Autumn 2013 Urban Design Group Journal 128 Urban Issn 1750 712x art in the Design public realm

URBAN DESIGN GROUP URBAN DESIGN GROUP NewsUDG Update

Recently I was listening to a radio show that of what we do. Some will say that you can’t view from the was explaining the idea of place-making to do it: it is all about the history of a place and what would have been a predominantly lay that cannot be made up; all that you can do chair audience. It was interesting to hear how the is ensure that it is brought to the fore. Others speakers tried to describe it, although I was will say that you can create a sense of place slightly surprised when they said it was a through close liaison with local communities, new idea. While place-making may be new as it is the people who will bring the sense of to some, the term goes back to at least the place, not the built fabric. 1970s, and the ideas and theories behind it While on my honeymoon in New York further back to the work of Jane Jacobs and this summer I was struck by the impact of William H Whyte. It was certainly something the Highline on the surrounding areas, and that I was very aware of as I went through how it has created a new sense of place. The my own training as a landscape architect physical benefits are well reported, and the and urban designer. However, it did pose visitor numbers certainly support the hype, an interesting question: as professionals but what struck me walking along it was the we talk about place-making a lot, but why massive impact that it has had on the adja- isn’t the average person on the street aware cent blocks of the city. Nearly all of the new of it? Is the fact that it is going unnoticed developments (and there are many) include a sign that place-making is actually being the name Highline somewhere in their title: done well, or simply that it is not working at The Highline Hotel, Highline 537 Residences, all? Place-making seems to be accepted by Port 10: Home on the Highline, OHM on the the more enlightened parts of the develop- Highline …. The list goes on. A cynic would ment industry, but do they just accept that suggest this is just real estate agents jumping it works, even if they don’t really understand on a bandwagon, but the reality is that this is what it is? a strong example of place-making in action – The ability to successfully create a sense a whole new district identity being created of place is possibly the most complex part • Paul Reynolds

words in comment which have duly been re- Perhaps these things are cultural. A tell- UDG News layed to the relevant parties, and participat- ing comment made at the UDG Urbanism in ing in numerous working parties. Clear views China event held in July was that ‘in China the have emerged including: government makes decisions and then sets New Recognised Practitioners • a common educational route for everyone up a construction programme: in Britain the in Urban Design in the built environment, such as a founda- government makes decisions and then sets The UDG congratulates the following on tion year at undergraduate level up a Commission’. Indeed Britain seems to be becoming recognised practitioners: • support for a formal architecture and the unequalled in terms of its ability to produce Martin Douglas built environment policy, provided it does urban policy reports – with an enviable track Hannah Elborn not block creativity, but has the teeth to record of at least one landmark report every Leo Hammond coordinate taxation and grant schemes, 10 years… but very few urban landmarks. This Jie Liu and the work of relevant government de- apparent inability to turn words into deeds is Stuart Randle partments, and all the more inexplicable given that London Paul Sallin • the need for active political leadership. is in effect Europe’s first city, with a popula- Stephen Taylor tion nearly 2 ½ times that of its nearest rival, Bryan Wynne In the discussion workshops, an often voiced Berlin. Emma Zukowski complaint was the lack of urgency in improv- Should we look to politicians or look to ing towns and cities, and responding to the ourselves? By the time this edition of Urban 2013: a time of policy revision, challenges of population growth, climate Design has been published Roger Evans will or a time for action? change and the decline of finite fossil fuel re- have given his presentation on A manifesto for In England, 2013 will be marked as the year serves. The need for positive political leader- Urban Design, and Jon Rowland and Nicholas of the Farrell Review on Architecture and ship has been strongly made: it should be the Falk, theirs on the Oxford Charter and, one the Built Environment, the Taylor Review prime role of national politicians to articulate hopes, there will be a renewed vision and a on planning guidance, the publication of a vision for the long term future of towns and determination to bring about action. There is revised guidance to accompany the National cities. The reality is that the vast majority of no monopoly on leadership: urban designers Planning Policy Framework, and the review politicians focus on short-term single issues, across the world can and must fill that void. of housing standards. UDG members have rather than the immensely powerful and com- Robert Huxford, Director played their part, providing over 30,000 plex urban systems on which we all depend. •

Current subscriptions Annual membership rates UD practice index and on the udg website) Urban Design is free to Urban Design Group Uk individuals £40 uk students £20 Local authorities £100 (including two members who also receive newsletters and International individuals £50 copies of Urban Design) the directory at the time of printing Recognised practitioner in urban Uk libraries £40 design £80 International libraries £50 UDG Office Practices £250 (including a listing in the UD Individual issues of Urban Design cost £10 Tel 020 7250 0892 practice index and on the UDG website) Email [email protected] Education £100 (including a listing in the Contents

Contents

This issue has been generously sponsored by UPDATE Urban Initiatives Studio, Middlehaven Wei Yang & Partners Events 3 Development Framework 40 Urban Design Group AGM 4 URBED, Icknield Port Loop 42 COVER Urban Design Library #9 5 Felice Varini's Across the Buildings. Urban Design Interview: Michael Cowdy 6 FRANCIS TIBBALDS AWARDS BOOK Photograph by John Sturrock SHORTLIST International Introduction, Alastair Donald 44 FUTURE ISSUES Using Regional Rail Lines for Local Transit, Ilse Helbrecht and Peter Dirksmeier (ed), Issue 129 Market Towns Michael A Richards 7 New Urbanism: Life, Work, and Space Issue 130 Waterfronts in the New Downtown, Ashgate Publishing 44 TOPIC: ART IN THE PUBLIC REALM Vikas Mehta, The Street: A Quintessential Introduction, Lindsey Whitelaw 9 Social Public Space, Earthscan/ Routledge 45

Autumn 2013 Kings, Swings, Pings, Wings and Rings, Lance Hosey, The Shape of Green: Urban Design Group Journal 128 URbaN ISSN 1750 712X Michael Pinsky 11 Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design, Bringing Art to the Public Realm, Graham Island Press 45 aRt iN the DesiGN PUblic Realm Roberts and Andrew Knight 13 June Williamson, Designing Suburban Bridges and the Kinaesthetic of space, Futures: New Models from Build a Better Mark Whitby 16 Burb, Island Press 46 Art in Public Spaces, David Taylor 18 Lucy Bullivant, Masterplanning Futures, Castle Square, Stranraer, Rachel Simmons 21 Routledge/Taylor & Francis 47 Burnishing the Phoenix, Neil Deeley 23 Brian McGrath (ed), Urban Design Concerning the Nature of Things, Johanna Ecologies, AD Reader, Wiley 47 Gibbons and Katherine Clarke 25 Eric Firley and Katharina Grön, The Art of Seeing Things Invisible, The Urban Masterplanning Handbook, Rosie Freeman 28 Wiley 48 Light: The Invisible Art, Satu Streatfield 31 Alexander Garvin, The Planning Game: The Role of Art in Sport, Kat Martindale 34 Lessons From Great Cities, WW Norton & Co 49 FRANCIS TIBBALDS AWARDS PRACTICE SHORTLIST PRACTICE INDEX 50

URBAN AREA, An Camas Mor, Strathspey 36 EDUCATION INDEX 56 DESIGN GROUP John Thompson & Partners, Chilmington ENDPIECE Working both sides of the URBAN DESIGN Green, Kent 38 street, Joe Holyoak 57 GROUP

17-19 OCTOBER 2013 – NEWCASTLE WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER DIARY OF National Conference on Urban Design 2013 Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture: Kelvin For this year’s conference, the UDG is in New- Campbell EVENTS castle to address The Pursuit of Growth: The Winner of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Role of Urban Design. In collaboration with Award for Urban Design, Kelvin Campbell Unless otherwise indicated, all LONDON the University of Newcastle this landmark will deliver his vision for the future of towns events are held at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross event will explore how to create an advanced, and cities, exploring innovative ideas on the Street, London EC1M 6EJ at 6.30 pm. Tickets balanced and sustainable economy which can processes and methods, which can help to on the door from 6.00pm. £3.00 for full price support homes, jobs, vibrant town centres generate good urbanism and foster effective UDG members and £7.00 for non-members; and a high quality of life. civic leadership. £1.00 for UDG member students and £3.00 Subjects will include designing for busi- for non-member students. ness, science and industry; creating healthy DECEMBER 2013 (DATE TBC) Please check the UDG website for the lat- and enterprising communities; securing fund- Urban Design Group Christmas Celebration est details, plus events outside London (in- ing and buy-in from stakeholders; and provid- As always this will be held in a quirky and cluding East Midlands, Scotland and Solent): ing political and commercial leadership. inspiring setting, look out for details. www.udg.org.uk/events/udg As well as a full day of expert speak- ers and the UDG annual dinner on Friday 18 JANUARY 2014 (DATE TBC) WEDNESDAY 9 OCTOBER October, there is also a programme of fringe UDG Open Night Urban Design Policy events taking place on Thursday 17 and For our first event of 2014, the UDG is giving Discussion and debate on future urban design Saturday 19 October including walking tours, centre stage to YOU – our members. We want policy and how we can set an agenda for the networking sessions and the UDG annual to know what makes you tick: Why do you design of cities, towns, urban extensions, education symposium. think your work is important? What are the new settlements and suburbs for the coming main priorities for urban design? Which is- century. Roger Evans will introduce his mani- WEDNESDAY 13 NOVEMBER sues concern you? festo for urban design, and Nicholas Falk and Art in the Public Realm We are extending an open invitation to Jon Rowland will present their The Oxford Linking with this issue, UDG Patron Lindsey members to give a 5 minute presentation at Charter for 21st century suburbs. Whitelaw will lead an evening looking at this event – please contact robert.huxford@ ways in which places can be enlivened and udg.org.uk if you would like to speak. enriched by creative design artistry.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 1 Leader ART, AND NOT JUST FOR ART’S SAKE

Curated by the Urban Design Group’s Patron We are pleased to publish this year’s four Lindsey Whitelaw, this issue looks at art in practices shortlisted for the Francis Tibbalds the public realm from many perspectives. Awards, which have responded to an updated Designed to convey the many potential roles brief for entries, and on which members will and influences that commissioning public be able to vote early next year, in time for the art involves, the topic’s contributors range annual awards ceremony. Each shortlisted from artists, curators, project consultants and entry is quite different from the others, engineers, to architects, landscape architects demonstrating urban design innovation, care and urban designers. for the quality in how a scheme is delivered, What emerges is a strong role for art in learning new ways of responding to a changed the public realm that is not just heroic and market, and capturing local character to make formal – the historical default response in more distinctive places. We are also delighted commemorating an event or figure – but also that eight books have been submitted by urban temporary, popular or poignant, technically design publishers for review in this issue, in daring and difficult to achieve. During this competition for the renamed Book Award. After period of slow economic growth and limited a summer of intense reading, the review panel development, the bridging and meanwhile will recommend a winner to be announced in value of art becomes very pertinent, and it February 2014. has the potential to keep relationships with local people alive. This issue also reveals the • Louise Thomas significant role of the client as the commissioner of art, from King’s Cross with the opportunities associated with having a single ownership and management body, to Ashford, Stranraer and Coventry where time alone can reveal the degree of commitment and understanding that underpins the initial brief.

Urban Design Group Editorial Board Design Chairman Paul Reynolds Matthew Carmona, Tim Catchpole, Richard trockenbrot (Claudia Schenk and Anja Sicka) Patrons Irena Bauman, Alan Baxter, Cole, Alastair Donald, Tim Hagyard, www.trockenbrot.com Sir Richard MacCormac, Dickon Robinson, Joe Holyoak, Sebastian Loew, Jane Manning, Helle Søholt, Lindsey Whitelaw and John Chris Martin, Malcolm Moor, Judith Ryser, Printing Henry Ling Ltd Worthington Louise Thomas © Urban Design Group ISSN 1750 712X

Office Editors Advertising enquiries Urban Design Group Louise Thomas (this issue) Please contact UDG office 70 Cowcross Street and Sebastian Loew Material for publication London EC1M 6EJ [email protected] Please send text by email to the Tel 020 7250 0892 [email protected] editors, Images to be supplied at a Email [email protected] Book Review Editor high-resolution (180mm width @300dpi) Website www.udg.org.uk Jane Manning preferably as jpeg

2 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Update

Events TREES IN THE PUBLIC REALM – 5 JUNE 2013 Speakers: Martin Kelly, Director Land The following talks, seminars and debates Planning, Capita Symonds and Chair have been organised by the UDG and held at Trees and Design Action Group; Keith The Gallery, Cowcross Street, London. Below Sacre, Barcham Trees; and Toyubar are the most recent events recorded by Ur- Rahman, Association of Town & City banNous and available to watch again on the Management UDG website, thanks to the generous support This event explored the importance and value of Fergus Carnegie. of urban trees, and the practicalities of tree planting, including staking and the need for suitable soils, especially as trees can help to create high quality places and shop- ping streets that will attract residents and businesses.

SMART PHONES: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR URBAN DESIGN & URBAN LIFE – 19 JUNE 2013 Speakers: Ian Ralph, Alan Baxter Associates; Robert Huxford, UDG Director; Gareth Sumner, Transport for London; Jo McKiernan, Derby City Council; Anna Anastasiou, Urban Designer at Dar Al Handasah; Andrew Stuck, Director, Rethinking Cities Ltd A new angle for urban design, this event looked at the wide range of smartphone apps that are transforming people’s use of the public realm and design practice. It included reviewing the sensors that make smartphones so adaptable, the impact on public transport through better route planning, and the infra- structure needed for intense smartphone use.

URBANISM IN CHINA: LIVEABLE CITIES – TUESDAY 9 JULY 2013 Speakers: Jaya Skandamoorthy, BRE; Eugene Dreyer, ystudio; Lise Bertelsen, Executive Director, China-Britain Business Council; Iris Cai, Positive Speaking; Isabella Yi Zhang, MY Architects This afternoon seminar looked at practical design issues and working practices in China, comprising the use of BREEAM, doing business in China, its culture and customs, includ- ing Feng Shui, and how to make good use of Chinese experience for projects in the UK.

CHINA IN FLUX Speakers: Alastair Donald, Future Cities Project; Dr Ying Tian, John Thompson and Partners; Darryl Chen, Hawkins\ Brown; Ed Parham, Space Syntax; Michael Owens, University of Salford; with Gerard Maccreanor, Maccreanor Lavington for the discussion session This later evening event examined the design opportunities and challenges in contempo- rary China, the use of Space Syntax, and the role of urban design in the new economy. The discussion contrasted the Chinese govern- ment’s practice of making decisions and then establishing a construction programme, and the long-standing UK government’s practice of making decisions and then establishing a commission. China is a force to be acknowl- edged in international urbanism. • Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 3 Update

Events, Media & UDG Patrons Urban Design Group’s Communications The UDG’s patrons have continued to give Annual General Amanda Reynolds has led the UDG’s events their support, and will be more closely group for the last year, with an ambitious involved in the awards. Lindsey Whitelaw has Meeting programme of well attended events, which is made significant contributions as a judge and a clear indication of the UDG’s continued im- presenter for the 2012-13 awards, topic editor The Gallery, London 24 June 2013 portance as a centre for urban design debate. for an issue of the journal, and leading an A great debt of gratitude is owed to Fergus event on it in November. Carnegie who continues to voluntarily record As Paul Reynolds, the UDG’s Chair was away events at Cowcross Street, making them Urban Design Study Tour on honeymoon, Treasurer Colin Pullan pro- available online. This is a great resource and The UDG organised a study tour in May 2013 vided a brief report on the group’s financial archive for members nationally, and we will to the Conquistador Towns in western Spain position. The accounts for 2012-13 illustrate support Fergus’ work by developing the UDG’s to find resemblances between the home that it has been a difficult year, with funds own internet and social media presence. towns of the Spanish conquistadors and the significantly down on last year. This was to be towns they founded in the New World. expected, with subscription rates remain- National Conference 2012 ing unchanged for nine years, expenditure The UDG’s 30th Annual Conference was Research Initiative continuing to increase and significant invest- held in Oxford, in collaboration with Oxford The UDG’s second research initiative was ments being made over the past 12 months. Brookes University’s Joint Centre for Urban launched in autumn 2012 with £5,000 avail- However, steps will be taken over the coming Design (JCUD), celebrating its 40th anniver- able for applied research looking at the year to redress the downward trend. sary. The three day event was the UDG’s larg- positive impact of good urban design. Fifteen est and most successful conference of recent submissions were initially received with Review of Membership years and addressed The Value of Urban three shortlisted and invited to provide more Categories, Rates & Benefits Design. Louise Thomas and Georgia Butina- detail. After much deliberation, the fund A sub-group of the Executive Committee led Watson assembled fifty speakers to look at was awarded to Bridging the Gap which will by Paul Reynolds had conducted a review of financial, social and environmental issues, address house builders’ attitudes to urban membership categories, subscription rates, and consider how to convey this to clients design; the team is Louise Thomas, Ivor packages and benefits. The proposals so and decision-makers. Samuels and Richard Hayward and the work far, including a subscription increase of £10 should help to establish fruitful relationships for UK standard individuals and concession Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture between the UDG and the house building members (rising to £50 and £30 respective- The 2012 Kevin Lynch Memorial Lecture community. ly), were summarised and will be imple- featured the team behind Responsive Envi- • mented over the coming months. Changes ronments, who had won the UDG Lifetime to practice rates and benefits are yet to be Achievement Award. Sue McGlynn, Ian Bent- Financial Review 2013 finalised; full details of any changes will be ley and Graham Smith discussed the book’s Totals announced in due course. impact and the development of their ideas INCOMING RESOURCES since its publication. Subscriptions £75,656 Urban Design & The Directory Publications and Awards £32,856 2013-15 UDG Regions Donation from Urban Design The Editorial Board was congratulated on its Colin Munsie is now the UDG’s Vice-Chair for Services Ltd £4,731 consistently excellent output in the journal the regions supporting activity around the UDSL Contribution to Office Costs £5,000 and significantly this year, the publication of UK. The UDG is indebted to volunteers who Activities to Generate Funds the new Urban Design Directory, edited by run events and meetings locally, for example: Interest Received £1,003 Louise Thomas, which provided a snap-shot • Scotland – co-convenors Francis Newton Inland Revenue: Gift Aid £4,120 of urban design skills, services and projects. and Jo White lead meetings in both Ed- Miscellaneous Income £580 It featured a record number of 48 subscrib- inburgh and Glasgow, and the UDG’s first TOTAL INCOMING RESOURCES £118,946 ing practices, 14 new and familiar educa- event in Dundee tion courses, plus a section for 20 smaller • East Midlands – Stefan Kruczkowski and RESOURCES EXPENDED practices / independent designers. It is the Laura Alvarez are preparing for a monthly Charitable Expenditure largest and most profitable edition of the lecture series in the autumn leading up to Publications & Awards £49,676 Directory so far and it has been distributed to the 2014 conference in Nottingham General £86,312 around 6,000 individuals and organisations, • South (Solent) – knowledge-sharing Development Expenditure £5,000 including developers, house-builders and meetings are held every other month in Governance costs (accountancy) £1,116 local authority contacts. the Solent, Hampshire and Dorset area, co-ordinated by Peter Frankum (Savills) TOTAL RESOURCES EXPENDED £142,104 National Urban Design Awards • North West – led by Emma Zukowski (Tur- NET (EXPENDITURE)/INCOME Over 50 submissions were received in 2012 ley Associates) FOR THE YEAR (£23,158) across four award categories (Practice, Public • North East – Georgia Giannopoulou (Uni- Sector, Student and Publisher) and the award versity of Newcastle) and colleagues are FUND BALANCES presentation evening in February was the preparing for the 2013 annual conference BROUGHT FORWARD £123,423 biggest to-date attracting 200 people to the in Newcastle FUND BALANCES Royal Overseas League, London. The event • South Wales – Serena Yao (Powell Dobson CARRIED FORWARD £100,265 was sponsored by Routledge, Studio REAL, Urbanists) and Jessica Richmond (White URBED, and the Francis Tibbalds Trust. Work Young Green) host events with Univer- CURRENT ASSETS £139,458 has begun on the 2013-14 awards led by Noha sity of Cardiff and CREW (Centre for CURRENT LIABILITIES £39,194 Nasser as Chair of the UDG Awards Group. Regeneration Excellence in Wales), and a TOTAL NET ASSETS £100,265 newsletter.

4 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Update The Urban Design Library # 9 William H Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Project for Public Spaces, 1980)

Part of a wider research project called The Street Life Project, this book was accompa- nied by a film of the same name. William H Whyte (WHW) refers to the book as a manual for creating successful and interesting public spaces that people want to use. His findings were based on observational research – get- ting out there and looking at people – as well as on the ground-breaking use of time-lapse photography in New York. It is this aspect that makes the research so interesting; WHW was one of the first to conduct field research in this way, taking urban design to the streets. Our established theories, planning policies and design flare were all tested and challenged to give greater insight into how people actually use and want to use space. There is no doubt that this is a fantastic manual, and every urban designer should have a thorough understanding of WHW’s work. But we should not be afraid to ask if as a design manual it is still relevant today? The answer to this has to be yes, but it is worth of major importance to successful public ‘ordinary’ people who could use the place, exploring the shift in attitudes and public spaces but is often contentious in the design only serving to delight the pot dealers, who behaviours over the past few of decades. process today: people worry that adding now had it much to themselves and their cus- WHW speaks about how public space brings seats in public spaces will simply attract oth- tomers’. To my mind it is these sections of the people together, not only providing places ers to sit there and drink alcohol all day. Yet book – using evidence to dispel fears – that for friends to meet and chat, but also for there are plenty of examples to the contrary. offer great lessons for us today. strangers to enjoy the company of the crowd. Brighton’s New Road is a good example where It was Paul Goldberger who said that Of course friends still meet in public spaces, a huge amount of seating attracts people ‘WHW believed the greatest lesson the city but to our detriment, the idea that we should to sit and enjoy the space, oblivious to the has to offer us is the idea that we are all in interact with strangers seems more outdated. drinking community in one corner who used it together, for better or for worse, and we As revealed in the book and especially by to dominate the space due to the overall have to make it work’. Call me a romantic, but the film, at the time of these investigations, lack of seating. WHW is still right to say I think our urban realm could be unrivalled people for the most part, remained relatively that ‘the most popular places tend to have if we took this lesson on board and created comfortable in the presence of strangers. considerably more sitting space than the less places that attracted everyone and every- There may have been other reasons for this: well used ones’, and ‘places designed with thing, rather than cherry-picking the ele- New York’s plazas were full of very similar distrust get what they were looking for, and it ments that we think we want. Instead what people, perhaps colleagues from the towers is them ironically, where you will most likely we get are stale urban spaces. above. Nevertheless, in a big bustling city like find someone drinking’. This book is a classic in the urban design London we rarely see such ease of interaction Digging a little deeper into WHW’s canon and can give us great insight into today, suggesting that people are less trust- research, an interesting parallel jumps out: people’s behaviour in the urban realm. It can ing of others. the book has a section on ‘Undesirables’, one aid the design process greatly, and help us to Consequently, even the most common- of the first urban design research projects to realise what we really should be focussing on: place interactions now seem more difficult; focus on the issue. It is the discussion con- creating fun, inclusive and useable spaces. people sit by themselves and use a bag to cerning fear and nervousness in the public Christopher Martin, Urban Designer + Planner block the adjacent seat, effectively saying realm which is still relevant and something •at Urban Movement ‘keep your distance’; or achieve the same we must increasingly address. Fear and nerv- effect by plugging in iPod headphones, di- ousness can play too great a role in delivered Read On minishing opportunities for spontaneous in- schemes, and fear can dictate how many Goffman E (1963) Behavior in Public Places: Notes teraction. The collapse of these spontaneous benches we have, which areas are gated off, on the Social Organisation of Gatherings (Free exchanges creates a very different context and how many tired signs we see: No Ball Press) Gehl J (1980) Life Between Buildings: Using Public for public space design today. Unfortunately Games, No Loitering, No Skating (ie. No Fun). Space (Island Press reissued 2011) it can lead to over-designed spaces which For Whyte ‘the best way to alleviate this Jacobs A (1993) Great Streets (MIT Press) attempt to compensate for what in fact are fear is to make places attractive to everyone’ social changes. and to every activity; this is illustrated in an However this manual remains very rel- account of one plaza ‘where pot dealers be- evant, and we should still look into it when gan operating’. As a result ‘half the benches thinking about and designing spaces. WHW were taken away, and fences constructed on highlights the importance of sitting. This is two sides… [this] cut down the number of

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 5 Urban Design Interview

Urban Designer at Jackson Teece Architects The Urban Design in Sydney, Australia. Interview: What does Education Urban Design mean Between 2000-2003 I studied the BA Hons Urban Studies and Planning course at the to me? University of Sheffield, UK. In 2006 I studied Michael Cowdy the Masters of Arts in Urban Design at Newcastle University, UK.

Ambitions Current position and work To be a world recognised design leader. Associate & Sydney Urban Design leader at McGregor Coxall in Sydney, Australia. Specialisms Providing specialist expertise in strategic Past experience development frameworks, residential master Senior Urban Designer at the international planning, city/town centre master planning, multi-disciplinary company, EDAW streetscape design, project managing Manchester, UK. After four years at EDAW multi-disciplinary teams and business I moved to Australia and worked as a Senior development.

↑ Close and Compact – My upbringing in Crosby, ↑ Urban Regeneration – Liverpool’s Albert Dock ↑ Culture & Art – Hockney inspired me to un- Liverpool, embedded the importance of walkable transformation in the 1980s exposed me to the derstand design’s role in composing the urban access to local centres. evolving and transitory nature of cities. environment. [Source: D.Hockney, 1985]

↑ Urban Understanding – My thesis allowed me to ↑ Multi-cultural Influences – Visiting Malmö ↑ Places for People – Jan Gehl’s study of Sydney investigate and understand the design processes reinforced my belief in diverse high density family CBD is shifting attitudes to a more people- involved in urban regeneration. living within urban districts. focussed urban environment.

