WMUD

conceptual, strategic and development work in urban design, town making, city planning, urbanism and place-making

Kensal Canalside EcoQuarter

This was a pre-feasibility study into the creation of a potential EcoQuarter at North Kensal commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in April 2008. It explored whether the Council’s current vision for the site – comprising placemaking, regeneration, sustainability and transport infrastructure aspirations – had the potential ...

Spatial strategy and Finsbury Health Centre

In a Guardian article this week, French journalist Jacques Monin came to the conclusion that Britain is obsessed with money, drowning in debt and morally bankrupt. Also this week, as if to supply further evidence for Monsieur Monin, Islington Primary Care Trust voted to sell off Berthold Lubetkin's Grade ...

Lewis Mumford on the city

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. ...

Signs and the city

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 ...

Remarkable Rieselfeld

Much has been written in recent weeks about Rieselfeld and Vauban, both extensions of Freiburg in Breisgau in south west Germany. These areas have been under construction since the 1990s but the current interest in them from a UK perspective comes from the Government's plans to build a number ...

Eindhoven 2001

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 ...

December 28th 2009
Tags: communities, place making, small towns, waterfronts Comments Off

Kirkcudbright Harbour Square

The Kirkcudbright Forum commissioned Willie Miller Urban Design (WMUD), Malcolm Fraser Architects and Nick Wright Planning in June 2009 to prepare a Shared Vision for Harbour Square in Kirkcudbright. The purpose of the work was to produce a community endorsed plan for the site which was both practical and deliverable. ...
December 18th 2009
Tags: communities, frameworks, place making, small towns, strategy, waterfronts Comments Off

Stromness Urban Design Framework

WMUD were commissioned by Orkney Islands Council in March 2008 to produce an urban design framework including an economic appraisal and strategy for the town. The purpose of the urban design framework was to provide a strategic overview which would coordinate existing projects and act as the basis for ...
December 11th 2009
Tags: communities, neighbourhood, place making, small towns Comments Off

Knockroon New Neighbourhood

Willie Miller Urban Design was commissioned to coordinate and submit an outline planning application on behalf of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment (TPFBE) for Knockroon near Cumnock in Ayrshire. The Prince's Foundation see Knockroon as being an exemplar neighbourhood for Cumnock, East Ayrshire and indeed for Scotland - it ...
December 11th 2009
Tags: communities, frameworks, place making, small towns Comments Off

Castlederg Community Vision and Masterplan

We have been appointed by Strabane District Council to prepare a Community Vision and Masterplan for the Castle site in Castlederg. The aim of the project is to create a shared vision for the redevelopment of the Castle site as a shared space in the town. This will be ...
December 3rd 2009
Tags: cities, comment, communities, frameworks, place making Comments Off

Edgeland and the Olympics

As a follow on from the post here almost two years ago entitled Terrain Vague: place and landscape and Stephen Gill's photographic work in the Lower Lea Valley, this video which has been around for a few months on Vimeo, draws attention to the destruction of land, common land, allotments ...