, and issues of environmental linkage, integration and definitional device. sensitivity or sustainability are also A final chapter considers Suburbia 2000, the underplayed. This apart, there is very little in importance of retro-fitting suburbs, and the 20 the book that is not relevant to British future of the yard, street and park. Only a suburban design and it would provide most little over a page is devoted to each, missing house builders or design guidance writers the opportunity for an informed synthesis with much food for thought. and clear design recommendations, a disappointing end to a well-illustrated and Yard-Street-Park: The Design of Suburban presented book of unfulfilled potential. Open Space is advertised as being written to help designers, planners, and developers Anton Nelesson's Vision for a New American of suburban communities to deliver on their Dream is promoted as the results of 25 traditional promise of offering 'the best of years of practice and research largely in both worlds'. Written by two landscape New Jersey. The author confesses to being architects, Cynthia Girling and Kenneth more of a lecturer than a writer and has not Helphand, it is a less coherent book been well served by his editor, typographer, because its strong historical dimension and or proof reader. Still, the 370 pages of text holistic analysis of community design is not are enlivened by layout and profuse followed through in later chapters where it illustrations, and the very repetitive nature of becomes rather lost (like many of these the text and illustrations is in part books) in a flurry of case studies. The title necessitated by the development, illustration leads one to expect a careful analysis of and application of the methodology. each of these three elements of suburban space, but there is more discussion of yards At the heart of the book is Nelesson's in Wentling's book, of streets in Nelesson's, patented technique of the Visual Preference and of park systems in Arendt's. Survey (VPS)™ which presents communities with slide images and asks respondents to The essential thesis of Yard-Street-Park is rate them on a scale of plus 10 to minus 10. that "to create a suburban landscape An optional questionnaire can supplement supportive of individual fulfilment, this with more demographic and market community life, and environmental information, and more ideas and opinions sustainability requires a broader, more on desirable future forms. Nelesson claims comprehensive view of open space... i.e. to have administered 50,000 such surveys yard, street and park." This thesis is also a across eight states in addition to New key underpinning of neo-traditional Jersey, and he claims that 'a clear visual development. The book is structured and spatial preference has emerged - the historically with a study of three key early vision of a new American dream'. To suburban models - Olmsted's Riverside, complement and deepen his VPS™, Stein and Henry Wright's Radburn, and Nelesson has also developed a 'hands on Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City. This model-building workshop' with which lacks a synthesis but is followed by a communities can produce scale models of revealing overview of federal housing their ideal community, utilising pre-designed designs for the 1930s and 1950s, including building types (32) in several vernacular and a particularly interesting study of Levittown functional styles at a scale of 1:20. Nelesson that emphasises how the residents argues that 'most people reject the current reshaped their environment to express their pattern and spatial characteristics of sprawl own values. Subsequent chapters chart the in favour of more traditional or neo- rise of cluster and planned unit development traditional small communities' and that 'no (PUD), its strengths and weaknesses, group has ever laid out the models in cul de includes an overview of Reston and sacs!' (pp. 88-9). Columbia, and explores the design of the master-planned communities of the 1970s Nelesson's book is an exposition of a seven- and 1980s. The latter includes a case study step planning and design process for small of Woodbridge in Irvine (a 'technoburb'), communities that begins with a 'biography Village Homes in Davis and Woodlands in of the past' and an analysis of the pattern of Texas (an 'ecoburb'). The latter is growth of the community; explores its problems through focus groups and determines a common vision utilising the three innovative techniques previously BUILDING MASSING AND STYLE discussed; and identifies the potentials for positive development and redevelopment. The last three steps involve the drawing of a layout and figure ground plan, the writing and illustrating of a code (occupying nearly ROOF TYPES & a quarter of the book), and the development MATERIALS of a submission and review process to get it adopted. Nelesson defines basic design principles to FACADE create small communities that have obvious TREATMENT & MATERIALS British resonances, but a number are less then complete statements of the neo- traditional impulse. Nevertheless, some of the detailed subprinciples and recommended dimensions are useful rules ENTRY & DOORS of thumb, and reveal an appreciation of the details of site planning long ago lost to many urban developers and planners. Nelesson's work, and predominantly his WINDOWS imaginative and practical if easily V manipulated methods, will be of t r considerable value to those genuinely interested in greater community involvement in design regulation and review, or even in EAVES, PORCHES, market research for community design. It & ARCADES promotes a very narrow conception of desired future forms based heavily upon the New England vernacular, and the parade of highly-rated VPS™ images begins to pale as the gentrified landscapes of east coast small towns and villages are endlessly Top left: Levittown paraded for our delectation. But it would be initial house and yard possible to use the same process and contrasted with methods to explore a much wider range of residents' additions design alternatives. and remodelling (Yard-Street-Park) Rural by Design, by Randall Arendt and others, applies neo-traditional design Bottom left: Section thinking cross-fertilised with careful open and figure ground space planning to the smaller towns, plan of a wide two way villages and hamlets of America. The book street. is divided into four parts. The first presents Above: Design an analysis of the character of towns, a vocabulary mix for critique of zoning, a prognosis of eventual residential types build-out patterns, a review of neo-traditional (Vision for a New alternatives and a review of the aesthetics of American Dream). form (Unwin, Cullen, Prince of Wales, Nelesson and other American citizen- Right: Plans showing oriented townscape analysts are cited). The transformation from second part examines alternative scenarios rural community to for conservation/development in four conventional suburb in hypothetical and one actual example, Montgomery County exploring the contrast between conventional Pennsylvania and 'creative' development in a range of (Rural by Design). development contexts. The third section constitutes half the book and consists of eleven chapters under the general title of implementation techniques, exploring such issues as highway-oriented development, affordable housing, road standards, sewage systems, open spaces and greenery design and farmland preservation. These are the most useful sections of the book and each is an excellent and comprehensive review. Topic / Books on Urban Design The final section offers 38 case studies of the frontier and the 'ingenuity and enterprise' 'creative' residential, town centre and of the American people. He describes the Book that Changed my Life roadside commercial development, third wave of American suburbanisation (first including a few historically important housing, then retail, now jobs) and the Roger Evans O exemplars, and the extensive appendices consequent growth of 200 'edge cities' in 'A City is Not a Tree', C. Alexander, 1965. contain five detailed studies or planning suburban downtowns, celebrating their Republished in Human Identity in the documents of relevance. The whole is dynamism and their new concept of Urban Environment. Ed. G. Bell and J. extensively illustrated with sketch plans and community (the growth of voluntary Tyrwhitt, Penguin 1992. photographs, and is very well referenced, associations and special interest groups) making this the definitive reference text on while downplaying their government What struck me as an architectural the subject. Its synthesis of a very wide body subsidies, the privatisation of government, student above all else was that if lecturers of practice manuals and design experiments the absence of civic culture and their were so cock-sure about how to design, and innovations is particularly useful to essential exclusionism. Edge City why were our towns and cities built on academics and practitioners alike. It is emphasises the scale of the task facing the the principles which they espoused, so overly long and repetitive, a fact half neo-traditionalists, and the forces arraigned mind-numbingly dull and dismal acknowledged in the preface; but otherwise against them, most succinctly in a final compared to cities which had developed it justifies the rave reviews it has received. chapter entitled 'The Laws'. These constitute with little professional help. It seemed to 22 the current design rules of mass suburbia. me then that those cities which had been It may be considered that such a book has Two examples must suffice. most rationalised and organised were the nothing to teach British designers where the most inhospitable and unfriendly. one (and only?) undisputed achievement of • 600 ft is the farthest distance an the post-war planning system has been the American will willingly walk before getting This essay by Christopher Alexander concentration of exurban development onto into a car. provided a new way of looking at the city. the margins of existing settlements and the • all subdivisions are named after whatever Two simple, contrasting diagrams prevention of sporadic rural subdivisions. species are first driven out by the showed beyond doubt that it is However, by and large, the detailed site construction. relationships and not separateness that planning of rural development in Britain has make cities, and it is a reason why I have been equally unresponsive to local Peter Calthorpe has noted that 'Americans spent my time since in urban design. character, and many of the same problems moved to the suburbs largely for privacy, persist here - inappropriate standards, mobility, security and ownership. insensitive and wasteful highway standards Increasingly they have isolation, congestion, and layouts, neglected open space design, rising crime and overwhelming costs.'12 inability to provide affordable housing, a failure of community design. There is much The neo-traditionalist texts described here to learn from the approaches taken by the do partially address each of these issues, more innovative American planners and but it remains to be seen how effectively developers, even if the nature of the problem they counter the rampant privatisation, is different - in many states the growth rate social fragmentation and now job insecurity of residential land consumption is twice that that characterises American suburbs. For a of population growth and the per capita land British audience, they are useful substitute take is rising to nearly two acres per person for a non-existent debate about the product (the target densities of all these 'reformers' of our mass house builders left largely is less then half current British suburban unregulated by Central Government The tree structure at the top shows how densities). advice. # in this century we have separated out different forms of human activity by Reading these four long texts and the other 1. Katz, Peter (Ed.), The New Urbanism: Towards an Architecture of Community, New York, McGraw- constructing environments which dozen or so books that espouse the neo- Hill, 1992. segregate: if we are driving then we have traditional approach one cannot escape the 2. Krieger, Alex and Lennetz, William, Andrew Duany nothing to do with pedestrians; if we are mischievous thought that the extent of the and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Towns and Town at work then we have no interest in home, writings are inversely proportional to their Making Principles, New York, Rizzoli, 1991. and so on. The diagram below shows real impact on the American scene. This 3. Mohney, David and Easterling, Keller, Seaside: Making a Town in America, New York, Princeton how similar elements can be grouped conclusion is reinforced by the market Architectural Press, 1988. within a semi-lattice structure which demise of two key schemes - the McHarg- 4. Kelbaugh, Doug (Ed.), The Pedestrian Pocket- allows a far greater number of linkages. designed Woodlands near Houston, and the Book, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 'We can see just how much more Calthorpe-designed Laguna West near 1988. complex a semi-lattice can be than a tree Sacramento, and the appropriation of neo- 5. Calthorpe, Peter, The Next American Metropolis, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1993. in the following fact: a tree based on traditionalism by top-of-the-market 6. Solomon, David, Rebuilding, New York, Princeton twenty elements can contain at most developers. But it is substantiated by Architectural Press. nineteen further subsets of the twenty, another overly-long, highly-repetitive and 7. Rowe, Peter, Making a Middle Landscape, while a semi-lattice based on the same uncritical text written from a quite opposite Cambridge, MIT Press, 1991. 8. Langdon, Philip, A Better Place to Live: Reshaping twenty elements can contain more than perspective, a book which has outsold all the American Suburb, Amherst, Mass., University 1,000,000 different subsets.'So that's the neo-traditional books combined many of Massachusetts Press, 1994. why so much new stuff was dull! These times over. Joel Garreau's Edge City: Life on 9. Moudon, Anne Vernez, Master-Planned diagrams remain just as relevant today. the New Frontier11 is now five years old, but Communities: Shaping Exurbs in the 1990s, it is a must-read for urban designers Seattle, University of Washington, Urban Design Program. Issue Tree Lattice because it celebrates what most appals 10. Christoforidis, A., 'New Alternatives to the Suburb: Movement: segregation shared streets them. Garreau sees in suburbia and its new Neo Traditional Developments', Journal of Traffic: concentrate disperse dense nodes 'a new balance of Planning Literature, 8(4), 1994. Land use: zoned mixed individualism and freedom', which he 11. Garreau, Joel, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, Street pattern: enclaves connectivity explains evoking the time-honoured myth of New York, Doubleday, 1992. 