↑ Enhancing the Unique – Parramatta River ↑ Resilience – New York competition builds ↑ Incrementalism – Maitland High Street (Australia) (Australia) design re-orientates the city back to its environmental and social resilience through revives the local economy through targeted urban greatest asset, the river. [McGregor Coxall] climate change adaptation. [McGregor Coxall] design strategies. [McGregor Coxall]

6 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 International Using Regional Rail Lines for Local Transit Michael A. Richards describes commuter rail plans for Vermont

↙ Rail with Trail idea with utilities: a multi-use corridor ↓ Proposed U shaped rail route, with Burlington in the north west. ↓↓ Residential density in relation to the rail route. Both maps courtesy of Vermont Center for Geographic Information

Context or pedestrian connections to its stations, Although Vermont is one of the less low population densities in the rail populated states in the USA, it still has corridor, and poor marketing. However, development sprawl and automobile 10 years later, there is renewed interest congestion. This is especially evident in commuter rail options in Vermont, due along US Routes 7 and 2 in Chittenden to local concerns about global climate County, where peak traffic turns a 7-mile change, congestion and high petrol prices. commute into 45 minutes of bumper- to-bumper idling. In 2011, Vermont Regional Connections had 574,983 registered vehicles to a The map shows a proposed new commuter population of 626,592, or 918 vehicles per route around the county with two primary need to be connected by pedestrian- 1000 people. The US average was about sections east and west. This U-shaped oriented streets within a five minute walk 786 vehicles per 1000 people. Public configuration allows trains to either run (¼ mile radius) of a station, and short- transportation only accounts for 0.8 the entire length of the route, passing haul transit systems for neighbourhoods per cent of commuter travel in Vermont, each other in Burlington (in the north further away. with the vast majority (77.8 per cent) by west), or more frequent trains that only car, truck or van. The Transportation run on part of the route. The line would Pedestrian Connections to Research Center at the University of unite six universities and colleges and Transit Vermont has reported that this sector is provide connections to the Burlington Today’s pedestrians suffer with poor the largest consumer of energy and source International Airport, the Essex Amtrak weather, dangerous street crossings, slow of greenhouse emissions in the state, station, plus major employers and speeds, air and noise pollution, limited compared to residential, commercial and destinations such as IBM, Fletcher-Allen accessibility, plus challenging terrains. industrial sectors. Health Care and Fanny-Allen Health Care. New street designs need to provide In 2000-3, the Vermont Railway dedicated lanes for walking and cycling, company (VTR) operated the Champlain Population Density separated from the street with a curb, a Valley Flyer as a 12-mile commuter train Chittenden County as a whole is relatively vegetative strip or street trees to provide from Charlotte, VT to Union Station in dense compared to state or national adequate safety from traffic. Where this Burlington as a pilot programme to reduce averages, with 157,491 inhabitants in 539 is not possible, a guardrail can be used, traffic congestion along Route 7. Ridership square miles. However this density does along with different surface materials for was projected at 214,562 passenger trips not relate to the existing rail line, which different modes of transport. Pedestrians annually generating more than $160,000 runs along the county’s periphery, making also need the routes over or under roads in revenue. Instead, the train only it difficult to attract riders more than to be safe and uninterrupted to the train attracted about 83,000 riders annually a mile from the rail line: park and ride stations, with adequate space for lifts, and $53,000 in its last year of operation. options would take longer than driving bike stair rails, ramps for people with The Flyer had few regional or local transit into Burlington. Instead communities disabilities, and good lighting.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 7 International

← Congestion along routes US 7 and US 2 ↙ Examples of a pedestrian tunnel and bridge ↙↙ A transit station without and with mixed use development

For every mile travelled, points can be redeemed for further travel or goods and services, such as Amtrak’s Guest Rewards programme. A similar model could be implemented for the commuter rail system and coordinated with Vermont’s businesses to stimulate the local economy. The state can also work with local employers to provide tax incentives for promoting train ridership. For example, the Cook County Regional Transportation Authority in Illinois implemented a Transit Ridership Incentive Program (TRIP) that provides up to $1,700 to Cook County businesses that enrol employees in a pre- tax transit benefit programme; commuters can buy their transit fares from their pre-tax income, thereby lowering their taxable income. This reduces the cost of commuting by 30-40 per cent for commuters, and employers receive $10 for each employee enrolled (up to 50 employees). Chapel Hill, North Carolina implemented a fare-free system in 2002 for bus transit, which was essentially Another strategy to connect of these systems share an automated pre-paid by property taxes and vehicle pedestrians to rail transit is to run movement, and so no conductor is needed. registration fees. The University of North pedestrian paths in the same right-of- Cabins can also be added or removed Carolina also purchases passes for all of its way as the transit. The Rails-to-Trails according to demand, or called on students and employees. Even though it is Conservancy refers to this as ‘rails with demand. AGT systems can be constructed not technically free, the fare-free system trails’, as opposed to the more familiar at grade, below ground or elevated. This is has increased ridership from 3 million ‘rails to trails’ idea, whereby abandoned the preferred option separating it from the passengers a year to 7 million. rail corridors are converted into places street traffic below, making it easier and and pathways. This exclusive right-of way cheaper to construct, and offering better Conclusion offers the same benefits for pedestrians views for passengers. The consumption of natural resources as it does for the transit system – an for cars, roads and car parking has uninterrupted line of travel separate Mixed Use Development erased much of our natural landscape, from traffic. This shared corridor also Failing commuter rail lines are often and reversing this trend is imperative. promotes multi-modal travel, increasing associated with a lack of development Fixed-guideway transit systems have train ridership, walking and cycling. at the stations. This can redefine the the potential to improve urban form by There still needs to be an adequate buffer station from being merely a platform to clustering development around stations, between pedestrians and trains using an attraction in itself – an activity node, preventing sprawl and conserving land. fencing, vegetation, berms, ditches, grade combining residential, commercial, and As Roxanne Warren points out in The separation. recreational uses. Planning for mixed Urban Oasis (1998) ‘One should not have use development requires input from to choose between life in a compact, Short-Haul Transit the community, politicians and local potentially sociable and mutually Connections businesses, and at the county scale calls supportive urban setting, and a benign Beyond this ¼ mile radius area, short-haul for each transit node to be unique, with and green environment. These two highly transit by bus, trolley, and automated the system connecting different activities. desirable components of the good life guideway transit system (AGT) can It is imperative that each place’s specific need not be mutually exclusive; with some be used. Fixed guideway systems are activities are promoted to the community. adjustments to our thinking and planning preferable due to their reliability and they could, in fact, be paired.’ sense of permanence, so that development Marketing Michael A Richards, Facilities Analyst, Campus clusters around them. AGT systems can be In addition to this activity-based •Planning Services, University of Vermont continuously moving - a moving sidewalk; marketing, there must be incentive- or semi-continuous, where the cabin or marketing to build and maintain ridership vehicle detaches from a cable and slows levels. One incentive-based model is the down at stations; or even discontinuous, frequent-flyer miles programme offered where the cabin stops at stations. All by airlines and credit card companies.

8 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic Urban Design and the Artist

When I was invited to select a topic to guest edit for this issue and proposed Urban Design and the Artist, I was reminded that public art had been featured before in October 2000. Would there be too much of an overlap? For those of you old enough to remember that issue, it is clear that things have definitely moved on. It was around that time when one of my clients declined to appoint an artist to the team saying ‘if it’s pretty and it’s useless, it’s art… you can do that.’ Needless to say, I did not, and public art commissioning has changed dramatically since then. Artists are increasingly embedded in multi and but was withdrawn after Haringey interdisciplinary design teams and Council successfully claimed that it contribute to shaping our urban belonged to the local community. environment whilst not necessarily When it re-emerged for auction in producing ‘Public Art’. London in June this year, the local The following articles are intended MP Lynne Featherstone urged the to broaden our perceptions of how owners of the mural to return it to artists engage and contribute to the the residents of north London saying urban environment, and in so doing ‘You have deprived a community of contribute to the debate on what is an asset that was given to us for free public art. and greatly enhanced an area that This debate has recently been needed it’. Although there was no fuelled by the furore over Banksy’s Certificate of Authenticity, without mural Slave Labour, which appeared which artworks are supposedly just before the Queen’s Diamond valueless, the piece sold on for Jubilee in 2012 on the side of the £750,000. One can only infer that Poundland shop in Wood Green. the building’s freeholders also took It was very popular with the local it upon themselves to deprive the community and also became a tourist community. Judging by the ghastly attraction. In February 2013 it was frame which surrounded the work at ↑ Felice Varini’s Across the mysteriously hacked off the wall and auction they have no appreciation of Buildings using aluminium tape on building facades. appeared briefly in a Miami auction, aesthetics either. Photograph by John Sturrock

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 9 Topic

All of this reinforces the view of pragmatic and scientific realm of French guerrilla graffeur JR that part the engineer. A new approach is of the work is the conversation that required to ensure that we learn from follows. JR has been described as successful collaborations. a kamikaze image maker, a street Urban designer and architect artist and photographer. He produces Rachel Simmonds presents a case giant images pasted on the sides or study of Castle Square in Stranraer, roofs of buildings and claims that Scotland, which demonstrates a ‘all the world’s a canvas’. His work seamless integration of art and crosses borders and boundaries, and landscape in the public realm. stimulates debate and community Coventry’s Phoenix Initiative has building. Funded by his 2011 TED been held up as a flagship for art- prize, his People’s Art Project Inside led regeneration, as featured in the Out demonstrates the power of the October 2000 issue. Since then it has image and the role that art can play been both commended (by the Civic in transforming communities. Trust among others) and subjected Our contributors here include to vociferous criticism. Architect Neil artist and curator Michael Pinsky who Deely revisits Coventry to explore with Stephanie Delcroix has been how it has withstood the passage of employed to create a cohesive artistic time. programme for the King’s Cross area. Landscape architect Johanna He describes how artworks located Gibbons and artist Katherine Clarke in the public realm need to create engage in conversation which ‘an in-betweeness that removes takes as its starting point the the viewer from the everyday’. The Landscape Institute’s Duty of Care. construction process itself, which will They explore the subject from their take a generation to complete, has own disciplines and discover much to bring positive value to the area. common and parallel ground. Rosie This is being achieved through the Freeman, performance artist and artistic programme. Graham Roberts writer, explores the more ephemeral, and Andrew Knight of RKL Consultants transitory interventions which expand on the definition of public invariably leave a lasting impression. art and their role as public art Finally prompted by the consultants. apocryphal tale of the lighting Structural engineer Mark Whitby designer who did not win a is the only one of our contributors commission as he was not an to imply some tension over the artist, Satu Streatfield explores the ownership of ideas in his poetic essay boundaries between art, lighting on the symbolic and sculptural value design and light art. Kat Martindale of bridges. David Taylor of Urban reviews the link between sport and Engineering Studios explores the art, and the legacy aspirations transport and highway engineer’s attached to it. perspective. He questions how the Lindsey Whitelaw, founding partner of Whitelaw more lateral free-thinking approach •Turkington Landscape Architects and now a landscape and of the artist can work within the more public realm consultant

10 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic Kings, Swings, Pings, Wings and Rings Michael Pinsky creates small fish in a big pond

London is saturated with art. Galleries spring out of swing brought a surprisingly playful and human every recess. However, art that we encounter as we element to the industrial scale of the development. flow through the streets is a much rarer find. The IFO sat on Goods Way. This street, which was challenges posed to artists and curators working in epitomised in Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa by pimps and big cities are quite different to those presented in prostitutes, was transformed into a space where small and medium sized towns. Where art can kick- children and adults alike could take turns on the start a cultural agenda for smaller cities, in London swing and gently absorb their new surroundings. it is drowned in the maelstrom of cultural activity. The artist Richard Wentworth has lived for In this context, curation needs to be distilled, decades around King’s Cross and his ongoing focusing on a small pool of projects that offer series of photographs Making Do and Getting London something particular and distinctive. By often focus on this area. Just over ten years King’s Cross is a rapidly growing new slice of before any visible redevelopment, he took over the inner London. In under a decade it is changing from defunct General Plumbing Supplies site to create redundant warehouses, clubs, drugs and prostitutes an installation called An Area of Outstanding into an intriguing mix of shiny offices and Victorian Unnatural Beauty, dominated by a series of ping- industrial buildings. Central Saint Martins College pong tables marked with street names from King’s of Arts and Design, Google, Camden Council, and Cross. For this reason it seemed to be entirely BNP Paribas are all taking up residence there. As appropriate to invite Richard to consider the site the King’s Cross vacuum progressively fills, the plug again, now the development was well underway. has been pulled out of the dam. People and ideas are Richard Wentworth then collaborated with the flooding in. Whilst in most towns momentum needs young Swiss architectural practice GRUPPE to to be created, in King’s Cross, the torrent of creative create Black Maria. They occupied the immense energy is overwhelming . atrium which conjoins the historical Granary Building and the new Central St Martins College The RELAY Programme designed by Stanton Williams. Though in many The King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership, the ways the space feels like the Tate Modern’s turbine tripartite force behind the development, employed hall, in practice it functions more like a town the curators Michael Pinsky and Stephanie Delcroix square. Black Maria was not only a temporary to create a cohesive artistic programme for the structure in which an auditorium was embedded area. Their programme RELAY opened with a within a vast billboard-like structure, but it also nomadic work by the artist/architect Jacques Rival. hosted a multitude of events. As such, the nature He dreamt up Identified Flying Object (IFO), an of this installation probed every complexity of the oversized birdcage containing a swing which could site: where can you make things? How much noise be used by the public. The structure was designed can you make? Who owns the space? Who insures not only to be moved, but to be hung from one of the space? How do you switch the lights off? How the many cranes working on the development. The do you keep warm?... In almost every case, this suspension of the cage emphasized the dramatic was first time that these questions had been asked shifts of scale happening on the site, from small and answers needed to be found. At the most additions of street furniture to the concrete lift fundamental level it tested the flexibility of the ↑ Felice Varini’s Across cores towering overhead. The cage was first space both in terms of the architecture and in terms the Buildings applied aluminium tape to many located in a desolate part of the site surrounded of its management. Interesting spaces are not only different building facades. by construction work. Its rotating rainbow of light visually engaging, but also allow the unexpected All photographs by John acted as beacon drawing in passersby, and the and the unusual to happen. Black Maria pushed Sturrock

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 11 Topic

site is being managed by one developer. Although there are many occupiers, including Central St Martins, Argent, Arts Fund and Waitrose, they all lease their premises from the King’s Cross partnership. Felice Varini projected geometric forms at night using a very large and antiquated PIGI projector which worked as an incredibly powerful overhead projector. He then marked out the projected shapes in pencil and filled in the spaces with silver foil. The process was laborious and painstaking but the results are truly remarkable.

The construction process of development needs to bring a positive value to the area. People find the activity of building itself fascinating and exhilarating

THE PRODUCTION PROCESS The commissions reflect the dynamism of the construction in King’s Cross. Since the development will take a generation to complete, the planners need to be acutely aware of not just the final scheme but how King’s Cross comes into being. The construction process of the development needs to bring a positive value to the area. People find the activity of building itself, fascinating and exhilarating. Likewise the commissions’ production processes have been visible to the public, taking on a performance quality. With the Richard Wentworth project, wood was brought to the site and GRUPPE constructed Black Maria over the period of a month. For students coming into Central St Martins daily, the growing structure engendered a sense of anticipation as they saw how the structure was cut and assembled. Again with Across the Buildings, both the night-time projection and the gradual application of tape to the buildings suggested a large-scale choreographed dance using cranes and cherry pickers. Unlike a gallery where the work is revealed at the opening, the production process needs to be considered from when the first materials appear in-situ. Artworks located in the public realm need to create their own conceptual and aesthetic space in which the work can be placed, an in-betweenness that removes the viewer from the everyday: Rival’s swing is framed by the birdcage creating a zone of playfulness more akin to fairy tales than building sites; Varini’s geometries, when seen in alignment appear to float off the buildings into an immeasurable third plane, hovering as if a winged origami form, between the viewer and the cityscape; while Wentworth’s auditorium, framed and supported by plywood panels and timber these boundaries, laying the foundation for future scaffold, suspends the audience in a space that ↑ Jacques Rival’s Identified possibilities. hangs between being observed and observing. Flying Object (IFO), an oversized birdcage Spanning the entire site north of Regent’s for swinging over the Canal, Felice Varini’s Across the Buildings uses a PLUNGE construction area of King’s significant part of the King’s Cross development as This in-betweenness was also explored in Michael Cross its canvas. Although Varini has undertaken some Pinsky’s public intervention Plunge which encircled ↑↑ Richard Wentworth and modest commissions in England, the scale of this a number of London’s historical monuments with the architectural practice GRUPPE created Black Maria work is unprecedented. Gaining permission to an illuminated blue ring, showing the predicted ↑↑↑ Varini’s Across the apply aluminum tape to so many different building sea level in 3111. At one level, Plunge extended Buildings facades was only possible because the whole of the an imaginary line from monument to monument

12 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic across central London, placing the viewer deep proved to be much easier to surmount than the ↙ Michael Pinksy’s Plunge at below the water’s surface; at another level the political manoeuverings which were necessary the Seven Dials monument, illumination suggested a protective shell proposing to gain permission for such an installation. Some Covent Garden that we still have the chance to change this councils like Camden were surprisingly easy predicament. to deal with;Westminster was more difficult but accessible and finally persuadable, whilst CREATING THE JOINTS the City Corporation’s bureaucracy was utterly Like the King’s Cross commissions, Plunge impenetrable. This is the real London dilemma – functions both as an individual sculpture and as how to create a big fish in the big pond – when in a network. IFO joins together locations, Black fact the big pond is just a series of interconnecting Maria joins together communities, Across the small ponds. Buildings joins together architecture and Plunge • joins together topography. This practice of joining the dots is really at the heart of London’s political structure, for although the visitor experiences London as a cohesive whole, it really does not function as a city at all. Rather it is a medley of • Michael Pinsky, a squabbling villages. Plunge was exposed to the full British artist who explores the issues that shape and ebb and flow of this bureaucratic dynamic. Each influence the use of our monument was in a different council area with public realm in the role one – Nelson’s Column – under the jurisdiction of artist/ urban planner/ of the Greater London Assembly. There were activist/ researcher and many technical challenges in mounting and resident. Relay: www.kingscross. providing power to the rings whilst demonstrating co.uk/relay-and-the-kings- that there would be no lasting impact on the cross-curators structure of the columns. Yet these problems Plunge: plungelondon.com

Bringing Art to the Public Realm Graham Roberts and Andrew Knight explain the contribution of the consultant to the process

In his seminal 1985 essay How Art Becomes Public, Jerry Allen observed ’...the very notion of a ‘public art’ is something of a contradiction in terms. In it we join two words whose meanings are, in some ways, antithetical. We recognise ‘art’ in the 20th century as the individual enquiry of the sculptor or painter, the epitome of self-assertion. To that we join ‘public’, a reference to the collective, the social order, self-negation. Hence we link the private and the public, in a single concept or object, from which we expect both coherence and integrity. This is no idle or curious problem but is central to an issue that has plagued public art in modern times: the estrangement of the public for whose benefit the artwork has been placed’. The then Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of Dallas, Jerry Allen went on to provide a post- modern qualification for public art, i.e. it must serve a socio-environmental function: public art must be made first and foremost for the people, rather than for the aggrandisement of the artist or the commissioner, otherwise it is just private art. Artists are well placed to contribute to the design and social processes employed in restoring life to degraded spaces and creating new ones. Through their lateral thinking and approach to looking at things differently, they are capable of finding,

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 13 Topic

drawing out, and expressing the character and Design Team (IDT) was brokered, which brought stories of a place through their work. Whilst the the knowledge and experience of engineering, notion of private art is most commonly associated landscape design and art into a challenging and with a practice of object making, the artist’s creative marriage. As public art consultants, we approach to public art is effective when focussed on were engaged by KCC to advise on the ways in which ideas about how to make spaces work for the people artists could be engaged in the design process. who live and work in them. The process is thus We developed the artistic briefs, supported KCC more often aligned to a thoughtful approach to the through the selection and appointment of artists to art of place-making. the IDT, and acted as honest brokers throughout the programme. THE CONSULTANT We were excited by the theory of shared space Public art is a challenging and dynamic field as it was a design concept which accepted a degree spanning a range of disciplines from traditional of risk to which artists, through their ability to see sculpture to light and sound installations, things differently, could meaningfully contribute. and social media interventions. The public art We started from a position of considering that consultant or project manager is required to ‘roads no longer merely lead to places, they are negotiate the routes by which these artists are able places’ and ensuring that artists were not simply to collaborate meaningfully with all those interests employed to provide remedial camouflage. engaged in the process of changing and humanising We considered the scope of the work and the urban environment. produced an arts integration strategy entitled Typically, the consultant is called upon to take Breaking Boundaries, wherein sculptor John Atkin a strategic overview of the creative opportunities was appointed to work with landscape architects inherent in capital projects, to provide advice Whitelaw Turkington (WT) on a discrete section of on the nature and type of artwork that might the scheme. Sculptor Simeon Nelson worked with be appropriate, and to advise on the selection WT on Bank Street and the artist Nayan Kulkarni and engagement of suitably qualified artists. was appointed to develop a lighting programme for In some cases the client is responding to a the town centre as a whole. planning condition to be discharged, but in the Nayan Kulkarni’s work was perhaps the most more interesting and effective situations, the radical accommodated within the scheme. In conversation starts much earlier before concepts partnership with fabricators Pinniger, he led the have been crystallised and budgets set in stone. design, specification and implementation of a highway lighting scheme. A bespoke family of ASHFORD lighting columns were designed to enhance the For example, in 2006 Kent County Council’s (KCC) spatial qualities of the new streets and space as a Highways Department embarked upon a bold whole. ← Previous page: Lead artist John Atkin’s work at strategy to transform Ashford’s inner one-way the junction of West Street four-lane ring road into what would become the MEANWHILE WORK and Elwick Road, Ashford. country’s largest shared space scheme. The existing However our role was not constrained simply to All photographs by Graham traffic arrangements were quite literally strangling commissioning permanent works. As a way of Roberts, RKL Consultants the town’s historic centre, divorcing it from raising Ashford’s cultural profile, the opportunity ↑ Simeon Nelson’s Flume on Elwick Road, and Nayan surrounding neighbourhoods and creating a no to work with artists on a number of temporary Kulkarni’s highway lighting in man’s land, while clogging up the town’s arteries. interventions during the construction programme partnership with fabricators In considering how best to turn this vision into had also been proposed. We devised a temporary Pinniger reality, it was recognised by KCC that a radical works brief and, following interviews, the artist ↗ Michael Pinsky’s The Lost design programme, predicated on collaboration Michael Pinsky was appointed as its curator. O temporary works, to mark the demise of the ring road, and open to challenge, would be necessary if the He assembled an audacious and challenging when the Tour de France custom and practice of highway conventions were programme of artists’ works, The Lost O, to mark came through Ashford to be transformed. From the outset, an Integrated the demise of the ring road. This culminated with

14 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic

a weekend of artistic activity in July 2007 when the the time of writing, this seems to have been borne ↖ Guerrilla artworks as part Tour de France came through Ashford. out and local opinion, fearful at the time that shared of The Lost O, Ashford Inevitably, if not purposefully, The Lost O – space would produce traffic mayhem, has been ↑ The travellers have arrived, Sydney by Gillie & enabling art to literally reclaim the streets – was proven wrong. Secondly, that talented artists could Marc Schattner always going to be as contentious and challenging join with other design professionals to bring fresh as the shared space scheme itself. Whilst it provided thinking to the design process and find creative the tabloid press with entertaining copy, it also did solutions to problems. its job; as one passerby commented ‘it has done Earlier this year ixia, the public art think-tank, more for Ashford in four days than has happened published its annual survey of the public art scene. in 10 years’. Michael Pinsky eloquently commented Predictably a shrinking sector was exposed: ‘During ‘So why would the great and good powers of Kent 2012 there was an active and core public art sector permit the art terrorists to plunge through the of at least 1,000 people (20 per cent less than in exhaust filled moat into the heart of Ashford? Why 2011) working within a market with a value of at would artists who have consistently worked at the least £53m (6 per cent less than in 2011)’. However, fringes of society be so enthusiastic about making the survey also noted, thus offering some comfort, this pact with authority? A rare moment has been that developers value public art as something found, a consensus between civil engineers and good to do, which improves the design of the guerilla artists. The act of subversion has been environment whilst performing an important social transformed into an act of synergy. Their enemies function. Indeed some of the most adventurous art are shared’. commissioning has been carried out by the private sector, evident for example in work commissioned by Land Securities in their Whitefriars Development Developers value public art as in Canterbury. They worked with experienced public art consultants who encouraged them to something good to do, which think in a new way about the art. In the words of improves the design of the their development manager, ‘The art is without environment whilst performing an doubt taking people’s experience of the square and Whitefriars to a different level’. In this sense Land important social function Securities’ commitment, encouraged by Canterbury City Council, to investing in the arts, is a reflection on the view that in this world, it is very expensive to At times, Breaking Boundaries was a rocky road, be mediocre. and the bumps along the way tested the resolve of In our exploration of the conundrum of public all those engaged in simply trying that much harder art, we as public art consultants, continue to to make a difference. Aligning the various working develop and apply our knowledge and experience to practices of artists with landscape designers the brokering of creative collaborative relationships and highway engineers (and not forgetting the between artists, other design professionals and whims and demands of local politicians) required the public. A critical component of our practice is tolerance, understanding and a respect for each enabling artists to be engaged creatively in making other’s practice. This is where the consultant’s skills places public, and for their work to be integrated and experience are most needed and most tested. in ways which are not always expected. But why do we do it? Because we remain, despite a cool climate, TESTING THEORIES committed to ensuring that creative capital is The Ashford ring road project tested two theories; invested into improving the environment in which firstly that the shared space design approach would we live and work. As Stella Adler said: ‘Life beats deliver benefits to the town, both commercially down and crushes the soul, art reminds you that you Graham Roberts through easier town centre access for pedestrians have one’. •and Andrew Knight, RKL and, through lower speed limits, to road safety. At • Consultants

