WMUD

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

Gillespie Kidd & Coia: St Paul’s, Glenrothes 1956

The major retrospective exhibition of the work of Gillespie Kidd and Coia currently showing at the Lighthouse in Glasgow features two films on the approach of this distinguished architecture practice. This short video clip made available by bd-online is a mini-lecture on St Paul's Glenrothes, Fife (1957) by ...

People and streets

The introduction of [tag]shared spaces[/tag] and the removal of traffic signs, formal traffic control and signal controlled junctions is gaining momentum in European towns and cities as part of a European Union supported initiative. Spiegel Online reported last week on the German town of Bohmte where road signs and ...

Planning and participation in 1950s Italy

Courtesy of the excellent Planum online journal of urbanism, these fascinating short films are a reminder that [tag]consultation[/tag], [tag]participation[/tag], enabling and involvement are not at all new. The films were part of the town planning exhibition set up for the [tag]Tenth Milan Triennale[/tag] in 1954 by Giancarlo De Carlo (1919-2005), ...

The urban morphology of Keswick

Keswick is one of the gems of the ...

Figures in the landscape

Sean Henry's Couple is the latest large [tag]figurative artwork[/tag] to appear in the landscape of the UK. Set in Newbiggin Bay in Northumberland as part of a major regeneration project for the town, it is likely to be a popular addition to the beautiful coastal landscape of the area. ...

John Betjeman goes to Hunstanton

This British Transport Film from the 1960s enlivened by [tag]John Betjeman[/tag] takes a trip from King's Lynn through the wide, flat fields of Norfolk to Hunstanton and the sea. It sums up a quality of insight and commentary on towns and countryside which has all but disappeared. Betjeman's holistic ...

July 12th 2008
Tags: cities, comment, research, strategy 2 Comments

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. ...
July 11th 2008
Tags: cities, comment, place making No Comments

Finisterre

FINISTERRE from Plexifilm on Vimeo. London has always been a source of influence, inspiration and curiosity. Paul Kelly and Kieran Evans' FINISTERRE tries to identify the dreams that London holds for so many, and the reality of the city -- the spaces between the landmarks, the spaces Londoners inhabit. Presented and scored ...
June 28th 2008
Tags: cities, comment, place making, strategy One Comment

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 ...

Network mapping

by Drew Mackie It has become fashionable to talk of networks of organisations, people, computers, transport and so on. In organisations there is talk of being more “networky” and getting away from the older more hierarchical ways of doing things. Conferences are organised around “networking” both formal and informal. Yet, the more ...

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 ...