12. See note 5, p. 18. The notion that it is possible to Many current initiatives in urban formulate a canon of urban regeneration and urban design take their design begs many questions, inspiration from Jacobs' work, first not least of which is deciding published in 1961. Most recently, her ideas what in the vast literature about mixed development and surveillance: D should be left out. While the 'eyes on the street', have seen a works that we have selected renaissance. Yet however rich, witty and are perhaps the most well useful her analysis, there remains a problem known and obvious, it should with her anecdotal, discursive approach. always be remembered that the Whilst we might feel instinctively that many Q) authors' ideas were formed of her observations are correct, we do not within the context of a broader know for sure whether they are absolute seam of literature which grows truths. Jacobs' lack of systematic richer as time passes. elaboration in terms of scientific procedures forms a strong contrast to the next book on • There are few general introductions to this our list, Kevin Lynch's Image of the City. wider body of work. David Gosling and Barry introduces readers to the notion that the city References is a repository of culture, from the • generations behind and for the generations The canon referred to in this article: to come. At the same time the book is not a Alexander, C., A City is Not a Tree in O plea for unthinking or superficial Architectural Forum, vol. 122, no. 1 and 2, preservation; rather Rossi aims to look for April/May 1965. the deep structure inherent in building types and to accommodate the changing, living Broadbent, G., Emerging Concepts in Urban uses of urban artefacts over time. Space Design, London: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990. Rossi's book suffers from many of the same faults as Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter's Calthorpe, P., The Next American Metropolis, Collage City in that they are both wordy, New York: Princeton Architecture Press, intellectually flashy and indulgently 1993. philosophical. The benefit of the Collage City Cullen, G., The Concise Townscape, is that is has the most marvellous London: Architectural Press, 1961. Gordon Cullen's The Concise Townscape, illustrations, a wealth of ideas about the 24 importance of traditional elements of urban first published in 1961, has probably had the Gosling, D., Maitland, B., Concepts of Urban greatest influence of any of the works spaces, a devastating and lucid argument Design, London: Academy Editions, 1984. mentioned here on a generation of British against comprehensive development and it urban designers. Cullen re-worked the illustrates the huge importance of the figure Jacobs, J., The Death and Life of Great traditional artistic approach to city design ground diagram as a tool for analysis. American Cities: The Failure of Town found in the ideas of town planning Planning, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, precursors such as Camillo Sitte or Barry If much of urban design analysis and 1984 (first published 1961). Parker and Raymond Unwin. Treating the prescription has contained a robust defence Kostof, S., The City Assembled: The urban landscape as a series of related of the historic forms of cities, it is important Elements of Urban Form Through History, spaces, he is best known for his concept of that such forms are understood within their London: Thames & Hudson, 1992. 'serial vision'. The power of his book, historical context. This is where Spiro however, lies in the way in which Cullen is Kostof's two volumes The City Shaped and Kostof, S., The City Shaped: Urban Patterns able to capture the poetic essence of the The City Assembled prove their worth. Both and Meanings Throughout History, London: experience of urban form and space and are sumptuously illustrated, scholarly, Thames & Hudson, 1991. give a vocabulary to the many practising entertaining accounts of the key types and designers who have used his concepts to elements of city forms. LeGates, R. and Stout, F., The City Reader, inform their approach to urban design. London: Routledge, 1996. Looking to the future, the concerns of Lynch, K., The Image of the City, Cambridge Perhaps the strongest criticism that can be sustainability have become paramount. Mass: MIT Press, 1960. levelled against Cullen, or rather against the Peter Calthorpe's The Next American way that his ideas have been used, is that Metropolis contains both a manifesto for Rossi, A., The Architecture of the City, the aesthetic approach focuses too evidently sustainable urban living at medium densities Opposition Books, Cambridge, Mass: MIT on the Picturesque and has helped reinforce and a design manual for building new Press, 1982. the sentimental, backward-looking settlements with his concept of Transit tendencies of British urban design. This may Oriented Development (TOD). Rowe, C. and Koetter, F., Collage City, MIT have focused attention away from a forward- Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1984. looking and socially relevant approach. We are aware of a number of other Sherlock, H., Cities are Good for Us, milestones in urban design thought that London: Paladin, 1991. Christopher Alexander's A City is Not a Tree have had to omit from this selective list for reasons of space. Not here are the great is an essay that was first published in 1965 Other books referred to in this but which has recently been re-printed in an architectural visions of the twentieth century article: edited form in the City Reader, mentioned city from Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd above. Alexander's main contention is that Wright through to Team X and the Berman, M., All That's Solid Melts into Air, the 'natural city' (as opposed to the technological Utopias of Archigram and London: Verso, 1984. 'artificial' city of the urban planner) is a others in the 60s. Should not City: Re- place of organised complexity. In discovering the Centre, William Whyte's Hillier, B., Hanson, J., The Social Logic of Alexander's view, planners and designers splendid first hand insights on how people Space, Cambridge University Press, 1984. invariably think of urban structure in terms of behave in urban spaces, or Venturi, Izenour Lynch, K., Good City Form, Cambridge, simple tree-like hierarchies. In reality, cities and Scott Brown's manifesto of populist Mass: MIT Press, 1981. consist of shared spaces of complex post modernism, Learning from Las Vegas, overlapping social networks organised as have been included? On the theme of the Tschumi, B., Event-cities, Cambridge, Mass: 'semi-lattices'. The impact of this essay de-materialised city of signs and events, MIT Press, 1994. owes much to Alexander's use of simple what of Bernard Tschumi's recent epistle of graphs and Venn diagrams to illustrate the deconstruction, Event-cities?In terms of Venturi, R., Izenour, S. and Scott Brown, D., basic concept of organised complexity. current influence on design thinking, the Learning from Las Vegas, Cambridge, Mass: archaism of Leon Krier might have been MIT Press, 1977 (revised edition, first published 1972). Alexander's, Cullen's, Lynch's and Jacobs' contrasted with the twenty first century vision work all, in different ways, emanated from of Rem Koolhaas, or the rather forbidding Walmsley, D. J., Urban Living: the individual the view of the city dweller. Other books analytical approach of Bill Hillier and in the city, Harlow: Longman Scientific and Julienne Hanson in their Social Logic of which might be included in an urban design Technical, 1988. canon emanate from more conventional Space. For these and other omissions, we sources, such as architectural history and can only beg the reader's indulgence. # Whyte, W., City: Re-discovering the Centre, theory. Aldo Rossi's Architecture of the City New York: Doubleday, 1988. 'Towards the end of a sunny afternoon the town of Book That Changed My Life Ludlow looks like a man at arms asleep at his post. You s want to cry an alarm in the streets to awaken the spirit Derek Abbott of the place. It is, like Berwick-on-Tweed, a frontier c 1 Cities in Evolution, Patrick Geddes, 1915 town that dozes with one eye on the old front line.' (A Marshal Stailey in his introduction to the '...[Jerusalem shows] vistas of whitewashed mosques, life and works of Patrick Geddes stated synagogues, churches, convents, monasteries, noble 'There is probably no other man whose old houses and unspeakable hovels - all overgrown writings have been so little read, who has o with a dense forest of TV aerials - forgotten alleys that have somehow got sealed off from the rest of the city so greatly influenced thought and action O" in our time'(1972). and are now knee deep in grass, secret gardens stocked with carob, pine, fig and peach trees, acacias, Geddes was a Scots biologist who had Geddes travelled widely and knew Ruskin, Kropotkin, Annie Besant, £ Patrick Geddes astonished Abercrombie and other members of the Thorston Veblen, Tagore, and Gandhi. nascent town planning profession by presenting material at their When he temporarily lost his eyesight in CD 1910 exhibition (sponsored, of course, by the RIBA) of which Mexico, he evolved 'thought diagrams' Abercrombie later wrote '...the merest hotch potch - picture post by folding pieces of paper which he Because Geddes was both a practical What does matter is that the use of brilliant, evocative language in idealist and cultured intellectual, he has the description and appraisal of place is eschewed. been widely misunderstood or even ignored by bureaucrats and academics In the 1970s, a decade in which the concern about the pace and who could not pigeonhole him. Geddes' nature of change in British towns and cities was coming to a head, it work, writing and teaching is relevant for took a poet, Betjeman, to hear and describe the force of analytical, today's problems; whether sociological, latinate, theoretical language. ecological, spiritual or aesthetic. He deserves a far greater place in history 'In my mind's ear I can hear the smooth tones of the committee than it has so far accorded him. man... I hear words like "complex", "conurbation", "precinct", "pedestrianisation"...'4 He perceived the power of the incantation, the comfort taken by decision makers from the ponderous duvet of reportese. And those equally committed to turning the physical tide in our towns Topic / Books on Urban Design The extent of a... There is little danger that conventional local authority description will conservation area... ever give offence - nor, sadly, engender any emotion.' The o may be determined by conservation area is based largely on the Esplanade northwards from the combination of South Street to encompass the large groups of terraced residential/ D several streets and hotel/boarding house development. The seafront contains relatively squares into one total few listed buildings and although the majority of the existing older unit.' buildings are not particularly rich in detail, taken as a whole, the area (RoyWorskett, The does present frontage which is characteristic of the scale and 8 Character of Towns) proportions of a modest Victorian resort...' Description which grasps the full associative power of language need not be flowery, or serious to evoke recognition in the reader: 'Cologne is a dismal place, which rather pleased me. It was comforting to see that the Germans could make a hash of a city as well as anyone else, and they certainly have done so with Cologne. You come out of the station and there, at the top of an outdoor escalator, is the cathedral, the largest Gothic structure in the world. It 26 is awesome and imposing, no question, but stands in the midst of a responded in kind. Roy Worskett's 'Character of Towns' was seminal vast, windswept, elevated concrete plaza that is just heart numbingly and it set out ground rules on which much of the practice of barren and forlorn. If you can imagine Salisbury Cathedral dropped conservation area designation was based. It was cool, abstracted, into the car park of the Metro Centre you may get the picture...9 analytical. It did the trick. Members and ministers, anxious to avoid the sin of subjectivity were There is a wave of conservation area character appraisals under way. relieved to be able to present their decisions in terms of enclosure, Unless our imaginations are allowed free rein, our use of the breadth focal points and identity areas. It was ironic that in the process a of English encouraged to match that of the places we seek to potentially rich word such as character should be used - and more or understand, then little new will be communicated and worse, not less fixed - in its most desiccated form. Not, 'what a character' but much will be learned. 'the character of the place is defined as much by the homogeneity of building materials as...'. Perfectly useable and resonant words are The exercises in the brain gym of analytical philosophers can reduce turned, by the vendors of new clothes to those who would be a sparkling ruby to a red sense datum. It is the associative power of business emperors, into faint xeroxes of their former selves. language which elevates neutral sense data to full, communicative human experience. Travel writers are often at the other extreme and always open to the accusation of the use of purple prose (in itself a good example of And so, in the dry matter of Conservation Area Character continued use of powerful imagery in everyday language). Clearly Assessments, unless powerful communication remains at the there is a real danger. Reviewing Laurie Lee's 'A Rose in Winter', forefront of the project, unless we allow ourselves the freedom of the Kingsley Amis wrote' The experienced reader will know what to do glorious, varied language - our richest inheritance - little will be achieved. Developers, designers and planning officers will have new with a book whose blurb announces, as if in recommendation, its grounds for debate: planning inspectors, new bases for decision. author's claim to "the enchanted eye. ..of a true poet', but the And the character of the area? Encapsulated. Neutered. reviewer must act differently... the 'striking' image - 'fragrant as Professionally removed to a dry, safe zone - capable of analysis - but water'... at first sight seems to mean almost nothing, and upon not to be shared. reflection and consideration is seen to mean almost nothing'.5 Nevertheless, when Hugh Honour wrote of San Marco's 'glitter of This way, repetition of a frequent professional failing lies. The priestly golden mosaics and bubbling of cupolas while the great red caste - the speakers of the arcane tongue - will once more find campanile stretches up into the warm mothy darkness of the summer justification for their proposed changes to the environment in which sky...'6 he need hardly have named San Marco's. The startling, everyone else lives in the acquiescence of committees. Weighed memorable experience of the gloriously improbable moorish church down with the weight of the verbiage, the analysis of non-human and its great neighbour is conjured for us in a way that analysis concerns, the decision makers cannot feel the impact of that which cannot match. is put to them for decision. Much, if not all, professional English is reductive and while this may Far from being a professional failing, it should be the aim of all be an appropriate part of, for example, the juridical process, it is professionals to convey their understanding to each other and to the inadequate for the description of human experience. general public in ways that are open, clear and effective. That aim will not be achieved while objectivity and neutrality are assumed Just as sex is rendered incomprehensible by abstracted, mechanical necessarily to deny access to the full majesty of the language of description and love is only even hinted at by the imagination at full Shakespeare, or Orwell, of Joyce and of you and me. # verbal stretch, so the communication to others of the experience of place must have freedom of vocabulary. References 'Radstock is really desperately ugly. Or so at least it appears in its pleasant countryside. In industrial counties one would perhaps praise 1. H. V. Morton, In Search of Wales, Methuen (1932), p. 9. 2. E. Newby, On the Shores of the Mediterranean, Harvill Press (1984), p. 269. the nearness of field and hedgerow and the hilly site as such. In 3. P. Abercrombie, Town and Country Planning (1933), quoted in P. Kitchen Somerset the small colliery town without dignity in any building hurts Most Unsettling Person, Camelot Press (1975), p. 236/7. particularly.17 4. Amery and Cruickshank, The Rape of Britain, Elek Books (1975), p. 7. 5. K. Amis, 'Is the Travel Book Dead?', Spectator, 17.6.55. 6. H. Honour, The Companion to Venice, Collins (1977), p. 17. Thus Pevsner on Radstock - a rare excursion by him into evocative 7. N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: North Somerset, Penguin 1958, p. 249. language - and one which may have caused offence. Nevertheless, it 8. Description of Burnham-on-Sea in The Conservation Areas of Sedgemoor, is extremely effective (and fortunately now so historic as to give little Sedgemoor DC 1993. ground for present offence). 