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 15 Topic Bridges and the Kinaesthetic of Space Engineer Mark Whitby explores how sculpture and structural forces can be integrated

designers and crafts people to realise new forms born from evolving technology. Often cradled, as if on fingertips, users are prompted to wonder how they are being supported. Designs are pushing the limits of engineering technology and displaying an undoubted challenge to the convention of a safe rigid cage structure. That this has its roots in the development of sophisticated state-of-the-art computer systems, for analysis and fabrication, is potentially subliminal, but symbolic of the age. The freedom for designs to be unrestrained and expressive defines a design movement leading up to the end of the 20th century, with, in the case of London’s Millennium Bridge, obvious consequences. It could be argued that footbridges design themselves, as they are essentially functional, responding to physical, geological and practical criteria. However the opportunity to meet functional requirements whilst developing a form that will provide a dynamic, visually exciting experience is of tantamount importance. This is the kinaesthetic, an aesthetic that comes from the kinetic experience of movement through space, ‘Born of necessity, a bridge becomes over, under or around a structure. predominant, and must have its own identity. While being independent of local design, TWO RED BRIDGES it should harmonise with, transform and Often bridges are a hop across a river or other complement its setting. Its presence cannot space and as such the simplest solution becomes be ignored, and so a bridge, placed in city or irresistible. The question for the designer is how in landscape, is becoming more controversial. far they can stray from this without torturing Engineers are expected to give reasoned the structure. Practical issues of scale will also answers to all questions.’ influence the solution: small sculptural distortions Santiago Calatrava, 1993 of the main beams holding a deck may develop – growing into expressive structures whose form has The appreciation of the value of bridges as clear engineering logic but remains none the less kinaesthetic forms of symbolic and sculptural sculptural. The Friends Bridge over a backwater value has been subliminally enjoyed for centuries of the River Lea on the Hackney Marshes, East but has also, on occasion, been lost particularly in London is a classic example of this. A simple recent times to more utilitarian demands. Whilst pair of beams, oversized, inclined and painted a-matter-of-fact approach to engineering has Calder red transform it into an item captured by produced beauty, such as the Forth Rail Bridge, the psychographic author Iain Sinclair, ‘You're there is no doubt that it can produce less pleasing travelling in a northerly direction up the River Lea results. When the emphasis has been on managing along one of those fields with multiple football traffic, this has dominated design decisions, and pitches on it, and suddenly at the corner of it is this the need for any gesture towards art gets lost. rather beautiful red steel bridge, amazingly solid, However over the last twenty years, a slow but unlike any other millennium bridge’. progressive movement has developed where the Where before there was a closed gate, the bridge urban environment has been reclaimed for softer has opened up a whole network of paths and roads users such as pedestrians and cyclists. As such, a that wander off secretly across the marshes. ‘It's commensurate re-evaluation of the human values of beautiful and functional, and above all surprising space has evolved. and simple, a place with huge skies and islands and wavering marsh fields behind it’. NEW HUMANISM Another red bridge like this spans a much Within this context the footbridge has become greater distance in Basingstoke over a dual carriage a symbol of a new humanism that engages its way. There, two articulated beams form a structure user in a dialogue. Providing a passage through set against the backdrop of a blank brick wall and space, these structures not only demonstrate a exploits open views to the countryside in the other ↑ Basingstoke Bridge new level of confidence, but also an ability for direction. This bridge sets up a dialogue with both

16 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic the pedestrian using it and the traffic below. As objects, the shape in both cases follows functional engineering logic. In Basingstoke the two beams, which touch tip to tip, have their genesis in the practical considerations for transportation and erection but the form is sculptural, with visual references to the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart. The kinaesthetic of the bridge however comes from the cantilevering of the deck from one side, suspending the beams and the public over the road, a sensation that was originally extenuated with a glass balustrade until maintenance issues made it impractical. That the public is unfazed by such a sensation is new.

CHALLENGING, NOT COMFORTING Perhaps in the past, a need to demonstrate a sense of safety has constrained engineering design, but as the world became accustomed to flight, it also began to trust the engineer of bridges. That these technologies feed on one another is possibly not appreciated. However with the Merchants Bridge in Manchester this sense of faith is tested. Here rather than the comfort of structure, the pedestrian is challenged as the deck is thrown out from the structure and the users supported as if on the tips of fingers. This dynamic sets up a clear rapport with the user, with a slight vibration adding to the sensation. If it were not for the functional requirements of the bridge, this would be kinetic sculpture. But the origins of the design are rooted in natural pedestrian desire lines, and the form from the exceptional engineering backdrop. It adds intrigue and another layer to the heritage of the site with a design that draws on the development of modern flight and a structure that defies common sense engineering. However as scale increases, the scope for intrigue diminishes, and kinaesthetic gestures become necessarily subordinate to more functional requirements, or the self-inflicted tortured structure. An example of the former is the River Lune Millennium Bridge in Lancaster. Set on a sharp bend in the river and on the site of the ancient Roman crossing, this bridge is a direct response to local constraints. Seeking to link the historic quayside and higher level cycle path on the city bank with low lying ground to the north, a bridge has been generated which hops, skips and then jumps over the river. The upper link dips down to accommodate a gang plank that reaches up from the quayside. It rises again to meet the base of the masts and leaps across the river, with just enough clearance to avoid snagging trees swept downstream during major floods. A pair of masts rises up to suspend the deck as it leaps the In Manchester, the arch is stabilised by the arm river to land on the north bank. This underlying acting as cantilevers from the deck, which in return engineering logic also holds true in landscape supports the deck; in York the arch is a segment of terms: the tougher and more expressive side of the the circumference of a circle. Stabilised with radial structure is biased toward the steep more developed wire spokes like a bicycle wheel, the arch becomes southern bank. a minimal structure. This is frontier engineering, The York Millennium Bridge fits within the more creating an aesthetic of fineness where the arch is tortured category. Set on the boundary of the city, ‘like gold to airy thinness beat’. These words are the bridge replaces a ferry that had, for centuries, from John Donne’s poem Valediction Forbidding ↑ Friends Bridge, Hackney served as a crossing, linking two popular pedestrian Mourning, which prophetically ends with ‘Thy Marshes, designed by boulevards running south from the city centre on firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end Ramboll either side of the River Ouse. Here the underlying where I begun.’ ↑↑ Merchants Bridge, Manchester, designed by constraints are less dominant and the form finds its Contextually, the bridge embraces the formal Ramboll origins in a refinement of Manchester’s Merchants landscape turning its back on the wilderness ↑↑↑ York Millennium Bridge, Bridge. beyond. This is an aesthetic aimed at mitigating designed by Ramboll

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 17 Topic

→ River Lune Millennium between spaces and it is successful, but it creates Bridge, Lancaster designed a bench facing north formed from the stiff edge of by Ramboll the deck. Yet this compromise has not stopped the bridge from becoming a major picnic destination at weekends. This bridge sits within the context of constructivist art, with references to Naum Gabo, whose own art had its roots in the spatial mathematical models of the early 20th century. Taken further, this constructivist principle is being applied to the Lower Lea Bridge that is under construction.

INTEGRATED TEAMS Whilst clearly referencing art both in terms of architecture and sculpture, all of the team work on the bridges described was carried out as a single integrated body. Experience with independent architects has highlighted the value of intimate and seamless collaboration. Naum Gabo’s sculpture is described as that of a scientist-sculptor and in some respect these bridges may be described as engineering-sculpture, a fact • Mark Whitby, engineer not lost on a recently appointed professor of the and founder of whitbybird, Royal College of Art who claimed quite fraudulently award-winning bridge and building designers, and now to be the author of one of the bridges and even a director of Davies Maguire the recipient of a major award the bridge itself and Whitby received... •

Art in public spaces David Taylor gives a transport engineer’s perspective

DIVIDED DISCIPLINES? Let's start with a general question: can the freethinking and lateral thought of art be compared with the more pragmatic and scientific realm of engineering? Do these two seemingly disparate schools of thought share any similarities in ambition or process? Or can they be defined as cultural bookends, representing opposing corners of practicality vs aesthetics in the span of our contemporary cultural landscape? Historically, the disciplines of engineering and art were often combined. A hundred years ago, engineers and craftsmen used ingenuity and artistry to create structures and places that were both functional and beautiful, places that, beyond pure structural integrity and functionality, also effortlessly emanated a sense of place. Consider the Victorian railway system, with both its inherent functionality and emotive sense of arrival at every station. Nowadays engineering and art seem to have divided into two separate categories. Engineering has become increasingly pragmatic influenced by law, risk, cost control and the bureaucratic regulation of movement, with little consideration to beauty. When comparing the Victorian railways with more recent engineering projects, such as High-Speed 1, it is easy to see that in modern examples, highly efficient and functional connections have surpassed the importance of

18 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic

aesthetics and the sense of place that can be crafted also be little or no sense of arrival by motorway – by artistic engineering. Equally it is rare to see indicating a lack of beauty and aesthetics within an the pragmatism, functionality and technicality engineered domain. of engineering in public art installations, where At Northala Fields, sitting alongside the A40, engineering is often far from integral to the artist Peter Fink's monumental landforms have conceptual ambitions of the project. The disciplines created a new piece of strategic art and a landmark of engineering and art seem to have discovered and gateway for west London. This land art not many differences. only performs visually but also provides strategic links to a network of routes connecting parks, COMMON GROUND streams and wetlands, whilst dealing with the One could argue that the foremost cause of these impact of the A40 on the surrounding area, such as differences is time. Public art is able to focus on the noise pollution and visual impact. The controlled present, on the immediacy of beauty, materiality, deposition on site was at zero net cost to the location and culture, whereas modern engineers taxpayer and the approach to recycling significantly have arguably become more and more fixated with reduced the capital’s ecological footprint by the future in terms of safety, risk, regulation and avoiding 165,000 lorry journeys to outlying tips. cost. The project is a great example of the marriage of art, Yet public art and urban engineering still engineering, ecology and prudent finance. maintain the same objectives: to enhance and In another project, the once dull and banal improve our public spaces. An important starting arrival into Liverpool at Speke, is now celebrated point towards working together therefore with the Mersey Wave which heralds a sense of is to recognise that these typical differences arrival and recognition of place on the highway. between contemporary art and engineering Complex in its construction and delivery, the 30 lie predominantly in differing approaches, not metre high and 70 metre long gateway is the first of objectives. If these different approaches can be its kind to be experienced both from the car as well recognised and people with different ideas can as from a pedestrian perspective. begin to work together from the beginning of the These projects display a profound union, an process, rather than as an add-on mid-project, true example not only of artists and engineers working integration and innovation could occur. symbiotically, but of both disciplines overcoming From this new joint starting point, art and the challenges and restrictions of working together engineering are well balanced in the evolving design on such a large scale. process. Places small, large, simple and complex will be able to respond to both artistic expression THE NEIGHBOURHOOD SCALE and a creative response to pragmatic restrictions Single objects of art in the street can have a and challenges. Indeed the union of artists and great influence on our sense of place but there engineers has already begun in certain places in the is often little interrelationship between the UK and the following projects show us what can be installation and the wider workings of the city, the learned from successful collaborations at different infrastructure, or how people use, walk through scales. and encounter the greater space. Projects such as Thomas Heatherwick's Blue Carpet in Newcastle REGIONAL AND CITY SCALE SCHEMES show that when street art can be stretched into At the regional and city scale, our motorway something that interacts with the city itself, it can system is an efficient way for us to move around the fundamentally change an aspect of how people country. Yet many factors make a difference to our use and perceive a space and in doing so create perception of our journey and how we comprehend something truly memorable. ← Mersey Wave, Speke by and identify the place we are travelling through. The new public realm at Hope Street in Peter Fink Perceiving a sense of place can be difficult by car. Liverpool also benefits from an integrated ↖ Northala Fields, London, by Peter Fink Road signs are often the only indicator of location, approach to engineering development and public ↑ The Gold Route, Sheffield. journey lengths are measured by anonymous art installation. The street connects the two city Photograph by David junction numbers or traffic speed. There can cathedrals and has formed the backbone for the Millington

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 19 Topic

which form an all but seamless part of the urban fabric. In these spaces, something really special occurs. The experience of space is heightened, yet there is no immediate sense that something extraordinary has happened. The new crossings over the downgraded ring road have a simple elegance and feel as though they are in exactly the right place. They sit comfortably with nothing dramatic about their design and yet form a major connection between the station and the city centre, a fundamental link and lifeblood in this part of the city. Above all, this deceptively simple design demonstrates its integrity most clearly by simply being here today. By doing this, it proves that proposals for elegant, artistic installations designed to improve difficult urban contexts can overcome the huge challenges they face in auditing, management, cost and safety issues. The Cutty Sark Gardens in Greenwich by Okra is another example of invisible art within an urban context. Terraced steps and lush green spaces ripple down towards the newly refurbished Cutty Sark, linking Greenwich's key historical sites by day and transforming into a subtly lit piazza at night, providing a meeting point for locals and ↑ Cutty Sark Gardens, re-invigoration of this neighbourhood. It is full tourists alike. London, landscape by Okra. of vibrancy and life with art, theatres and busy Here again, one of the most difficult things the Photograph by Annie Beugel buildings, and the case history installation by project will have had to tackle is the legislation John King. This shows how a singular piece of art and regulations around public space. Cutty designed within a larger landscape can contribute Sark Gardens is another example of how these as a major node along such a route. pragmatic concerns can be overcome. However, issues on how the space is used on a day-to-day basis still exist, possibly exacerbated by the fact The beauty inherent in a good that the gardens are managed by groups that have piece of engineering can be so not been involved with the design. The success of this place is evident from simple that you do not notice it watching those that use it. Yet, as in so many places, problems are highlighted when for example, at Christmas a beautiful Christmas tree in As projects on these neighbourhood scales the centre of the square is surrounded by ugly, high become more entwined with the creation of place, metal fencing to prevent any accidents. the interrelationships become much more complex. The boundaries between the realms of public TIME FOR INNOVATION art, engineering and urban design occasionally We are currently in the deepest economic become blurred. If large scale public art is to recession known to us all. But unlike other become completely integrated into the design and economic downturns we are not seeing new levels implementation of development within our cities, of innovation coming forward. There are many it needs to be balanced against the criteria inherent reasons for this, but a fundamental one is that in engineering works, such as safety, management, finances are in such short supply that innovation planning processes and risk assessment. is difficult to cultivate in costly, complex urban Additionally, the future management of space projects. needs to be considered from the outset. It is also We need to think in a new direction, of ways that important to highlight the need for collaboration we can innovate and change our processes, leading from project inception onwards. Unless artistic to a new way of creating pleasurable public spaces design embraces these engineering considerations in which there is a balance between disciplines. at the earliest stages, complexity will occur later The lessons of Sheffield, Greenwich, Liverpool and on. Equally, engineering projects must integrate West London need to be learned as we continue to artistic vision from the offset to address and tackle fight for quality in our cities and towns. any challenges that may arise, and avoid any artistic The designs for these places are now well input serving solely as an arbitrary add-on. documented. To make a change for the future, we need to know more about the different processes HIDDEN ART that lie behind each project and each discipline. Art can also be subtle. The beauty inherent in These methods of working can then become a good piece of engineering can be so simple integral to projects from start to finish. Only then that you do not notice it. Sheffield’s Gold Route can the formula for successful collaboration be connects the station to the city centre, and is understood, distributed and used elsewhere in one of the most creative applications of art and the country, and more of our public spaces benefit David Taylor, Director, engineering in an urban landscape. The scheme from the powerful combination of both art and •The Urban Engineering consists of some major interventions at the station engineering. Studio and Peace Gardens but also subtle interventions •

20 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic Castle Square, Stranraer Rachel Simmonds describes working with an artist

In 2009, Smith Scott Mullan Associates were appointed by Dumfries and Galloway Council to produce a Waterfront Masterplan for Stranraer, in the south west of Scotland. One of the key aims of the masterplan was to reconnect the historic town centre with the waterfront. The area around the 16th century A-listed Castle of St John was identified as a key location for these two aims to be addressed. The council was successful in their application to the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Regeneration Fund, and along with some funds of its own, it secured the £2 million needed to undertake the work in what became known as Castle Square. One of the key components of the design of the new square was that some aspects should be undertaken by local artists. From experience of commissioning artists to work with on other projects, it was vital that the areas for collaborative work were recognised at the early design stage, as this was key to integrating these areas into the final scheme. The client’s enthusiasm and support for this must be gained at RIBA Stage C or earlier. Traditionally the commissioning of artwork is more common for works. This was based on the project cost plus an works inside buildings, or possibly external works additional amount for the design and origination such as commemorative statues. The work carried of ideas. Dumfries and Galloway Council was very out in Stranraer was different in that the majority of aware of the benefit such work would have on its it was truly integrated with the landscape design. project, especially in relation to the small amount of additional money it would entail. At the time of the NEW SPACE project’s inception, the council along with Creative The aim of the project was to redevelop the Scotland, gave funding to support the Dumfries and underused public area in Castle Square to create a Galloway Arts Association – an independent arts new public heart for the town. The existing public development agency – which was fundamental in space was being underused due to lack of seating providing a shortlist of potential artists. Following a and a large bank of grass separating the upper series of interviews, Matt Baker was selected as the level around the castle from the main public street lead artist, with a focus on the wall and performance below. The new design altered the levels around space, and David Ralston was responsible for the the castle to create a series of stepped terraces that collection vessel. gave the building more prominence, whilst at the same time creating various levels for activities to WORKING TOGETHER occur. These terraces were separated by three low As architects, it was important that we were not retaining walls that became a series of meandering only on the selection committee but became the forms through the site. This opened up the space main point of contact for the artists. This allowed around the main street as an area where public us to build a strong relationship with them, and events and performances could be held. Within for the collaboration to be successful, it was vital these areas, one of the retaining walls and part of that we understood the artist’s way of working and the performance space were earmarked as areas for they understood our aspirations. It took a number artist collaboration. This, along with the redesign of of weeks of informal, yet intense discussions and a collection vessel for the local rotary club, formed meetings where sketches and models from both the three art commissions. sides were discussed, to result in a set of coherent It was important that the brief for the artist was proposals that could be presented to the client. One kept fairly loose to allow the right level of artistic of the really important aspects of this process was freedom. For this project we simply specified that we were able to expand our expectations for ↖ Castle Square today. that the work had to be related to the history and the scheme, and the artists were able to get input Photograph by Z Kracun geology of the area without being a pastiche or into the construction of the more unusual elements ↖↖ The square before works. Disney like. Works had to complement the palette to assist in making their vision a reality. To this end, Photograph by SSM ↑ George Street today. of materials used in the landscape scheme and be Matt Baker turned a stone-faced retaining wall into Photograph by Z Kracun durable. At the early feasibility stage, a sum was an undulating journey through the south west of ↑↑ George Street before. included in the budget for the creation of these Scotland from the sea to the mountaintop. At one Photograph by SSM

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 21 Topic

stonemasons has resulted in the high quality of the end product. The final result is a series of elements that work together to create a cohesive space that has a strong identity and affiliation with the area. The success of the project has been supported by the increase in users and visitors, which in turn has had an effect on surrounding businesses, including a local café, the owners of which not only repainted their building but now in sunny weather put chairs and tables onto the pavement.

CHANGING STREETS The material palette of granite, concrete and steel echoes that used in the hard landscaping in the square and surrounding streets. This project is one of best examples in Scotland of street design integrating pedestrians and vehicles into a cohesive zone. Previously Castle Street and George Street were characterised by narrow pavements, barriers and defined crossing points. This meant that cars abused the one-way system by speeding around ↑ The view from George end there are chains that reference an anchor, and the area. The new design has removed all barriers Street. Photograph by Z as the wall moves through the site the stones get and reduced the kerb height to 30mm. By using the Kracun larger, terminating in a tree-topped cairn. To link same material as the pavements in certain areas, all of this together he used a poem from local poet the roadway appears narrowed. Entry into these Mary Smith that was carved into the top of the wall new areas is defined by a bold change in materials for people to read as they sat, or children to follow on the road, with the transition zone emphasised as they ran the length of the wall. It beautifully by a semi-circular feature in the roadway. This captures the essence of the piece as it reads: immediately alerts drivers to the change, and the ‘Ocean. Turned inside out, upside down, ocean’s feeling that the road has narrowed, instinctively floor rose into light, seabed became mountain peak, makes them slow down. By blurring the boundaries where peregrines fly and ravens cry.’ between the road and pavements, the dominance of the car is reduced and the pedestrian gains priority. The effect has been that on these roads, This project is a series of elements the traffic naturally slowed to 20mph. People freely cross the street where they like, as the kerb height that work together to create a is not a hindrance to wheelchairs or prams. This cohesive space that has a strong has further enhanced the atmosphere of the square and given it a new vibrancy. The design of the identity and affiliation with the area streets was done in conjunction with Ben Hamilton- Baillie Associates, who are experts in this type of treatment. INTEGRATED MATERIALS AND FORMS In the lower level of paving Baker created a large 12 RECOMMENDATIONS meter-diameter performance space from stainless At the time, this project was the largest artist steel and black polished concrete, which creates collaboration that we had undertaken; since an informal stage area. The bubble feature shape then, several of our projects have also benefited of this is further replicated in the series of bronze from collaboration with specialist glass artists, bosses, located around our burn theme in the photographers and tapestry makers. Throughout all paving. This symbolises the town burn which runs of these, the key factors for success have been: in a culvert beneath the site. This was linked to the • to get the client and funding on board at an early idea that guided our design – that the new works stage would symbolise the hidden foundations and lost • to select an artist that you feel you can work with buildings that were no longer there. Our technical • to ensure that all parties are aware of what is input, along with various trials, assisted in the final expected of them at each stage mix for this visually stunning use of concrete. • to give as much emphasis to fabrication, David Ralston took his inspiration from an installation and maintenance as you give to erratic – a boulder deposited some distance from its concept, and place of origin – and turned it into an inventive and • to never lose sight of the fact that this should be interactive charity collection point. Money dropped an enjoyable process with a specific end-result. into the brass opening, runs down past a series of symbols and creates a sound like water. Brass hoops The success of Castle Square was further assisted set into this one tonne rock make reference to the by the personalities of the people involved, their chains on ships. skills and what they could teach each other. In The input from the contractor, DG First, in the 2011 the project was awarded the Arts and Crafts fabrication and installation phases of the project in Architecture Award from the Saltire Society, was vital in securing a successful outcome. They and the scheme won the Scottish Design Award for became involved in any discussion we had with the Public Realm/ Landscaping. • Rachel Simmonds, Smith artists about how the works would be constructed. •Scott Mullan Associates With the wall aspect in particular, the skill of the

22 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic Burnishing the Phoenix Neil Deely revisits this flagship public art-led regeneration scheme

First, I should confess that I worked at MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (now MJP Architects) before, during and after the Phoenix initiative was delivered, and so I witnessed the early grapplings with what the project was to be, all of the technical challenges, and the engagement of multiple stakeholders. Any of these factors had the potential to defeat a less able client than Coventry City Council. MJP was well known in Coventry, having won the Building of the Year Award in 1992 for the Cable and Wireless Technical Training College on the city’s outskirts. In 1997, Coventry City Council selected the practice in competition with Norman Foster and others, to rethink this problematic city centre area through the Phoenix Initiative, co-funded with the support of the Millennium Commission, Advantage West Midlands and other external sources. The regeneration brief was quite open but the practice was adept at responding to that kind of challenge. Their analytical approach and intellectual rigour were well suited to such a complex project. Very few other practices at the time would have responded with the kind of pluralist thinking, and fewer still had the same level of commitment to and understanding of the role and potency of the artist in the public realm. The project is the largest and most successful example of public art-led regeneration in the country, and it is still the only public realm scheme to have been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. In 2003 it received the RTPI Award for City Regeneration. In commissioning the project, Coventry City Council and its project champion Chris Beck displayed ambition and a can-do spirit that the council still possessed, stemming from the post-war rebuilding of its decimated city. The Phoenix project stainless steel and blue light of the Whittle Arch comprises a £50 million series of new public look undeniably millennial, not surprising perhaps spaces, buildings and public art commissions, given the level of funding that the Millennium which at the time were regarded as a model of good Commission gave to the project. Each piece of the practice. bridge’s 800 cobalt blue glass fins is intact and a few that have been damaged have been quickly TO MILLENIUM PLACE replaced. It all starts at the ring road and The Garden of Arriving in Millennium Place, a BBC Big International Friendship. The fact that this garden Screen, installed for the Olympics, sits on the is not really on any great desire line leaves it a sweeping façade of the Museum of British Road relatively unvisited and reflective place, save for the Transport (MBRT). Regional news clips broadcasts, background white noise of the traffic. The hedges interspersed with scratchy black and white footage and shrubs of Kate Whiteford’s Priory Maze, whilst of Coventry’s manufacturing heyday are delivered beautiful in their early life, have suffered from a to a handful of uninterested teenage skateboarders, combination of visitors creating unintended paths lending a slightly Orwellian tone to a damp Monday through them and the species not really thriving. morning. On Jochen Gerz’s Public Bench, which It is from here that the ‘big dipper’ – Alex underlines the curving north side of the space, the Beleschenko’s blue Glass Bridge – begins atop a vandal-prone budget red plastic plaques originally red sandstone bastion. It launches itself across the installed, have been remade in metal. These have old city wall and Lady Herbert’s garden in a bound held up well, but the redecoration of the wall they and a pirouette to Millennium Place. The bridge are fixed to, will present something of a challenge ↑ The Phoenix Initiative descends into the public space where the zing of to the painters who will eventually be asked by master plan by MJP

