As Iain Sinclair and others have pointed out, the breathtaking intellectual thinness of the proposed Starbucks landscape of the Olympics compares badly with the richness of the existing complex environment. This is not a plea for doing nothing – it’s more a wish that in the rush to create, to ‘deliver’ and to ‘drive forward a vision’ towards this dubious prize, designers, planners, procurement officers or whoever should work with what is there rather than scrape it away and produce just another piece of second rate UK property development. Post-Olympics the communities can have most of this back – except that there will be nothing worth having in comparison to the richness of what is already there.

Many of the issues raised here resonate with the work we did in Sheffield on the Council’s Rivers and Waterways Strategy, especially in relation to the disregard that development agencies have for existing character and their blindness to the ways in which this can be used to create contemporary environments that are rich, exciting and beneficial to local communities. The Sheffield – City of Rivers report is available below: (should be browsed fullscreen).

Public Policy

The Scottish Government wants to create a more successful Scotland by increasing sustainable economic growth. The Government acknowledges that a high quality environment is an important part of achieving this. Highland Council’s ambitions for its population are expressed in the Single Outcome Agreement, and link back to the Government’s aim of creating a wealthier, fairer, healthier, smarter, greener and safer Scotland. The Single Outcome Agreement aims to promote sustainable Highland communities, safeguard the environment and create a competitive, sustainable and adaptable Highland economy. It also aspires to a healthier and fairer Highlands with better opportunities for all.

These aims have implications for the type and form of place that Inverness should become. For example, how successful is Inverness in catering for a broad range of expectations? How well are the Single Outcome Agreement’s ambitions being met? How well does the city cater for everyone’s needs? Is any section of the community disadvantaged? Retention of the local population, in particular the 16-35 age range, is important for Inverness and the surrounding Highland communities. However, it is this age group that tends to be attracted elsewhere – so it is important to provide what is needed in order to attract and retain them.

A new city vision One way of shaping a city future is by agreeing a vision which describes the necessary ingredients of a settlement in terms of quality of streets, buildings, spaces and sets out an image of the kind of city that Inverness could be. Over the next few months, Highland Council will be facilitating a visioning exercise for the City of Inverness. This is part of the process of preparing the new generation of planning documents for the area. It is is a different way of planning. It involves working with everyone with a stake in the future of Inverness and develop a shared vision. We will be doing this at a series of special Future City Events from Wednesday 20th January to Friday 22nd January 2010 for people from local communities, businesses and the public sector. The City Vision team We have been appointed by Architecture and Design Scotland to work with Highland Council staff in preparing the spatial content of the Vision. Nick Wright Planning has been commissioned to work with the residential and business communities in Inverness in the lead up to the Future City Events as well as consult widely with a range of public sector agencies. Highland Council have set up a blog which records the process and provides a wealth of background information. The British Council has run the Future City Events have a webpage here which describes the process.

• inform the forthcoming Local Plan process, in particular the Proposed Plan stage
• identify and set out the key components required within the SLA and provide an overall structure within which individual masterplans can be prepared

This report proposed a strategic framework showing how the land-use elements of the Dunfermline SLA – housing, employment, community facilities and infrastructure – could be accommodated on the city’s western flank between 2011 and 2026, in a manner which results in high quality, sustainable and distinctive place-making.

Key elements The starting point for the form of the strategic framework was the development of walkable neighbourhoods based around mixed use local centres. Walkable means preferably within five minutes walk of the local centre and or public transport facilities but this could extend to a ten minute walk. Four new neighbourhoods are proposed in the period to 2026 – a large area to the south west of the city and three neighbourhoods to the west, north west and north. Integrated with this set of walkable neighbourhoods is a new public transport system based on an integrated street system linking the new areas (rather than a remote segregated system). The eventual form of this transport system has not been determined at present but it is likely to be either a Bus Rapid the strategic framework Transport (BRT) or Light Rapid Transport (LRT). There is also a requirement for a new western distributor road for the city which would be integrated with the BRT or LRT in part.

The protection of the historic landscape of the city and the protection of the integrity of a green belt between Dunfermline and Crossford has been an important factor in the development of the framework. At the outset, it was considered that a series of neighbourhoods had a potentially better fit in sensitive landscape than a larger settlement form. Care has been taken with the siting of these neighbourhoods and their associated landscaping although it should be stressed that by designating an SLA in the sensitive landscape of west and south west Dunfermline, it was inevitable that some conflict would occur between different interests. These new neighbourhoods have to perform a number of functions in relation to the existing urban fabric of Dunfermline. For example linkage to the existing fabric is important as is the provision of facilities in the new development which enhances the quality of life in existing areas. It was also seen as important to provide only local retail facilities and not compete with the centre of Dunfermline. The provision of employment space in local centres or in associated mixed use areas is also seen as desirable.