9. B. Bryson, Neither Here Nor There, Seeker and Warburg (1991), p. 68. In reviewing the contribution of Ian Nairn (1930- 83) to the theory and practice of what we now 0) call 'Urban Design' it is interesting to note that he is the first, and still virtually the only commentator who exercised his critical skills across the media, magazines, books, newspapers as well as on television. fl> Nairn also occupies a unique position as an outsider, a mathematics graduate and National Service RAF flyer, he was not an academic or a practitioner. Unlike the fellow Architectural Review contributors of the 1950s, he was neither an academic/writer (Pevsner, Summerson, Sharp, Richards) nor an architect/illustrator (Cullen, Browne, Holford, Gibberd). However his photographs are to be found in their volumes as well as in his own, and he flew the country as well to give his H criticism another perspective. It is, however, this critical outsider role that makes his contribution Book That Changed My Life important and of a relevance that makes his work, over the years The balance between order and chaos is O The 1955 Outrage articles in the AR, taking their title from the one of many issues addressed in this writings of Sir George Stapledon, carried on a line of criticism that book. The author covers the whole the AR commenced in 1949, when they coined the term 'Townscape'. S The /^articles were reprinted in book form and traced the impact of panoply of philosophy including aesthetics, ethics, politics and 3 public bodies on the environment from Southampton to Carlisle. In metaphysics whilst sitting on the saddle the years following the end of the second world war and the slow of his motorcycle driving through the peace-time rebuilding the main focus for criticism was the lack of prairies, forests, mountains and deserts O care and attention by public agencies in their design, planning and of the USA. I love this book because fi) works across the environment. The topographical and environmental thoughts about the meaning and quality judgement was at all times directed to the fact that these were all the of life are interspersed with concerns •o deliberate works of man and committees, they were planned about the overheating of the engine and interventions and all the more destructive for the lack of professional the condition of the piston, plugs and This is not, any longer an attack just on architectural histories, compared to the bureaucratic imposition of standardised Pevsner of the 1950s. The social and solutions across the environment but also on topographical aspects of Nairn's writings the thoughtless use of designs, either and an ability to take account of a D modern, traditional or industrial, by the wide range of architectural quality architectural establishments. This can be and locality makes the volume a seen as another exclamation of the long- better guide to London than any other and standing critique of standardisation to be can be read as an appendix to Rasmussen's found in Morris, Trystram Edwards, Clough 1938 volume Unique London in sketching Williams-Ellis, and a concern officially the impact of the problems the Danish echoed in Design of Town & Village (1953). It academic had suggested faced London; is also an early expression of the school of then read the 1978 revision of the book and thought that can now be seen to have taken see how accurately Nairn has set out cause root in concepts of architectural and effect and more importantly process. contextualism, regionalism, even, in a more recent AR term 'Romantic pragmatism'. In Nairn's judgements on buildings and places all of these a concern for the place, the in Nairn's London and its companion 28 activity and its function override a prescribed Modern Buildings in London (1964) for definition of the designers intent or prevalent London Transport, give a very complete school of design theory. Therefore, in these picture of the impact of the commercial respects, the way Nairn expounded the development pressures and changing social notion of townscape, by reference to real mores. In fact a picture that you do not find places and by not offering preferred in either the County of London plan, GLDP solutions, he managed to expand the or in any subsequent UDP argument without having to make illustrations of exemplars which quickly look The LT volume includes the classic dated, as is often the case with some denunciation of much post-war Browne and Cullen proposals of the 1960s. redevelopment. In discussing the Stag Place office scheme at Victoria (1958-64) he states 'I blame the L.C.C. far more for not stopping Nairn, Pevsner and London it than I do the developers for having a go'. This raises a question: should, official Pevsner started his magisterial series, 'The volumes and studies deal with the issues Buildings of England' in 1952 and by the that concern a writer such as Nairn? But, if early 1960s he realised that further they do not deal with these issues, what is assistance was going to be required to the point, apart from legal conformity, of the complete the work. Nairn was selected to be studies and plans. co-author of the Surrey volume and he carried on work on Sussex. Nairn got to the core of post-war concerns within ten years of the new system of control The topographical descriptions and at times coming into effect and the intervening thirty savage architectural judgements sit oddly to forty years have not changed the need to against the academic, measured prose of create a public discussion and a public, not Pevsner, but this difference was warmly design-led, discourse on the management welcomed by Pevsner who writes that 'Mr of the environment. Nairn, in Your England Nairn has a greater sensibility to landscape Revisited states the 'Professional books on and townscape than I have, and he writes town planning are often of no assistance better than I could ever hope to write'. and may be harmful'. 'Brighton Rock is a better guide than the Brighton... A later Pevsner co-writer, John Newman, development plan' - (and it's still true more recently has written that Nairn was today!). He eventually recommends the 1" 'often quite inspired' and it is true that the OS and 'a pair of uncommitted eyes!' Nairn volumes read very well, and in a way that the early Pevsner volumes do not in Today we do not have anyone, with the giving you a clear idea of what is interesting, occasional exception of Jonathan Meades, and why, in any place. The detail checking who can come close to Nairn's ability to required of the Pevsner volumes was too describe places and how procedures impact much for Nairn and he left before upon them, at a time when Millennial completing Sussex, much to Pevsner's madness and the curse of great obvious disappointment. However, for a architectural gestures seem set to revisit the remarkable thirty year period Nairn's wife, landscape. The need for a new voice of Judy, was one of the key editors in passion, enthusiasm, concern and an ability producing the BoE volumes for Penguin to connect between design, environment from 1955-91, having the Surrey and and the public realm makes his death at the London 3 volumes dedicated to her. age of 52 doubly tragic. Nairn's London published by Penguin is the Forty years on and we still have not learned clearest and the best example of his the missing art of townscape - just look out writings. It gives a picture of London that of your window. # draws from a wider frame of reference than Architecture may be all around us, it may be the Book That Changed My Life > only one of the arts that we cannot avoid, but despite this the British find architecture difficult. Sebastian Loew Even the educated middle classes who flock to The Planning of a New Town o exhibitions on Cezanne and have informed o London County Council, 1961 opinions on the work of Anthony Gormley react nervously to architecture. Perhaps it is the difficulty of dealing with constructions of such three-dimensional complexity, perhaps it is the Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1964. Final year Good architecture cannot be created in a vacuum. A successful architectural students are designing a subject, in particular architects, planners Perspectives believes in addressing and conservationists. architecture in its totality, from the high Book That Changed My Life excitement of major projects by The mix of readers and the range of their internationally known architects to the gritty Marion Roberts D knowledge and interest makes editing reality of adding an extension to a terraced The Country and the City, Raymond Perspectives a particularly difficult house. Local architects building simple but Williams, London Paladin, 1975 professional challenge, but it also provides appropriate houses in sensitive settings are its editorial impetus. Each issue of the as much of interest as knighted architects magazine - and indeed each article - needs building on prominent sites. It also believes to appeal across the whole spectrum, while that buildings cannot be understood unless at the same time neither patronising nor their setting is considered, hence the boring any section of the readership. An magazine includes articles on urban design, essential belief is that architectural gardens and landscape. Similarly, the crafts journalism should be accessible to everyone are essential to good building and are and that if the ordinary reader finds it hard to therefore covered regularly. Nor is understand an article then there is a fair architecture seen purely in terms of new chance that the professional will be equally design. At a time when it is never quite clear 30 put off. Making the magazine readable and whether there is more to conservation than attractive to look at may remove some of the simple preservation, Perspectives is mystery with which some architects and particularly concerned with informing the theorists like to wrap their work, but that is debate about the retention and continued I was recommended to read The Country not necessarily a bad thing. use of the nation's building stock. and the City by the supervisor of my PhD, Professor Alan Lipman, who was and I The magazine is also catholic in its imagine still is, an ardent Williams fan. approach. It aims to broaden the architectural debate, and starts from the The book was a revelation. With realisation that architecture is too complex painstaking and scholarly deliberation, for there to be a single approach or theory which is always subtle and entertaining which will solve all problems. Thus although and never pedantic, Williams traces the the magazine was launched by the Prince of imagery of the country and the city Wales and is published in association with through English literature from the Middle the Prince of Wales's Institute of Ages until the mid-twentieth century. He Architecture, it was not conceived as the exposes persistencies in imagery and mouthpiece of the Prince, and was always forms and thought, but rather than intended to be editorially independent of the simplifying these observations, traces institute. As the Prince of Wales commented their subtle shifts and historical variations. in the first issue of the magazine: /As a Marxist, Williams explains the 'Its editors will have their own views. I expect manner in which dominant images and they will not always coincide with mine! But issues in literature both articulate and Perspectives can be the means by which a mask real transformations in power growing and already powerful debate about between capital and labour, landed the sort of world we build can be better aristocracy and an urban proletariat. His informed. It will provide a medium through interpretations have a freshness and which alternative views can be heard, and elegance which later, cruder explanations through which the non-experts as well as the inspired by his work, lack. My particular experts can be stimulated, informed and favourite comes in the chapter 'Pleasing entertained, as well as sometimes irritated or Prospects', in which he discusses the provoked.' evolution of the eighteenth century landscaped park and its counterpart, the Perspectives does not claim to have all the enclosures and associated agrarian answers. Instead it prefers to ask the revolution. He further goes on to remark, questions, to suggest approaches and in the concluding chapter, that he can • f J/'i^r challenge orthodoxies. It hopes to stimulate hear, in the voices which were then interest in architecture, and give readers the raised against the redevelopment of tools and information to engage in the •B ' Covent Garden: 'a defence... which "Scandal in Wales: % t'' a cation's heritage under threat ,2^ M. architectural debate. That debate is not the repeated in almost every particular the black and white pantomime of the popular defence of the commons in the period of Wh* Sir William Whitfield isa Modernist nilh-a traditional cdye gjfiji; rt press, but it cannot be left to the cloistered parliamentary enclosures' (p. 350). isolation of the professional press. There is a potentially great popular interest in In this short space it is difficult to do "vJ. . . - "" * * architecture. It needs to be encouraged, and justice to a book of this depth and vision. ~f * Return of the architectural garden • indeed must be if we are to create a culture My only regret is that Williams has not in which good building flourishes. That is lived long enough to revise it and to trace what Perspectives is trying to do. # those persistencies and historical variations which contribute to our thought processes in the information age of today. If you are one of the generation that enjoyed the likes of Dan Dare and Roy of the Rovers when you were younger then you may be surprised at how sophisticated the modern pulp comic has become in comparison. Over the last 20 years or so, a new wave of comics has emerged from the UK, North America and Japan to cater for an increasingly selective and older readership. The modern form of the comic can be considered almost exclusively part of the popular urban culture of developed nations. Within this growing subculture, it has evolved from its early history, as a form of escapism to the world of superheroes, into its current role as an outlet for individual expression and social comment. Even though the mass of the comic book genre are for the most part concerned with futuristic views and settings for society, inevitably the topical concerns of the day are addressed. The future is a kind of mirror in which we can show only ourselves, though it seems to us a window, through which we may see things to come' (A. Danto, 1986). What we actually read are predictions, not of an imaginary society, but of our own society. As the medium is part of an urban subculture, it is dominated by views and visions of how people understand the workings of the city and human interaction within it. In comics, current social problems are exaggerated and taken to their extreme - the city becomes the battleground between good and evil; commonly personified by the range of superheroes and supervillains. This age old theme is, however, becoming quite complex with the depth of characterisation and the use of symbols - bringing it closer to real life and blurring the sharp distinction between the traditional 'goodies' and 'baddies'. A wealth of artistic creativity has grown out of storylines centred on crime, unemployment, housing, architecture and even urban renewal. Themes of approaching Armageddon are also common and suggest that the city as a 'melting pot' is starting to boil over. Futuristic storylines are often borrowed from historical references and new Utopian futures are invented and investigated. I believe these Utopian visions are more than just individual dreams, they are interpretations and more often criticisms of contemporary society. The writers and artists are providing their answers to urban problems through this medium. Many of these overlapping urban design themes are addressed in 'Mister X', a bold attempt at using Corbusier's 'Radiant City' Utopia as a setting for a comic book story. It is best to understand this comic (and many others) within its overall context as a subset of popular culture with interchangeable themes and cross-references. It borrows references from both music and cinema as well as architectural fashion. In direct contrast to the trend of our current decade where Hollywood has been producing a spate of comic inspired movies for the big screen (Batman, Judge Dread, The Punisher), the concept owes a lot to the genre of film noire, particularly Fritz Lang's 1926 'Metropolis', '1984' and 'Brave New World' - all films investigating the power relations within the city and the actions of a paternalistic government seeking to control the masses. It is this artistic and sociological background which gives Mister X an easily recognisable context and makes it of serious relevance to urban designers. Mister X emerged from (according to the words of Dean Motter, his creator) '...obsessions with sleep disorders, urban decay and drug abuse combined with a fascination with the antiquated predictions of architecture, art deco & modernism and genre fiction'. His exact origins are clouded in obscurity and a high degree of trivia. A sinister character called Mr X did put in an appearance on an early 1980s song by Ultravox and the precursor to the comic character later appeared on a Canadian rock album cover. In 1983 he became the subject of his own comic book published by Vortex Comics in Toronto. It has been suggested that Mister X was published at that time in reaction to the epidemic of increasingly bland superhero Topic / Books on Urban Design Mister X... the rwe /wan eewNt? the ' designer of Radiant MONUMENT 16 TUST AS CONTROVER6(AL- IF NOT AG visible. City, the new five storey radiant icon... o His designs will shape what already is being referred to as New Radiant City. ...It could be you. 32 comics. Radical in its day and a brave experiment for the writers in people's sanity. A fine idea for anthropologists to write about as a capturing part of the competitive pocket-money market, or creating deterministic theory but very different when the illustrators have to their own niche within the disposable income of the new twenty- convey this mood through their graphics. By its very nature the somethings. However, a cynic might point out that its publication at artwork has to become very personal and powerful visually as it that time also had more than a passing coincidence with the decline forms part of a narrative. I feel they have been very successful in of vinyl records together with its cover art and the need for a doing this by the use of long dark shadows and lurking background particular set of illustrators to find new gainful employment. figures (very DeChirico), strong contrasts between the black and white, vivid reds and blues giving a feeling of impending doom. The In Mister X, there is a strong central vision and theme throughout the art is a bizarre mix of Art Deco, modernist and expressionist styles - run of the series. The narrative is generated by the physical and gripping and mysterious creating a genre almost unto itself. social problems arising out of populating the city. This storyline borrows from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, where a young talented Where the modernist may be inclined to look upon 'Radiant City' or architect attempts to protect his professional and creative integrity 'Somnopolis' as a wonderful achievement, the metropolis acting as after his designs have been sabotaged. Mister X is an architect in a some sort of monument to mankind, the view from the street is closer similar vein but with problems on a much larger scale. 