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 23 Topic

Coventry City Council to improve its grubby all six faces of the piece have been shattered appearance. by vandals. Two copies of the obelisk were commissioned anticipating a replacement would be CHANGES required. It is not clear whether this is the original It is the recent installation of the Big Screen that or the replacement, but either way the piece looks has perhaps caused the greatest issue. Health and vulnerable. There also appears to be a small tree safety officials advised that for the space to be growing within the glass structure. Proof, if it were used for the large audiences expected to watch the needed, that nature will always prevail in the most screening of the Olympic events, the raised lighting unlikely settings. Does an artist like Gerz quietly bars of the Time Zone Clock, which were surface- enjoy the subversion of his piece in this way? fixed to the plaza paving, were to be covered for The communities that were involved in naming every event. Installing a flat raised floor over the the plaques may not appreciate the monument’s large space for every event was deemed to be current state of disrepair. prohibitively expensive, so the installation was taken up. Now, with the 24 time zone lines of LED TO THE CATHEDRAL lighting strips removed, the disembodied stainless Climbing up from Millennium Place whilst steel disks bearing the names of capital and navigating some newly installed UN-style flag poles twinned cities such as Sarajevo, Cairo and Tripoli, and large, concrete ping-pong ball-shaped traffic lie incongruously scattered across the pock-marked bollards, Priory Place provides a greater sense grey granite flags. of spatial containment with the ageing rendered buildings that flank the square. The sound of falling water generated by Susanna Heron’s Water Window The Phoenix Initiative skilfully ahead provides the next clue to the intended route to the cathedral. threads and completes the It is an understated and well composed disparate fragments of the place arrangement of a white concrete wall and dark grey tiled triangular pool. Its copper linings have left unresolved and unreconstructed gathered a handsome green patina from the falling by the aftermath of the blitz sheet of water – despite a cleaning company’s misguided efforts to scrub it off. Once on the other side of the wall, a small aperture gives the viewer A plaque fixed on the south of the space bears a water-veiled, voyeur’s glimpse of the space they an inscription by the artist of the piece, Francoise were just in. The piece has been well maintained, Schein, ‘Today I wish this work to live as long as the other water features in the city have, and it as time will’. It lasted nine years. The work was remains a powerful piece. originally supposed to be cut into the surface Moving into the Priory Cloister, David Ward’s of the paving, but after value engineering it was whispering Voices of Coventry sound installation planted on top, leading to its eventual vulnerability stands mute. Perhaps the staff at the adjacent to removal. Technical advances in LED lighting visitors centre have simply forgotten to turn it on? may mean that the lines can be reinstalled and Beyond this lies local artist Chris Browne’s Coffar with better interpretation it may once again speak Tree, which consists of arranged archaeological of Coventry’s international connections. This fragments lying in a gravel bed. Unfortunately, important ground-based artwork was the core of as with Kate Whiteford’s maze, the piece has the Phoenix scheme and a way forward should be suffered much unintended foot traffic and appears found to reinstate it. disrupted and scattered. Across the space is Jochen Gerz’s Future Monument. The glass obelisk is a record of LAST LOOK ↑ Alex Beleshenko’s Bridge in Millennium Place communities that have come together to pay The fabric of the city that was reconnected and ↗ Jochen Gerz’s Public tribute to Coventry. Glass plaques surround the repaired by the series of spaces and integrated Bench, needing some repair obelisk which is lit from within. Unfortunately artworks that the project delivered are rich and

24 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic

inspiring. To walk from Lady Herbert Garden to artworks as well as the public realm, and it is ↖ Francoise Schein’s Time Spence’s Coventry Cathedral is to slice through difficult to understand why this award-winning Zones Clock has largely layers of time and place from the new 20th century scheme that was so generously supported with been removed ↑ The recently installed flag to the 16th century; the project seamlessly mediates external funding, is not better maintained when so poles and ping-pong balls the roar of Whittle’s jet engine and the ring road many other spaces in the city have been. en route to Priory Place with the tranquillity and serenity of the gravelled Wandering through the project, I spoke to one gardens of the ancient priory. or two passers-by; Adrian Pead said ‘I’ve lived The Phoenix Initiative skilfully threads and in Coventry all my life and have seen the great completes the disparate fragments of the place improvements this scheme has brought to the city left unresolved and unreconstructed by the centre. There was little to say for it as it was, but aftermath of the blitz and it tells Coventry City’s the Phoenix has really achieved a sense of place. I story. The work of the artists that the project love coming here’. combines and weaves with new public spaces were At the bottom of Francois Schein’s inscription handled intelligently, but it is regrettable that for the absent Time Zone Clock is the phrase ‘ideas more than one of the pieces has proven vulnerable are stronger than time and space’. Quite so, but to unforeseen public traffic and vandalism. In where the Phoenix Initiative is concerned, the contractual terms, the City Council is responsible manifestations of the ideas are in need of a good • Neil Deely, Director, for the cleaning and maintenance of all of the clean and refurb. • Metropolitan Workshop CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THINGS Katherine Clarke and Johanna Gibbons discuss the interplay of landscape and art

Johanna Gibbons (jg) As landscape architects, the first standard under our Royal Charter is a duty of care to the landscape as well as to communities: Standard 1: You have responsibility to the character and quality of the environment. You should seek to manage change in the landscape for the benefit of both this and future generations, and should seek to enhance the diversity of the natural environment, to enrich the human environment and to improve them both in a sustainable manner.

Katherine Clarke (kc) Art practice lacks a professional code and the artists have to construct their own standards and responsibilities; that process has been enriched for me by seeing the interplay between your micro-knowledge applied

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 25 Topic

strategically to deliver schemes that are both 27, 2013). This process-driven approach can be hard socially and ecologically meaningful. Where you to convince people of at client level. It is our job to deal with actual ecologies as contexts, processes address strategic aims appropriately while having and behaviours, I apply these as metaphors, in the temerity to challenge the nature of the brief, to parallel situations, to establish a richer, more make it more meaningful. nuanced way of doing and understanding things. Through collaboration J & L Gibbons and muf On Process: architecture/art have identified mutual territory Growing a project through action research to create and have brought different things to the table; common experience and knowledge is fundamental sometimes we have practiced together and to realising work that influences attitude and sometimes in parallel. perceptions of what is possible. The research and testing process of the Making Space in Dalston MUTUAL TERRITORY project grew the productive shoots of a social On Natural Responsibility: enterprise with real purchase in the community. As Artists have a responsibility to the client to explore a result the local authority is now challenging future creative and opportunity-making challenges, and to development to the benefit of the neighbourhood. ensure that key considerations are addressed when The growth of common purpose was concurrent these are not reflected in the brief. We are also with the delivery of real growing projects evidenced responsible for seeking local expertise, to listen on both the Somerford Grove Estate and the Dalston and to look carefully. The key to the project may lie Eastern Curve Garden. In these projects the benefits in revealing what is already there and the design to mental health and self-esteem were sufficiently then becomes the means to allow better access recognised by the local Primary Care Trust for them and understanding of that asset. For instance the to sponsor a local horticultural apprentice as a Ingrebourne Valley collaborative commission, for gardener at Somerford Grove for 12 months. the interpretation of a heritage landscape, resulted in a strategy of careful grafting that took account On Risk: of the impact and opportunities over generations. Consultation may be seen as a way of devolving In this sense our long-term responsibilities were the responsibilities for decision-making from the as much to the landscape as to the client, the dog- client and designer and thus mitigating the risks walker or bird-watcher, in making the landscape that come from authorship. However proactive understood. engagement is proactive risk management. More communication reduces risk during planning. The On Adaptability: more a project is embedded through dialogue, live The only sure thing is change. Nature is highly testing and research, the more meaningful it will adaptable, and broadly so too are communities, be and less the risk of vandalism. The more the although local changes impacting on daily life nuances of social, economic and cultural context can be hard to accept. Through a process-driven are understood, the less the risk of a scheme that attitude, a sense of ownership can begin to foster cannot be managed or maintained, and the greater ← Previous page a greater sense of adaptability. The benefit is that the opportunity to identify apprenticeships and The Altab Ali community dig representing the historic the work seems more meaningful, more relevant, skills sharing in the delivery process. Evolving church walls, used as a where the detail of personal interests influences the design at the scale of 1:1 through engagement, pedestal. Photograph by the essential outputs of the project. As Rafe Sagarin leads to design richness. At Altab Ali, J & L muf architecture/art has said ‘the real power in learning from nature is Gibbons recommended that an archaeologist be ↑↗ Growing the productive not in copying its products to improve how people involved to ensure that the layers of history were roots of social enterprise at Dalston Eastern Curve make products, but in incorporating its processes understood and to respect the requirement for Garden, Making Space in to improve how people process the complex and faculty approval under Faculty Jurisdiction Rules. Dalston ever changing world around them’. (livebetter, Issue This evolved through muf into a pivotal part of the

26 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic design process that transformed the park into a temporary open air museum with a community dig that involved 500 local people and the Museum of London. The dig both tested the capacity of the scheme to bring the multiple and diverse users of the park together and also influenced future tree positions.

On Biodiversity and play: It is important to nurture children’s natural curiosity through design that is immersive, open- ended and available for appropriation. This is demonstrated in our proposals for the Canal Park, Tower Hamlets for the London Legacy Development Corporation. Here design for biodiversity, climate adaption and succession creates a platform for self-initiated, exploratory play as the optimum self-learning environment through direct sensory experiences.

PARALLEL PRACTICE On Provenance: jg As landscape architects we have a passion for the home-grown and the importance had all but nearly failed. Our design strategy ↑ Art Camp as a kit of parts of diversity which in terms of bio-security was to bring in the soil scientist Tim O’Hare and and processes, by muf might ensure the survival of a species. For to re-profile the shallow soils and soil mix, to architecture/art instance, our work together at Canal Park, in improve but reflect an upland type environment collaboration with a local Populus enthusiast which could support pioneer species. These and expert, we have evolved a mini-project planted densely as seedlings are able to develop planting genetically diverse black poplar strikes lateral healthy root systems. This approach in the Lower Lee Valley to help secure the was inspired by the adaptability of nature – the species against disease. To us, in human terms, ability of trees to naturalise in seemingly hostile provenance means an attitude to openness and conditions for growth if specified young, as inclusion that enriches the process and allows these were, as transplants. Natural selection for surprises while securing the sustainability of and inevitably human factors will determine the a project. final arrangement.

kc Resilience and adaptability are attitudes that The challenge arises when underpin Art Camp, an action research project to the scale of development is in establish a critical mode of co-authoring between child and artist, which acknowledges both the danger of eclipsing the existing imbalance of power and the complexities between evident interplay between the creativity of art practice and the territory of play. Art Camp has a nomadic presence in derelict people and place buildings and on pre-development sites, grazing the surrounding streets for content, inspiration kc Provenance as a term to describe origins refers and sites of actualisation. The intention is to grow to both place and process, and the aspiration to the habitual roots of appropriation and to makeg home-grow mirrors the process of how places the most of diminishing resources in local children, emerge through an ongoing give-and-take so that they can imagine growing up to be the next between everyday occupation, appropriation and generation of artists. activity. The challenge arises when the scale of development is in danger of eclipsing the existing On Succession: evident interplay between people and place. This jg Ecological succession is the gradual and transforms people from makers of a place, through orderly process of change in an ecosystem, an incremental process of adaption, to consumers which is brought about by the progressive of a predetermined place. A strategy to ensure replacement of one community by another provenance remains a process to make places that through increasing complexity, until a stable are underdetermined. In so doing, there is still climax is established. This implies that the space for people to later appropriate and adapt condition of succession is not measured by through use and occupation, as at the Eastern Curve equal achievement. Garden in Dalston. kc I see social concurrence as the twin to On Natural Adaptability: ecological succession. The success of a place jg Natural adaptability is in evidence on the HS is measured by its capacity to sustain change 2012 Mile End Park Green Bridge, an ambitious over different timeframes, from the slower Katherine Clarke, bridge structure to maintain the continuity of vegetative cycles and eclipses, to multiple everyday •muf architecture/ art, and Johanna Gibbons, J the landscape over the A13 road. The original occupations. Landscape is therefore a platform for & L Gibbons, landscape planting scheme of semi-mature trees, throttled more than one thing at a time. architects and urban with elaborate steel collars in the shallow soil • designers

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 27 Topic The art of seeing things invisible Rosie Freeman celebrates the role of place-making artists

Not long ago it was unheard of to have people in Brixton Village Market at night; the 1930s covered avenues opened in the early morning and closed in the afternoon. But after many years of thriving commerce, the traditional market began to suffer from low footfall and closed units, culminating in the threat of demolition in 2008. The Brick Box was part of the exemplary effort which turned the market around. The market building was listed by the Friends of Brixton Market, its offer was diversified by the Spacemakers Agency (a civic ideas company employed by the market owners), and a new era began: the space was re-imagined. The previously untapped night-time economy was stimulated through the programming of public arts activities, the negotiation of late opening, and the issuing of entertainment and alcohol licences. Thanks to the tireless creative work of many, the award-winning market now enjoys an incredibly high footfall and the units are greatly sought after. These days it is hard to imagine quieter times, but Cities are places of people and places of change in order to trigger this transformation someone had which refuse to be fixed. When the writer Thomas to have a vision of what could be, the conviction of Carlyle moved to Chelsea in 1834, it was a famously possibility. bohemian and affordable area for struggling artists Similarly, in 2011 The Brick Box was invited to live, while the facade of many buildings in by the owners of Tooting Market to invigorate Bradford’s Little Germany which now stand empty their space in south west London, which suffered and in disrepair, belie the city’s extremely wealthy from critically low footfall. With Outer London past. Our urban centres are living organisms made Funding, The Brick Box developed and delivered for people and by people, ‘continually building a programme of day and night-time activities and continually decaying’ (in the words of William designed to boost the market and its customers. Blake). Their design and use is not only shaped by Local people and cultural tourists enjoyed architects and landowners, but by revolutionaries, workshops, aerial performances, theatre shows, gardeners, skateboarders, terrorists, drivers, film nights, supper clubs, live art, exhibitions, hawkers, office workers, children...; in this sense, festivals, dance shows, live music, and much urban design implicitly considers people because, more. Traders and other neighbouring businesses first and foremost, our environments are created benefitted financially from the increase in and engineered in our imagination. The role of customers, particularly during night-time events the artist in this dialogue can both expedite and as programme pioneered the use of the space fertilise. Thoughtful, socially engaged artistic after dark. Jobs and voluntary opportunities practices can not only provide genuine solutions to were created, and new ventures were trialled and the challenges faced by our cities and communities, incubated. The market’s offer began to diversify but can also provide alternative ways of creating with vintage stalls and cafes, and a portion of the them. funding was used to provide bespoke furniture and redesign the central market space in response to Breathing life into underperforming its changing use. In less than a year, the market had spaces gone from having no night-time economy to events The arts can offer an appealing invitation for with almost 400 audience members! people to congregate and, in spaces which are for some reason underperforming, events and Imagining possibilities activities can be a means to a rather sociable end. Artists can play in the realm between present and There is an essential need to find ways to make future, inviting audiences to engage imaginatively spaces work for the people they serve, offering and to see ‘things invisible’ (from Jonathan Swift’s A stakeholders a sense of ownership and pride. Tale of a Tub and Other Works). By its very nature, Whether it be the resurfacing of a new housing this realm is a place of dissonance: an old building development’s forecourt or the conversion of marked for redevelopment, changing attitudes ↑ Construction themed street theatre by The Bureau of some public lavatories in to a venue, creative to neighbours, and migrating communities. Silly Ideas. Photograph by thinking and activity can breathe life into our urban These points of dissonance are challenging but Roger Hartley environments. also productive and provide opportunities for

28 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic

creativity. Artistic playfulness and temporary mixture of physical theatre, creative lighting design, interventions can really stretch the possibilities of interactive installations, and a specially curated a space, igniting ideas and encouraging alternative programme of films and projections. Audience perspectives on how we interact with our urban members were invited to be more than spectators: environments. they ‘listened’ to the river, wrote about the objects In the case of the 2013 Wandsworth Arts found within it, and journeyed with the performers Festival and Fringe Hub – a collaboration between from the streets to the river banks and old brewery Wandsworth Council, Assemble Studio and The tower. This remarkable one-off activity made a Brick Box – the art project was conceived as a connection between the two sites, raising their practical exercise in place-making. The chosen profiles and igniting an association between them. site of The Hub was an under-used piece of public Arts projects can also serve as public realm land in Wandsworth Town, overlooking the consultations. As part of Brighton White Night river Wandle and the old Ram’s Brewery. Here a 2011, a Victorian tower known locally as the temporary structure in the form of a giant ‘cabinet Pepperpot was transformed with a spectacular of curiosities’ was adorned with items pulled from video showing over the entire façade. Shared Space the river during The Wandle Trust’s monthly river and Light, the production company, collected video clean-ups. By using items from the river, the cabinet footage of local people describing their ideas for tells the story of decline of the Wandle and other how this unique Grade II listed building could be London tributaries – from vital assets of industry, to used in the future. For one night only, the much a dumping ground and ecological challenge. loved local landmark seemed to morph into each The commitment of council officers, the vivid imagining, from climbing wall to lighthouse, Environment Agency, the town centre manager, camera obscura to audio mixing workshop. These and other key stakeholders was far-sighted and kinds of imaginative place-making experiments progressive from the outset. Senior planners at will linger in the minds and perceptions of those Wandsworth Council described the project as an experiencing them and can certainly inform opportunity to create a tradition of animation and longer term plans with the right engagement from activity in the area. The site was reintroduced to decision-making stakeholders. many passers-by and, strategically, it signalled the broader changes to come in that area, advocating Making use of creative loopholes ↖ A Brick Box event in the role of art in place-making and the public realm. Meanwhile activity – the temporary use of land or Brixton ↑ The Brick Box centre The programme of activities at The Hub also buildings during pauses in the property process ↖↖ The Wandle Cabinet aimed to reimagine and stretch the possibilities of – can be another great opportunity for artistic installation and performance the space, particularly through the use of creative practice. The nature of these projects can provide on the old Ram’s Brewery lighting interventions. As part of the Unorthobox many benefits, from agile, quick-to-market tower. Photograph by Libby project series, a site-responsive night-time show activities to business rates relief and the incubation Powell ↑↑ Physical theatre was produced with the remit of exploring and of entrepreneurialism. The practical experience performance for Unorthobox reimagining space through light and performance. of working in such spaces is invaluable and can at the Ram’s Brewery. Artists responded creatively to the host space with a bring to light unseen restricting factors such as a Photograph by Libby Powell

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 29 Topic

Mr. Dane. Dane worked with local people in Brixton to create a community mural, collecting their memories, recollections, thoughts and hopes before incorporating them into a final piece. The area was and is undergoing massive changes and Dane’s work gave local stakeholders a rare voice and creative response to issues which affect them directly. Humour and performance is also a great tool to attract attention and draw out reactions. As part of Metropolitan Workshop’s Outer London Fund Round 2 contract in Balham, a thorough public consultation was required. Performers from The Brick Box were used to give the exercise an extra dimension, making it more approachable and engaging for the public. Dressed up as hot-air balloon pilots from the 1950s, the performers invited passers-by to give comments and ideas for the future of Balham. The client reported that the genuine enthusiasm and curiosity of the performers offered new insights, capturing ↑ Local young people building’s lack of soundproofing or compliance the views of people who would otherwise have been consider their community with legislation due to age. Indeed, meanwhile reluctant participants. Once again, we have a great and learn about mural activity is a valuable way of working out what does example of how our urban environments can be painting in Brixton. Photograph by Ratão Diniz not work as well as what does. And the pauses in shaped by asking people to engage imaginatively. property processes can be far longer than originally expected. The Shunt Vaults at London Bridge, for example, began as a six month use of a derelict Creative approaches can help space and ended seven years later as a 500 person people enjoy what may have capacity, internationally celebrated arts venue. But the arts can go one step further and celebrate previously been unenjoyable, and the very nature of the intermediate in urban design. facilitate the difficult conversations The Bureau of Silly Ideas (BOSi) is a street theatre company which specialises in creating ‘inspired thrown up by changes in urban madness and controlled chaos in the public realm’. landscapes Their mix of surreal humour and practical solutions produce enjoyable and truly accessible events. The Burst Pipe Dream project, for example, was a Conclusion seven day performance installation commissioned The arts can be truly transformative in many by Brighton and Hove City Council in 2008. BOSi different respects and it is exciting to see the were invited to launch the finish of a building emergence of work which recognises this power. development, which had overrun by a significant In the academic world, the London School of amount of time, and restore the positive feelings Economics Theatrum Mundi project brings with the site. They developed a piece to place irony architects and town planners together with on the completion of the build, setting up fake performing and visual artists to reimagine the roadworks, and installation of Europe’s first Giant public spaces of 21st century cities. Their work Squid Farm under the guise of the Big Oriental seeks to understand what brings life to a city, Squid Inc. A complete story was developed to particularly in its public places and asks how these support this fictional tale, and local press were might be better designed. Originally, The Brick Box brought on board to ensure maximum authenticity began working in non-traditional spaces in order to was achieved. An estimated 31,000 people saw the meet new audiences and celebrate the creativity of project, which successfully created engagement and everyday life. Yet the resulting experiences have led reformed positive associations with the new site. the arts organisation into a world of place-making, regeneration, and cultural strategies. This may Facilitating difficult conversations seem somewhat incongruous but the lines between Lateral thinking and creative approaches can these disciplines are more blurred than we think. help people to enjoy what may have previously There is evidence of citizens reimagining their been unenjoyable, and facilitate the difficult environment on a daily basis: desire lines which conversations thrown up by changes in urban bypass the intended routes across a park, notices landscapes. Debates around regeneration for language exchanges which speak something of programmes, community identities and class the contemporary urban condition, improvised migration are hotly felt and extremely complex, yet skateboarding ramps, guerrilla gardening the arts can provide an interesting and emotionally projects, and many more tiny alterations which go safe arena in which to explore such issues. The unnoticed. Just as the Ouroboros eats its own tail, opportunity for a creative and heartfelt response it is this constant state of flux and creative alchemy can give permission to act outside formalised which is at the heart of human existence, and which behaviours. will continue to create our urban worlds. As part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad • programme, The Brick Box hosted the Brazilian Rosie Freeman, co- photographer Ratao Diniz. Ratao’s interest in street •director, The Brick Box CIC art led him to collaborate with London-based artist

30 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic Light: The Invisible Art Satu Streatfield explores the range of roles light can adopt

Public art has become a familiar component of it answers, and it may or may not find an audience public realm designs and has brought with it many who appreciates it. a debate over the role that art can or should play Design, on the other hand, already has an when placed on public grounds. The boundaries audience – it is created to answer questions posed between art and design tend to become somewhat by society and commercial markets. Design is a blurred when art is pulled out of its traditional collaborative process, part of a socio-economic gallery context – a private and controlled system; art functions, ideologically at least, outside environment for discrete viewing – and put into this system (although it is increasingly drawn into the rather chaotic context of the city – a living and it, especially when it comes to art that is paid for by continually evolving physical, social, political and the public). economic space or network. This blurring of boundaries between art and Art in the Public Realm design is something with which designers who Art in a gallery context is perceived in a very work with light are very well acquainted. The focused way, in a state of rapt attention. But what unique ephemeral and intangible qualities of the happens when art is taken out of the gallery and medium and its relationship with visual perception placed in the public realm? often render its application both art and utility at In his influential essay from 1936, The Work once. Designers working with light in the public of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, realm quite often find themselves examining the Walter Benjamin explores the nature of the distinctions between their role and that of the reception of art that is displayed for the masses. He public realm artist. The distinctions certainly exist focuses on highly reproducible and distributable but are perhaps more fluid than those who use contemporary art forms such as film (which is physical media. essentially art using the medium of light), but his insights could equally apply to any medium of Design and Art art that is placed in the public realm: ‘A man who When discussing the divide between lighting concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by designer (as the designer of the quality and quantity it… In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the of light) and artist, it is sensible to think about the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to differences between art and design in their purest buildings. Architecture has always represented and most neatly categorisable forms. the prototype of a work of art the reception of Art is created as an expression of an individual’s which is consummated by a collectivity in a state exploration of their own creativity and imagination. of distraction’. He continues: ‘The public is an ↑ Shifts in the intensity and colour of light animate an It can be created for its own sake, and utility is examiner, but an absent-minded one’ . industrial relic after dark. not usually a key concern. Art is open to multiple We encounter public art with very different Photograph by Alyssha Eve interpretations, often posing more questions than expectations to those held in a gallery scenario. Csuk

