Frayed at the edge (and at the centre)
Posted on June 5, 2008 Leave a Comment
At the edges of nearly all the world cities, and often at their centres too, are tracts of unplanned settlements. Labelled as slums, favelas and shanty towns, these are places that have been made largely without the intervention of planning. Their numbers are increasing as the planet moves from the field to the street and as urban populations reproduce. Read More
Hedging on the pedestrian
Posted on March 2, 2008 Leave a Comment
February and March are traditionally the Spring conference season and have taken me this year on speaking engagements from Millbank (with RUDI) to Earls Court (with the Academy of Urbanism), the Royal College of Physicians (with the Architectural Review) and, ultimately, to the giant property toyshop of MIPIM in Cannes (with CABE). In more or less relaxed surroundings the pre-Spring period has been an opportunity to sit down with peers, discuss current practice and swap notes on future plans. First off the lips of those there was the global credit crisis, with opinions divided. On the one hand there was general concern over the detrimental effects of restricted borrowing on property development. On the other there were a significant number for whom the financial downturn presents opportunities to spend squirreled cash. Read More
Reflective planning
Posted on January 6, 2008 Leave a Comment
One of the benefits of an international staff is that the office becomes quieter in the run up to Christmas as people leave for home. Since the New Year is an opportunity to take stock and think ahead, the directors took advantage of the lull. We devoted two days to “reflective planning”, a process of simultaneous backwards and forwards looking. We tested past successes and failures against the opportunities and constraints that we believe will shape our business in the years ahead. Read More
Diary planning
Posted on December 7, 2007 Leave a Comment
Three months ago, this column was written in a lazy chair and hot sun. Today it is the slow-running 0754 to Cannon Street. I am at least comforted by the thought that the week will end at the Academy of Urbanism’s annual awards lunch. With that carrot before me I count 23 separate meetings in the week to come. These include at least three “high pressure” events: a masterplanning workshop tomorrow with people we enjoy working alongside, the regular Wednesday Design Review Panel at CABE and a design meeting with a reasonably famous firm of architects on Thursday. Foodwise it is two dinners with the heads of our firms in Boston and Tokyo and, of course, Friday with the Academy at the Dorchester. All in all: a not unusual week for brain and belly. Read More
Going with the flow
Posted on September 9, 2004 Leave a Comment
As reported in the Guardian Online on 09 September 2004
Science can be used to design cities according to rational laws, writes Philip Ball.
‘It was built to be a modern, efficient, healthy and, all in all, pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.” That’s how Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, in their book Good Omens, describe Milton Keynes, a town for which neither heaven nor hell is prepared to take credit.
But even with one of the highest densities of roundabouts in the country, not to mention the notorious concrete cows, there are far worse places to live than Milton Keynes. The ridicule it suffers is more a reflection of our instinctive scepticism about the idea of rationally designing a city.
Ever since the 19th century, urban design has had an uneasy relationship with science. Amid the grimy horrors of the Industrial Revolution, cities became viewed as inherently undesirable.
“Town planning began as an attempt not to understand cities but to replace them with something better,” says Bill Hillier, director of the Space Syntax Laboratory at University College London. Idealists like Robert Owen aimed to create a bucolic-industrial utopia, and paved the way for “balanced urban environments” such as garden cities. Read More
Londoners develop own space craft
Posted on April 17, 1998 Leave a Comment
As reported in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 17 April 1998
Julia Hinde reports on UCL’s novel architectural consultancy that aims to make money from the spaces between buildings.
How is it that some company coffee machines become the focus of office life, where deals are struck and ideas take shape, while others are purely functional? Why do some modern shopping centres take off, while others are seen as windswept and heartless and remain deserted?
It is down to “space”, says architect Tim Stonor, the business mind behind University College London’s architecture consultancy, the Space Syntax Laboratory. Read More
The power of the network 