Finally it was necessary to accommodate the quantum of development specified in the SLA namely for:

• 4,200 new homes up to 2026
• 80 hectares of employment land
• capacity for further housing and emploment growth post 2026
• a high school
• 3 primary schools

Other facilities that the development industry might be expected to provide are:

• education, sport and healthcare facilities
• local shops and services
• employment opportunities
• public transport facilities and services
• strategic and local transport improvements
• walking and cycling improvements
• affordable housing
• public art and landscape enhancement

Integrated in these new neighbourhoods are high quality design, low or zero carbon developments and neighbourhood-wide Combined Heat and Power (CHP).

Team

The study was carried out through extensive client-side workshops and collaboration. The team was WMUD, Kevin Murray Associates, Nick Wright Planning and MRC McLean Hazel.

• to enrich the quality of life of people who live and work in Rotherham, and to improve the experience of visitors
• to promote nature conservation and biodiversity
• to stimulate investment and regeneration

The policy context

Rotherham’s rivers and waterways figure prominently in regional and local planning policy, and across a wide range of other policy areas. However, while the waterways are generally deemed to be valuable assets, there is little evidence that the poor quality and condition of many of the borough’s rivers, canals and waterspaces has been acknowledged. This confirms the clients’ perception that a strategy is required to focus attention on the waterways and to devise a cohesive strategy and plan for action.

Although the potential of Rotherham’s waterways remains unfulfilled, it is clear that they can make an important contribution to the quality of life in the borough, to biodiversity and to regeneration.

Waterways in the landscape

Rotherham’s waterways have played a pivotal role in the Borough’s rich and fascinating, determining the location of settlements and sites of industry. The canalisation of the river Don in the mid 18th century made Rotherham an important inland port, and encouraged the growth of industry, even though the waterway was soon superseded by the railways. Though the borough only covers a small area, it is surprisingly diverse: while the Don and the Rother became archetypal industrial rivers, the attractive streams in the limestone country to the east feed into the Trent catchment. Ancient ponds are a feature of Rotherham, as are planned landscapes with water features, as at Wentworth.

This diversity is still reflected in the condition of Rotherham’s waterways today, which present a challenging mix of assets and liabilities. The consultant team has analysed the waterways and waterspaces by type, function and context, and we have also identified a series of distinct character areas.

Rotherham’s waterways appraised

We tested and developed our analysis in a series of consultations and at a stakeholder workshop. These events confirmed the mixed “report card” on our site visits and research. There was unanimous recognition of the potential of Rotherham’s waterways, and a broad consensus that recent successes (Rother Valley Country Park, Blackburn Meadows, Chesterfield Canal improved water quality etc) had raised public awareness of the value of water and its potential to contribute to a better quality of life. The Cuckoo Way and Roche Abbey are examples of little known delights in the borough. At the same time, the urban Don and the lower Rother still appear to be neglected and under-used places, and recent events have highlighted the threat of flooding and the presumed effects of climate change. The potential is unmistakable, but the problems are big and structural and the barriers to progress sometime appear formidable.

Developing the strategy The report draws on this analysis to map out a vision and strategy for Rotherham’s waterways. Achieving the vision will require action to nurture, restore, celebrate and care for Rotherham’s unique network of rivers, canals and water spaces.

The report frames a series of strategic objectives and identifies six broad priorities for action: river restoration, major regeneration projects, the Chesterfield Canal, nature reserves, the access network and community projects.

Given the sheer scale and diversity of the challenges, it is not possible or desirable to draw up a detailed blueprint at this stage, but the consultant team has drawn up a set of 11 guiding principles, to be applied as appropriate as new projects are brought forward.

This section concludes by highlighting some of the places and ideas that have helped to shape the Rotherham Waterways Strategy, and which should act as sources of inspiration in the future. In particular, we acknowledge our debt to Emscher Landscape Park in Germany’s Ruhr region, which is the best example in Europe of the transformation of a polluted and semi-derelict post-industrial landscape.

The action plan The themes of the strategy are drawn together in Section 6 which begins by recommending that the key themes of the action plan should be: New Life for the Urban River valleys, the Chesterfield Canal, the urban waterfront, riverside communities, Rotherham’s Hidden Gems, caring for the waterways, and celebrating them.

We also recommend the formation of a Rotherham Waterways Partnership (with a maximum 5 years’ life) to drive forward the initiative, and the appointment of a project manager.

We have drawn up an illustrative 3-5 year action plan, which distinguishes between project development activities (where the partnership should take a lead role) and influencing the work of others to ensure that benefits for the rivers and waterways are achieved. We have estimated that the partnership would require a budget of around £850,000 over 3 years to take forward this work programme.

The success of the partnership will be determined largely by its ability to engage effectively with other partners, locally and at the sub-regional, catchment and regional levels. We have identified some key connections, including with Sheffield which is also developing proposals for reviving its urban rivers.

Finally, we have stressed the importance of knowing what success looks like. A simple performance management framework is required for the partnership, which should be the subject of an independent review after three years.