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 31 Topic

Design Tool and Contextual Artistic Expression Aside from schemes that use directly viewed light sources (LED facades etc.), lighting design needs existing physical space or objects to come into being – we view the effects of light more than we view light itself. Indeed as designers of lit space, we often consider some of the best illuminated environments to be those in which you do not actively identify the lighting design at all – you just feel comfortable in the space, enjoy its particular ambience or discover architectural and landscape details that you had not noticed before. We employ light as an invisible agent exploiting it as a natural and often seamless collaborator with space and its inhabitants. Light is inherently contextual as it illuminates its environment and relies on these surroundings to be perceived. Because light must collaborate with space, objects and people to exist, lighting design too is an inherently collaborative process. Designers working with light rely on subjects to illuminate, whether they are buildings, road surfaces, trees, churches or people. Throughout the design process they project their minds into the minds of those who are designing or who have designed the physical space to be illuminated, as well as those who will eventually use it (which often includes nocturnal animals as well as human beings). Lighting designers constantly critique their proposals through the eyes of others – designers, local residents, visitors, astronomers and wildlife – and have a good understanding of how humans perceive, and psychologically and physiologically respond to the visible spectrum. Lighting designers specify the quality and quantity of light such that it best reveals, conceals or enhances parts of an existing scene to fulfil specific purposes, whilst mitigating negative impacts (over-lighting, light pollution and trespass, glare, energy wastage, disruption of circadian rhythms etc.). The individual expression of lighting designers in the public realm might appear We enter a gallery with the specific purpose of somewhat suppressed in favour of portraying a viewing a work of art. The reception of art in collective idea of a form, space or series of spaces; the public realm, however, is perceived in a far the lighting designer edits after-dark vision to less voluntary and focused manner. It is subject highlight what are collectively assumed to be to a myriad of unpredictable interruptions and important features architecturally, culturally, distractions – both physical (machines, nature, socially, economically or functionally. other people) and mental (our own thoughts and That is not to say that lighting design for the preoccupations in our day-to-day occupation and public realm is not influenced by an individual’s navigation of the city). Art in the public realm is artistic expression. There are many ways to reveal more often than not experienced as part of a three- parts of a scene and many ambiences that can be dimensional, living space – it becomes part of a created. Various colours, intensities and degrees backdrop to everyday activity, not the focus of it. of focus, as well as pattern and animation of light Producing art for display in the public realm are at a designer’s disposal. A light (and darkness) therefore requires a very specialised artistic designer acts as a secret artist whose expression response – one that is highly contextual, and is almost hidden – composed of a dynamic three- acknowledges and moreover exploits the specific dimensional collage of existing city features, spatial and social contexts into which it is placed. which form a setting for human experience. Light Values held in the art world are not necessarily designers manipulate vision, skewing spatial ↑ Light travels – illuminated transferable or relevant to public space and the scales and hierarchies and conveying messages signage casts a Soho street in red light. Photograph by lives of those who inhabit it every day. A good and signals, intuitively or overtly. The light and James Newton public realm artist begins to work a little more like darkness designer highlights, conceals, overlays ↑↑ Sketch proposal a designer – responding to the opportunities and onto and distorts the daytime scene – they become for community-led, constraints of a given context and collaborating a kind of DJ/remixer of the visual landscape or a architecturally integrated with it (whether an architectural setting or curator of the after-dark cityscape. applied light art in a new neighbourhood of light in local community), rather than displaying purely Light can also provide flexibility, versatility Helsinki. Image by Speirs + speculative personal explorations on public and even a sense of magic to visual space. It can Major grounds. transform the appearance and atmosphere of our

32 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic

surroundings and refresh our perception of it in an and give it relevance for longer. Public art can ↑ Sophisticated animation instant. It can de-familiarise and reinterpret forms perhaps become more socially responsible through of LED lighting turns an and spaces in much the same way that art does, collaboration with both its environmental and architectural lighting scheme into a spectacular artwork. whilst helping to make the city more accessible, social contexts. Photograph by James and feel more secure, through its capacity to reveal Newton and illuminate during the hours of darkness. An installation of light can be an inconspicuous part of Light can create magical and the urban grain one moment (static and functional spectacular experiences, and or indeed inactive/invisible) and an attractive spectacle the next (dynamic and artistic). The re-imagine city spaces without unique qualities of light allow it to simultaneously altering the physical fabric of them fulfil objectives of both art and design in public space. Brian Eno has described art as a safety net – Light Art an enterprise that allows us to explore the limits Whilst a designed quality of light cast onto an of human experience without the long-term existing urban feature can render it a public consequences that a designer faces if it turns out artwork, visible light sources can also become to be a silly idea after all. Designers feel the weight artworks within themselves (where light is designed of responsibility to satisfy the end user – they to be viewed directly rather than indirectly). Light provide a service. Design decisions are discussed, Art is art realised through the medium of light debated, scrutinised and justified at every stage. and, like light design, often serves as both utility Designers sometimes become so preoccupied with and artistic expression – whether deliberately or the business and politics of design that it can be accidentally. difficult to really push its limits and experiment An artist who installs a physical sculpture in freely. a public space creates a discrete artwork to be Perhaps that is why working with light as a viewed. A light artist who installs a light sculpture design tool and artistic medium in the public realm in a public space creates not only an artwork to is such an appealing option – it can create magical be looked at but often also creates a distinctively and spectacular experiences, and re-imagine city illuminated spatial context, because light travels spaces without altering the physical fabric of them. – it is a trespasser (a characteristic that can be Lighting design, like other fields of urban design, exploited but equally must be controlled through serves practical functions first and foremost, careful design). Light art in public space does not enabling people to see sufficiently to carry out obey the boundaries of the artwork itself, but can tasks in the absence of natural light. But light can directly affect the modelling and colouring of the be used simultaneously to fulfil a wide range of people and forms around it and the perceived other design and artistic objectives demanded by brightness of a space. This is nothing new – stained the 24-hour city. glass windows in churches traditionally provided When night falls, darkness provides a blank not only framed graphic artworks but also created canvas against which patterns of human occupation colourful and ephemeral spatial experiences when and activity reveal themselves through light, with sunlight streamed through them. Art using the public and private premises creating an ever- medium of light can directly contribute to function shifting luminous collage of various colours and and amenity after dark. intensities. New technologies (especially those forming part of the digital lighting revolution Occupying the Grey Area that is currently well underway, including LEDs The indistinct boundaries between art, lighting and control systems) will enable us to exploit design and light art exemplify the general blurring the ephemeral medium of light to manipulate of boundaries between all fields of design and art and enhance the experience of the city, allowing with the use of new technologies. In the worst designers, artists and the public to refresh and cases, of course, this grey area between art and reinterpret its image over and over again. design means that pure art and pure design can • become watered down, creating art in which overt expressions are compromised and design that becomes quirky for the sake of it. In the best cases, public art that is designed in a more collaborative Satu Streatfield, Senior manner and located strategically can add value •designer at Speirs + Major

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 33 Topic The Role of Art in Sport Katharine Martindale has the final word on art and legacy

organising committees is varied, afforded a high profile and can generate considerable controversy. Olafur Eliasson’s application to the Olympic Lottery Distributor for £1 million for Take a Deep Breath, where visitors would breath in and out and recording this process on a web site, was rejected but not before generating widespread media condemnation. Possibly the most contentious project was presented by Anish Kapoor. The Orbit, officially named the ArcelorMittal Orbit after steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who funded the £19 million, 120-metre-high tower, may be the most high profile legacy art project of the Games. After the initial controversy regarding the cost, height and visibility had dissipated, comparisons were drawn with the London Eye in terms of attracting visitors to the park and the associated financial benefits. A further 24 of the 26 artworks created for the Games remain in the park and the five neighbouring host boroughs of Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. These include Monica Bonvicini’s nine-metre-high mirrored letters RUN, and Keith Wilson’s Steles (Waterworks) comprising 35 pillars in the form of three to five- metre-high wax crayons in the five colours of the Artistic contributions to hallmark events such Olympic rings, intended for use for boat moorings as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games and after the Games. However, this is considerably less World Cups, have become increasingly significant. than the 48 works that reside at Sydney Olympic Established cultural programmes exist in all Park, and range from glassworks in the main major sporting events, viewed as a means of stadium, soundscapes, water features, mosaic paths broadening not only the appeal of the event to a and a memorial to those lost to violence during the wider audience beyond sports fans, but in creating Munich Games. Phoebe Pape’s Pole Forest adjacent a legacy. These offer educational programmes to the archery centre evolved after the concept and provide opportunities to engage directly in to evoke the ‘historical link between forests and the event, and do not always need to be based in archery’ was thwarted by poor soil conditions, and the host city or cities, as organisers of the London so was replaced by a series of tall poles. Several Olympics demonstrated. The International Olympic of these pieces have been installed since the Committee acknowledges that it has a particular Games including the metal sculpture of a sprinter responsibility in encouraging the development of previously attached to the top of the AMP Tower in the cultural Olympiad, regarding it as the second the centre of Sydney. dimension of Olympism. A year after the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Thomas Heatherwick was commissioned to create ART AS LEGACY a commemorative work. During an interview with The role of art in major sporting events was The Independent, British sprinter Linford Christie established by the father of the modern Olympic declared that for each race he ‘was going to give movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, at a special it everything, right from the B of the Bang!’ This congress held in Paris in 1906. The Olympic Art proved to be the inspiration and provided the name Competition, also referred to as the Pentathlon for the £1.42 million, 56-metre-high Cor-Ten steel of Muses for its focus on the five artistic areas structure. However, the week prior to its unveiling of architecture, literature, music, painting and by Linford Christie in January 2005, spikes started sculpture, was first included in an Olympic to fall from the sculpture and continued to do so for programme at Stockholm in 1912. A century later several months forcing the Council to place a safety and the tradition continues with the winning barrier around the site. Ultimately the structure was entries from the 2012 competition, three small dismantled, and has not yet been replaced leaving bronze sculptures and three paintings, displayed the site missing its coveted iconic artwork. ↑ Thomas Heatherwick’s The at the Guildhall Art Gallery for the duration of the B of the Bang. Photograph London Games. PLACE-BASED ART by mjtmail (tiggy) via Flickr Public art commissioned by Olympic host city The desire to establish a visual identity against a

34 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Topic background of ‘could be anywhere’ contemporary stadium design led to the appointment of moko artist Arekatera Maihi. In celebration of the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, the master carver was invited to produce Maori carvings as part of the renovations to Auckland’s Eden Park. Four tekoteko, or carved human forms, of Maori gods were created to represent the Maori people from the east, west, south and north of the country. Mounted on cylindrical concrete columns, the six-metre-tall carvings tower over visitors entering the four main gates to New Zealand‘s largest stadium. Along with the fern-inspired structure over the renovated stands, the tekoteko provide a permanent reminder of the location.

KEY FIGURES Public art relating to sport rather than specific events has traditionally been restricted to life-like, life-size and large bronzes depicting a sporting hero with a plaque noting their significant achievements. Brian Clough stands arms aloft in the centre of Nottingham and alongside Brian Taylor in Derby, the two cities in which he spent most of his life as a football player and coach. There are several plinths laden with action-packed bronzes of the Australian cricketing hero Sir Donald Bradman, including one at the Adelaide Oval, one at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, another at the Sydney Cricket Ground and also, although unsurprisingly, a more relaxed edition outside the Bradman Museum (now known as the International Cricket Hall of Fame) in his home town of Bowral in New South Wales. Notably these sculptures are almost always of men. Even in Australia, where there has been a significant participation of women in sport and notable successes, there are few commemorative art works. In Moore Park, adjacent to the Sydney Football Ground and Sydney Cricket Ground, an abstract bronze by Diana Hunt in recognition of the achievements of Australia’s sportswomen was erected in 1967. Placed in the centre of Kippax Lake and with no particular ascription, it is in stark contrast with the recognisable, over-scaled bronzes of the male stars of Australian Rules Football, rugby and cricket that line the entrance to the football ground opposite. During recent renovations to the Member’s Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the committee responsible appointed Louis Laumen to create the ten, larger-than-life bronze statues that now form the Parade of Champions and includes such cricket greats as Dennis Lillee and Shane Warne. Only two are of women and both, Betty Cuthbert and Shirley Strickland – short distance runners in the 1950s – participated in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games when the Melbourne Cricket Ground was transformed into the main Olympic stadium. It is substantial finances to participate in these ↑ Phoebe Pape’s Pole Forest, not entirely surprising that in the male-dominated cultural spectacles. As Sydney Olympic Park has Sydney Olympic Park. All world of cricket and rugby there is an imbalance in demonstrated, continued investment has not only photographs by Katharine Martindale representation, but with the rising profile of women aided in filling the large spaces around the park, ↑↑ Monica Bonvicini’s RUN, in sport, this should change and maybe also the humanising the scale of the stadia, but have proved London Olympic Park style of art. to be an attraction in themselves. Although far from ↖ Arekatera Maihi’s complete, the park has evolved from a collection Tanemahula, Eden Park, ART AS AN ATTRACTOR of stadia and a few associated artworks to being an Auckland ↑↑↑ Louis Laumen’s Dennis The investment in art related to or commemorating integrated sculptural landscape and should provide Lillee, Melbourne Cricket Ground the events, sports and men and women who much inspiration for other venues. • Dr Katharine Martindale, participate continues despite global economic •researcher, writer, uncertainty, possibly a reflection of the societal consultant, lecturer and interest in sport and willingness to devote photographer

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 35 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013 An Camas MÒr, Rothiemurchus AREA describes cultivating a new settlement within the woodlands 0f the Cairngorms National Park

1500 homes, business, retail, leisure, community facilities including a primary school and health centre, alongside a new community park shared with Aviemore. The area masterplan has developed to reflect three core themes: culture, structure and nature.

CULTURE The National Park has an aspiration for An Camas Mòr to be a balanced community, combining homes and new employment,

B970 Aviemore rather than a holiday village. It will have Community a distinct identity derived from the use park of local materials, the involvement of craftsmen and artists, and formats for outdoor living supporting access to Lairig Ghru the Cairngorms. The opportunities for gateway working from home, access to high-speed broadband, supporting business start-ups and local enterprise have been maximised. Mature Work continues with the relevant plantation agencies including Highlands and Islands retained Enterprise to ensure the ability to provide Spey Ancient a sustainable employment base. The Woodland woodland new residential accommodation across gateway all tenures will assist in retention of employment, retain existing local talent/ Farmland graduates, support an economically active population and attract entrepreneurs who can create and grow new and existing LIFE IN THE NATIONAL PARK the housing needs of the local community. businesses in this unique setting. An Camas Mòr is the first new community The site, first proposed by Aviemore & Located 800m east of Aviemore across planned for a National Park in the UK. Vicinity Community Council in 1989, the Spey, the new village will have a Respectful of an exceptional and sensitive was identified as the location for a reciprocal relationship with the existing landscape, the vision seeks an exemplar new community in the Badenoch and community. Initially many of the services of sustainable development and was Strathspey Local Plan 1997 and the and facilities used by residents will be in recognised by Scottish Government under Highland Structure Plan 2001. The Aviemore but as An Camas Mòr grows the Scottish Sustainable Community Cairngorms National Park Authority’s it will become more independent. Early Initiative in 2009. The aspiration is for (CNPA) Local Plan supports a new phases will be to the east alongside the a strong self-sustaining community, sustainable community at An Camas Mòr. existing B970, including the beginning of meeting the needs of an active, outdoor The current masterplan establishes a the high street and public spaces oriented and sociable way of life while creating physical framework, while anticipating a towards the view of the Lairig Ghru. a protected and sheltered place for a gradually evolving community that will Future phases will develop west along the growing population to live and work. grow and establish itself over a period of high street, progressively strengthening Aviemore is a year-round destination 20-30 years. The aim is to do this with the link to Aviemore. The primary school for access to activities within the minimal land take and on an area of and health centre will anchor a public Cairngorms. Despite its growth in recent lower ecological value. Once complete, space towards this western end linked to years, it has struggled to accommodate the planned settlement will consist of new facilities in the community park.

36 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013

← An Camas Mòr masterplan. ↙ The masterplan supports the creation of vibrant and walkable streets: an urban terrace and a woodland loan ↙↙ Legibility diagram ↓ Section through the central kettlehole

from the local indigenous forms including timber cladding, corrugated metal and slate. A broad mix of house types will include provision for self-build. Affordable housing (40 per cent) will be integrated, indistinguishable and dispersed throughout. Car parking has been carefully integrated within the design of the plots (150 per cent for smaller units and 230 per cent for larger units).

NATURE Lying within its wooded landscape, the 105ha site will incorporate a matrix of Nethybridge habitats providing biodiversity as part of a wider habitat network. A robust landscape Kettleholes Northern structure will provide visual character gateway and ecological connectivity. Existing pine and birch woods will permeate through the settlement, linking the characteristic View to Craigellachie glacial kettlehole landforms with the B970 existing forest. These areas will be a Foot/cycle diverse and irregular mixture of trees and connection Western heathland, typical of the Cairngorms. They to Aviemore gateway will provide a wooded setting for new and station homes, establishing an intimate scale. View to the Lairig Ghru LESSONS LEARNED Springfield Properties PLC, the developer, High Kettlehole continues to work closely with John Grant Principal street Coylumbridge access of Rothiemurchus, the CNPA and the community to realise a shared vision. This collaboration is key for the successful STRUCTURE character and increases legibility. These delivery of An Camas Mòr. Reconciling An organic layout is derived from are designed to be naturally traffic-calmed the design for people with the ecological the topography and ecology of the and to prioritise walking and cycling. imperatives of the park was the principal site. A strong urban grain is inspired Street types range from urban terraces in challenge. The design of phase 1 in parallel by indigenous Scottish villages and the medium and higher density areas (45u/ with this has allowed the masterplan to a response to climate. The principal ha), to informal loans within lower density be tested and scrutinised, informing the access leads directly into the heart of (15u/ha) woodland areas. Public open process and enriching the design. the settlement, bringing activity and space is designed to be well overlooked, passing trade to a short section of the high to integrate walking routes and informal ROLE street. Its sinuous form, with staggered children’s play areas. The design of the masterplan, the first closes and wynds, is designed to create a Building elevations, garden walls phase streetscape and architecture sheltered microclimate. These narrower and hedges are designed as a single has been led by AREA with Ian White routes provide access to an informal and composition to increase enclosure and Associates. This builds on the early navigable hierarchy of secondary and strengthen placemaking. A simple palette visioning and engagement work of Gehl tertiary streets and lanes. A diverse mix of of materials that unifies the streetscape, Architects, Benjamin Tindall and Mark shared space streets brings a richness of landscape and architecture, is derived Turnbull. •

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 37 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013 Chilmington Green, Kent John Thompson & Partners designs a 21st century Garden suburb

number of homes from 7,000 to 5,750. Densities range from 8-66 dph with an average of 34dph.

Process Layered Approach The masterplanning process involved extensive analysis of the site and a systematic exploration of options for each layer of the masterplan to provide the evidence base for the Chilmington Green Area Action Plan (AAP), which ABC are expected to formally adopt in July 2013.

Response to Heritage The masterplan is underpinned by a response to the rich natural and built heritage of the site which is crossed by two Roman roads and has remnants of ancient woodland. There are also several listed buildings within Chilmington Green hamlet which is surrounded by a historic medieval field pattern.

Green Corridors An ‘arc of green’ will create a sympathetic setting for the hamlet, whilst connecting the new park to the countryside and beyond. The arc will include a cricket Chilmington Green was identified in high quality environment rather than just green, allotments, play areas, natural Ashford Borough Council’s (ABC) 2008 providing housing. They also identified greenspace, sustainable drainage features Core Strategy as the site for a sustainable problems with recent developments and species rich hedgerows. urban extension able to accommodate up around Ashford where ‘wiggly layouts’ to 7,000 dwellings and 1,000 jobs along with no hierarchy of routes made Connectivity: Walkable with a new park. A design team led by John wayfinding difficult. Rear parking courts, neighbourhoods & Movement Thompson & Partners (JTP) developed a fussy street design, repetitive standard The movement network is designed to masterplan on behalf of the Chilmington house types and a lack of greenery in promote walking, cycling and public Green Consortium which led to a radical residential areas were also criticised. transport. Historic lanes, which are re-evaluation of the size and form of the The Consortium’s masterplan, an important aspect of the area’s new settlement. submitted for outline planning approval character and ecological diversity, will The ambition to make Chilmington in August 2012, is based on a ‘warped grid’ be downgraded to recreational routes. Green an exemplar garden suburb of interconnected streets that follow the A circular bus route connecting the emerged through a collaborative design site’s topographical contours and respect three centres to Ashford’s town centre process involving many stakeholders. A landscape features. A high street, market and rail station will run along new tree- Community Development Trust (CDT), square, boulevard and two neighbourhood lined boulevards which have dedicated based on the Letchworth model, is now squares are designed to provide a cyclepaths. being promoted by the Consortium memorable sequence of spaces and a clear The mix of land uses is designed to members who are working closely with structure for the residential areas. Access create walkable neighbourhoods with ABC to define the form and remit of the to green space, a key aspect of Garden mixed uses clustered around a high street Trust. Chilmington Green CDT will take City planning, is provided by a network and two neighbourhood centres. The responsibility for safeguarding assets and of green corridors that follow existing secondary school is close to the High managing facilities and open space for the watercourses and provide a sympathetic Street, while the four primary schools all benefit of the community using funding setting for listed buildings in Chilmington have good residential catchments and from resident contributions and income Green hamlet. attractive walking/cycling routes to school. from CDT assets. A placemaking approach, designed to Local councillors and residents, who deliver the garden city vision and create a Character areas attended collaborative design workshops variety of character areas, including very The character area concept focused on early in process, highlighted the low density streets around the hamlet defining an appropriate scale, grain importance of creating a community and a and rural edge, led to a reduction in the and character for key edges and centres

38 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013

across the development. The outcome is whilst also delivering placemaking new methodology for testing the optimum a cohesive masterplan with three distinct principles and reflecting ABC’s recently solar orientation of the street grid to neighbourhoods and a hamlet at its heart. adopted parking standards. These identify streets with the best potential for Residential densities are highest around dictate a minimum of 1-1.5 spaces per 1 rooftop solar technologies. Alternative the market square and neighbourood or 2 bed flat and 2 spaces per 2 or 3 bed renewable technologies were proposed for centres and lowest along the rural edge house, plus 0.2 visitor spaces per home. streets where existing features prevented to the south and Great Chart Ridge to the The exercise which tested the desired optimum orientation. north. Higher densities are also found housing mix, parking provision and around the edges of Discovery Park and servicing requirements led both ABC and The High Street along the boulevards. the Consortium to significantly reduce A high street with a market square forms expectations for overall housing numbers. the centrepiece of the new plan. Selling LESSONS LEARNED this concept to commercial agents Strong Vision Statement Street Design looking for a ‘retail box in a car park’ was Time spent agreeing a clear Vision Detailed design of streets, in section and challenging. Studies of successful centres Statement early in the process through plan, was an essential part of the testing in Kentish market towns were undertaken collaborative workshops was time well process. Design work focused on the to demonstrate how pedestrian flows spent. The strong overarching vision practical details of street design to ensure and parking could be accommodated in and shared commitment to delivering the plan’s ‘warped grid’ of interconnected traditional urban forms. A Design Code is Garden City principles has kept the design streets can elegantly accommodate being prepared to ensure the new centre on-track and informed the complex parking at a range of densities, encourage will reflect the enduring qualities of places process of evaluating options for the AAP. walking and cycling and allow space for that grew over time and have the ability to street trees and small areas of incidental adapt to changing use patterns. Testing Mix and Density landscaping. • Typical block layouts were developed to demonstrate how many homes could be Orientation accommodated within the land available The design team developed and used a

↖ 3D masterplan with new centres highlighted in colour ← Chilmington Green Character Areas ↙ Section through Boulevard ↓ View of Market Square ↓↓ View of the Cricket Green in the hamlet

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 39 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013 Middlehaven Development Framework Urban Initiatives Studio proposes delivering change through a multitude of small-scale developments

Transporter Bridge

Tees River Old Town Hall 4 2 5 5

1 Boho Zone Middlesbrough College Temenos Sculpture 3 Middlesbrough Station 6 Middlesbrough Dock

CIAC Retail Core

A challenging context landmarks, public land ownership and a new infrastructure. The plan is based on Middlehaven is the historic birthplace number of high profile public investments, the following principles: of Middlesbrough, founded as a planned the challenges to regeneration in • Reinforcing key connections settlement to facilitate the coal trade and Middlehaven were significant. An The Civic Spine, linking the town centre later becoming the centre of Britain’s steel underperforming national economy, with the waterfront, the Middlehaven industries alongside the River Tees. One- a weak local property market, dried Cross two intersecting streets meeting and-a-half century later, the area had seen up public funding and the lack of an on the Old Town Hall, and Bridge Street, the decline of the original centre, slum established sense of place, meant that which links the railway station with the clearance, two failed housing estates and Middlehaven needed not only a strong Dock the departure of its industries. vision, but one that was rooted in a • Establishing superblocks with a soft The Tees Valley Regeneration Agency strategy for delivery. centre hoped to breathe new life into the area Middlehaven will not be transformed The plan sub-divides the area into through a grand vision prepared by Alsop. into a great urban living and working superblocks the edges of which provide His masterplan envisaged a ‘landscape neighbourhood, using the same delivery a coherent urban frontage with good fit for the 21st Century’ and promoted a models that have failed previously. The enclosure, overlooking and animation series of iconic object buildings situated huge scale of the scheme combined with to the street space. Their centres are in a park landscape. FAT’s Community in a the weakness of the market meant that we reserved for intensification during later Cube (CIAC) is the only building that was had to find a different solution, one that development phases. In the interim they realised from this vision. could harness the enthusiasm and energy can be used as open spaces, community of local people and smaller developers to gardens or for car parking A vision with delivery at its deliver transformational and innovative • Providing a new urban park as focus heart development over time. Self-build and for the area Urban Initiatives were appointed in co-housing projects in particular are an A triangular shaped space located on 2010 by the Middlehaven Partners, important part of this story. the Civic Spine opens up views towards (Middlesbrough Council and the Homes the iconic Transporter Bridge and will and Communities Agency), to develop A robust structure present a welcoming gesture when a masterplan for Middlehaven that The layout plan is based on the historic arriving from the north. was realistic and deliverable. We were regular street grid. It provides a logical supported by Halcrow and GVA. organising structure for development

Despite its central location, striking while minimising the need for building

Be an Urban Pioneer. The BOHO area. On Bridge Street. What would The next u Want to open YOU do on COOL place is YOUR business this site? here. here?