'Radiant city to it being a monument to the arrogance of the individual. In its views was built to be the dream city. A vast and beautiful metropolis, of modern social architecture and its effects on our urban culture, I designed to fulfil the grandest aesthetic, and architectural ideals, it believe it shares the view of Lewis Mumford who once called Le now moulders in dilapidation. Its citizens are afflicted with sleep Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, 'Yesterday's City of Tomorrow' (Mumford disorders, opium addiction, and a surfeit of perversions. It is a place 1968). This all speaks against dominant individualism and in favour as corrupt as the decadent upper class that rules it, and the human of participative democracy and empowerment over the paternalistic parasites that prey upon them. Stranded in this somnopolis is the 'big brother' attitudes to power relations and control within society. mysterious Mr. X. His past shrouded in mystery, he makes his meagre living as a private investigator. While probing other people's It may seem slightly ironic that such an innocuous medium as the darkest secrets, he must protect his own...' (Motter, 1986). Motter pulp comic is being used to address such significant political and builds a fantastic storyline around this central theme of a city riddled professional issues. And it would be easy to dismiss these views on with commercialism and vice where the designer is deluded by his the grounds that it is only speaking to members of its own own arrogance into believing his work is the sole cause of the city's subculture. However, I do not believe you have to actually enter into ills. However, although Mister X is set up in this scenario as the this urban underground to fully comprehend its effect - making antihero (at least within his own mind), he is still concerned with people think about places, where people lose their humanity, their nothing less than the salvation of the city and you could describe his identities and where the strongest ride against the weak. The private investigator activities as an act of redemption for his past presence of irony does not diminish the truth contained within its professional sins. It's a wonderful illustration of how one man's pages and eventually professionals have to ask themselves the same dream of Utopia can become another man's nightmare. The further questions of why the popular images of the future city are all so arrogance of the individual in his sense of self importance in negative? becoming the city's saviour suggests a character with questionable sanity. He lives and operates on the fringes of society, using his It is my hope that pulp comics as part of popular culture (Mister X knowledge of secret passageways within the city design to move being the supreme example) will not be overlooked as a source for undetected. His work is never ceasing and so important that sleep urban designers - inspiring visions, taking on board constructive restricting drugs are used to keep him awake 24 hours a day. criticism and noting what the 'prophets of doom' are saying about Anyone who has worked overnight to meet a crit deadline will have today's cities. Mister X is only one source among many pulp comics some idea of the hell in which he is constantly living. which explores areas and issues which are of professional interest to the urban designer. Whether the views of this Mister X are One of the key recurring themes in the series is the idea that representative of the views of today's Generation X is a question I'll 'psychetecture' (psychetecturism being the conceptual 'ism' in which leave for further debate within the comics' letter pages. # the city is constructed) could evoke a mental stimulus and later One spring day, twelve or so years ago, I found ^ Book That Changed My Life myself in Lucca, exploring this little Italian city's medieval core, which is encircled by a perfectly ° Alan Simpson preserved Renaissance fortification system. / c' Urban Design in Action, Batchelorand was holding a copy of Camillo Sitte's City q Lewis. Published in the USA by The Planning According to Aesthetic Principles in HI School of Design at North Carolina State my hand. Walking from the Piazza Antelminelli to I the Piazza Grande (which is actually not _ University; Raleigh North Carolina, in 3 cooperation with the American Institute of medieval at all, but designed by Napoleon's sister), I felt a small frisson of pleasure as the m Architects 1986. Not long after this visit, I gave up my job as a senior lecturer, specialising in planning history, to become an art and architecture 33 ••Itei. bookseller. I founded Inch's Books, with my former partner, Janette Ray, in York in 1985. Since then most of the other editions of Sitte's famous book have come and gone. In Lucca I carried the scholarly American version edited by George and Christiane Collins (1965). Subsequently the business has acquired - and sold again - the original Austrian edition (1889), the rather eccentric first French edition (1902), the first American edition, with introductory note by Saarinen (1945) and the first Italian edition (1953). I have never seen The sub-title to Urban Design in Action the Russian edition (1925). Significantly, there never has been a reads 'The history, theory and British edition. As well as these variant editions, we have also had development of the American Institute of most of the key texts influenced by Sitte's book - works by Raymond Architects' Regional/Urban Design Unwin, Werner Hegemann and Eliel Saarinen, amongst others. Assistance Teams Program (R/UDAT). The book is dedicated to the memory of Urban design books have been a part of my life during recent years. Jules Gregory FAIA (1920-1985) and the These books are often interesting and attractive and there is a great dedication reads (Gregory) 'Who TJ deal of pleasure to be had from handling the key texts - from CD challenged the architectural profession to Ruskin's Stones of Venice to Edge City. Author signed copies, expand its responsibility beyond the CD dedication copies, first editions and copies from book collections we design of individual buildings and to have purchased (like those of Reyner Banham and Arthur Ling) have assume a leadership role in enhancing all come our way at one time or another. A piece of the past is the comprehensive quality of life in our O captured as one holds such an original edition or association copy in cities'. one's hand. Or as Walter Benjamin says, 'I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its A further quotation in support of the rebirth'. ('Unpacking My Library' in Illuminations). intentions of the R/UDAT program comes from Thomas Jefferson: 'I know of no safe In the bookselling world 'urban design' is not usually regarded as a depository of the ultimate powers of clear-cut subject: unlike, for example, 'architecture' or 'landscape society but the people themselves; and if design', or even 'town planning'. Perhaps this is because its we think them not enlightened enough to boundaries seem unclear to the outsider. It is often difficult to know exercise their control with a wholesome where the subject begins and ends and what texts ought rightfully to discretion, the remedy is not to take it be included. Can Traffic in Towns or The Hook Book' or Theory and from them, but to inform their discretion'. Design in the First Machine Age be regarded as urban design texts? In my view, yes they can; but for many, the parameters of the subject I first read Urban Design in Action in the are confusing. However, bookselling, like any other activity, should mid-1980s and the book is a constant not become set in its ways. There ought to be a creative approach, companion through my practice and in where one can formulate one's own categories, and urban design teaching. Batcheior and Lewis, and their certainly seems an interesting and lively subject at present. numerous colleagues at the AlA and across the United States have over the Who are the customers for these books? Academic libraries, of past thirty years truly pioneered a 'way course, acquire them, when they have the money. There also appear forward' for urban design and community to be three other categories of buyer. The first of these is the planning about which we still have much academic or practitioner 'direct user', the person who asks for a to learn in the UK and Europe. The particular book just because he or she needs it, for the job in hand. integrity and tenacity of their work leaves Architectural practices and planning consultants often ask Inch's British attempts to emulate the program Books to find particular books in this way. sadly lacking; one might be tempted to suggest, 'well! only in America!'; but no! Secondly, there is a growing number of collectors of urban design Urban Design in Action and the books. Several collecting topics have been developing recently. For continuing work of David Lewis and the instance, the fine 1940s British reconstruction plans by Abercrombie, AIA team still has much to teach us all. Reilly, Sharp and others, with their attractive coloured maps, photos and diagrams are much in demand and prices of them have risen lately. Then there are books by particular authors, like Ian Nairn and Gordon Cullen. Topic / Books on Urban Design Extract from 'The County of London Plan Explained', Carter and Goldfinger O 1945, providing visions of the future. Where are the plans with similar visions today? 34 A third category of customer seems to be a A bookseller performs several valuable urban design titles that are already very hybrid of the previous two. This individual I services. He or she is able to find or replace expensive are Learning from Las Vegas would like to call 'the user-collector'. Such books for customers, of course. In (1972) and Delirious New York (1978) both people buy books and enjoy the collecting September, there are often earnest phone perhaps around £150. Generally, the values bug, but are also acquiring them for a calls from parents with student reading lists. of books on urban design are increasing purpose. From the bookselling point of view, (It is surprising to me that quite often these faster than for most books. this is a valuable type of customer, but one lists seem rather dated, stuck in a time not always recognised by the trade, which warp.) And early signs of Christmas are the There always seems to be a need for more focuses over-much on the pure collector calls for copies of Banister Fletcher to give good stock. The travelling bookseller is very kind of customer, wanting first editions, in as presents. The bookseller also performs a like Walter Benjamin (himself an incurable pristine condition, with nice dust wrappers. rescuing service, redirecting useful books book collector), who grasped the geography For the 'user-collector', collectable books that might otherwise be destroyed. This is of a foreign city, articulated it in his mind, are not essentially useless objects, as they particularly true of academic ex-library through its bookshops. 'How many cities are for most other collectors, they are an books, which are being de-accessioned at have revealed themselves to me in marches intrinsic part of a practical working library. an alarming rate these days. I undertook in the pursuit of books!' (Illuminations). This has been very true for Where are the customers for urban design Perhaps above all, the specialist bookseller me in Lisbon, San Diego, Montreal, books? They are certainly widely spread. Far should play a key networking role. Copenhagen, Dublin and a great many other away customers often become our friends. Knowledge about research topics needs to places, large and small, around the world. The Japanese market is particularly strong be handled with discretion of course, but And always there is the pull of serendipity, and academics there seem to be very many research contracts have been made the prospect of that unique find on the next interested in British topics like wartime and via our business and we like to think we are shelf or in the next town. early post-war reconstruction, New Town a good information source. A customer who design and townscape. They are surprisingly recently completed his PhD (on the Books often seem like characters, with knowledgeable about these subjects. But we interesting subject of changing urban design interesting stories to tell. Last month I was have customers all over the world and theories in Britain since World War II) said he driving north from Miami, to visit one of probably half our sales in this area are found our bookshop a better source of ideas Florida's better bookshops (Hittel's in Fort overseas. It should be added, this is a two and information than his tutor. The modern Lauderdale). The endless strip development way process: we also buy many books specialist bookseller is part of the along State Road 7 was pure Americana; it abroad and import them into Britain. information revolution. He or she is perhaps was a good situation to evaluate Appleyard, really marketing information, not books. Lynch and Myer's The View from the Road. Recently, technology has come sharply into At the end of the journey there was a nice focus with e-mail and Web sites as pressing How valuable are urban design books? This encounter, on the shelves, with a rarity: needs for the specialist bookseller. The article is not intended to be a general price Frank Lloyd Wright's The Disappearing City bookseller is in a good position to observe guide, but a few high values can perhaps be (1932). This was Wright's first articulation of shifting trends and reputations in a subject mentioned. You might have to pay up to his 'Broadacre City' concept. 