Key decisions and choices

The issues and choices will be a key theme for the next stage of the study and we have set out some of the strategic choices that need to be addressed:

• should Glasgow City Centre North continue to be a location for industry in the city, or should the strategy encourage a shift to higher value uses such as offices and housing?
• is it desirable or practicable to try to provide “local jobs for local people” in the study area, or should we be encouraging a step change in the local economy?
• could all or part of the study area be reinvented as a new community, with a mix of housing by type and tenure, parks, transport and social infrastructure that will attract people to live in north Glasgow?
• are we trying to create a destination in the city or should we be aiming for an attractive, popular and sustainable city neighbourhood?
• to what degree should the strategy be shaped by economic goals, or should we also be pursuing social, environmental and cultural objectives?
• should the strategy be predicated on incremental change, albeit with a clear direction of travel, or should the partners aim for more rapid and radical change, for example, the transformational projects described above or the creation of a new university campus/innovation park?

Must-do actions

These and other choices will be identified and discussed during the strategy formulation phase, but the process has already revealed a number of areas where urgent action is deemed to be essential. Progress on these themes can be seen as an essential pre-condition for sustainable regeneration and they include:

• Mobilising community and stakeholder support: Every effort should be made to align the public sector stakeholders and resources, and the success of the project will also turn on its ability to command the support of local communities. Change projects also mean thinking about the needs and expectations of people who are not in the study area at present, but who you are seeking to attract – to live, work or visit.
• Animating the canal corridor: The canal is the study area’s unique asset, and a key source of distinctiveness and competitive advantage, but an under-used waterway can become a liability and place that people avoid rather than an attraction. For this reason, any positive future scenario will be predicated on the presence of a lively and attractive waterfront, and activity on the water; there is a need for early action to animate the waterspace and encourage people to visit Glasgow’s little-known canal.
• Improving public transport: For a variety of historic reasons, the study area is poorly served by public transport. Radial routes pass through the area, north and south, but bus services do not penetrate into the heart of the area. This only serves to compound a sense of isolation, and local business recognise it as a weakness. Sustainable regeneration can only be achieved if Glasgow City Centre North is reconnected to the city centre and adjoining neighbourhoods, and all the best European models treat connectivity as a non-negotiable requirement.
• Improving pedestrian access to and through the study area: Most pedestrian routes in and out of the study area are obscure and unattractive, and sometimes hostile. Port Dundas, for example, is easily walkable from the city centre but it is not a good experience. The study area often feels deserted: even at the busiest times of time there are few people on the streets. Over time, radical solutions may be required to remove barriers; in the short term, a plan to make pedestrian routes safer and more attractive is imperative.
• Enhancing the public realm: Although parts of the study area have a rich character and heritage, the quality of the public realm is almost uniformly poor: The canalside around Speirs Wharf is the only exception. The strategy must include a long-term plan for strengthening and enhancing the public realm and creating high quality urban spaces, but a short-term early action plan should also be devised – focusing on areas with the potential for rapid improvement, for example, by cleaning up derelict land, improving recent development sites and influencing new developments.
• Raising design standards: Recent investment in the study area is a source of some encouragement, but the design quality of projects post-Speirs Wharf has, almost without exception, been very disappointing. The City Council has a responsibility to ensure that future developments set a higher standard for architecture and urban design. One of the most disappointing features of recent projects has been the way in which anodyne buildings have eroded the distinctiveness of the study area without injecting style or quality into the townscape.

Implementation

We have advocated a twin-track approach to the next phase of the study. In parallel with work on the strategy, a second workstream should focus on implementation: producing a plan which will focus on the “how” and “when” of the regeneration process. Some of the work has already been undertaken in this study: Section 6 contains sets out a detailed and authoritative account of market conditions in different parts of the study area, although a more fine grained market appraisal will still be required to shape and inform proposals for specific sites. We have also gathered information on property and site ownerships, which are likely to be a key factor in determining the feasibility of particular proposals as well as the timing of developments.

It is already clear that only limited amounts of land are owned by the Council or key partners such as British Waterways, and that the pattern of ownership in the study area is fragmented. Experience suggests that this is likely to be a significant constraint on the partners’ aspirations, and much will therefore depend on the Council’s willingness and/or ability to create the conditions for change.

The Spatial Dimension

The spatial configuration and qualities of the City are key factors in the visitor experience. We contend that city offers are more than a collection of attractions and a series of events, but that they are a product of the totality of the urban experience in terms the quality and character of the physical landscape, the vibrancy of the cultural environment and the presentation of the City as an accessible and connected place. In this way the City is more than the sum of its parts for both the visitor and citizen.