Interested. Go to www.middlehaven.co.uk for more information or Interested? Go to www.middlehaven.co.uk for more information or e-mail us at [email protected] e-mail us at [email protected]

40 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013

← Aerial view of the illustrative masterplan showing a built-out Middlehaven Illustrations key: ↙↙ Hoardings artwork promoting 1 Civic Spine Middlehaven and the Urban Pioneers 2 Middlehaven Cross ↘ Artist impression of the new Middlehaven 3 Bridge Street Park 4 New Middlehaven Park ↘↘ Urban structure diagram 5 Urban Pioneer Project Site ↘↘↘ Design Code illustrations 6 New Dock Bridge

A flexible framework for development The framework provides a high level of flexibility so that it can accommodate a range of development propositions and respond to future developer interest. This fluidity is established through flexible zoning of land uses and land parcelisation, with a design code ensuring a coherent and coordinated development. Parcelisation into many smaller sites is an essential aspect of the delivery strategy. Plot-subdivision enables smaller developers and individuals to take part, creates rich and diverse environments, and spreads the risks and rewards of development across many shoulders. The plan provides more than 200 lots, (standard development modules of 15m width). Lots can be joined together to create larger sites or subdivided into 4 2 smaller plots if required. This flexible 5 approach can accommodate a wide range of housing and mixed-use building 1 typologies. 3 6

Delivery – a strategy to stimulate development The Development Framework was launched in 2012 and the project is now building a strong momentum towards developers to get a foothold in the area Lessons learned change. and gives social housing providers the Our pro-active approach was a major Start with the Park opportunity to build their portfolio. departure from the previous developer We are currently designing Middlehaven Guiding development in the area led delivery model and a challenge to our Park which will help to symbolise change The Development Framework and client. Focussing on delivery right from and encourage further investment in the Design Codes have proved instrumental the start and in parallel to the design area. This park will be completed by late in guiding change in the area (including development gave us the opportunity spring 2014. a health facility that is currently to take our client on a journey towards Urban Pioneers under construction) and in delivering understanding, supporting the approach We are working with the Middlehaven infrastructure (we are currently advising and ultimately becoming an active Partners to initiate the Urban Pioneers on the design of a new dock bridge which proponent of it. project as a delivery pilot. The project will improve access to the area). The project offers a novel approach to offers serviced development plots with Promotion regeneration masterplanning. Delivery deferred payment for land located Raising the profile of the project and the is an integral part of the design strategy around the new park. Our Urban Pioneers opportunity for Pioneers to get involved rather than an afterthought. Masterplans Prospectus has been approved by the HCA is critical to the programme. We have can be a means to an end rather than an National Board and will be launched in designed posters that have been placed end product themselves. In collaboration 2014. It offers the local community an in bus shelters across the town and 500m with the client, they are a process to opportunity to have direct involvement of bespoke hoardings are being erected develop ideas and initiatives, to achieve in the building of a new neighbourhood around key sites in Middlehaven. A consensus on key objectives and design through custom-build, and community number of workshops and events have principles, and to establish a framework driven and local development. It been held to stimulate interest in the for development that is open to innovation also enables local builders and small project. and change. •

The New Welcome to Middlehaven Park.

The Middlehaven Partners (Middlesbrough Council and the Homes and Communities Agency) are building an exciting new Park for the community in the heart of Middlehaven, on Durham Street, less than 5 minutes walk from here. The triangular Park emphasises views to the Transporter Bridge and creates an attractive entrance into Middlesbrough from the North. The Park will offer spaces for the young and old including play facilities. To The place for / offices / residential / education the south, the Park will offer formal tree planting and multi-purpose grass areas, whilst to the north a wilder landscape treatment is proposed, possibly accommodating wild flower meadows and pocket woodland planting. The design of the Park was commissioned in January 2013. Construction is planned to start at the end of 2013 and the Park will / culture / bars & cafes be ready in early 2014. urban pioneers and / eating out / and more ... Middlehaven!Middlehaven! The heart of the new neighbourhood. entrepreneurs.

Illustration of the new Middlehaven Urban Park. The park will offer seating, green spaces to hang out, and places to play in an high quality landscape environment.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 41 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Projects 2013 ICKNIELD PORT LOOP URBED creates a new waterside quarter for Birmingham

The Site Icknield Port Loop is a key site in the history of the canal system. The Loop in question is James Brindley’s 1769 canal from Birmingham to Wolverhampton which was built on the 450’ contour thereby avoiding the need for locks. This did however lead to it being described by Thomas Telford as little more than a ‘crooked ditch’ and in 1827 it was bypassed by Telford’s Mainline canal (top right of the plan) making the central part of the site an island. The body of water on the left of the plan is the reservoir built to serve the mainline canal, which has been a place of recreation for Birmingham people ever since. The area around the canal was developed for industry forming a barrier between the more affluent suburbs to the north and west and the inner city district of Ladywood to the south and east. As the industry declined and relocated it became part of a major area of opportunity.

The Big City Birmingham is seeking to grow its population significantly over the next fifteen years. To this end it is planning to build 50-60,000 new homes within the city. The Big City Plan developed by Urban Initiatives sets out a framework to achieve this. After the city centre the largest concentration of new housing is to be in the Western Growth Corridor, at the heart of which sits Icknield port Loop. The plan envisages the Greater Icknield Area being developed as a Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood (based on the model developed by URBED in the 1990s) with 6,000 new homes.

Density, Innovation and Family Housing Icknield Port Loop (IPL) is the best site will be marketing the site to secure The Greater Icknield framework envisaged in Birmingham, the best site by general developers. 1,700 units on the IPL site with housing consent and by a considerable margin. The key question to be addressed by density bands of 70, 120 and 180 units per Located about a ten minute walk along the masterplan has been how to bring hectare (u/ha). These proved very difficult the canal from the city centre, this 23 ha forward the site in a manner befitting its in a market where apartments were no vacant site is entirely in public ownership. importance at a time when the market has longer seen to be viable. Much or URBED’s The central part of the site is owned by no appetite for innovation. This created a early work was therefore based on a study the Canals and Rivers Trust, the northern gap between the land owners’ aspirations of density typologies, using examples section by the HCA and the triangular site for a high-density exemplar development from the UK and Europe to illustrate that to the south by the City Council. Together (which was nevertheless viable) and high densities and innovation were not they commissioned URBED and DTZ to the market’s desire for something necessarily synonymous. The conclusion secure planning consent on the site for ‘a more traditional and low density. The was that 70 u/ha was the highest density high-quality, family-oriented, sustainable significance of URBED’s masterplan is the possible without apartments. and mixed use waterside neighbourhood’. way that it has sought to resolve these As a result of this work the City agreed Permission was granted in October requirements. to drop the highest density band and to 2012 and later this year the land owners allow the 120 u/ha zones to be allocated to

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↓ Aerial perspective showing the relationship of the site to Birmingham City Centre ↓↓ A view of one of the courtyard housetypes ↙ The illustrative masterplan → One of the regulatory plans for the site showing the showing housing density medium density urban housing (yellow – low, brown – medium, to the north, the lower density dark red – high) early phases to the south and ↘ View of the canal loop showing the local centre housing built right up to the canal

later phases of the scheme. The majority of to do this. The main lesson of the IPL the masterplan is therefore designed to be scheme is the way that it negotiates a mid at 70 u/ha with a first phase at 40 u/ha to point between an aspiration for dense, allow an early start. This reduced the site quality, mixed-use development and a yield to 1,000 units. Ironically, when the market that is currently suspicious of scheme was considered by committee, one such things. It achieves this, not so much of their concerns was the suitability of the through the plan, but rather through a 70 u/ha housing for families. carefully negotiated set of parameters and The Regulatory Plans a pragmatic approach to the development The Masterplan The concern of the planning authority process. The aim is to build momentum The plan is based on five principles: throughout was that the ambition of the with a first phase which does not scare the • The neighbourhood centre: the creation illustrative material would not be followed market, but which establishes the location of a local centre where Icknield Port through into the scheme. Meanwhile DTZ and development values, allowing the Road crosses the loop. This includes were concerned that an overly prescriptive higher density phases to follow. a mix of uses and the higher density consent would limit market interest. The This places a great deal of pressure on housing consent is therefore structured around a the masterplan as a tool to give the City • The central park: all the open space set of regulatory plans defining densities, confidence that quality can be maintained, requirement is gathered together in massing, access, parking open space and to sets parameters for development and to the heart of the site. The park creates waterside uses. The planning submission create briefs for each of the future phases. view corridors to the canal in three includes a great deal of work on the 70 u/ As such it is an example of how pragmatic directions as well as the dam ha density band which is regulated across modern masterplanning can respond to • The canal: there was much debate over half of the housing development land. The the current economic climate. the canal character. The masterplan illustrative material shows how this could • seeks to replicate the historic character be developed with a range of innovative by which buildings rise sheer from the courtyard houses, but is also achievable water. There is also a strategy to create with more conventional housetypes. a variety of residential and visitor moorings Lessons Learned • Sub-neighbourhoods: the site is split There has always been a gap between into four sub-neighbourhoods each to the aspirations of local authorities to be developed by different developers promote innovation and the concerns and with different characters of the housebuilding industry. Since the • Stitching: the masterplan is designed to recession this gap has widened to a gulf. ‘regrow’ the existing street network to The inevitable temptation, at a time when stitch the site into its surroundings. the priority is to achieve housing numbers, is to dumb things down, to accept more traditional types of development. Birmingham is clear that it is not prepared

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 43 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013

For the fourth year, the UDG Awards New Urbanism: Life, Work of trying to plan our cities, versus the poten- programme will include a Book Award, tial serendipity of the unplanned city street previously known as the Publishers Award. and Space in the New or space. Publishers in the urban design field were Downtown There is nothing particularly new in invited to nominate one of their books this, but New Urbanism is an interesting, published in the last 18 months. The eight Edited by Ilse Helbrecht and thought-provoking book which poses serious finalists are reviewed in the following pages Peter Dirksmeier, 2012, Ashgate, questions about the type of urban form or by the review panel chaired by Alastair £49.50 ISBN 978-1-4094-3135-0 urbanity taking place in 21st century cities. Donald and comprising: Juliet Bidgood, It would have benefited from a concluding Marc Furnival, Jonathan Kendall and Laurie Let’s start with a disclaimer: New Urbanism is chapter from the editors, which wrapped up Mentiplay. The panel will choose the winner, not about New Urbanism. If you want to read the various essays by testing and answering which will be announced at the Awards event about New Urbanism, go to the Congress for the questions posed in the first chapter, tying in February 2014. New Urbanism website and enjoy the evan- together the key findings from each essay. gelistic eulogies. A personal favourite is one Instead, the book ends before it logically from Andres Duany, who is quoted as saying should. that ‘the sum of human happiness increases As most of the essays date from a 2008 because of New Urbanism’. conference in HafenCity, they are now over However, New Urbanism is a 2012 anthol- five years old. In that time, HafenCity has had ogy edited by Professor Ilse Helbrecht and a revised masterplan for HafenCity east, new Peter Dirksmeier from Humboldt-Universitat neighbourhoods, the new U4 subway and a zu Berlin. In the introductory chapter, the completed University campus. And across editors identify a ‘completely new category of the world, there has been a seismic change urban area in the globalised world... where in the global economy which has impacted local or regional particularities, apart from dramatically on our cities. So how would the architectural styles or local limitations, can- New Downtown play in this age of austerity? not be discerned’. And would the editors change their criteria as Helbrecht and Dirksmeier call it ‘the a result? Perhaps we need a second edition... phenomenon of the New Downtown’. They Laurie Mentiplay identify four key characteristics including a • ‘new centrality’ based on global location, ‘ar- chitecture as stage’, ‘global flagship policies’ and ‘performative urbanity’ where streets are theatrical stages. Whether this new urbanity can be planned is examined in eleven essays by vari- ous academics and practitioners. These cover economic issues, motives of state interven- tion, new urban lifestyles and the changing form and function of public space. Examples from Melbourne, Vancouver, Boston and Amsterdam’s Eastern Docklands are featured. Several essays use Hamburg’s HafenCity har- bour expansion as a case study to illustrate key points. What emerge from the essays are themes which are not particularly new, but highly relevant to contemporary place-making; the importance of diversity, public space in urban planning, the benefits of higher densities, and an open, flexible, adaptive approach to planning for example. Or, the contradictions

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guidelines for what makes sociable streets. The Shape of Green: The Street – A It is clearly structured, with photographs, Quintessential Social sketches, diagrams and graphs to augment Aesthetics, Ecology and the text, although colour photos would have Design Public Space better conveyed the richness of the streets being examined. More discussion of how the Lance Hosey, Island Press, outlined behaviours are affected by differ- Washington, 2012, £18.99 ent street qualities and typologies would be ISBN 978-1-61091-032-3 Vikas Mehta, Earthscan/ welcome. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2013 Approaching the street from the perspec- In The Shape of Green, Lance Hosey delivers £55, ISBN: 978-0-415-52710-1 tive of liveability necessarily anchors design a passionate critique of the design equivalent at the human scale, so addresses a key issue of CP Snow’s ‘two cultures’ dichotomy. In of many overly commercial and rapidly ur- place of the split between the sciences and The street, the notion of it and the literature banised areas. ‘Without places for active and the humanities, the focus of this book is the about it, seem so extensive that we could passive socialisation, with no opportunity for relationship, or lack of it, between ecological be forgiven for questioning if we really need casual and formal interactions, our cities and sustainability and aesthetics. another book about streets. Mehta acknowl- towns would be no more than agglomerations Hosey strongly disagrees with those and edges this, but is interested in the social and of privatised spaces and buildings, devoid of he cites numerous architects in particular sensorial dimensions of architecture and the space for the individual to be a complete who have declared that sustainability has urban design, counterbalancing the more citizen: a landscape that affords a limited been used as an excuse for the creation of usual ‘visual-aesthetic tradition’ that has long ability to explore, create, express and share; artefacts lacking in beauty. He sees no in- been the dominant urban design paradigm, to encounter difference and learn; and to compatibility between the two and argues for and explores three aspects of the ‘sociable’ confront, tolerate and resolve conflict’ a design approach that responds to and inte- street: social, behavioural, and physical. Marc Furnival grates with the plurality of environmental and Whilst The Street is academic in tone, Dr • social conditions across the planet. He draws Mehta’s years as a practitioner, both in the lessons from natural phenomena at multiple US and India, combined with an observa- scales, in opposition to superimposition of tional perspective make this a readable and repetitive modernist models of architecture engaging people-focused book about high and urbanism into diverse geographical con- streets. The local high street in particular ditions, and wasteful objects of disposable needs to evolve, but genuinely understanding material culture into our shopping baskets it and how we actually go about that is not so and homes. straightforward. The range of influences is breathtaking After acknowledging a wide range of at times. Hosey leaps between high and low street uses, The Street is a practical guide culture, material science, information tech- to understanding, planning and designing nology, anthropology and architecture, often streets as places. The first half discusses the- at speed. The sincerity of the author is not in oretical and historical aspects of the street, doubt, but it is hard at times for the reader to followed by how social behaviour can form a follow the line of argument. basis for design: ‘a behaviour setting consists The challenge is one of breadth. Both of a milieu (the physical layout), a standing realms, of design activity and ecological pattern of behaviour, and a synomorphy (a phenomena, are vast in the terrain that they congruent relationship between the two). cover. As a statement of ambition, Hosey’s The better the relationship between the two, position is clearly stated and has some the better the place is able to afford human merit, but it is difficult to draw direct conclu- behaviours and needs’. sions to inform practice or to sharpen one’s The second half goes on to empirically ex- theoretical position within any particular amine three streets, developing typologies of design discipline. For this reason, it is hard a wide range of social street behaviours, and to determine who this book is aimed at. The outlining needs and characteristics, with the sweeping range of scales of design, from concluding chapter being a series of practical tactile objects to buildings and cities, means

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 45 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013

that each subject can inevitably only receive Designing Suburban Futures mechanisms to re-appropriate property, somewhat superficial coverage. It would exchanging office parks for organic farms, have been better had the book attempted a – New Models from Build a carbon sequestrating soft infrastructure, tighter concentration on a narrower range of Better Burb ways to support social diversity and local subjects. economies with mass transit, transforming All these critiques could have been June Williamson, Island Press, zoning, re-conceiving suburban governance, somewhat overcome had the book, as an Washington, 2013, £21.99 and growth strategies promoting ecological object, directly embodied the characteristics ISBN 978-1-61091-197-9 repair. promoted within the writing. As a demon- So much more than the familiar strategies stration of the emotionally communicative of densification and hubs around local trans- power of aesthetics, one would have hoped Whatever we may think of them, many of us port stops are explored, and together they that the book could have been a sumptuous live in suburban areas. As such, it is worth form a coherent wider strategy, which should object of delight, graphically crafted, lavishly considering how we might make these neigh- prevent successful proposals benefitting illustrated and materially sensual as a tactile bourhoods more liveable and more sustain- one place solely by displacing from another. artefact. Sadly, the photography tends to the able. Could such initiatives complement the Although US focused, many of the propos- generic, does not always align with the text resurgence of city living in certain places to als, from small to large scale, have wider and is not supported with a quality of printing narrow the gap between what we consider relevance. It is amply demonstrated that a and paper that one would have hoped for. urban and suburban? In principle, that would fundamental shift in outlook is required, so Jonathan Kendall be a good thing. for those that do not question the suburban • Designing Suburban Futures sets out to model or yet realise their potential, this understand and envision retro-fitted suburbs is a good start. This is a very graphic book to make them ‘resilient, climate sensitive, throughout, with a multitude of wide ranging compact, healthier, and responsive to chang- photos, plans, diagrams, montages, render- ing demographics and contemporary sustain- ings and 3D design proposals. able lifestyles’. It also touches on the more Marc Furnival political aspect of suburbs and the perceived • access that they give to good education, jobs, mortgages, low crime and longer life expectancy. The introductory part of the book comprises three essays: Context for change; Design culture responds to sprawl: 1960s to 2010s; and Better suburban futures, which together provide background, context and highlight opportunities for change. The main second part is a series of worked examples – entries for the 2010 Build a Better Burb competition for Long Island, New York State – showcasing ‘visionary design proposals for better burbs to further discourse about the crucial role of design in global urbanisation trends… establishing a regional strategy to promote growth and contraction’. It refutes that privacy and density are necessarily mutually exclusive, and targets ubiquitous suburban typologies such as the single household detached dwelling, the strip mall of big boxes and empty parking lots. These schemes cover topics such as densifi- cation, new building typologies tied to financ- ing and development models, market-driven

46 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013

Masterplanning Futures enable resilience in cities. The reconstruction Urban Design Ecologies plan for ConstituciÓn, Chile integrates future Lucy Bullivant, Routledge, 2012, environmental mitigation and amenity im- Edited by Brian McGrath, £34.99 ISBN 978-0-415-55447-3 provement. In Medellin, Colombia, strategic AD Reader, Wiley, 2013, £29.99 urban interventions aim to combat social ISBN 978-0-470-97405-6 exclusion up-cycling city districts by improv- As a timely panorama of approaches to mas- ing transport and educational infrastructure terplanning emerging across the urbanising and hence economic mobility. This collection of essays are themselves world, Masterplanning Futures explores the While emphasising the informal and thought ‘ecologies’ that interact to provoke challenges facing the city in the 21st century social dynamics of cities, Masterplanning reflection on the nature of the city: ‘a huge and the role of the plan in shaping them Futures celebrates the struggle for coher- changing slippery thing’. Urban Design Ecolo- physically and ergo socially, politically and ent innovative form. This is seen in MVRDV’s gies assembles essays that skillfully capture economically. What kinds of plans should ebullient work in the Netherlands and Spain, an urban design discourse echoing over five these be? Indeed Bullivant asks what plans OMA’s Qianhai Port City, China, and in a decades. Beginning with the shift of focus are for, if not to ‘defy the disappointing, number of projects that expand parametric from the traditional European city to the inadequate or anachronistic reality of many design to a city scale. Or also in the beguil- expanded metropolitan arena, the essays are earlier speculations’. ing Saemangeum Island City, South Korea by arranged into three further sections compris- Set against the wider horizon appearing ARU that is made from idealized city pieces ing the Megalopolis, the Megacity and finally in the wake of the global economic crisis, borrowed from Barceloneta, Malmö, Paris, the Metacity. this book presents a thoroughly researched New York… Different strands of thought cut across argument for a reclaimed approach to mas- There is an almost mythical quality to the book. For example Banham and Ven- terplanning. A lively, discursive introduction the place called city – where those that have turi/ Scott Brown/ Izenour’s articulation of charts how masterplans can no longer be achieved a certain convergence of cultures the spatial phenomena of Los Angeles and singular, top-down prescriptions but must and resources become iconic in the map of Las Vegas are revisited in Atelier Bow Wow offer a collective vision and operate as a the world – the pleasure of them transcend- Wow’s more recent study of the ‘shameless framework that can be adapted over time. ing the work they are made of. Masterplan- spatial compositions of Tokyo’. Essays that There is a new deftness to the plans that ning Futures makes a worthwhile casebook have had their own influential life by Rowe/ Bullivant exemplifies. These propose carefully for these possible cities. Koetter, Koolhaas and Rossi are re-presented evidenced, resourceful, spatial structures Juliet Bidgood alongside their younger cousins. Recent that work across scales from the city region • multi-disciplinary essays give a context for to the street. the breadth of how urban design, ecology All together an account of the process of and sustainability are currently defined. developing twenty adaptive urban plans is Together they highlight the need for tools organised into ten chapters each articulat- that engage with the scale of urbanisation, ing the myriad of contexts driving the plans. from the rapid making of new cities, to the Some of the themes such as post-industrial reinvention of abandoned or declining urban urban regeneration, urban growth and centres such as Houston, where Albert Pope’s landscape driven plans are familiar but still ‘defragmentation’ plan seeks to see beyond instructive. The account of the creation of ‘the fiction of an urban ideal that blocks our the Ørestad strip in Copenhagen shows how most pressing problems’. The book fore- a clear strategic plan coupled with an itera- grounds urban design ecologies generated tive design competition process can lead to in Europe and America, but moves on to the a crisp, characterful assembly of buildings phenomenon of the rapidly developing cities and spaces. The Milan citywide Metrogramma of China, South East Asia and the Southern plan and Brisbane’s Smart Cities Strategy Hemisphere. show how plans can skilfully converge and To highlight the essential inclusion of give coherence to growth while remaking a ecological processes into the concept of the more legible infrastructure. sustainable city, essays about the urbanisa- The chapters on post-disaster urban re- tion of the Pearl and Yangtze River Deltas in generation and social equity show how intel- China and the Chao Phyra Watershed around ligent urban design thinking can embed and Bangkok explore the dynamic interaction

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 47 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013

of new urbanisation with ‘pre modern aqua The Urban Masterplanning the development stages from start to finish. urban networks’. Ecologist Mary Cadenasso’s The authors then summarise the projects method of assessing urban land cover to rep- Handbook in a series of appendices which figuratively resent ecological heterogeneity, also asserts Eric Firley and Katharina Grön, compare each development’s timescales, the interdependence of urban and natural 2013, Wiley, £50 densities, figure grounds and scale. systems ISBN 978-0-470-97225-0 The Urban Masterplanning Handbook By 2050 it is predicted that seventy five is well structured, informative and visually per cent of the world’s population will live in attractive. It could be argued that some im- cities, with each new megacity having the po- Despite the faintly Orwellian terminology, portant developments have been left out and tential to concentrate poverty and serious so- masterplanning has become an international- while others are included (three appear to be cial and environmental problems. In its push ly recognised part of the urban design toolkit. linked to sponsorship of the book). But this to move beyond the vagaries and indifference The term is applied to a range of develop- is a minor quibble for a lavish £50 hardback of post-modernism, this collection points ment interventions, from conceptual site book. It is evident that the authors thought to a kind of coming of age for urban design strategies to prescriptive, detailed designs. long and hard about which sites to include, theory, where a relativist world is giving way In The Urban Masterplanning Handbook, and are careful not to promote the studies as to the pressure to engage with necessity at a Eric Firley and Katharina Grön tell us that the exemplars or models for future development. huge scale. term is historically ambiguous and incon- Ultimately it is the quality of the analysis By drawing a line under earlier theorising sistently applied as a concept. As a conse- and evaluation which is relevant to the of the city, the book demonstrates how those quence, their handbook does not intend to reader. The case study insights are not speculations enlarged the terms of reference refine or define masterplanning. They say purely architectural or aesthetic, but include for urban designers and architects, and sets that ‘it would be foolish to devise a step by relevant political, social, legal and economic out to rekindle this possibility. As a primer on step guide to the process’. Instead, their aim factors that led to change, evolution or revo- how to think and make the city, it is a good is to ‘enable an organisational and visual lution over each development timeline. It is companion for the challenges ahead. comparative approach’ between different this holistic narrative which makes The Urban Juliet Bidgood developments and ‘to gain understanding of Masterplanning Handbook credible and • how changes in masterplanning can influence important reading. It is enjoyable to read and the built result’. should become an extremely useful reference The authors’ approach is to examine for students, practitioners, politicians, and a twenty case studies from across the globe. welcome addition to current masterplanning The focus is on medium scale projects in cen- literature. tral locations of existing cities, predominantly Laurie Mentiplay in Europe. The case studies differ in size from • 12 hectares at Broadgate in London to the 600 hectare behemoth that is La Défense Seine Arche in Paris. A wide range of old and new typologies are selected, including historic grid plans in London, Paris and Amsterdam and modernist towers in the park (Stuyvesant Town). There are Central Business Districts (Broadgate, Beijing) and contemporary exemplars of sus- tainable urbanism (Vauban and Hammerby). Each case study has the same structure. We get a historic and contextual overview of the site, project organisation or team struc- ture, urban form or connectivity, architec- tural typologies and conclusions. Extensive colour photographs, original urban plans and bespoke use and development diagrams by Grön accompany the text. The process dia- grams are particularly powerful in illustrating