'Pioneering like urban design. Some books always seem £1000 for a good copy, with the Walter now lies along this new frontier: to be in demand, for instance, Gordon Crane designed cover, of Ebenezer decentralisation,' he claims near the end of Cullen's Townscape and we notice Howard's seminal garden city book, this polemical text. Did he realise what all increased interest these days in books or Tomorrow(1898). For the second edition, that would lead to? I 'rescue' this book with plans by Max Lock and Anthony King. Other when this work acquired its better known quite a few dollars. At present it is safely figures, including, Thomas Sharp, Ian Nairn revised title, Garden Cities of To-morrow relocated in a locked bookcase here in York and Clough Williams-Ellis, are making a (1902), the price might be £250. Other (rubbing shoulders with Le Corbusier's comeback after being quite neglected, expensive titles include Patrick Geddes' City Propos d'Urbanisme and Raymond Unwin's whilst the demand for others, for instance, Development (his plan for Pittencrieff Park, Town Planning Practice). But where will it go Frederick Gibberd and Doxiadis, seems to Dunfermline, 1904) at about £200 and next? And for how long will it stay there? # be on the wane. Werner Hegemann's magisterial The American Vitruvius at about £250. Two recent Contributors of Main ^ Tailpiece Articles § Bob Jarvis a CD John Brouwer & Whilst preparing this issue, a new series, Topographies, has Architect and Senior Lecturer in q begun to be published by Reaktion Books.1 The aims of this the School of Architecture, 5 series parallel the agenda this issue of UDQ sets out and point University of Central England at ® to the need for a broader literature of place that is creative and Birmingham ^ critical, imaginative and not just professional. Michael Crilly tn 'A new literature about place is still in its infancy. Drawing David Rice 'Expert on hunger, film-sound-engineer, Town Planner and Landscape Investor of the Pill, a southern Jew, Architect, Lecturer, School of A goy psychiatrist, gay classicist, Town and Regional Planning, Redneck philosopher, holist, black girl deck-hand, University of Dundee. Wigmaker, pulmonary therapist, Yoga carpenter, Chinese diamond-merchant, Marion Roberts Hard-riding, yachting septuagenarians... Architect, writer and Senior Lecturer in Urban Design in the At home, I just know poets and librarians.'2 School of Urban Development at the University of Westminster. Must we just read architecture and town planning? Chris Smith References Officer with English Heritage and past Chairman of 1. Published so far are Stephen Barber: Fragments of the Association of Conservation European City, due are Armondo: Fray Berlin (April 1996), Officers. Jacques Reda, The Ruins of Paris and Victor Burgin, some Cities (Sept 1996), Robert Harbison Wilderness^ 1998). Giles Worsley Author and Editor of 2. Alistair Elliot, 'Networks', first published Times Literary Perspectives Magazine. Supplement, Oct 23-29,1987. Book Reviews Left: Plug in City Finnish Architecture and 1962-1966 the Modernist Tradition o Archigram/Peter Malcolm Quantrill Cook from E&FNSpon, 1995 o Architecture and the £45 Sites of History The history of Modern Finnish Architecture is so inextricably linked to Aalvar Aalto, it is difficult for the older generation of architects today to see it in any other way. Therefore Quantrill's book is timely, and even nostalgic, though certainly not intentionally so. In fact the evolution of 36 Finnish Architecture since Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917, is more Architecture and the Jonathan Charley, Andrew are engaging, are well complex than is generally Sites of History: Higgot, Joe Kerr, Richard structured and clearly written (a recognised. Malcolm Quantrill is Interpretations of Patterson, Richard Candida refreshing change from the known for his excellent books Buildings and Cities Smith, and Francis Woodman. rhetorical language used by on both Aalto and Reima Edited by Ian Borden many recent architectural Pietela, that span a period of and David Dunster The title Architecture and the theorists). The majority of the work over 70 years (from 1918 Butterworth Architecture, Sites of History: Interpretations pieces are highly enjoyable and to 1993). However in this book, Oxford, 1995 of Buildings and Cities gives read with a stimulating sense of Quantrill has been at great £18.99 away little of the nature of the urgency. The origins of the pains to point out the existence contents, and the publisher's essays as teaching material for of the classical and more recent Have you noticed that there blurb fails to throw more light on students explains their style and rationalist tradition in Finnish Architecture, alongside the seems to be a current trend for the matter. However, the Preface content, much of the writing highly inventive, uniquely publishing books of collected clearly describes the editors (Ian reading as lecture material Finnish, natural, organic, and essays in the field of the history Borden and David Dunster) transposed into essay form. intellectual work of Aalto and and theory of architecture? This twofold intentions: to collect Although many of the pieces are Pietela. In the section on blossoming genre falls into two together a number of essays on frustratingly short, as is Background and Evolution of types: essays by individual architecture and urban design particularly the case with Modern Finnish Architecture he authors, like those from Colin which demonstrate the current Richard Patterson's fascinating comments, 'After Aalto's death Rowe, Robert Maxwell and Colin diversity of approaches to the essay, Three revolutionary in 1976, Reima Pietela St John Wilson; and interpretation of architecture and architects: Boul6e, Ledoux, continued the tradition of compilations of essays from a cities and to 'raise the Ledeue', the fault is partially organic experimentation, but number of authors which problematic of interpretation'. overcome by the inclusion of a Pietela's work and philosophy address a single theme, such bibliography after each essay have been vehemently opposed as Postmodern Culture (ed. Hal The text is structured into six which is intended to direct by the students of Blomstedt Foster) or the recently published chronologically ordered further reading. and those influenced by his compendium of classic sections: Time and Place; teachings'. twentieth century essays on the Interpretation; Theory and Although the book is primarily city - The City Reader (ed. Practice; Society; Cities; Present targeted at a student market, I Richard LeGates and Frederic and Future. Each section would recommend it to anyone Quantrill devotes a long chapter Stout). Architecture and the contains a number of very interested in reviving their to Nordic Classicism of the Sites of History: Interpretations specific essays which loosely enthusiasm for architectural 1920s. Indigenous Finnish of Buildings and Cities belongs relate to the section heading but history and theory. While the Classicism - particularly as to the latter category. rather disappointingly only graphic presentation is not expressed in wooden occasionally to each other. An particularly inviting the volume is architecture - has great This 400 page volume contains exception is the two interpretive functionally presented with sensitivity and charm (e.g. 28 short essays, by 24 authors, essays on Gothic: Francis legibly sized type, a readable Martti Valikangas, Garden concerning western architecture Woodman looking at Gothic typeface and an adequate Suburb at Kapyla, Helsinki, and cities from Classical Greece from a structural point of view number of black and white 1920-25). Here and elsewhere in to the present and beyond. The and Alexandrina Buchanan on illustrations. Don't be put off by this book, maps and diagrams idea for this book initially the cultural/political meaning of the 'text book' image: if you would have been helpful in derived from a course taught at Gothic, which are particularly want to have your interest in placing the volution of Modern the Bartlett School of complementary. architectural history and theory Finnish architecture in an Architecture, London, and revived, or your palate of historic context. hence many of the authors Most of the essays are based on 'interpretative methods' have, or at one time had, secondary source material, and expanded, this is the book for Malcolm Quantrill considers Bartlett connections and include are not particularly profound or you. Aalto's Viipuri Library (1927) to Graham Eve, Martin Goalen, original - there is no be a turning point in Finnish Adrian Forty, Alexandrina 'Mathematics of an Ideal Villa' Helena Webster and Peter Architecture, and it is in this Buchanan, Maxine Copeland, lurking in this volume - yet all Howard context we must see the Mark Swenarton, Jeremy Melvin, progress of Finnish Architecture over the next half century. During the 1960-80 era, Finnish however, have been sustainability. Represented here Certainly, the 'Classic' (as architecture became more strengthened in their more are Gordon and Richardson's distinct from Classical) period of international and rationalist; specialist role at the same time fierce defence of the market- Modern Finnish Architecture which may be due to the rapid as competition between cities based, car-oriented suburban was from 1927 to 1939; the best industrial expansion then taking has been growing fiercer. way of life which, they claim, will known examples being Aalto's place. Finnish architects produce the most efficient Turun Sanomat building in Turku increasingly worked abroad, in The book is introduced by results through the effects of (1927-29), the Paimio particular Viljo Revell's Toronto Professor Peter Hall, who does 'sustainable congestion'. Sanatorium (1929-33), Villa City Hall (1958-66), and his usual excellent job of Another planner from California, Robert Cevero, argues that Mairea (1937-39), and Pietela's work in Kuwait. providing an overview of the although suburbanisation might Blomstedt's Aulanko Hotel at various economic, lead to shorter journey lengths Hameelina(1938). Surprisingly, Despite a somewhat clinical technological, social, political (due to the dispersal of jobs as there is no illustration of Aalto's format, this book deserves to be and environmental factors well as homes) the shift in mode striking paper mill at Kotka a standard work on modern affecting the new patterns of of travel to mainly single person (1935-37). Finnish Architecture. Personally, urban growth and decline. I found the early and last car journeys has carried a substantial environmental cost. Quantrill rightly sees Erik chapters (including Quantrill's Saskia Sassen of Columbia Michael Breheny of Reading Bryggman's Funeral Chapel at charming acknowledgements) University, in her chapter on the University argues against the Turku (1941) to be another the most interesting. This book Urban Impacts of Economic fashionable ideas of high turning point in Finnish is very strong on content, but Globalisation, describes the density, public-transport Architecture. The wonderful weaker on context. concentration of centralised orientated compact cities on the naturally lit very subtle and yet Nevertheless, it is a must for control and management in the grounds that counter atmospheric interior, pointed the many of us who have been global cities which have also urbanisation trends remain way towards the return of the deeply inspired by the best of become the most advanced strong and, in any case, have picturesque. During the Finnish Modern architecture. telecommunications centres. A had only a small impact on Russian-Finnish war, resulting in number of other authors also energy use. Finland's loss of Karelia to the Derek Abbott explore the impact of technical USSR in 1945, Aalto's and economic change on the inexhaustible energy was urban hierarchy. A good place The question of urban form is an involved with planning projects, Cities in Competition: to start in this section might be underlying theme throughout the including the Kokemaki River Productive and Michael Wegener's overview of book which provides a cross Valley masterplan, the Oulo Sustainable Cities for the the situation in Europe. section of current academic River project, and the design for 21st century opinion about the factors most a new town at Saynatsalo; and Edited by John Brotchie, Mike Another section of the book likely to shape our urban also the replanning of Batty, Ed Blakely, Peter Hall and covers the creation of futures. In this respect, it is a Rovaniemi. Unfortunately, Peter Newton technopoles and Kelvin major reference work for urban Quantrill's book does not Longmans Australia, 1995 Willoughby's study of new designers. While the book is illustrate any of these schemes. £18.99 biotechnology industries international in its scope with suggests that, rather than numerous contributions from the United States, the UK and However, in 1949 Aalto won the This volume is the latest in a investing large sums in Australia, and a few from Japan Saynatsalo Town Hall series from an international designing and promoting new and Germany, it could, perhaps, competition, which shows his study on technological change. science cities, urban authorities be criticised for its relative return to natural materials, free- It covers a broad spectrum of might do better to nurture the neglect of cities in the most flowing spaces, and organic issues, including the impact on local milieus of knowledge- rapidly urbanising regions of structure seen in the two-fan cities of economic globalisation based industries where new Asia, Latin America and Africa. strutted pine roof trusses and integration, the relationship networks of small innovative firms thrive on informal supporting the monopitch roof. of city and suburb, the creation communication links. The 1950s heralded a second of 'technopoles', changing Tony Lloyd-Jones Finnish renaissance of talented patterns of living and working Finnish architects including Viljo (including the impact of Stephen Hamnett's account of Revell, Heikki and Kaija Siren, telecommuting) and the trials and tribulations of the City as Landscape: Jorma Jarvi, and Arne Ervi, one sustainability. Adelaide Multifunction Polis is of A Post Postmodern View of Aalto's disciples. During this particular interest to urban of Design and Planning era, Finland was a mecca for Many of the contributions designers. It demonstrates how Tom Turner architectural students. represent different and difficult it remains for neo- E & FN Spon, 1996, £22.50 Quantrill's first visit to Finland sometimes conflicting points of utopian urban concepts to be was in 1953, the same year as view. Certain common features realised these days, even where The book comprises a series of mine. Malcolm Quantrill reminds of major cities of the world, coupled with a forward looking, essays covering a range of us that it was not until 1956 that however, are broadly agreed. knowledge-based economic topics from theories, planning Reima Pietela's outstanding The transition to an information strategy and the backing of and urbanism to landscape talent emerged by winning the economy has reinforced the governments (in this case the design, open space planning Finnish Pavilion competition for global role of a small number of Australian and Japanese). and gardens; and all this with a the 1958 Brussels world fair. 