By looking at tourism in the City from a spatial perspective we can begin to understand and build upon its structure in terms of ‘place’ and the connectedness of different and varied places within the City in order to enhance the visitor experience. How we shape the physical environment, both built and natural, contributes to our celebration of the city’s heritage, represents a city’s sense of expression, values and confidence and says something about contemporary life-style and aspirations for the future. In Belfast the visitor experience can be enhanced and is directly affected by a number of key spatial factors:

1. the quality, variety and vitality of public spaces such as streets and squares and the degree of shared ‘public life’ that is created
2. access to and use of natural assets such as the River Lagan and the Belfast Hills
3. access to and presentation of the city’s built heritage in the form of buildings of architectural and historical significance and areas of visually and historically important townscape value
4. the degree to which the city’s local distinctiveness is conserved and nurtured
5. the ease with which visitors are able to move around the city, either walking, cycling or by public transport the emphasis and importance placed upon the quality and distinctiveness of new urban interventions both in terms of buildings and public spaces
6. the degree to which different parts of the city are successfully connected by safe, attractive and visually interesting public spaces and access corridors e.g. the River Lagan
7. the degree to which environmental sustainability is nurtured by projects such as the North Foreshore, Connswater Greenway and the creation of ‘green’ connections between neighbourhoods across the City

We have already pointed to the fact that visitor surveys and other sources suggest that one of the principal shortcomings in Belfast’s visitor experience is the level of quality and appeal of public spaces and streetscapes, combined with issues around street cleanliness, public transport provision and street animation and entertainment this paints the picture of a city which lacks the kind of environment we have come to expect of our great European cities. This despite the improvements that have been brought about in recent years by the ‘Streets Ahead’ programme, the urban riverside public realm improvements at Lanyon Place and along the Lagan, unprecedented levels of investment in new development such as Victoria Square and St Anne’s Square and the emergence of locations such as the Queens and Cathedral Quarters as unique and attractive ‘character areas’.

In short, there is still much that Belfast has to do in order to build on recent investment to improve its physical environment and put it, at least, on a par with other great cities across Europe.

A ten point approach

1. Work to establish the River Lagan as a principle ‘thoroughfare’ through the city linking the Lagan Valley, the City Centre and the Harbour/Titanic Quarter.
2. Enhance the city’s public spaces, improving connectivity between attractions, facilities and city destinations (including the city’s outer neighbourhoods) by investment in key locations, in addition to the City Centre Core, such as;
   • Shaftesbury Square/Bradbury Place
   • Carlisle Circus/Clifton Street
   • Queens Quay/Station Street
   • Divis Street/Falls Road
   • Peter’s Hill/Shankill Road
   • Grosvenor Road
   • Dunbar Link
   • Oxford Street/Donegall Quay
   • Ann Street/Queens Bridge
   • Cromac Street/Ormeau Road
3. Promote investment in a sustainable city-wide public transport system building upon the proposed Guided Bus Network and existing services, connecting attractions and facilities across the City which are becoming all the more widespread and potentially disparate.
4. Work within each of the City ‘Quarters’ to nurture a sense of distinctiveness rooted in the characteristics and cultural uniqueness of each place.
5. Drive up urban quality across the City to achieve ever higher standards of design, and establish a ‘Design Panel’ to assess major strategic projects (Reference here to the type of remit exercised by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment – CABE – in England).
6. Promote the issue of design and nurture sustainable planning principles across the City through the ongoing City Development Plan process being undertaken by Belfast City Council, and include within the Plan a Strategic Urban Design Framework for the City and a specific Urban Design Action Plan for the City Centre.
7. Develop a City-wide ‘Greenways’ Strategy based on improving connections between City neighbourhoods and to and from the City Centre.
8. Establish Titanic Quarter as a world class waterfront visitor destination which aspires to the highest the standards of urban design, sustainable transport, architecture and ‘place-making’ and which has excellent and well executed connections to the City Centre.
9. Ensure Belfast City Centre is one the principle centres in the UK and Ireland with a range of quality facilities and services, and a safe, vibrant and animated public realm.
10. Establish a City ‘Conservation Forum’ which will work to promote the best care and presentation of Belfast’s built and natural heritage assets including buildings, open spaces and parks and urban public spaces.

Positive strategic role

There is definite potential to undertake significant development on the study area – and to influence regeneration in the surrounding areas in the northern part of the Borough and in adjoining boroughs, and possibly even at a London level and beyond. The full scope and scale of transformation is dependent on a number of factors, including the ability to capitalise upon opportunities and address some very real constraints.

Constraints

There are a number of key constraints affecting development of the site particularly:

• The rail and canal corridors form barriers to north-south movement within and beyond the site. Whilst development could possibly be built over the railway, this is unlikely to be viable for the canal.
• Safety concerns around the gasholders are likely to prevent residential development on portions of the site as long as the gasholders are in place (until at least 2016).
• The single vehicular connection to the site makes it isolated, both in terms of public and private transport. It also places significant physical constraints on the quantum of development.
• The existing Sainsbury’s store may or may not wish to move from its current site – it could possibly be redeveloped as part of a larger, denser development.
• Crossrail are seeking to use part of the southern portion of the site as a temporary bus garage during construction works, to 2017.

