Culture Category
World Cities Summit: leveraging the science of cities
Posted on September 2, 2021 Leave a Comment
As an architect & urban planner my principal concern is to make cities work for people. This means understanding how their streets connect to either encourage low carbon transport such as walking and public transport. Or, if they’re disconnected, do they lock in car dependence and its carbon impacts?
Office or home – where’s the best place to work from in the New Normal?
Posted on May 4, 2020 Leave a Comment
The question about when we return to work is also a question about how we return to work. For many, remote working has been a revelation. Perhaps not ideal in every respect but certainly helpful in many: the convenience of not commuting, the realisation that Zoom, Teams, Miro, Skype, Whatsapp and other platforms mean it’s […]
Reflecting ourselves in the city
Posted on September 1, 2019 Leave a Comment
What can the form of cities tell us about the structure of the brain? And what can the structure of the brain tell us about the form of cities? These are questions that I’d like to address in this talk. In summary, I believe we can learn a good deal about the interaction between the […]
Cities from scratch – Astana Economic Forum
Posted on May 18, 2018 Leave a Comment
Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be a member of this panel today. Let me start by describing my organisation’s approach to the creation of cities from scratch. Space Syntax is an international urban planning and design studio and has been involved in plans for new cities and new city extensions throughout the world, including here […]
Sustainable cities of the future – sketch
Posted on February 9, 2016 Leave a Comment
Notes for keynote at UK Green Building Council Annual City Summit, Birmingham. 1. Spatial planning & human behaviour implications of sustainability – reduction of transport carbon through shift towards walking, cycling & public transport 2. A massive shift needed in transport + land use planning, urban + landscape design, architecture. Professional inertia. Turning the supertanker. […]
Permeability & connectivity: a tale of two cities
Posted on January 5, 2016 1 Comment
Notes from a response to questions from the Strelka Institute. How would you describe the situation with the permeability and connectivity of city spaces today? There is no single state of permeability and connectivity in the contemporary city. Instead we find two main types of urban layout: first, the finely grained, continuously connected street network […]
Integrated Urban Planning – balancing the multiple flows of the city
Posted on September 26, 2015 2 Comments
Notes for the UK-China Sustainable Urbanisation Conference in Chengdu, China on 24th September 2015 My job as an architect and urban planner is to design new towns and cities – as well as new parts of existing urban settlements. This means designing the multiple systems that make up a city. We often think about towns and […]
The future of Faversham Creek
Posted on September 7, 2015 Leave a Comment
Address to the Faversham Creek Trust event on board SB Repertor – speaking notes Tim Stonor 2nd September 2015 Good evening. It is an honour to have been asked to speak this evening and I’m grateful to Lady Sondes, Sir David Melville and Chris Wright for their invitation. As I prepared for this evening I wondered if I […]
What did the Romans ever do for us? Pompei’s 5 lessons for placemaking…
Posted on February 5, 2015 1 Comment
Download the presentation In looking forwards it is important to learn the lessons of history. Look at Pompei. A city built for efficient mobility. A model of the 1st century with lessons for the 21st century. The grid – no cul de sacs. Built for mobility. Built for commerce. More or less rectilinear – not labyrinthine. […]
Forwards to the past! Technology’s greatest triumph
Posted on September 23, 2014 Leave a Comment
Rick There are so many reasons why what you have set out below is interesting. But I think I can take a different position to the one that you are developing. My approach will be that, far from taking the human mind, behaviours, and cultural norms beyond where they have ever been before, the true […]
New blog for Faversham Yellow Lines campaign
Posted on April 13, 2014 Leave a Comment
Information on the campaign against the painting of yellow lines across Faversham town centre has moved to a new blog. Thank you for all the support so far!
Move, interact, transact – the human dimension of Smart Cities
Posted on March 18, 2014 Leave a Comment
http://youtu.be/U63hMTIQW8I Speaking at the invitation of the organisers of the British Business Summit, Istanbul, Turkey.
Spatial Planning and the Future of Cities
Posted on October 24, 2013 2 Comments
How might cities be planned in the future? This is not only a question of how they might look but also, and more importantly, about how they might be laid out as patterns of buildings and spatial connections. Laying out a city means answering two key questions: “what goes where?” and the “how does it all connect together?” […]
Smart Cities World Expo – speaking notes
Posted on November 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
Spatial layout influences Human behaviour: 1. Movement 2. Awareness 3. Interaction 4. Transaction. Spatial layout benefits 1. Economy – productivity – innovation – building & campus performance 2. Health – active travel – access to healthcare – building & campus performance 3. Social cohesion – the spatial network creates the social network 4. Safety – property theft – personal attack […]
A short film about Space Syntax
Posted on May 12, 2012 Leave a Comment
Tim Stonor, Managing Director, Space Syntax “The population of the world is increasing and, as it increases, more and more of us are living in cities. As cities have grown in the 20th century they have often grown to disconnect people. Space Syntax has discovered that many of these problems in cities – disconnection, lack […]
This town is big enough for the both of us
Posted on December 8, 2011 Leave a Comment
Independent newspaper, UK I am standing at the junction of two of the busiest streets in central London – High Holborn and Shaftesbury Avenue. In one direction is Centre Point and the start of Oxford Street; in another Leicester Square; to the south-east is Covent Garden; behind me is Bloomsbury and the giant hulk of […]
The power of the network 