48 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Francis Tibbalds Award Shortlisted Books 2013

The Planning Game: Lessons The book is a fine production, with high Books also received quality illustrations, and would be of interest from Great Cities to a diverse audience beyond those with a In addition to the books reviewed in each Alexander Garvin, WW Norton & planning expertise. At times the writing im- issue, the following are also of interest: Co, New York, 2013, £40 plies a geographical familiarity with the cities ISBN 978-0-393-73344 that can be disorienting, and it would have JAQUELINE TYRWHITT: been helpful for a number of the diagrams to A TRANSITIONAL LIFE IN be larger and more clearly annotated to help URBAN PLANNING & DESIGN ‘Twas ever thus. If there is a single lesson to the reader and tie more closely to the text. Ellen Shoshkes, Ashgate Publishing, 2013, be taken from Alex Garvin’s excellent book, it While the case for universality is well made, ISBN 978-1-4094-1778-1 is that the shaping of cities through the pro- it would be fascinating to test this thesis A review of the British town planner who cesses of planning is characterised more by further in alternative locations away from played a central, but largely unacknowl- continuities and similarities than by unique cities shaped by western post-Enlightenment edged, role in shaping the post-war Modern and unrepeatable conditions. The ‘game’ to culture, for instance the turbulent economies Movement. which his title alludes does not imply playful- around the Mediterranean or in southern ness or frivolity, nor does it suggest a zero America. An option for a sequel perhaps? BRAND-DRIVEN CITY BUILDING sum conquest of outright winners and losers. Jonathan Kendall AND THE VIRTUALISING OF SPACE Instead, Garvin – through years in practice • Alexander Gutzmer, Routledge, 2013, and in academia at Yale – recognises the ISBN 978-0-415-81534-5 interplay between loci of power, influence, An exploration of the cultural phenomenon motivation and scales of interest. He looks at of branding and how it affects the spatial the players in national and local government, organisation and urban design of a city. The economic development and local communi- book introduces the idea of ‘global mass ties, and argues for dynamic interrelation- ornamentalization’ and how it is transforming ships that check and balance between each space and architecture, through mechanisms group and their representatives. borrowed from traditional advertising and The body of the book draws comparisons social media. between four major cities and the individuals strongly associated with their development REVITALIZING OUR SMALL TOWNS: at key moments in their evolution. Garvin Recent Examples from recognises the pros and cons in communi- Southern France cating a complex narrative through the lives Charles Durrett, McCamant & Durrett and personalities of single individuals, but Architects, 2012, ISBN the quality of his writing and its inclusion of A well-illustrated and attractive booklet by a the inter-relationships with others make a Californian architect on the parallel problems successful case for the merits of this strategy. and solutions for small towns in decline in The cities are Paris, Chicago, New York southern France and the United States. It sets and Philadelphia, and the dramatis perso- out 12 principles for action with ideas drawn nae are Baron Haussmann, Daniel Burnham, from French towns, and explored further with Robert Moses and Edmund Bacon respec- case studies from the US. tively. Each person and city is the subject of a detailed and substantial chapter, and each PROBLEM SOLVED personality, project and process has been Michael Johnson, Phaidon Press, 2012, thoroughly researched and compellingly Second Edition, ISBN 978-0-7148-6473-0 communicated through writing and illustra- A bold graphic handbook on the ‘nineteen tion. In telling the story of each of these recurring problems faced in design, branding cities, greater trajectories of economic and and communication and how to solve them’. political development are brought in, and Aimed at those not directly working in the the waxing and waning of power for the key communications business. An entertaining individuals brings with it human stories of pa- and inspiring read. tronage, hubris and organisational ability.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 49 Practice Index other Contributors Regional contacts Practice Index Allies & Morrison: Urban Practitioners Alastair Donald is associate If you are interested in getting Directory of practices, corporate 85 Southwark Street, London SE1 0HX •director of the Future Cities Project involved with any regional activities organisations and urban design T 020 7921 0100 and co-editor of Lure of the City: please get in touch with the following courses subscribing to this index. C Anthony Rifkin From Slums to Suburbs The following pages provide a service E [email protected] LONDON to potential clients when they are W www.urbanpractitioners.co.uk Juliet Bidgood, architect and Robert Huxford and Louise Ingledow looking for specialist urban design Specialist competition winning urban •urban designer, director at NEAT and T 020 7250 0892 advice, and to those considering regeneration practice combining Vice Chair of North Devon’s UNESCO E [email protected] taking an urban design course. economic and urban design skills. Biosphere Reserve Projects include West Ealing and STREET LONDON Those wishing to be included in future Plymouth East End. Alastair Donald, associate Katy Neaves issues should contact the UDG, •director of the Future Cities Project E streetlondon@urban-design-group. 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ AMEC Environment & and co-editor of Lure of the City: org.uk T 020 7250 0892 Infrastructure UK Ltd From Slums to Suburbs C Louise Ingledow Gables House Kenilworth Road, SOUTH EAST E [email protected] Leamington Spa, Warwicks CV32 6JX Marc Furnival, urban designer Louise Thomas W www.udg.org.uk T 01926 439 000 •and architect. Regeneration T 01865 514643 C David Thompson consultant with Camden Council E [email protected] ADAM Architecture E [email protected] Old Hyde House W www.amec.com Joe Holyoak, architect and SOUTH SOLENT 75 Hyde Street Masterplanning, urban design, •urban designer Peter Frankum Winchester SO23 7DW development planning and E [email protected] C Peter Critoph landscape within broad-based Jonathan Kendall, Partner, E peter.critoph multidisciplinary environmental and •Fletcher Priest and Senior EAST MIDLANDS @adamarchitecture.com engineering consultancy. Teaching Fellow, Bartlett School of Laura Alvarez W www.adamarchitecture.com Architecture, UCL T 0115 962 9000 World-renowned for progressive, AREA E [email protected] classical design covering town Grange, Linlithgow Laurie Mentiplay, urban and country houses, housing West Lothian EH49 7RH •planner and designer with Parsons UDG STREET NORTH WEST development, urban masterplans, T 01506 843247 Brinkerhoff, based in Manchester Emma Zukowski commercial development and public C Karen Cadell/ Julia Neil E street-north-west@urban-design- buildings. E [email protected] Louise Thomas, independent group.org.uk W www.area.uk.com •urban designer Alan Baxter & Associates Making places imaginatively to NORTH EAST Consulting Engineers deliver the successful, sustainable Neither the Urban Design Group nor Georgia Giannopoulou 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ and humane environments of the the editors are responsible for views T 0191 222 6006 T 020 7250 1555 future. expressed or statements made by E [email protected] C Alan Baxter individuals writing in Urban Design E [email protected] Arnold Linden YORKSHIRE W www.alanbaxter.co.uk Chartered Architect We welcome articles from our Robert Thompson An engineering and urban design 54 Upper Montagu Street, readers. If you wish to contribute T 0114 2736077 practice. Particularly concerned with London W1H 1FP to future issues, please contact the M 07944 252955 the thoughtful integration of buildings, T 020 7723 7772 editors. E [email protected] infrastructure and movement, and the C Arnold Linden creation of places. Integrated regeneration through the SCOTLAND participation in the creative process Francis Newton, Jo White Albonico Sack Metacity of the community and the public Edinburgh Architects & Urban at large, of streets, buildings and E [email protected] Designers places. 56 Gwigwi Mrwebi Street Wales Market Theatre Precinct Assael Architecture Serena Yao Newtown, Johannesburg Studio 13, 50 Carnwath Road E serena.yao@urban-design-group. South Africa London SW6 3FG org.uk T +27 11 492 0633 T 020 7736 7744 C Monica Albonico C Russell Pedley E [email protected] E [email protected] W www.asmarch.com W www.assael.co.uk A multi-disciplinary practice Architects and urban designers specialising in large scale, green covering mixed use, hotel, leisure field, urban regeneration and and residential, including urban upgrading strategies, as well as frameworks and masterplanning residential, special and educational projects. projects. Atkins plc Allen Pyke Associates Euston Tower, 286 Euston Road, The Factory 2 Acre Road, London NW1 3AT Kingston-upon-Thames KT2 6EF T 020 7121 2000 T 020 8549 3434 C Paul Reynolds C David Allen/ Vanessa Ross E [email protected] E [email protected] W www.atkinsglobal.co.uk W www.allenpyke.co.uk Interdisciplinary practice that offers a Innovative, responsive, committed, range of built environment specialists competitive, process. Priorities: working together to deliver quality people, spaces, movement, culture. places for everybody to enjoy. Places: regenerate, infill, extend create.

50 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Practice Index

Barton Willmore Building Design Partnership CITY ID David Lock Associates Ltd Partnership 16 Brewhouse Yard, Clerkenwell, 23 Trenchard Street 50 North Thirteenth Street, Beansheaf Farmhouse, Bourne Close, London EC1V 4LJ Bristol BS1 5AN Central Milton Keynes, Calcot, Reading, Berks RG31 7BW T 020 7812 8000 T 0117 917 7000 Milton Keynes MK9 3BP T 0118 943 0000 C Andrew Tindsley C Mike Rawlinson T 01908 666276 C James de Havilland, Nick Sweet and E [email protected] E [email protected] C Will Cousins Dominic Scott W www.bdp.co.uk W cityid.co.uk E [email protected] E masterplanning@bartonwillmore. BDP offers town planning, Place branding and marketing vision W www.davidlock.com co.uk Masterplanning, urban design, Masterplanning, urban design, Strategic planning studies, W www.bartonwillmore.co.uk landscape, regeneration and public realm strategies, way finding area development frameworks, Concept through to implementation sustainability studies, and has teams and legibility strategies, information development briefs, design on complex sites, comprehensive based in London, Manchester and design and graphics. guidelines, Masterplanning, design guides, urban regeneration, Belfast. implementation strategies, brownfield sites, and major urban Clarke Klein & Chaudhuri environmental statements. expansions. Burns + Nice Architects 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ 63-71 Collier Street, London N1 9BE Define The Bell Cornwell T 020 7253 0808 T 020 7278 0722 Cornwall Buildings, 45-51 Newhall Partnership C Marie Burns/ Stephen Nice C Wendy Clarke Street, Birmingham B3 3QR Oakview House, Station Road, Hook, E [email protected] E [email protected] T 0121 213 4720 Hampshire RG27 9TP W www.burnsnice.com Small design-led practice focusing C Andy Williams T 01256 766673 Urban design, landscape on custom solutions for architectural, E [email protected] C Simon Avery architecture, environmental and planning or urban design projects. W www.wearedefine.com E [email protected] transport planning. Masterplanning, Exploring the potential for innovative Define specialises in the promotion, W www.bell-cornwell.co.uk design and public consultation for urban design. shaping and assessment of Specialists in Masterplanning and the community-led work. development. Our work focuses on coordination of major development Colour Urban Design Limited strategic planning, masterplanning, proposals. Advisors on development Capita Symonds Ltd Milburn House, Dean Street, urban design codes, EIA, TVIA, estate plan representations, planning (incorporating Andrew Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1LE strategies, public realm design, applications and appeals. Martin Associates) T 0191 242 4224 consultation strategies, urban design Croxton’s Mill, Little Waltham, London office audits and expert witness. Bidwells Chelmsford, 94 Euston Street, London NW1 2HA Bidwell House, Trumpington Road Essex CM3 3PJ T 0207 387 8560 DEVEREUX ARCHITECTS LTD Cambridge CB2 9LD T 01245 361611 C Peter Owens 200 Upper Richmond Road, T 01223 559404 C Sophie O’Hara Smith, Richard Hall E [email protected] London SW15 2SH C Helen Thompson E [email protected] W www.colour-udl.com T 020 8780 1800 E [email protected] W www.capitasymonds.co.uk Office also in London. Design C Duncan Ecob W www.bidwells.co.uk Masterplans, urban design, urban oriented projects with full client E [email protected] Planning, Landscape and Urban regeneration, historic buildings, participation. Public spaces, W www.devereux.co.uk Design consultancy, specialising project management, planning, EIA, regeneration, development, Adding value through innovative, in Masterplanning, Townscape landscape planning and design. Masterplanning, residential, ambitious solutions in complex urban Assessment, Landscape and Visual education and healthcare. environments. Impact Assessment. Carter Jonas Berger House, 36-38 Berkeley Square Conroy Crowe Kelly DHA Planning & Urban Boyer Planning London W1J 5AE Architects & Urban Design Crowthorne House, Nine Mile Ride T 020 7016 0720 Designers Eclipse House, Eclipse Park, Wokingham, Berkshire RG40 3GZ C Rebecca Sanders 65 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 Sittingbourne Road, Maidstone, T 01344 753220 E [email protected] T 00 353 1 661 3990 Kent ME14 3EN C Craige Burden W www.carterjonas.co.uk/en-GB/ C Clare Burke T 01622 776226 E [email protected] dev-planning-development-2-1.aspx E [email protected] C Matthew Woodhead W www.boyerplanning.co.uk Multidisciplinary practice working W www.cck.ie E [email protected] Offices in Wokingham, Colchester, throughout the UK, specialising in Architecture, urban design, W dhaplanning.co.uk Cardiff, Twickenham and London. urban design and masterplanning, Masterplanning, village studies. Planning and Urban Design Planning and urban design place-making, new settlements Mixed use residential developments Consultancy offering a full range consultants offering a wide range of and urban extensions, urban with a strong identity and sense of of Urban Design services including services to support sites throughout regeneration, sustainability place. Masterplanning, development briefs the development process: from and community consultation. and design statements. appraisals to planning applications Complemented by in-house Construkt Architects Ltd and appeals. architecture, planning, development, 17 Graham Street, Auckland DLP Consulting Group investment, property and minerals New Zealand 4 Abbey Court, Fraser Road, Broadway Malyan teams. T +64 (0)9 373 4900 Priory Business Park 3 Weybridge Business Park C David Gibbs Bedford MK44 3WH Addlestone Road, Weybridge, Chapman Taylor LLP E [email protected] T 01234 832 740 Surrey KT15 2BW 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX W www.construkt.co.nz C Matt Herbert T 01932 845599 T 020 7371 3000 Construkt offer urban design E [email protected] C Erik Watson E [email protected] and architectural services. Our W www.dlpconsultants.co.uk E [email protected] W www.chapmantaylor.com work spans through civic and DLP Consulting Group comprises four W www.broadwaymalyan.com MANCHESTER cultural projects to masterplanned self-contained consultancies offering We are an international Bass Warehouse, 4 Castle Street communities and private residences. specialist advice on all aspects interdisciplinary practice which Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ Shaping space is our passion. of town planning, sustainable believes in the value of place- T 0161 828 6500 development, architecture, urban making-led masterplans that are E [email protected] David Huskisson Associates design and transportation issues. rooted in local context. Chapman Taylor is an international 17 Upper Grosvenor Road, firm of architects and urban Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 2DU DPDS Consulting Group Brock Carmichael designers specialising in mixed T 01892 527828 Old Bank House, 5 Devizes Road, Old Architects use city centre regeneration and C Nicola Brown Town, Swindon, Wilts SN1 4BJ 19 Old Hall Street, Liverpool L3 9JQ transport projects throughout the E [email protected] T 01793 610222 T 0151 242 6222 world. Offices in Bangkok, Brussels, W www.dha-landscape.co.uk C Les Durrant C Michael Cosser Bucharest, Düsseldorf, Kiev, Madrid, Landscape consultancy offering E [email protected] E [email protected] Milan, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, Masterplanning, streetscape W www.dpds.co.uk Masterplans and development Prague, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and and urban park design, estate Town planning, architecture, briefs. Mixed use and brownfield Warsaw. restoration, environmental impact landscape architecture and urban regeneration projects. Design in assessments. design: innovative solutions in historic and sensitive settings. Masterplanning, design guidance Integrated landscape design. and development frameworks.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 51 Practice Index

FaulknerBrowns Garsdale Design Limited Hankinson Duckett Kay Elliott Dobson House, Northumbrian Way, High Branthwaites, Frostrow, Associates 5-7 Meadfoot Road, Torquay, Devon Newcastle upon Tyne NE12 0QW Sedbergh, Cumbria, LA10 5JR The Stables, Howberry Park, Benson TQ1 2JP T 0191 268 3007 T 015396 20875 Lane, Wallingford OX10 8BA T 01803 213553 C Ben Sykes C Derrick Hartley T 01491 838 175 C Mark Jones E [email protected] E [email protected] C Brian Duckett E [email protected] W www.faulknerbrowns.co.uk W www.garsdaledesign.co.uk E [email protected] W www.kayelliott.co.uk Formed in 1962, FaulknerBrowns is GDL provides Masterplanning and W www.hda-enviro.co.uk International studio with 30 year a regionally-based architectural urban design, architecture and An approach which adds value history of imaginative architects design practice with a national heritage services developed through through innovative solutions. and urban designers, creating and international reputation. 25 years wide ranging experience in Development planning, new buildings and places that enhance From a workload based initially on the UK and Middle East. settlements, environmental their surroundings and add financial education, library and sports and assessment, re-use of redundant value. leisure buildings, the practice’s Globe Consultants Ltd buildings. current workload also extends 26 Westgate, Lincoln LN1 3BD Landscape Projects across a number of sectors including T 01522 546483 Hawkins\Brown 31 Blackfriars Road, Salford masterplanning, offices, healthcare, C Steve Kemp 60 Bastwick Street, London EC1V 3TN Manchester M3 7AQ commercial mixed use, industrial E [email protected] T 020 7336 8030 T 0161 839 8336 and residential, for both private and W www.globelimited.co.uk C David Bickle C Neil Swanson public sector clients. Provides urban design, planning, E [email protected] E [email protected] economic and cultural development W www.hawkinsbrown.co.uk W www.landscapeprojects.co.uk Feria Urbanism services across the UK and Multi-disciplinary architecture and We work at the boundary between Second Floor Studio, 11 Fernside Road internationally, specialising in urban design practice specialising in architecture, urban and landscape Bournemouth, Dorset BH9 2LA sustainable development solutions, mixed use regeneration, educational design, seeking innovative, sensitive T 01202 548676 masterplanning and regeneration. Masterplanning, sustainable rural design and creative thinking. Offices C Richard Eastham development frameworks, transport in Manchester & London. E [email protected] Gillespies infrastructure and public urban realm W www.feria-urbanism.eu Environment by Design design. Land Use Consultants Expertise in urban planning, GLASGOW 43 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD masterplanning and public 21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP HOK international Ltd T 020 7383 5784 participation. Specialisms include T 0141 420 8200 Qube, 90 Whitfield Street C Adrian Wikeley design for the night time economy, C Brian M Evans London W1T 4EZ E [email protected] urban design skills training and local E [email protected] T 020 7636 2006 GLASGOW community engagement. MANCHESTER C Tim Gale 37 Otago Street, Glasgow G12 8JJ T 0161 928 7715 E [email protected] T 0141 334 9595 Fletcher Priest Architects C Jim Gibson W www.hok.com C Martin Tabor Middlesex House, 34/42 Cleveland E [email protected] HOK delivers design of the highest E [email protected] Street, OXFORD quality. It is one of Europe’s leading W www.landuse.co.uk London W1T 4JE T 01865 326789 architectural practices, offering Urban regeneration, landscape T 020 7034 2200 C Paul F Taylor experienced people in a diverse design, masterplanning, sustainable F 020 7637 5347 E [email protected] range of building types, skills and development, environmental C Jonathan Kendall W www.gillespies.co.uk markets. planning, environmental assessment, E [email protected] Urban design, landscape landscape planning and W www.fletcherpreist.com architecture, architecture, planning, Hyland Edgar Driver management. Offices also in Bristol Work ranges from city-scale environmental assessment, One Wessex Way, Colden Common, and Edinburgh. masterplans (Stratford City, Riga) to planning supervisors and project Winchester, Hants SO21 1WG architectural commissions for high- management. T 01962 711 600 Lathams profile professional clients. C John Hyland St Michael’s, Queen Street, GM Design Associates Ltd E [email protected] Derby DE1 3SU FPCR Environment 22 Lodge Road, Coleraine W www.heduk.com T 01332 365777 & Design Ltd Co. Londonderry BT52 1NB Innovative problem solving, driven C Derek Latham, Jon Phipps Lockington Hall, Lockington, Northern Ireland by cost efficiency and sustainability, E [email protected] Derby DE74 2RH T 028 703 56138 combined with imagination and W www.lathamarchitects.co.uk T 01509 672772 C Bill Gamble coherent aesthetic of the highest Urban regeneration. The creative C Tim Jackson E [email protected] quality. reuse of land and buildings. E [email protected] W www.g-m-design.com Planning, landscape and W www.fpcr.co.uk Architecture, town and country John Thompson & Partners architectural expertise combining the Integrated design and planning, urban design, landscape 23-25 Great Sutton Street, new with the old. environmental practice. Specialists architecture, development London ECIV 0DN in Masterplanning, urban and mixed frameworks and briefs, feasibility T 020 7017 1780 Lavigne Lonsdale Ltd use regeneration, development studies, sustainability appraisals, C Marcus Adams 38 Belgrave Crescent, Camden frameworks, EIAs and public public participation and community E [email protected] Bath BA1 5JU inquiries. engagement. Edinburgh T 01225 421539 2nd Floor Venue studios, 15-21 TRURO Framework Architecture Halcrow Group Ltd Calton Road, Edinburgh EH8 8DL 55 Lemon Street, Truro and Urban Design Elms House, 43 Brook Green T 0131 272 2762 Cornwall TR1 2PE 3 Marine Studios, Burton Lane, Hammersmith, London W6 7EF C Alan Stewart T 01872 273118 Burton Waters, Lincoln LN1 2WN T 020 3479 8000 E [email protected] C Martyn Lonsdale T 01522 535383 C Robert Schmidt, Asad Shaheed W www.jtp.co.uk E [email protected] C Gregg Wilson E [email protected] Addressing the problems of physical, W www.lavigne.co.uk E [email protected] W www.halcrow.com social and economic regeneration We are an integrated practice of W www.frameworklincoln.co.uk Award winning consultancy, through collaborative interdisciplinary masterplanners, Urban Designers, Architecture and urban design. A integrating planning, transport and community based planning. Landscape Architects and Product commitment to the broader built environment. Full development cycle Designers. Experienced in large environment and the particular covering feasibility, concept, design Jon Rowland Urban Design scale, mixed use and residential dynamic of a place and the design and implementation. 65 Hurst Rise Road, Oxford OX2 9HE Masterplanning, health, education, opportunities presented. T 01865 863642 regeneration, housing, parks, public C Jon Rowland realm and streetscape design. E [email protected] W www.jrud.co.uk Urban design, urban regeneration, development frameworks, site appraisals, town centre studies, design guidance, public participation and Masterplanning.