Recommendation

The recommendation is to pursue as ambitious an option as possible in partnership with the key landowners, and to continue to build up the parallel case for a station. We see this option being represented as a composite of C and D at this stage, beginning in the eastern part of the site, and extending westwards over time as the gas holders are decommissioned. This composite is more ambitious than options A and B, but is more feasible than option E. It could also provide a basis for including part of option F if the opportunity presents itself. Scenario development Given that this stage in the process was upstream of generating any real development proposals, it was necessary to explore a wide range of possibilities in an open, value free way. Therefore, rather than ‘design’ a selection of alternative indicative schemes, the method at this stage was to explore and develop a range of scenarios (future circumstances) with associated development typologies (physical place outcomes). At this stage of feasibility testing we considered it important not to prejudge any outcome, nor to have premature preferences that may preclude creative options be explored. Also, we found it particularly important to be open-minded about both cost-value parameters (these changed even in the short time of the study) and about a potential Crossrail station – even though this has been a desired outcome of the Council – because it is not in itself a ‘given’ component. The scenario approach used enabled different kinds of future circumstances and outcomes to be constructed, explored and developed, then further reviewed and tested for feasibility and desirability. This method was wide-ranging including scenarios various people acknowledged were more or less desirable. It was not simply a wish list of a few idealised end-states. These scenarios were explored in a future situation (2025) well beyond the limits of current policy, and also without community involvement at this ‘upstream’ stage.

Our view is that this open, relatively creative approach demonstrates a wide range of possibilities. Importantly, it generated a wide range of relevant issues for further testing, review and, where appropriate, policy action and dialogue with landowners and statutory bodies.

The study team comprised Kevin Murray Associates (lead), Willie Miller Urban Design (WMUD), Alan Baxter Associates, Battle McCarthy, Colliers CRE and Gardiner & Theobald.

The decision to put the building on the market and move all services to other parts of the borough was made by the PCT board, despite last-minute pleas from John Allan of Avanti Architects and John Cooper of Architects for Health. This decision has sparked concern for a broad range of reasons including:

• the cultural and historic importance of the architecture
• the historical symbolism of the building in terms of health care
• the view that the building is entirely saveable and is not a maintenance basket-case
• the likely future of the building and the site – for example private clinic or luxury flats

Consideration of any single issue on this list might lead to the conclusion that the building should be kept and used for its original purpose never mind taking a holistic view of all the points. But there is another issue that lies in the territory of spatial planning and social infrastructure.

There are many examples throughout the UK of health authorities and others selling off city centre land and facilities at attractive prices in order to fund the development of new facilities on land that is cheaper but less well located for the very people who wish to use these facilities. More often than not, these new facilities are accessed by poor public transport facilities or demand the use of the private car. See TCPA Journal (November 2007) by Graham Haughton and Phil Allmendiger. (link here to pdf)

Over the past twenty years, planning in the UK has become increasingly regulatory rather than visionary. There is evidence that this might be changing since the introduction of a new planning system that has a strong emphasis on spatial strategy. However significant property moves by health, port or water authorities tend to become the spatial plans, rather than being determined by spatial plans – in other words planning often has had to adopt the plans of others as fait accompli even though there is little spatial or placemaking evidence that they are desirable.

Integrated strategic spatial planning needs to play a much stronger and influential role in coordinating the work of organisations like health trusts and port authorities. The fate of Finsbury Health Centre seems sadly predictable – another casualty of the obsession with money and moral bankruptcy that Monin was referring to – part of a wider culture of philistinism and short-termism which is peculiarly endemic in UK organisations that once were public goods.

Meanwhile express your views and sign the petition – all may not be lost.

These short film clips featuring Lewis Mumford, author of the City in History, were recently published on the Planum website.

Before the end of 1961 the New York publishing company Harcourt, Brace and Co. had the first edition of Lewis Mumford’s highly successful book The City In History ready for publication. Two years later, in 1963, the National Film Board of Canada funded the production of six documentaries, each lasting 27 minutes, for a series entitled Mumford On The City. The material for the films, based on the book, was prepared by Mumford himself. The director Ian MacNeill wrote the film script and produced the various parts: The City: Heaven and Hell, The City: Cars Or People, The City And Its Region, The Heart of the city, The City As Man’s Home and The City and the Future. In 1963 Mumford was 68 years old and agreed to appear as the presenter of the six films, expressing his personal view about the future of the western city, interspersed with pictures of places, cities, archaeological documents, works of art and architecture.

The City in History remains a classic text of urban design. Mumford urged that technology achieves a balance with nature and hoped for a rediscovery of urban principles that emphasised humanity’s organic relationship to its environment. Forty-five years on, the film clips look incredibly old and the message delivered in a rather morbid and factious manner (to quote Jane Jacobs), with a slightly ‘Outer Limits’ or ‘Twilight Zone’ ambience. Yet some of the key ideas promoted by Mumford have increasing resonance with the sustainability and green agenda of the early 21st century. In the increasingly praxis orientated and commodified world of urban design, whether anyone is listening or not is another matter.

The Spring 2008 edition of JoLA, the excellent peer-reviewed academic Journal of Landscape Architecture established by the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools, contains an article on the work of Gregor Graf which raises the question, “How do we read a city without signs?”. With a mixture of purist medium format photography and Photoshop, Graf has painstakingly deleted all traces of language and signage from view – as well as people and cars. His series of images featuring London, Linz and Warsaw are striking and unreal. It’s a wonderful collection of images linked here and on his site here (look for the Hidden Town link). The imagery is uncannily close to some contemporary techniques of urban representation employed by architects – minus the beautiful people.