'world cities' and promoted a post-postmodern perspective, Pietelathen built the Kaleva number of cities to the second The last section of the book i.e. no longer accepting the church at Tampere (1959-66), a rank, whilst demoting others. offers much food for thought for 'ephemeral, fragmented and very powerful design; and a The economic importance of urban designers. It is largely chaotic approach of post whole chapter is devoted to suburbs is now a global fact, devoted to the changing modernism'. Pietela whose work spans from with the majority of jobs now patterns of living, working and 1955 to 1993. being located in suburbs in moving in cities and the Already with the title of the book most cities. Many central cities, implications for urban form and there will be questioning, and Book Reviews that, I believe, is Tom Turner's The Geography of intention with all these essays - Nowhere to be provocative. He feeds us James Howard Kunstler interesting thoughts: alternative Simon & Schuster 1994, 303pp, o methods to the survey-analysis- I £9.99 paperback plan approach using computer based compact disc and Design Review: geographical information Challenging Urban systems, so that more different Aesthetic Control user groups can be Edited by Brenda C. Scheer and represented; he details his Wolfgang F. E. Preiser visions for the design and £29.95 paperback functioning of eco-cities; he writes of smooth and rough "Americans have been living car- hands, and lean production centred lives for so long that the methods. There are dozens and concerned about the search for continuity in design, firstly a collective memory of what used dozens of ideas ready to be originality pursued by most cultural continuity or image and to make a landscape or a 38 developed further and tested. building designers and the fact secondly a morphological or townscape or even a suburb But there are problems with this that truly public space cannot structural approach and this humanly rewarding, has nearly book: an over simplified view of be seen as a commodity - it offers interesting contrasts. The been erased. The culture of history, a naive belief in ends up as SLOBB - space left first approach includes work by good place making, like the politicians, a spurious notion over between buildings. The Rogers, Gardella and Rossi and culture of farming, or that computers can produce new government initiatives may the second that of Samona, agriculture, is a body of impartial results independent of generate greater use of urban Aymonino, Gregotti, Grassi and knowledge and acquired skills. the information fed into them. design guidelines or briefs but it Valle although some of the work, It is not bred in the bone, and if And, surprisingly, there is no needs a change in culture to as illustrated, particularly that of it is not transmitted from one discussion of briefs, how to turn produce a proper holistic Aymonino, does not seem generation to the next, it is lost." these ideas into a reality. approach. As to what type of art especially morphological. urban design is, he ends up by That quote from James Kunstler The most serious problem is comparing urban design to the The remaining two papers seems to underline a strong that Tom Turner presents too definition of architecture as examine historic issues - firstly theme that emanates from two many of his thoughts in an frozen music - if urban design is 16th century squares in books that have recently unnecessarily complicated way. considered as related to Florence, Bologna (shown emerged from the USA, both He includes ambiguous ideas performance art, perhaps it can above) and Arezzo by Eamonn dealing with the decline of and broken thoughts, all the help us to see urban design as Canniffe and secondly Hydra by American cities and both more tantalising since parts are unfrozen music. Alistair Barr. The urban pointing to the need for a new written with lucidity and verve. interventions in the three Italian approach to urbanism. The Most reference books are not Tom Turner's provocative paper locations by Vasari and Vignola Geography of Nowhere sets out read from cover to cover, argues that if planning is to be are particularly interesting and the story of that decline. Scheer certainly, but he will not carry reborn, planning needs to focus show how an urban form of and Preiser's Design Review many of his readers with him on GIS, Structuralism and arcade superimposed by mixed looks at current urban design through the whole of this book, Planning by layers. Refocusing uses can create an additional discussion on halting that and that will be a shame. the paper on Urban Design dimension to existing spaces. decline and improving the might have provided a different quality of our urban Annabel Downs dimension to his conclusions. There is a section describing environment. It comprises a There are two case studies of courses at Greenwich, work series of papers delivered at a Urban Design Studies current work - Tony Costello's undertaken at Ingolstadt and conference on aesthetic control University of Greenwich Urban Muncie Urban Design Studio Kirtipur by students and staff. held at Cincinnati two years Design Unit, 1995, £16.50 and Ali Madani Pour's review of ago. Metro Centre, Gateshead. The Some of the subjects are not in This is the first volume of an first of these is a useful account my view in the mainstream of James Kunstler's book is a annual series of publications on of how the community based urban design issues, although pained view of a lost American Urban Design by the University programme of Ball State this may be affected by it being dream. He lays out the of Greenwich. It contains 140 University, seen as part of the the first in a series of influencing factors simply and pages and includes nine articles university's mission, has publications. The design of the understandably. The as well as three descriptions of developed into a series of publication is not good - individualism of the early work undertaken at Greenwich projects involving citizen illustrations often appear pioneers, their deep set and four book reviews. participation, neighbourhood separated from text and many philosophy, and the physical revitalisation and adaptive re- are not of good quality. Having interpretation of that obsession Jon Rowland provides an use. An in-town studio has said all that I felt the publication with freedom that has affected introduction to the book, Ian helped this unit respond to was worth reading because of so much of American Bentley a polemic entitled 'What community needs. Ian Bentley's article backed up development, is set against the Kind of Art is Urban Design' and by interesting points in Renato deceit of the giant motor car Tom Turner a paper on the Cultural issues concern Renato Bocchi's paper (although too corporations, which impact of GIS. These papers Bocchi, looking at contemporary architecturally based) and the emasculated and eventually refer to the nature of urban Italian architecture and Duane historic interventions described destroyed public transport in design and planning and Ian Mezga in commenting on by Eamonn Cannife. most parts of the US. The Bentley's raises a number of Warsaw's Holocaust landscape. production line ethos of interesting issues. Like many Bocchi compares two John Billingham Levittown, the influence of urban designers he is approaches to achieving suburban malls and "edge cities" in the alienation of the the equation for a better precedents to be considered Other Books Received urban population from the early environment. These ideas recall and refreshed with each 20th century spirit of urbanism, the early clarity of places such decision'. He puts forward Sources for Design Policy are all set out in this lucidly and as Savannah, and Hampstead 'seven sets of attitudes' that - A Bibliographic Guide provocatively written book. Garden City. But one gets the include recognition of different John Punter, Matthew Carmona feeling that whereas Unwin and rules for public and private and Adam Platts James Kunstler is not an Parker were looking forward, the domains; tidiness, preservation Centre for Planning Strathclyde architect or planner, but a new (sub)urbanism revisits. of historic patterns and University, 1994, £11.00 journalist. He is also a New architectural diversity. Useful reference document Urbanist (the movement, providing abstracts of key texts. established by Andreas Duany Design Review Michael Hough's Place Making and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, to and Design Review takes on the The Creative City in revitalise the urban cores and Both books point the way back simplistic political landscape of Britain and Germany reform the suburbs of American to a new direction. Elizabeth Alice Coleman and compares Charles Landry et al cities). It is his criticism of the Plater-Zyberk sets the tone for a that to the complex chaos of Anglo German Foundation, inexorable logic of the moralistic more integrated view of our market areas that we all love to 1996, £7.00 Bill of Rights manifesting itself in urban environment in the experience. His view is that we A report that defines the criteria "laissez-faire" development, and foreword to Design Review, a have too much control in the marking out a creative city and his own puritanical view of what new and important book. wrong parts of the process and lists the findings of a three day went wrong, that make this a too little where it matters. And it workshop. fascinating story. And yet his The notions of mixed use, is this dialectic that is expanded dismissal of the post war building controls, design review in contributions by Patrick The Place of Home: suburb doesn't seem to address and other quality control Pouler and David Baab. English Domestic the idea of "spirit of the time", mechanisms are explored. She Environments 1914-2000 the longing for and the attaining points to the need for plans to It is left to Witold Rybczynski to Alison Ravetz with Richard by many people of a house, be based on the principles of summarise the struggle Turkington garden, car and security. compactness; of specific street between gentility and individual E&FNSpon, 1995, £49.50 and public space designs, liberty. Design reviews which In depth exploration of the There is a need to balance dimensioned and detailed to include community groups, evolution of the English aspirations and the encourage pedestrian public officials and design domestic environment but little management of urban change. circulation; urban and professionals have proved urban design content. Kunstler tries to find that landscape codes controlling effective - ensuring a more balance in reviewing the build-to lines, heights, volume, responsive architectural Gaia Atlas of Cities: New changes in his own city, materials and ecosystem; and product. They have also proved Directions for Saratoga Springs. He describes other architectural codes to that 'public discipline of building Sustainable Living the exploded quality of its urban 'direct imagery and character'. design does not inhibit the Herbert Girardet core following the advent of the Prescriptive Traditional creativity of architects', but Gaia Books, £11.99 car-oriented fast food eateries of Neighbourhood District Codes leads to a better quality of urban This is the second edition of this environments as a whole. 'Less McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and are devised to coordinate land book first published in 1992 and use, zoning, street standards emphasis on the soloist and Pizza Hut. He derides the has been extensively revised and building design guidelines more on ensemble playing will continuing reinforcement of the and updated for the Istanbul in one legal package. not be a bad thing.' American suburban dream conference. Essential reading encapsulated by Walt Disney's for those seeking to create a Main Street, USA. Disneyland The contributors to Design If that's not what urban design more sustainable future. recreates the dream with its well Review explore the issue and is about I don't know what is! proportioned streets, varied practice of design guidance and Competitive Cities: building and wholesome evaluate some recent examples. Somewhere between the idea of Succeeding in the Global environment. Main Street, John Delafons and John Punter intellectual freedom and our Economy Kunstler maintains, provides provide a British perspective, innate need for an Hazel Duffy that sense of comfort that that seems to show that our 'understandable' environment E&FNSpon, £24.99 'makes people feel better about development control system is lies the goal to which the New Compares economic and social the scary places where they sclerotic and complex, but Urbanists and perhaps ali of us issues in Atlanta, Toronto, actually live'. manages to stop both the worst are struggling. Both books, Birmingham and Rotterdam. and best forms of development. Kunstler's polemic and Design Yet is seems that Disney, with its Review's facts on the ground development at Celebration, Gary Hack's exploration of the provide a rich diet for us at the Florida, planned by Robert purposes of design review takes UDG to chew over. Stern, has acknowledged the on board both the legal and aspirations of nostalgia. It has community issues. It's simple to Jon Rowland established a carefully regulated set out rules, but who polices 'understandable' environment. those rules, and what implicit Aesthetic and other building values inform those rules are controls are helping to recreate key elements in any process. As the essence of that dream. he points out 'Developing the capacity for public learning and This provides the new urbanists consensus requires that a with a dichotomy - between design review body be corporatism and control. The structured in a way that is both New Urbanists' ideas on control responsive to community values of quality are an intrinsic part of and stable enough to allow Practice Profile c Approaching the Millennium, the workload at O" LONDON SWANSCOMBE 03 David Lock Associates over the last 12 3 a SCIENCE PENINSULA o months points to a fundamental re- PARK cCnD 1 &> evaluation of urban life, and a willingness of both clients and fellow consultants to think oc GREENHITHE CD ••<• radically about the quality of their WATERFRONT CD contribution to its quality in the future. NORTHFLEET 'CROSSWAYS EMBANKMENT c/T a IEWATI CcD While the journals are full of exhortations to Ul rethink urban transportation and mixed use <0 i- c_ development at higher than normal At Ebbsfleet, DLA have prepared a 5" framework plan for an outline planning application for 789,500 sq m of mixed use (D development surrounding the new International Passenger Station on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link on behalf of Blue Circle Properties. In the surrounding area considerable development of new communities is intended to complement the revitalisation of existing communities and economies as part of a 25 year development project second only to the creation of Milton Keynes in scale. Within the strategic framework provided by Looking to the Future, existing development projects, such as Crossways - and the Bluewater Shopping Centre are to be joined by numerous other mixed use developments. DLA are in the midst of producing development frameworks for each of the main development quarters - new settlements at Stone and Greenhithe, at Swanscombe Peninsular, at Northfleet Riverside and at Eastern Quarry and at the London Science Park at Dartford, Britain's largest Science Park project and a linchpin of the economic strategy for Thames Gateway. Science Parks foster innovation of new products and services to stimulate regional economies. As well as the London Science Park at Dartford, DLA have been commissioned by the NHS Executive at Cane Hill Hospital in Croydon and by Thames Water in the Lee Valley to produce development frameworks for Science Parks. DLA's approach has been to adopt a much more sustainable approach to that of the '80s, to better integrate the development into its community and to link it fully into local public transportation networks. In each case the projects are mixed use, incorporating elements of housing, retail and leisure amenities into the development mix. Left: The Ebbsfleet concept New Settlements ^ 03 is a traditional city centre The third major string to DLA's urban design ^ serving the whole of North CO Kent, providing a fine projects have been the promotion of new co' grained mix of commercial settlements. Responding to the encroaching o and residential housing crisis - evidenced by the DoE's ^ development in a dense, latest housing projections - DLA is involved J. street based network of in the development of several major new ^ vibrant public spaces. In settlement projects. The switch in the CcD order to sustain this level of planning system away from development w development, a new public control to the primacy of local plans has transport network will meant that the issues are now debated exploit the accessibility of much more openly and in more detail much £ the new domestic and earlier in the planning process, and international rail services, community involvement and support in the using state of the art LRT planning of new settlements is fundamental technology to link the 'city to our approach. centre' with the rest of North Kent, and Major new settlement plans are being moderating the use of the pursued in the vicinity of Exeter Airport, at private car. Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, Bittesby in Top left: Plan indicating Leicestershire, Rhoose Point in South Wales development sites. and Micklefield near Leeds. Each has Middle and below: considerable local support and are credible Development framework development projects approaching around the international implementation. passenger station. Right: Illustrative Master Plan for Broadclyst New Urban Design Strategies Settlement adjacent to Exeter Airport and an Finally, a growing urban design workload is indication of possible the rectification of damage caused by anti- urban groupings. urban development in the late '80s. At Below: Urban Design Crystal Peaks near Sheffield, DLA has been Study of Merry Hill commissioned by Chesterfield Properties, Shopping Centre to owners of the shopping centre, to examine examine how it can be expansion options which will better integrate stitched back into the the development within the local community. urban fabric of the area. More significantly, at Merry Hill in the West Midlands, new owners Chelsfield have commisioned DLA to prepare an urban design strategy which will realise the role of the regional shopping centre as the new city centre for Dudley by creating a fully mixed use context to the shopping area, and integrating the proposed line for the West Midlands Metro. jMEWSTATIOtn This profile of projects, in terms of both scale and variety, reveals a growing recognition of the power and potential of urban design, and offers a positive pointer to the quality of urban life in the 21 st century. David Lock Associates 50 North Thirteenth Street Central Milton Keynes MK9 9BP Tel 01908 666276 Fax 01908 605747 (MWCV6D FOOT t CYCLE UNO Contacts: Lawrence Reviil Will Cousins Practice Profile Urban Design Futures was formed in 1994 Left: Bathgate Town by Selby Richardson, an architect/planner Square Competition and urban designer, in close collaboration showing view of with Dean Swift, a landscape architect and changes to Square, Q c urban designer, whilst they headed the Local diagrams of phased Planning and Design and the Landscape fi) implementation of Architecture Groups at Livingston proposals and Development Corporation. Their intention axonometric of was to enable the skills and expertise which completed scheme. had been developed within the Development Corporation to transfer into private practice when the Corporation was wound up in 1996. The practice was begun on a part- Urban Design Futures specialises in a combination of planning, urban design and (D landscape architectural work which includes local and development planning, urban 0) design strategies, feasibility studies and design layouts, town and village studies, urban regeneration, public space design, environmental improvements, landscape design, woodland management and public consultation. Like many smaller practices, Urban Design Futures is linked to a network of complementary specialists which can be used as necessary for individual projects enabling the practice to provide a comprehensive design service ranging from pre-investment studies to project implementation and management. The practice also has strong connections with Heriot Watt University, where Selby Richardson is responsible for the teaching of urban design theory. The main aim of the practice is to produce design solutions that meet the needs of the present in a manner that will be of relevance to the future. This has been borne out of an awareness of the many changes that are taking place at the present time which will have a major influence on the form of future developments. Changes, for example, in methods of communication which are affecting work and movement patterns and traditional concepts of "place" through the creation of virtual realities. Changes in social attitudes and developer aspirations which are altering the nature of public space and changes in our understanding of ecological imperatives. Urban Design Futures seeks to produce design proposals which provide a positive response to these changes whilst still retaining those qualities which have produced successful design solutions in the past. Right: Skivo Woods Competitions housing development Axonometric of central Whilst in part-time operation the practice courtyard. sought to realise these aims mainly through Below: Drumsaguard competition submissions. The practice Renewable Energy principals were responsible for the Park submission of prize-winning design Perspective views of proposals for a central public square in the pond looking south West Lothian village of Bathgate. from jetty and north from the main The competition formed part of a wide footpath. ranging District Council improvements initiative for the town. Traffic calming, limited access and pedestrianisation measures were proposed to meet ample vehicular access requirements whilst giving priority to the pedestrian. A new, strategically located kiosk building incorporating a range of public uses provided a central focus to the space and a generator of additional activity. The strength of the square was further enhanced by a combination of level changes, floorscape patterning, tree planting and street furniture. A major input from local artists was recommended to interpret and communicate the historical connections of the town. Design guidance and grant aid was also proposed to encourage private investment in shop frontage improvement. Energy Efficiency Projects Since moving into full-time operation, Urban Design Futures is beginning to put its aims into practice through work with a number of public and private sector clients. The practice has been commissioned by Strathclyde Greenbelt Company \o be involved in the design of a renewable energy park on the reclaimed site of a former steelworks in Lanarkshire where new areas of community woodland will be used to decontaminate the soil and provide a fuel crop to fund the development. It is also working for the development company New Lives New Landscapes on the design of a low density, energy efficient countryside housing development at Skivo Woods which is intended to provide an ideal environment for home working practices. An essential part of this project concerns the production of forms of development which are suitable for countryside locations and the methods of detailed design guidance which are necessary to achieve them. Urban Design Futures 34 Henderson Row Edinburgh EH3 5DN Scotland Tel/Fax: 0131 557 8820 Contact: Selby Richardson Dip. Arch., Dip. TP, MSc, ARIAS Practice Index Directory of W S Atkins Planning Consultants Burrell Foley Fischer EDAWCR Planning cr QJ Woodcote Grove, Ashley Road 15 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden 80-82 Grays Inn Road Epsom, Surrey KT18 5BW London WC2H 9DA Holborn, London WC1X8NH o practices and Tel: 01372 726140 Tel: 0171 836 5097 Tel: 0171 404 6350 CO q' Fax: 01372 743006 Fax: 0171 379 6619 Fax: 0171 404 6337 q urban design Contact: Joanna Chambers BA BTP Contact: John Burrell MA AADip RIBA Contact: David Keene BA Dip TP MRTPI c MRTPI FRSA Jason Prior BA Dip A ALI 03 Specialisms: Urban regeneration and Also at Glasgow G2 5QY | courses Multi-disciplinary practice of urban Arts and Cultural buildings - Museums, Tel: 0141 221 5533 < planners, landscape designers, Galleries, Theatres, Cinemas. Fax: 0141 221 7789 § subscribing to transport planners, urban designers, Redevelopment of Redundant Estate Contact: Doug Wheeler 0 architects and environmental planners, Land, Urban housing. New settlements. And at Colmar, FRANCE 01 specialising in Master Plans, New design in Historic Contexts. Tel: 89 23 92 02 ® this index Development Frameworks and Waterfront buildings and strategies. Fax: 89 24 20 94 c_ Concepts, Development Briefs, Innovative Urban Design and Planning Contact: Francis Crews < £ This directory Environmental Assessment, Environ- approaches. to mental Improvements, Town Centre Part of the international EDAW Group CT> renewal, Traffic Management and providing urban design, land use Contaminated land. Philip Cave Associates planning, environmental planning and provides a service 5 Dryden Street landscape architecture services Covent Garden throughout the UK and Europe. 44 to potential clients Alan Baxter & Associates London WC2E9NW Particular expertise in market driven Consulting Engineers Tel: 0171 829 8340 development frameworks, urban 14-16 Cowcross Street Fax: 0171 240 5800 regeneration, masterplanning and when they are London EC1M6DR Contact: Philip Cave BSc Hons MA (LD) implementation. Tel: 0171 2501555 ALI looking for Fax: 0171 250 3022 Contact: Alan Baxter FIStructE MICE Design led practice seeking innovative Roger Evans Associates MConsE yet practical solutions. Large scale site School Studios specialist planning through to small scale detailed Weston on the Green An engineering and urban design design - from studies to constructed Oxford 0X6 8RG professional advice practice with wide experience of new projects. Specialist experience in Tel: 01869 350096 and existing buildings and complex landscape architecture. Fax: 01869 350152 urban issues. Particularly concerned with Contact: Roger Evans MA DipArch on projects the thoughtful integration of buildings, DipUD RIBA MRTPI infrastructure and movement, and the Civic Design Partnership involving urban creation of places which are capable of 22 Sussex street A specialist urban design practice simple and flexible renewal. London Sw1V4RW providing services throughout the UK. Tel: 0171 233 7419 Expertise in urban regeneration, design and related Fax: 0171 931 8431 development frameworks, master Bell Fischer Contact: Peter J. Heath Architect and planning, town centre improvement schemes and visual impact assessment. matters and to Landscape Architects Town Planner 160 Chiltern Drive Surbiton Whether it's our strategy for the external students and Surrey KT5 8LS areas of BAA pic's airports, presented to Terry Farrell and Partners Tel: 0181 3906477 Sir John Egan, a Conservation 17 Hatton Street Enhancement plan for Covent Garden, London NW8 8PL professionals Fax: 0181 399 7903 Contact: Gordon Bell DipLA ALI an application for Millennium funding for Tel: 0171 258 3433 traffic management, Orpington Town Fax: 0171 723 7059 considering taking Landscape architecture, urban design, Centre proposals or a landscaped Contact: Susan Dawson DipArch RIBA landscape planning. Environmental and square for Hove - our integrated service visual impact assessment. Concept of architecture, planning, landscape, Architectural, urban design and planning an urban design design, detail design and project product and urban design gives our services. New buildings, refurbishment, management. UK and overseas. clients not only what they want, but also restoration and interiors,masterplanning course. what they never dreamt they could have. and town planning schemes. Retail, Conference Centres, Exhibition Halls, Colin Buchanan & Partners Offices, Railway infrastructure and Those wishing to 59 Queens Gardens Edward Cullinan Railway Development, Art Galleries, London W2 3AF Architects Museums. Cultural and Tourist be included in Tel: 0171 258 3799 1 Baldwin Terrace buildings, Television Studios, Theatres, Fax: 0171 258 0299 London N1 7RU Housing, Industrial Buildings. Contact: Neil Parkyn MA DipArch DipTP Tel: 0171 7041975 future issues (Dist)RIBA MRTPI Fax: 0171 354 2739 Contact: Karen Hughes FaulknerBrowns should contact the Town planning, urban design, transport Dobson House and traffic management and market Designing buildings and groups of Northumbrian Way research from offices in London, buildings within urban or rural contexts. Newcastle uponTyne NE12 0QW UDG office Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester. The relationship to existing buildings Tel: 0191 268 3007 Specialism in Town Centre projects, and the making of spaces between Fax: 0191 2685227 6 Ashbrook including public realm design. buildings is of particular importance to Contact: Neil F Taylor BA (Hons) us, in the struggle to re-establish the DipArch (Dist) RIBA MBIM civic place. Courtyard, Building Design Partnership Urban Design, Environmental and PO Box 4WD Economic Regeneration, Westbrook Street, 16Gresse Street ECD Architects and Masterplanning, Development and London W1A 4WD Energy Consultants Implementation Strategies. Tel: 0171 631 4733 11-15 Emerald Street Blewbury, Fax: 0171 631 0393 London WC1N3QL Contact: Richard Saxon BArch Tel: 0171 405 3121 Oxon 0X11 9QH (Hons)(L'pool) MCD MBIM RIBA Fax: 0171 4051670 Contact: David Turrent BArch RIBA Transport design. Landscape design. Tel: 01235-851415 Commercial development planning. ECD Architects specialise in the design Sports and Leisure planning. Industrial of energy efficient buildings and advise Fax:01235-851410 site planning. Educational campus on the environmental aspects of new planning. developments using the Breeam assessment method. Fitzgerald Reddy & Associates Paul Hyett Architects Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners MacCormac Jamieson Prichard 26 Upper Mount Street Architecture Urban Design Ltd 9 Heneage Street Dublin 2, Ireland Planning 14 Regent's Wharf Spitalfields • Tel: 00 3531 6764127 36-37 Featherstone Street All Saints Street London E1 5LJ Fax: 00 3531 6618509 London EC1Y8QX London N1 9RL Tel: 0171 3779262 Tel: 0171 251 0783 Tel: 0171 837 4477 Fax: 0171 247 7854 Contact: Anthony Reddy, BArch, FRIAI, D RIBA, DipPM, MAPM Fax: 0171 251 1691 Fax: 0171 837 2277 Contact: David Prichard BSc DipArch Contact: Paul Hyett AA Dipl RIBA MPhil (also in Newcastle upon Tyne) (Lond) RIBA Architecture, planning, urban design, Contact: Nicholas Thompson BA BPI project management. Project types: We provide a comprehensive range of MA (UrbDes) MRTPI and lain Rhind BA Master-planning, development briefs, Masterplanning, Development services: Architecture. Urban design and MPhil DipUD (Dist) MRTPI urban regeneration studies, land use Frameworks, Urban Regeneration development. Town Planning. Project studies, rural settlements. Planning in Projects, Town Centre Renewal, management. Master Planning. Independent planning, urban design and historic and sensitive sites. Residential, Industrial, Retail, Offices, Development Briefs. Historic building economics consultancy, combining Conference Centres, Business Parks, restoration, conversion and/or analysis with creativity. Masterplans: all Hospitals, Schools. development. Waterfront development. sites, all uses. Residential schemes. Andrew Martin Associates Environmental and visual impact Urban regeneration. Town centres. Croxton's Mill, Little Waltham assessment. Visual appraisal. Conservation. Chelmsford, Essex CM3 3PJ Gillespies Tel: 01245 361611 Environment by Design Fax: 01245 362423 GLASGOW Landscape Design Associates Livingston Eyre Associates Contact: Andrew Martin MAUD DipTP Tel: 0141 332 6742 17 Minster Precincts 7-13 Cottons Gardens (Distinction) FRICS FRTPI 45 Fax: 0141 332 3538 Peterborough PE1 1XX London E2 8DN MANCHESTER Tel: 01733 310471 Tel: 0171 7391445 Strategic, local and master planning, Tel: 0161 928 7715 Fax: 01733 53661 Fax: 0171 729 2986 project co-ordination and facilitation, Fax: 0161 927 7680 Contact: John Dejardin DipLA ALI Contact: Katherine Melville RIBA ALI development briefs and detailed OXFORD Chris Royffe MA DipLA ALI studies, historic buildings and Tel: 01865 326789 The design of the space between conservation. Comprehensive and Fax: 01865 327070 Urban and landscape design, landscape buildings in urban or rural contexts; integrated planning of new and The Practice philosophy provides clients and development planning, master planning and feasibility studies: expanded communities, including with creative and sustainable solutions masterplans, environmental strategies, rehabilitation and regeneration of the housing, employment, shopping, and a commitment to excellence from urban regeneration, town and village urban landscape; building the places we recreation and leisure, transport and inception to completion in Planning, studies and environmental design. environmental considerations. Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, improvements. Feasibility to Architecture, Graphic Design and implementation. Ecology. Llewelyn-Davies Peter McGowan Associates Brook House The Schoolhouse Landscape Town & Country Ltd 2Torrington Place 4 Lochend Road Greater London Consultants Turpyns Court London WC1E7HN EdinburghEH6 8BR 127 Beulah Road Woughton on the Green Tel: 0171 637 0181 Tel: 0131 555 4949 Thornton Heath Milton Keynes Fax: 0171 637 8740 Fax: 0131 555 4999 Surrey CR7 8JJ MK63BW Contact: Jon Rowland AADipl MA RIBA Contact: Peter McGowan DipLA MA Tel: 0181 7681417 Tel: 01908 663344 and David Walton BA MRTPI FIHT (UD)ALI Fax: 0181 771 9384 Fax: 01908 678635 Contact: Dr John Parker DipArch ARIBA Contact: Neil Higson Architecture, planning, urban design, Landscape architecture and urban DipTP FRTPI FRSA development and masterplanning; urban design: planning and design. Highways, Landscape Planning; Landscape regeneration, town centre and pedestrianisation and traffic calming. Services focus on architectural and Architecture; Urban Design; conservation studies; urban design New town development. Urban parks urban design aspects of planning and Environmental Consultants. briefs, landscape and public realm and spaces. Sea fronts. Urban environment including: photo-montage strategies. Renewal. Landscapes for housing and studies especially high building industry. proposals, site investigation, traffic, LEITHGOE Landscape Architects applications, appeals, marinas, ElA's, and Environmental Planners David Lock Associates Ltd feasibility, development schemes, 6Southernhay West 50 North Thirteenth Street NFA conservation and security schemes. Exeter EX1 1JG Central Milton Keynes Falcon House, 202 Old Brompton Road Tel: 01392 210428 Milton Keynes MK9 3BP London SW5 0BU Fax: 01392 413290 Tel: 01908 666276 Tel: 0171 259 2223 Fax: 0171 259 2242 Halcrow Fox (also London tel: 0171 229 6469) Fax: 01908 605747 (also at Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, 44 Brook Green Contact: Andrew Leithgoe DipLA FLI Contact: Will Cousins DipArch DipUD Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Hammersmith RIBA Paris, Singapore, Vietnam) London W6 7BY Landscape Assessment, Planning, Contact: Peter Verity MArch MCP (Penn) Tel: 0171 603 1618 Design and Maintenance. Hard and soft Strategic planning studies, public RIBA Fax: 0171 603 5783 Landscape solutions. Experienced in inquiries, urban regeneration projects, Contact: Asad A Shaheed BA Arch working with Architects and Engineers. master plans, area development Architectural, Urban Design, Planning, MArch Clients include PSA/DoE, Local framework plans, environment Landscaping services internationally. Authorities, Property Institutions, statements. Development Planning, Urban Area and site planning, town centre Universities, Private clients. Regeneration, New Communities, renewal, waterfront regeneration, traffic Waterfront Regeneration, Tourism calming studies, conceptual design, Lyons + Sleeman + Hoare Planning and Design. visual impact assessment. Gordon Lewis Associates Limited Nero Brewery Westgate Court Cricket Green Westgate Street Hartley Wintney Terence O'Rourke pic Hunt Thompson Associates Cardiff CF1 1DD Hampshire RG27 8QA Everdene House 79 Parkway Tel: 01222 231401 Tel: 01252 844144 Wessex Fields, Deansleigh Road London NW1 7PP Fax: 01222 399287 Fax: 01252 844800 Bournemouth BH7 7DU Tel: 0171 485 8555 Contact: Gordon Lewis BSc, BArch, Contact: Andrew Aldridge BA Dip Arch Tel: 01202 421142 Fax: 0171 485 1232 RIBA, FFB RIBA or Colin Darby BSc DipTP Fax: 01202 430055 Contact: Benjamin Derbyshire DipArch Dip Urban Design MRTPI Contact: Terence O'Rourke DipArch (Cantab) RIBA FRSA Architecture, planning and urban design. (Oxford) DipTP RIBA MRTPI Public and private sector. Development Architecture, planning, master planing, Development, Architecture and Urban strategies, business plans and public urban design - commercial practice Planning and Design Consultancy Design. Optimising development realm studies. Business park, covering broad spectrum of work - specialising in land use planning, potential by integrating social, physical residential and health estate planning. particularly design of buildings and landscape architecture, ecology, and economic issues. Making buildable, spaces in urban and historic contexts. environmental assessment and urban cost effective, user responsive design. Development Briefs, Master environments. Plans, Urban Regeneration, Town Studies, Conservation and Public Realm Strategies. Practice Index Education Index PRP Architects Symonds Travers Morgan Urban Initiatives University of Central England, 82 Bridge Road Environment 35 Heddon Street Birmingham Hampton Court 24-30 Holburn London W1R7LL School of Architecture East Molesey London EC 1N2LX Tel: 0171 2873644 Tel: 0121 331 5130 Surrey KT8 9HF Tel: 0171 421 2000 Fax: 0171 287 9489 Fax: 0121 356 9915 o Tel: 0181 941 0606 Fax: 0171 421 2222 Contact: Kelvin Campbell BArch RIBA Contact: Joe Holyoak, Course Director Fax: 0181 783 1671 Also at Reading: 01734 573330 MRTPI MCITFRSA MA in European Urban Design. 12 Contact: Peter Phippen Contact: Marie Burns BA (hons) MAUD months full time, students study one OBE DipArch (RWA) RIBA Dipl. LA ALI Urban design, transport planning, term each in Birmingham, Strasbourg infrastructure and development planning and Florence, with fourth term in one Social and private housing Multidisciplinary Practice of urban to include master planning, town centre centre by choice. development, special needs housing, designers, landscape architects, studies, conservation, environmental including housing for elderly people, planners, ecologists, noise and air improvements, traffic calming and University of the West of mentally handicapped and single pollution expertise - undertaking design guidelines. England, Bristol people, healthcare, urban environmental and visual impact Faculty of the Built Environment redevelopment. assessments, traffic calming studies; Frenchay Campus town centre and waterfront regeneration Urbanologists MPT Associates Coldharbour Lane schemes, contamination remediation, Penthouse Studio, Haresfield House Bristol BS161QY Taylor Young Urban Design new build housing and estate Brookfield, Wingfield Road Tel: 0117 9656261 The Studio refurbishment. Trowbridge Wilts BA149EN Fax: 0117 976 3895 51 Brookfield Tel: 01225 777600 Contact: Richard Guise 46 Cheadle Fax: 01225 751166 MA/Postgraduate Diploma course in Cheshire SK81ES John Thompson and Partners Contact: Michael Tollit DipArch(Leics), Urban Design. Part time 2 days per Tel: 0161 491 4530 77 Cowcross Street BA(Hons), PGDipUD, MA, ARIBA, fortnight for 2 years, or individual Fax: 0161 491 0972 London EC1M6BP MlnstEnvSc ATCM programme of study. Project based Contact: Stephen Gleave MA DipTP Tel: 0171 251 5135 course addressing urban design issues, (Dist) DipUD MRTPI Fax: 0171 251 5136 Consultants in Urban-Rural Processes abilities and environments. Contact: John Thompson MA DipArch Urban Design, Planning and RIBA Development. Public and Private Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Sectors. Town studies, housing, Multidisciplinary practice, working Watt University commercial, distribution, health and throughout the UK and Europe, School of Architecture transportation represent current live' specialising in architecture, urban Lauriston Place projects. Specialist in Urban Design design and masterplanning, urban Edinburgh EH39DF Training. regeneration, new settlements and Tel: 0131 221 6071/6072 community consultation; addressing the Fax: 0131 221 6606/6157 problems of physical, social and Contact: Robert Smart Rothermel Thomas economic regeneration through Diploma in Urban Design: 1 year full 14-16 Cowcross Street collaborative interdisciplinary community time or 3 years part time. MSc in Urban London EC1M6DR based planning. Design: 1 year full time or 3 years part Tel: 0171 490 4255 time plus 1 year part time. Recognised Fax: 0171 4901251 by the RIBA for the RIBA Urban Design Contact: James Thomas BA (Arch) Tibbalds Monro Ltd Diploma. DipTP FRIBA FRTPI FRSA FIMgt 31 Earl Street London EC2A2HR Urban design, conservation, historic Tel: 0171 377 6688 University of Greenwich buildings, planning, architecture. Expert Fax: 0171 247 9377 School of Architecture and witness at planning inquiries. Contact: Andrew Karski BA (Hons) MSc Landscape (Econ) FRTPI Oakfield Lane Dartford DA1 2SZ Shepheard Epstein and Hunter Multi-disciplinary practice of architects, Tel: 0181 3169100 Architecture Planning and planners, urban designers, landscape Fax: 0181 316 9105 Landscape designers, tourism specialists and Contact: Philip Stringer 14-22 Ganton Street interior architects. The firm provides MA in Urban Design for postgraduate London W1V1 LB consultancy services to institutional, architecture and landscape students, full Tel: 0171 734 0111 public sector and corporate clients. time and part time with credit Fax: 0171 434 2690 accumulation transfer system. Contact: Steven Pidwill Dip Arch RIBA Eugene Dreyer MA (City and Regional Urban Design Futures Planning) 34 Henderson Row University of Manchester Edinburgh EH3 5DN School of Planning & Landscape Architecture, master-planning, Scotland Manchester M13 9PL landscape, urban design, computer Tel/Fax: 0131 557 8820 Tel: 0161 275 6914 modelling, environmental statements, Contact: Selby Richardson DipArch, Fax: 0161 275 6935 planning-for-real, public consultation, DipTP, MSc, ARIAS Contact: Dr Patrick Malone development consultancy. MA in Urban Design and Regeneration. Land use planning, development MA in Urban Design Studies. B.Phil, in feasibility and site layout studies, urban Urban Design (International linked Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Inc. design strategies and appraisal, town courses PhD/MA routes). 46 Berkeley Street, London W1X6NT centre and village studies, Tel: 0171 9309711 environmental improvements, traffic Fax: 0171 930 9108 calming, design guidelines. Liverpool John Moores University (also Chicago, New York, Washington, School of the Built Environment San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong 98 Mount Pleasant Kong) The Urban and Economic Liverpool L3 5UZ Contact: Roger Kallman Development Group (URBED) Tel: 0151 231 3709 3 Stamford Street Fax: 0151 709 4957 International multi-disciplinary practice. London SE1 9NS Contact: Professor Chris Couch Master Planning, Landscape Tel: 0161 226 5078/0171 928 9515 MSc/Diploma in Urban Renewal (Urban Architecture, Civil Engineering and Fax: 0161 226 7307 Regeneration & Urban Design) 1 year Urban Design. Project types: urban Contact: David Rudlin BA MTP full-time or 2 years part-time. regeneration schemes, business park master plans, university campus design, Urban regeneration / town centres / transportation planning. Associated housing including health checks, services: environmental impact environmental audits, urban design, assessments, design guidelines, master planning, analysis and strategy infrastructure strategies. development. Endpiece University of Westminster Bob Jarvis can't do this Quarterly's Endpiece, so I've been asked School of Urban Development to write it instead. I understand from reading Bob's pieces that and Planning 35 Marylebone Rd, London NW1 5LS o it's the rule that some connection be made between urban Tel: 0171 911 5000 design and Laurie Anderson, or if not then to Bob Dylan or Bryan Fax: 0171 911 5171 Contact: Urban Design Unit on extns 3 Ferry. I'll do my best. 3343 or 3108 MA or Diploma Course in Urban Design University of Newcastle upon o I stopped for lunch at a little town called Danville (confusingly, Tyne Desperate Dan came from Cactusville), which clearly had seen Department of Town & Country Planning, more prosperous times. Imposing, elaborate 19th century Claremont Tower houses with porticos, towers and porches dotted Main Street. University of Newcastle Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU Further along were big, vaguely Art Deco interwar commercial Tel: 0191 222 7802 Fax: 0191 222 8811 buildings which must have once overlooked a thriving Main Contact: Dr Ali Madani-Pour or Bill Street, now quiet and with space to park right outside the deli, Tavemor (Architecture) o MA/Diploma in Urban Design. Joint just like they do in the movies. programme by Dept of Town and Country Planning and Dept. of S I found that Danville, a tobacco and textiles town, has two claims Architecture, full time or part time, integrating knowledge and skills from 3 to fame, both recorded in popular song. In April 1865, the rebel town planning, architecture, landscape. (A Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, and his government University of Nottingham retreated south by train from their besieged capital Richmond, Department of Urban Planning and hopefully set up in Danville what turned out to be the 'Last University Park Capital of the Confederacy'. Only a week later their army Nottingham NG7 2RD Tel: 0115 951 3886 surrendered and the war ended. The Band and Joan Baez have Fax: 0115 951 4879 both recorded The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' about that Contact: Matthew Carmona elegiac Danville train; MA or Diploma in Urban Design, MA or Diploma in Urban Regeneration. Both MAs are 180 Credits, one year full time Virgil Kane is my name, and I drove on the Danville train, or two year part time courses. Diplomas are 120 Credits, nine months full time or Till so much cavalry came, and tore up the tracks again... eighteen month part time courses. The other event was the 'Wreck of the Old 97', when a Oxford Brookes University (formerly Oxford Polytechnic) locomotive took the curving approach to the timber bridge Joint Centre for Urban Design spanning the River Dan too fast. Bridge and train ended up in Headington, Oxford OX3 0BP the river. Johnny Cash famously sang Tel: 01865483403 Fax: 01865 483298 Contact: Dr Georgia Butina or Ian It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville Bentley Diploma in Urban Design 6 months full And a line on a three mile grade... time or 18 months part time. MA in Urban Design 1 year full time or 3 years America's landscape is dotted with towns that are celebrated in part time. MPhil/PhD by research (full time and part time). song, from Mobile to Wichita to Phoenix. Songs about towns gain from their subjects a sense of a real context and therefore a University of Strathclyde convincing realism (24 hours from Tulsa can be measured on a Dept of Architecture and Building map, it's real geography), and in turn the towns celebrated Science surely gain an enhanced sense of placeness from existing on Urban Design Studies Unit 131 Rottenrow Glasgow G4 0NG the mythic plane of music as well as on a mundane level. Tel: 0141 552 4400 ext 3011 Fax: 0141 552 3997 Why are our British towns so relatively uncelebrated in modern Contact: Dr Hildebrand W Frey, Urban Design Studies Unit offers its song? It's interesting that both the Danville songs are about Postgraduate Course in Urban Design in trains. Our railway history is at least as extensive and eventful as CPD, Diploma and MSc modes. Topics range from the influence of the city's the USA's. Where are the songs about the demolition of the form and structure to the design of Euston Arch, the Rainhill speed trials, the building of Crewe public spaces. Railway Works, and Brunei's bridge at Saltash? The platform at Runcorn station is a fine place on which to compose a song, but even that took an American, Paul Simon, to do it; I'm sitting at a railway station Got a ticket for my destination... Joe Holyoak Forum for architects, town planners, landscape architects, engineers and all those interested in the quality of the built environment The Urban Design Group, founded eighteen years ago, has been established to provide high standards of performance and inter-professional cooperation in planning, architecture, urban design, and other related disciplines; and to educate the relevant professions and the public in matters relating to urban design. Membership is made up of architects, planners, landscape architects, engineers, surveyors, historians, lawyers, photographers, in fact anyone interested in the quality of our built environment. Local authorities, practices, and universities are also members. The U.D.G. runs a series of public lectures, workshops and other events which are valid for C.P.D. The Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture has attracted such speakers as Leon Krier, Peter Hall, Sir Roy Strong, and Sir Philip Dowson. Annual study tours are also organised. The U.D.G. publishes a quarterly magazine dealing with urban design issues and an Urban Design Source Book which identifies urban design practices, courses and members. The U.D.G. is working closely with the R.T.P.I. to raise the profile of urban design. It has recipro- cal membership with a number of complementary organisa- tions including Vision for London, and the British Urban Regeneration Association (B.U.R.A.). The U.D.G. has set out an agenda aimed at explaining urban design and how, using urban design principles, the quality of the environment can be raised. The Urban Design Group continues to grow. Membership is national, and each region has its own con- venor, who organises local events. The subscription is £25 per year (Europe £28 and overseas members £33) with a concessionary rate for students (special rate 96/97) of £10. For more information on the U.D.G. please contact: Administrator Susie Turnbull Tel. 01235 851415 Fax. 01235 851410 Chairman Jon Rowland Regional coordinator Roger Evans Tel. 01869350096