52 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Practice Index

LDA Design Matrix Partnership Nicholas Pearson Pegasus Group 14-17 Wells Mews, London W1T 3HF 17 Bowling Green Lane, Associates Pegasus House T 020 7467 1470 London EC1R 0QB 30 Brock Street, Bath BA1 2LN Querns Business Centre C Vaughan Anderson T 0845 313 7668 T 01225 445548 Whitworth Road, Cirencester GL7 1RT [email protected] C Matt Lally C Simon Kale T 01285 641717 W www.lda-design.co.uk E [email protected] E [email protected] C Michael Carr GLASGOW W www.matrixpartnership.co.uk W www.npaconsult.co.uk E [email protected] Sovereign House, Masterplans, regeneration strategies, Masterplanning, public realm W www.pegasuspg.co.uk 158 West Regent Street development briefs, site appraisals, design, streetscape analysis, Masterplanning, detailed layout Glasgow G2 4RL urban capacity studies, design concept and detail designs. Also full and architectural design, design T 0141 2229780 guides, building codes and concept landscape architecture service, EIA, and access statements, design C Kirstin Taylor visualisations. green infrastructure, ecology and codes, sustainable design, E [email protected] biodiversity, environmental planning development briefs, development Offices also in Oxford, Peterborough Melville Dunbar Associates and management. frameworks, expert witness, & Exeter Studio 2, Griggs Business Centre community involvement and Multidisciplinary firm covering all West Street, Coggeshall, Essex CO6 1NT NJBA A + U sustainability appraisal. Part of the aspects of Masterplanning, urban T 01376 562828 4 Molesworth Place, Dublin 2 multidisciplinary Pegasus Group. regeneration, public realm design, C Melville Dunbar T 00 353 1 678 8068 environmental impact and community E [email protected] C Noel J Brady Philip Cave Associates involvement. W www.melvilledunbarassociates.com E [email protected] 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ Architecture, urban design, planning, W www.12publishers.com/njba.htm T 020 7250 0077 Levitt Bernstein Masterplanning, new towns, urban Integrated landscapes, urban C Philip Cave Associates Ltd regeneration, conservation studies, design, town centres and squares, E [email protected] 1 Kingsland Passage, London E8 2BB design guides, townscape studies, strategic design and planning. W www.philipcave.com T 020 7275 7676 design briefs. Design-led practice with innovative C Glyn Tully Node Urban Design yet practical solutions to E [email protected] Metropolis Planning and 33 Holmfield Road environmental opportunities in urban W www.levittbernstein.co.uk Design Leicester LE2 1SE regeneration. Specialist expertise in Urban design, Masterplanning, full 4 Underwood Row, London N1 7LQ T 0116 2708742 landscape architecture. architectural service, lottery grant T 020 7324 2662 C Nigel Wakefield bid advice, interior design, urban C Greg Cooper E [email protected] PLANIT i.e. LTD renewal consultancy and landscape E [email protected] W www.nodeurbandesign.com The Planit Group, 2 Back Grafton Street design. W ww.metropolispd.com An innovative team of urban design, Altrincham, Cheshire WA14 1DY Metropolitan urban design solutions landscape and heritage consultants T 0161 928 9281 LHC Urban Design drawn from a multi-disciplinary who believe that good design adds C Peter Swift Design Studio, Emperor Way, Exeter studio of urban designers, architects, value. Providing sustainable urban E [email protected] Business Park, Exeter, Devon EX1 3QS planners and heritage architects. design and masterplan solutions W www.planit-ie.com T 01392 444334 at all scales of development with a Public realm solutions informed by C John Baulch Mouchel focus on the creation of a sense of robust urban design. We create E [email protected] 209-215 Blackfriars Road place. quality spaces for people to live, W www.lhc.net London SE1 8NL work, play and enjoy. Urban designers, architects and T 020 7803 2600 Novell Tullett landscape architects, providing an C Ludovic Pittie The Old Mess Room Plincke integrated approach to strategic E [email protected] Home Farm Tuscany Wharf, 4A Orsman Road visioning, regeneration, urban W www.mouchel.com Barrow Gurney BS48 3RW London N1 5QJ renewal, Masterplanning and Integrated urban design, transport T 01275 462476 T 020 7739 3330 public realm projects. Creative, and engineering consultancy, C Simon Lindsley C Victoria Summers knowledgeable, practical, changing the urban landscape in a E [email protected] E [email protected] passionate. positive manner, creating places for W www.novelltullett.co.uk W www.plincke.com sustainable living. Urban design, landscape MANCHESTER Liz Lake Associates architecture and environmental Studio 1.22, Waulk Mill, Western House, Chapel Hill Nathaniel Lichfield & planning. Bengal Street, Manchester M4 6LN Stansted Mountfitchet Partners Ltd A trans-disciplinary design prac- Essex CM24 8AG 14 Regent’s Wharf, All Saints Street, Paul Drew Design Ltd tice: Urban and ecological design, T 01279 647044 London N1 9RL 23-25 Great Sutton Street landscape architecture and plan- C Matt Lee T 020 7837 4477 London EC1V 0DN ning. Place-making and community E [email protected] C Nick Thompson T 020 7017 1785 engagement. W www.lizlake.com E [email protected] C Paul Drew Urban fringe/brownfield sites where W www.nlpplanning.com E [email protected] +Plus Urban Design Ltd an holistic approach to urban design, Also at Newcastle upon Tyne and W www.pauldrewdesign.co.uk Spaceworks, Benton Park Road landscape, and ecological issues Cardiff Masterplanning, urban design, Newcastle upon Tyne NE7 7LX can provide robust design solutions. Urban design, Masterplanning, residential and mixed use design. T 0844 800 6660 heritage/conservation, visual Creative use of design codes and C Richard Charge, Tony Wyatt LSI Architects LLP appraisal, regeneration, daylight/ other briefing material. E [email protected] The Old Drill Hall, 23 A Cattle Market sunlight assessments, public realm W www.plusud.co.uk Street, Norwich NR1 3DY strategies. PD Lane Associates Specialist practice providing strate- T 01603 660711 1 Church Road, Greystones, gic masterplanning, urban design C David Thompson New Masterplanning Limited County Wicklow, Ireland guidance, analysis, character [email protected] 2nd Floor, 107 Bournemouth Road, T 00 353 1287 6697 assessment and independent design W www.lsiarchitects.co.uk Poole, Dorset BH14 9HR C Malcolm Lane advisory expertise. Large scale Masterplanning and T 01202 742228 E [email protected] visualisation in sectors such as C Andy Ward W www.pdlane.ie health, education and business, and E [email protected] Urban design, architecture and new sustainable settlements. W www.newMasterplanning.com planning consultancy, specialising Our skills combine strategic planning in Masterplanning, development Malcolm Moor Urban Design with detailed implementation, frameworks, site layouts, 27 Ock Mill Close, Abingdon design flair with economic rigour, applications, appeals, project co- Oxon OX14 1SP independent thinking with a ordination. T 01235 550122 partnership approach. C Malcolm Moor E [email protected] W www.moorud.com Master planning of new communities, urban design, residential, urban capacity and ecofitting studies, design involvement with major international projects.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 53 Practice Index

Pod Quartet Design Rummey Design Associates Shepheard Epstein Hunter 99 Galgate,Barnard Castle, The Exchange, Lillingstone Dayrell, South Park Studios, South Park, Phoenix Yard, 65 King’s Cross Road, Co Durham DL12 8ES Bucks MK18 5AP Sevenoaks Kent TN13 1AN London WC1X 9LW T 0845 872 7288 T 01280 860500 T 01732 743753 T 020 7841 7500 C Andy Dolby C David Newman C Robert Rummey C Steven Pidwill E [email protected] E [email protected] W www.rummey.co.uk E [email protected] Newcastle W www.qdl.co.uk Masterplanning, urban design, W www.seh.co.uk G27 Toffee Factory Landscape architects, architects and landscape architecture, architecture, SEH is a user-friendly, award- Lower Steenbergs Yard urban designers. Masterplanning, environmental consultancy. winning architects firm, known for Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 2DF hard landscape projects in urban Responsible place-making that its work in regeneration, education, C Craig Van Bedaf areas achieving environmental considers social, environmental and housing, Masterplanning, mixed use W www.designbypod.co.uk sustainability. economic issues. and healthcare projects. Masterplanning, site appraisal, layout and architectural design. Randall Thorp SAVILLS (L&P) LIMITED Sheppard Robson Development frameworks, urban Canada House, 3 Chepstow Street, Lansdowne House, 57 Berkeley Square 77 Parkway, Camden Town, regeneration, design codes, briefs Manchester M1 5FW London W1J 6ER London NW1 7PU and design and access statements. T 0161 228 7721 T 020 3320 8242 T 020 7504 1700 C Pauline Randall W www.savills.com C Charles Scott Pollard Thomas Edwards E [email protected] SOUTHAMPTON E [email protected] Architects W www.randallthorp.co.uk 2 Charlotte Place, W www.sheppardrobson.com Diespeker Wharf, 38 Graham Street, Masterplanning for new Southampton SO14 0TB Manchester London N1 8JX developments and settlements, T 02380 713900 27th Floor, City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza T 020 7336 7777 infrastructure design and urban C Peter Frankum Manchester M1 4BD C Robin Saha-Choudhury renewal, design guides and design E [email protected] T 0161 233 8900 Andrew Beharrell briefing, public participation. Offices throughout the World Planners, urban designers and E [email protected] Savills Urban Design creates value architects. Strategic planning, urban W www.ptea.co.uk Random Greenway from places and places of value. regeneration, development planning, Masterplanners, urban designers, Architects Masterplanning, urban design, town centre renewal, new settlement developers, architects, listed building Soper Hall, Harestone Valley Road design coding, urban design advice, planning. and conservation area designers; Caterham Surrey CR3 6HY planning, commercial guidance. specialising in inner city mixed use T 01883 346 441 Saunders Partnership Smeeden Foreman ltd high density regeneration. C R Greenway Studio Four, 37 Broadwater Road, Somerset House, Low Moor Lane E rg@randomgreenwayarchitects. Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL7 3AX Scotton, Knaresborough HG5 9JB Powell Dobson Urbanists co.uk T 01707 385 300 T 01423 863369 Charter House, Links Business Park Architecture, planning and urban C Martin Williams C Trevor Foreman St Mellons, Cardiff CF3 0LT design. New build, regeneration, E urbandesign@saundersarchitects. E [email protected] T 029 2079 9699 refurbishment and restoration. com W www.smeedenforeman.co.uk C James Brown W www.saundersarchitects.com Ecology, landscape architecture E [email protected] Richard Coleman and urban design. Environmental W www.powelldobsonurbanists.com Citydesigner Scott Brownrigg Ltd assessment, detailed design, Our mission is to create enduing new 14 Lower Grosvenor Place, St Catherines Court, 46-48 Portsmouth contract packages and site places and help to make existing London SW1W 0EX Road, Guildford GU2 4DU supervision. places work better. T 020 7630 4880 T 01483 568 686 C Lakshmi Varma C Alex Baker Soltys: Brewster Consulting Pringle Brandon Drew E [email protected] E [email protected] 4 Stangate House, Stanwell Road, 10 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4QJ Advice on architectural quality, W www.scottbrownrigg.com Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan CF64 2AA T 020 7466 1000 urban design, and conservation, Integrated service of architecture, T 029 2040 8476 C John Drew historic buildings and townscape. urban design, planning, C Simon Brewster E pbmarketing@pringle-brandon. Environmental statements, listed Masterplanning, involved in several E [email protected] co.uk buildings/area consent applications. mixed use schemes regenerating W www.soltysbrewster.co.uk W www.pringlebrandonpw.com inner city and brownfield sites. Urban design, masterplans, Offices, hotels, workplace design. RICHARDS PARTINGTON design strategies, visual impact, ARCHITECTS Scott Tallon Walker environmental assessment, Project Centre Ltd Unit 1, 12 Orsman Road Architects regeneration of urban space, Fourth Floor Westgate House London N1 5QJ 19 Merrion Square, Dublin 2 landscape design and project Westgate, London W5 1YY T 020 7033 4422 T 00 353 1 669 3000 management. T 020 7421 8222 C Richard Partington C Philip Jackson C David Moores E [email protected] E [email protected] spacehub E [email protected] W www.rparchitects.co.uk W www.stwarchitects.com Grimsby Street Studio, W www.projectcentre.co.uk Urban design, housing, retail, Award winning international practice 20a Grimsby Street Landscape architecture, public realm education, sustainability and covering all aspects of architecture, London E2 6ES design, urban regeneration, street commercial projects that take urban design and planning. T 020 7739 6699 lighting design, planning supervision, a responsible approach to the C Giles Charlton traffic and transportation, parking environment and resources. Shaffrey Associates E [email protected] and highway design. 29 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1 W www.spacehubdesign.com Richard Reid & Associates T 00 353 1872 5602 spacehub is a young design PRP Architects Whitely Farm, Ide Hill, C Gráinne Shaffrey studio, specialising in public realm, 10 Lindsey Street, Sevenoaks TN14 6BS E [email protected] landscape, ecology and urban London EC1A 9HP T 01732 741417 W www.shaffrey.ie design. We are passionate and T 020 7653 1200 C Richard Reid Urban conservation and design, with committed to creative thinking and C Andy von Bradsky E [email protected] a particular commitment to the collaborative working. E [email protected] W www.richardreid.co.uk regeneration of historic urban Architects, planners, urban centres, small towns and villages, Spawforths designers and landscape architects, RPS including new development. Junction 41 Business Court, East specialising in housing, urban Bristol, Cambridge, London, Newark, Ardsley, Leeds WF3 2AB regeneration, health, education and Southampton & Swindon Sheils Flynn Ltd T 01924 873873 leisure projects. T 0800 587 9939 Bank House High Street, Docking, C Adrian Spawforth E [email protected] Kings Lynn PE31 8NH E [email protected] W www.rpsgroup.com T 01485 518304 W www.spawforth.co.uk Part of the RPS Group providing a C Eoghan Sheils Urbanism with planners and wide range of urban design services E [email protected] architects specialising in including Masterplanning and W www.sheilsflynn.com Masterplanning, community development frameworks, design Award winning town centre engagement, visioning and guides and statements. regeneration schemes, urban development frameworks. strategies and design guidance. Specialists in community consultation and team facilitation.

54 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 Practice Index

Stride Treglown Tetlow King Tweed Nuttall Warburton Vincent and Gorbing Ltd Promenade House, The Promenade Building 300, The Grange, Chapel House, City Road, Sterling Court, Norton Road, Clifton Down, Bristol BS8 3NE Romsey Road, Michelmersh, Chester CH1 3AE Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2JY T 0117 974 3271 Romsey SO51 0AE T 01244 310388 T 01438 316331 C Graham Stephens T 01794 517333 C John Tweed C Richard Lewis [email protected] C Gary Rider E [email protected] E urban.designers@vincent-gorbing. W www.stridetreglown.com/ E [email protected] W www.tnw-architecture.co.uk co.uk W www.tetlowking.co.uk Architecture and urban design, W www.vincent-gorbing.co.uk Stuart Turner Associates Award winning multi-disciplinary Masterplanning. Urban waterside Masterplanning, design statements, 12 Ledbury, Great Linford, practice encompassing architecture, environments. Community teamwork character assessments, development Milton Keynes MK14 5DS urban design, masterplanning, enablers. Visual impact assessments. briefs, residential layouts and urban T 01908 678672 design coding, regeneration, capacity exercises. C Stuart Turner development frameworks, Urban Design Futures E [email protected] sustainable design/planning and 34/1 Henderson Row Wei Yang & Partners W www.studiost.co.uk construction. Residential and Edinburgh EH3 5DN Berkeley Square House Architecture, urban design and retirement care specialists. T 0131 557 8944 Berkeley Square, environmental planning, the C Selby Richardson London W1J 6BD design of new settlements, urban Tibbalds Planning & Urban E [email protected] T 020 3086 7658 regeneration and site development Design W www.urbandesignfutures.co.uk C Dr Wei Yang studies. 19 Maltings Place, 169 Tower Bridge Innovative urban design, planning E [email protected] Road, London SE1 3JB and landscape practice specialising W www.weiyangandpartners.co.uk studio | REAL T 020 7089 2121 in Masterplanning, new settlements, Independent multi-disciplinary Oxford Centre for Innovation C Katja Stille urban regeneration, town and village company driven by a commitment to New Road, Oxford OX1 1BY E [email protected] studies. shape more sustainable and liveable T 01865 261461 W www.tibbalds.co.uk cities. Specialising in low-carbon city C Roger Evans Multi-disciplinary practice of urban Urban Initiatives development strategies, sustainable E [email protected] designers, architects and planners. 36-40 York Way, London N1 9AB large-scale new settlement master W www.studioreal.co.uk Provides expertise from concept T 020 7843 3165 plans, urban regeneration, urban Urban regeneration, quarter to implementation in regeneration, C Hugo Nowell and public realm design, mixed frameworks and design briefs, town masterplanning, urban design and E [email protected] use urban complex design and centre strategies, movement in towns, design management to public and W www.urbaninitiatives.co.uk community building strategies. Masterplanning and development private sector clients. Urban design, transportation, economics. regeneration, development planning. WestWaddy: ADP Townscape Solutions The Malthouse, 60 East St. Helen Taylor Young Urban Design 128 Park Road, Smethwick, West Urban Innovations Street, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5EB Chadsworth House, Wilmslow Road, Midlands, B67 5HT 1st Floor, Wellington Buildings, T 01235 523139 Handforth, Cheshire SK9 3HP T 0121 429 6111 2 Wellington Street, Belfast BT16HT C Philip Waddy T 01625 542200 C Kenny Brown T 028 9043 5060 E [email protected] C Stephen Gleave E [email protected] C Tony Stevens/ Agnes Brown W westwaddy-adp.co.uk E [email protected] W www.townscapesolutions.co.uk E [email protected] Experienced and multi-disciplinary Liverpool Specialist urban design practice W www.urbaninnovations.co.uk team of urban designers, architects T 0151 702 6500 offering a wide range of services The partnership provides not only and town planners offering a full W www.tayloryoung.co.uk including masterplans, site layouts, feasibility studies and assists in site range of urban design services. Urban design, planning and design briefs, design and access assembly for complex projects but development. Town studies, housing, statements, expert witness and 3D also full architectural services for White Consultants commercial, distribution, health and illustrations. major projects. Enterprise House, 127-129 Bute Street transportation. Specialist in urban Cardiff CF10 5LE design training. TP bennett LLP URBED (Urbanism T 029 2043 7841 One America Street, London SE1 0NE Environment & Design) C Simon White Terence O’Rourke LTD T 020 7208 2029 Manchester E [email protected] Everdene House, Deansleigh Road, C Peter Davis 10 Little Lever Street, W www.whiteconsultants.co.uk Bournemouth BH7 7DU E [email protected] Manchester M1 1HR A holistic approach to urban T 01202 421142 W www.tpbennett.com T 0161 200 5500 regeneration, design guidance, E [email protected] Development planning, urban C John Sampson public realm and open space W www.torltd.co.uk design, conservation and E [email protected] strategies and town centre studies Town planning, Masterplanning, Masterplanning – making places W www.urbed.coop for the public, private and community urban design, architecture, and adding value through creative, LONDON sectors. landscape architecture, progressive, dynamic and joyful The Building Centre environmental consultancy, complex exploration. 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT WYG Planning & urban design problems. C Nicholas Falk Environment Turley Associates T 07811 266538 100 St. John Street Terra Firma Consultancy 10th Floor, 1 New York Street Sustainable Urbanism, London EC1M 4EH Cedar Court, 5 College Street Manchester M1 4HD Masterplanning, Urban Design, T 020 7250 7500 Petersfield GU31 4AE T 0161 233 7676 Retrofitting, Consultation, Capacity C Colin James T 01730 262040 C Jaimie Ferguson – Director of Urban Building, Research, Town Centres E [email protected] C Lionel Fanshawe Design & Masterplanning and Regeneration. W www.wyg.com E contact@terrafirmaconsultancy. E [email protected] Offices throughout the UK com W www.turleyassocaiates.co.uk URS Infrastructure & Creative urban design and W www.terrafirmaconsultancy.com Offices also in Belfast, Birmingham, Environment masterplanning with a contextual Independent landscape architectural Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 6-8 Greencoat Place, approach to place-making and a practice with considerable urban Leeds and Southampton. London SW1P 1PL concern for environmental, social design experience at all scales from UKintegrated urban design, T 020 7798 5137 and economic sustainability. EIA to project delivery throughout UK masterplanning, sustainability C Ben Castell and overseas. and heritage services provided E [email protected] Yellow Book Ltd at all project stages and scales W www.ursglobal.com 39/2 Gardner’s Crescent Terry Farrell and Partners of development. Services include Also at Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh EH3 8DG 7 Hatton Street, London NW8 8PL visioning, townscape analysis, Manchester and Plymouth T 0131 229 0179 T 020 7258 3433 design guides and public realm Urban design, planning, landscape, C John Lord C Max Farrell resolution economic and architectural E [email protected] E [email protected] design expertise supported by W www.yellowbookltd.com W www.terryfarrell.com comprehensive multidisciplinary Place-making, urban regeneration Architectural, urban design, planning skills. and economic development involving and Masterplanning services. creative and cultural industries, New buildings, refurbishment, tourism and labour market research. conference/exhibition centres and visitor attractions.

Issue 128 – Autumn 2013 – Urban Design — 55 Education Index

Education Index Leeds Metropolitan University College London University of the West of University Bartlett School of Planning England, Bristol ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY School of Architecture Landscape 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB Faculty of the Built Environment, Department of the Built Environment & Design, Broadcasting Place, Arts T 020 7679 4797 Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Faculty of Science & Technology Building, Woodhouse Lane, C Filipa Wunderlich Bristol BS16 1QY Faculty Building, Rivermead Campus Leeds LS2 9EN E [email protected] C Janet Askew Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ T 0113 812 1717 W www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/planning/ T 0117 328 3508 T 0845 196 3952/3962 C Edwin Knighton programmes MA/Postgraduate Diploma course in C Gil Lewis, Dellé Odeleye E [email protected] The MSc/Dipl Urban Design & City Urban Design. Part time two days per E [email protected], W www.leedsmet.ac.uk/courses/la Planning has a unique focus on the fortnight for two years, or individual [email protected] Master of Arts in Urban Design interface between urban design & programme of study. Project-based W www.anglia.ac.uk/urbandesign consists of one year full time or city planning. Students learn to think course addressing urban design Graduate Diploma in Urban Design & two years part time or individual in critical, creative and analytical issues, abilities and environments. Place Shaping. Innovative, one year, programme of study. Shorter ways across the different scales of workplace-based course. Developed programmes lead to Post Graduate the city – from strategic to local -and University of Westminster to enable built environment Diploma/Certificate. Project based across urban design, planning, real 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS professionals to better understand, course focusing on the creation of estate and sustainability. T 020 7911 5000 x3341 design and deliver great places. sustainable environments through C Bill Erickson interdisciplinary design. University of Salford E [email protected] Cardiff University School of the Built Environment MA or Diploma Course in Urban Welsh School of Architecture and London South Bank Maxwell Building, The Crescent Design for postgraduate architects, School of City & Regional Planning, University Salford M5 4WT town planners, landscape architects Glamorgan Building, King Edward V11 Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, T 0161 295 4600 and related disciplines. One year full Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA C Dr Riccardo Balbo time or two years part time. T 029 2087 5972/029 2087 5961 C Bob Jarvis E [email protected] C Allison Dutoit, Marga Munar Bauza T 020 7815 7353 W www.salford.ac.uk/built- E [email protected] MA Urban Design (one year full environment [email protected] time/two years part time) or PG Cert The MSc/PGDip in Urban Design W www.cardiff.ac.uk/cplan/ma_ Planning based course including & Regeneration develops urbandesign units on place and performance, physical digital design expertise One year full-time and two year part- sustainable cities as well as project in sustainable design and policy. time MA in Urban Design. based work and EU study visit. Part of Suitable for architecture and RTPI accredited programme. urban planning graduates and Edinburgh School of practitioners. 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MA W www.udsu-strath.com E [email protected] one year full-time or two years part- The Postgraduate Course in Urban C Alan Russell time. Design is offered in CPD,Diploma and W www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate- MSc modes. The course is design course/sustainable-place-making- University College London centred and includes input from a msc/ Development Planning Unit, variety of related disciplines. Spatial planning, urban design & 34 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9EZ place-making – MA Sustainable T 020 7679 1111 Place-making and Urban Design. C Anna Schulenburg E [email protected] The MSc Building and Urban Design in Development programme combines cultural, social, economic, political and spatial analysis in the effort to present a critical response to the growing complexities within the design and production of urban realms.

56 — Urban Design – Autumn 2013 – Issue 128 EndpieceNews Working both sides of the street

Two contrasting examples of public art oc- cupy the sides of two urban blocks facing each other across Rea Street, a street in Dig- beth running parallel with the river Rea. One block is occupied by the new Birmingham Coach Station, run by National Express. The block opposite is a cleared redevelopment site, empty and derelict, currently for sale by Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency. You may have been unfortunate in the past to visit Digbeth Coach Station, which was the location for coach travel to and from Birmingham. Five minutes’ walk down the hill from the Bull Ring, it was originally a bus garage built in the 1920s for the Midland Red Omnibus Company, and it never really raised its aspirations above being a bus garage. It was a slum and, like Spaghetti Junction, confirmed to travellers that their prejudices about Birmingham were well-founded. The slum was demolished in 2009, and National Express replaced it with a new, comfortable and attractive building. It was named Birmingham Coach Station, remov- ing what National Express considered the undesirable connotations of the name Dig- beth. Two local artists, Stuart Mugridge and Rob Colbourne, were given a commission, which turned into an enormous, expensive and heavyweight piece of public art. It is in the form of a boundary palisade around the perimeter of the whole of the vehicle area, consisting of 320 freestanding folded steel haunches, manufactured in Stone, Stafford- shire. They range in height from 2.2m to 6m, and are coloured primary red, a reference to Midland Red, whose buses were the same colour. Their geometry also refers (more obliquely) to Avery Scales, who were based now being made to renew both the hoarding nearby. and the mural. The installations on the two The empty block across the street is a sides of the street make an odd couple. One casualty of the economic crash. It was to side is official, planned, expensive (£300k+), have been a £150m mixed use scheme called permanent, and high art, containing historic Connaught Square, either side of the river and cultural references. The other side is un- Rea, until its Irish developer went into ad- official, impromptu, cheap (80 aerosol cans ministration in 2010. Since then, it has been and 20 litres of emulsion), ephemeral and 4.5 acres filled with piles of hardcore sur- populist. Is one better than the other? I don’t rounded by hoardings. It looks very much like think so. Each is excellent of its kind. The the failed enterprise that it is, and is not the mural is certainly more typical of public art first sight that city authorities would want to in Digbeth, which has a resident community greet new arrivals at the coach station. Two of skilled graffiti artists who have contrib- Digbeth graffiti artists, Newso and Agent, uted to the area’s distinctive identity. But undertook the painting (with 60 young as- the contrast between the two works of art is sistants) of a mural on the 100m of hoarding also typical of Digbeth, in which the polite facing the coach station. In 2m high letters, and the impolite, the raw and the cooked, sit it read WELCOME TO DIGBETH BAB. (I should incongruously but happily (for the most part) perhaps explain that bab is an affectionate alongside each other. Brummie greeting, equally applicable to an Joe Holyoak adult stranger as to a small child). • Unfortunately, the hoarding was of a ↑ Stuart Mugridge and Rob Colbourne’s sculptural side quality equally as poor as the developer’s of Rea Street bank balance, and the mural deteriorated. ↑↑ Newso and Agent’s But such was its popularity that plans are painted side of the street