His work is a step further in the direction pioneered by São Paulo where in 2006, city officials enacted a radical ban on almost all outdoor advertising. Photographer and typographer Tony de Marco documented the new ad-free world of São Paulo, publishing a sequence of images on Flickr. A city stripped of advertising with no posters, flyers or advertisements on buses or trains sounds like an Adbusters dream but it became a reality in 2007.

The implication of these unreal and real examples is that in the absence of signs, people need to re-learn what was once recognisable city terrain, marked out urban space, defined focal points and obvious boundaries. One of the São Paulo experiences was that it was initially easy for people to get lost when well known reference points – such as 48-sheet hoardings – were removed. Of course, residents were quick to re-orientate themselves around landmarks, buildings and urban form very much in the way that architects, urbanists and writers on the city would like them to behave.

Perhaps Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown have more to offer here than they are given credit for. Their book Architecture as Signs and Systems for a Mannerist Time explores Venturi’s recurring affair with pluralism, multiculturalism, symbolism, iconograohy and popular culture. It is an important work that dissolves professional boundaries and broadens our view of urbanism – often in a disturbing way.

While urban designers and town makers concentrate on producing legible urban form through sequences of squares, streets, edges and landmarks (after Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City), the easy-read of contemporary urban areas will often be through advertisements and signs. Looking at the freshness and clarity of Graf’s ad-and-sign-free images set against Venturi’s challenging and dissonant work it is hard to imagine common ground between the two. But that may be exactly what towns and cities need in the 21st century.

related links:

• Gregor Graf
• Business Week: São Paulo: The City That Said No To Advertising
• São Paulo No Logo – a new identity
• Adbusters: when the centre collapsed
• Venturi Scott Brown and Associates

The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) has been particularly active in drawing attention to the merits of these Freiburg developments in its excellent revamped journal (only available online to members). Articles by Nicholas Falk on the general lessons of the developments (JTCPA Vol 76 no 10 October 2007) and Steve Melia focusing on mobility (JTCPA Vol 76 no 11 November 2007) provide an excellent overview of the developments.

The list of achievements at Rieselfeld is almost endless and mind-boggling from a UK perspective, it would be remarkable to achieve but a few of these. For example:

• the city council controls the process from the outset rather than responding to private developers
• the community is closely engaged in the development process at every level – there is a definite sense of pride and local distinctiveness
• planners allow individual designs within an overall framework of design codes – generally the design of the buildings is simple, contemporary and refreshingly style-free in comparison to the UK preference for pastiche
• there is a rich and diverse landscape with strong links to an adjacent country park – the overall feel of the development is green and open despite a grid layout and 3-5 storey buildings – and there is an integral SUDS which is an attractive central feature of the development (see top image)
• cyclists and pedestrians have priority throughout and there is a direct 7 minute tram link service to the city centre – in addition to this the speed limit is 18 mph (30 km/h) within the development
• there is a predominance of underground car parking throughout or carports with storage above – even housing blocks at the rural edge of the development have basement parking
• there is a wide range of community facilities include kindergarten, children’s centre, sports area, churches, gymnasium, meeting centres, primary and secondary schools, sports clubs and day nursery – the schools are the hub of the community
• there is a district centre with shops and a church shared by Protestants and Catholics
• there is combined heat and power throughout with connection to a district heating system combined with low energy building and considerable use of solar power

click on this image to enlarge | to close, ESC or click on X bottom right

At Rieselfeld, many aspects have combined to create something special. The masterplan and the physical aspects of the development are a major part of this – they are many years ahead of the dumb architect led masterplans so common in the UK. But the crucial elements lie beyond the physical plan. These are:

• a development culture in which the public sector plays a strong central role in contrast to private sector dominance in the UK
• small development parcels commissioned by groups of people who are going to be the occupiers rather than by developers who have no long term interest in the scheme
• the local authority controls the process of site release preferring to release small sites to groups rather than large sites to developers
• a considerable mix of tenures, house types and sizes throughout the development and these are indistinguishable from each other
• a different system for funding infrastructure such as transport facilities, energy and waste systems

Rieselfeld is not the only example of excellence in the development of eco-communities and sustainable extensions – Hammarby Sjöstad, a suburb of Stockholm is currently considered one of the world’s most sustainable communities as reported by the Guardian on 5 December 2007. There is a CABE case study of the development here. It is to be expected that many more of these developments will take place in Europe over the next few years. The UK has much catching up to do.

Useful links:
Freiburg Rieselfeld Photoset
Solar City Freiburg
Lessons from Freiburg – URBED
Solar Cities: European Habitats of Tomorrow
Rieselfeld Website

This is the first part of an atmospheric short film made by Wladimir Manshanden in 2001. It explores the city of Eindhoven mostly between dusk and dawn through its transport corridors, infrastructure, factories, construction sites, spontaneous landscapes, as-found objects and odd events. The gloss of the city centre is avoided although it is often present in the distance.

The film demonstrates a great love for the edginess of the city. The cafe society, globalised economy and commodified environments of the city centre are ignored in favour of the peripheral, the accidental and the transitional – places full of expectations and possibilities, surreal objects and strange lighting. It is also about networks and linkages – there is a strong sense that the city is connected up not just within itself but to region, country, Europe and the rest of the world.

The excitement transmitted by the film is about the dynamism and complexity of a great city. It draws attention to the value of peripheral areas and the character and inherent interest of transitional zones. These areas are arguably richer and more interesting than the designer environments of much contemporary development simply because they have the potential, the possibilities and the history which are designed out of many property developments.

The soundtrack is the ambience of Eindhoven itself overlaid with tracks by Autechre, Plastikman, Michael Brook and Pieter Nooten.

The second part of the film is below.

Eindhoven photo-set

Link to Historic Eindhoven Newsreel

Link to City of LEDs

Link to mefeedia videos and podcasts

In an article in the Guardian on 8 December 2007, Robert Macfarlane described a walk around the perimeter of London’s Olympic Games site with Iain Sinclair. The walk was to be in Sinclair’s words, “…a complex transitional ecology of CGI imagery, doomed allotments and virtual arcadias.” Light industrial spaces, car-wreckers yards, abandoned beer cans, graffiti and floral excess typified the walk. The idea that urban landscapes such as this have any value – cultural, historical, aesthetic, ecological (anything other than monetary) – is not central to most regeneration practice in the UK.

Stephen Gill’s photographs of the Lower Lea Valley published in October 2007 under the title “Archaeology in Reverse” capture the infinite variety and richness of the area. They are a record of the area prior to its clearance and new life as London’s Olympic Park. They are also an inspiration for planners, urban designers and landscape architects who can see value in transitional and spontaneous landscapes. The sanitised images of the Olympic proposals seem dumb and one-dimensional in comparison.

The connections between the imagery of Gill, landscape urbanism movement and the writings of James Corner and others are obvious. The idea of terrain vague – a concept denoting vacant land which is not always even physically vacant as an unused resource within the city – has been around for some time. The concept contains both the lack of something as well as possibilities and openness to something new. Celebrating the culture of the city and valuing the terrain vague of post-industrial transitional areas have been keynotes of the inspirational regeneration of the Emscher Park in Germany’s Ruhrgebeit. Among a great deal of environmentally-sensitive new development (much of it of very high quality) this former heartland of coal and steel has found new uses for industrial buildings, consolidated others as romantic ruins and landscape features, and treated its spontaneous landscapes as valuable urban woodlands and wildlife havens.

Many of these principles and approaches to post-industrial landscapes will be embedded in our forthcoming report on Sheffield which will be completed in early 2008. See this link for further details.

Link to Stephen Gill’s excellent website.

This animation of the historical development of central Bolton was part of our study for Bolton Council in 2005 led by Kevin Murray Associates.

The Local Distinctiveness Study provided the research baseline for Building Bolton, incorporating consultation, urban analysis and policy recommendations. The team (KMA, Drew Mackie Associates and WMUD) devised a unique approach to Bolton town centre – linking the inputs of different stakeholders to ideas and propositions for the future evolution and management of the town centre.

The Final Report is available to download (3.76 MB PDF) and includes sections on the methodology used, the key findings, emerging issues from an urban design perspective and propositions for the content of future planning guidance. The report was used to inform the Council’s Building Bolton SPD which is available here.

Technorati Tags: animation, historical development, central Bolton, urban analysis, Local Distinctiveness

The objective of this study commissioned by Scottish Borders Council is to produce Supplementary Planning Guidance for 15 housing sites with the aims of improving the quality of decision making and enhancing the quality of development, providing confidence and certainty to developers and the community and ensuring a strong negotiating position when considering planning applications and assisting in their processing. The skills and experience required for this work included urban design, conservation and cultural heritage, landscape, ecology and environment, consultation and involvement together with a solid foundation in statutory planning and best practice. In response to this, we have assembled a team which includes Nick Wright Planning (consultation) and Hg Planning (statutory experience).

Our starting point for this study is that the quality of towns and villages in the Borders is an essential component of place competitiveness, vital to the area’s health and central to its ability to attract and retain businesses, residents and visitors.

Our work throughout the UK has given us a broad perspective on recent initiatives in new residential design and implementation through design briefing, design guidance and design coding. Each is different and each has seen varying degrees of success. Currently much of this work happens in England and is promoted by CABE and by the Prince’s Trust for the Built Environment. Architecture and Design Scotland may aspire to encourage similar work in Scotland.

We aspired to produce Supplementary Planning Guidance that would result in an enhanced image of the settlements containing the proposed housing sites as well as finding ways of adding new development to the beautiful landscapes of the Borders without damage or diminution of their essential qualities. The finalised document is shown below.

Working with lead consultants MRC Mclean Hazel, we have been asked to develop a range of options for the redevelopment of Dundee Station. Dundee Station is an important place in the city – it is a major gateway, it is the main public transport facility, it is well used and conveniently located though slightly off-centre. It is not an object of great beauty, combining the remains of a brick and red sandstone North British Railway Company building dating from the 19th century at the lower platform level with a 1960/70s booking hall and office at street level.

The station was an important node in a system of pedestrian walkways and overbridges that linked the city centre to the waterfront and Discovery Point. This is less well defined today as the overbridge walkway system has been demolished to make way for the first phase of infrastructure changes necessary to implement the Central Waterfront proposal. The station is therefore in an area of transition and will continue to be so for a number of years as major works take place around it to strengthen bridges, realign roads and provide new development sites. The proposals for the Central Waterfront area place the station at a major focal point in the new street system for the area.

We have been appointed by Scottish Enterprise Tayside to provide an Urban Design Study of the West Port area of Dundee’s Cultural Quarter. The area is regarded as a key part of the Cultural Quarter and proposals need to be inspirational and imaginative while acknowledging the principles of the Dundee City Council Urban Design Guide.

As part of the urban design strategy, we will devise a spatial concept that recognises the inherent nature and structure of the area and protects the townscape legacy whilst creating new opportunities for new and revitalised buildings and external spaces. It must help to define a hierarchy of streets and spaces that reflects the relative significance of individual places, based on existing and potential uses, physical scale, character, status of adjacent institutions and other material factors. This will in turn allow a clear rationale to be developed for improving certain spaces, adopting distinct design approaches and identifying priorities for investment. The outcomes from this would certainly include a more focused series of public spaces.

West Port is clearly an important transitional area between different functional zones of the city. It is currently an important node – but it lacks place related qualities. We propose an integrated approach to the design of the area which seeks to match the physical opportunities with the scope for economic and social renewal. It is essential that an all-embracing view is taken, including the need to restructure and reframe streets and spaces, accommodate new uses, assess the movement issues as an integral part of a complex and evolving environment, achieve an acceptable balance between the desires and needs of different user groups and reinforce and/or create a sense of place.

Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council have commissioned Kevin Murray Associates, Drew Mackie Associates and ourselves to provide the research baseline for the Building Bolton project, incorporating consultation, urban analysis and policy recommendations. The team has devised a unique approach to Bolton town centre linking the inputs of different stakeholders to ideas and propositions for the future evolution and management of the town centre.

This is a new approach to the planning of towns and cities, particularly their traditional town centres which act as the focus for so many citizens. Historically, town centres have been planned by Councils using their civic architects and planners, or by landowners, developers and their designers. Frequently town centres are not planned at all!

More recently the evolution of town centre policy has been a mix of general – and often generic – planning policy handed down to towns by the government, combining with pressure for more shops from the retail and investment sector. Sadly the results have often been monolithic clone towns, increasingly the same in terms of the appearance of anywhere shops and buildings.

Few have attempted to understand the identity and distinctiveness of a place as viewed through its different residents and users. By trying to appreciate this dimension of local distinctiveness, as actually experienced and interpreted by its people, Bolton Council is trying to take a more sensitive and informed view of how its growth and evolution should progress.

Canterbury City Council commissioned yellow book and WMUD to carry out a concept study of a proposed creative and cultural quarter in Canterbury. An emerging Creative and Cultural Quarter has been identified in the area west of the Cathedral, which already contains some the city’s key cultural assets, including the New Marlowe Theatre and the Beaney Institute. This historic part of the city already has a distinctive character and sense of place, reflected in its independent retailers and growing evening economy, but it is also facing new competitive challenges from the Whitefriars development, which will shift the centre of gravity of activity in the city centre.

The creation of a successful CCQ is not simply an urban design project. It is about bringing the area’s cultural assets, businesses and people into register to create an appealing whole place experience. Nevertheless, cultural quarters require the right physical framework: a permeable, legible urban form; places for events and activities; opportunities to eat and drink outdoors; and good quality buildings, new and old.

The study will be carried out in two stages – firstly we will test the concept of establishing a creative and cultural quarter in the designated area, based on an assessment of the area’s assets and attributes, and a review of market conditions; at the end of this stage we will present an interim report, setting out a recommended strategic proposition; the report will form the basis for discussion at a partner/stakeholder workshop

The second stage will develop the concept through an overarching strategy for the CCQ, which will set out priorities for action. These will include an area-wide urban design strategy and detailed proposals for key sites, as well as an action plan (with outline costings) and a recommended delivery mechanism.

The final report is shown below:

This study was an extended and focused public participation effort, educating communities on the principles and intention behind growth management planning, the trade-offs present when the ramifications of an urban growth boundary are taken seriously, the possibilities occurring in the face of rapid growth and the methods available to manage that growth in a manner that achieves the community’s objectives.

This process relied on community involvement. It relied on effective communication of the forum’s materials, and on our accurate interpretation of the community’s message. The study was led by our colleagues at Spokane based planning firm Studio Cascade.