Shardenfreude: London’s copycat craze is crystal clear

Posted on: 30 May 2014
By: mackene
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The Shard has spawned a host of angular glassy lumps across the capital. The author of this blog considers whether this new crystal city full of Shardettes is a welcome change.

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Videos on urbanism

Posted on: 27 May 2014
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UrbanNous provides access to digital multimedia focusing on urbanism. The latest videos cover: housing estate regeneration; low rise terrace morphology; and public realm improvement in town centres.

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Handbook for cycle-friendly design

Posted on: 7 May 2014
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This document is part of a suite of technical design guidance on active travel being developed by Sustrans. There is much useful material already available from a range of organisations, and this guidance from Sustrans aims to provide detailed technical advice on key issues around on and off highway cycle infrastructure whilst signposting users to this developing library of further resources. The Sustrans guidance library will be largely web based and will be regularly updated with new examples including the latest innovative and experimental schemes.

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The accessible city

Posted on: 29 April 2014
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This booklet is an interim report on the international research activities of the CIB  Working Commission W101 Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Development. The basic concept of “The Accessible City” advocated by W101 is described in the overview section of this booklet. As an expert group on spatial design, the commission is convinced that this is a significant step for planning policy now and in the future in order to make urban spaces and society more open and friendly to all the people living in cities, as well as to restore the valuable places that tend to be lost due to motorization, commercialization and even the advancement of information technology. However, the specific aspects of urban issues differ from country to country, as evidenced by the various chapter titles of this booklet. It is both inevitable and enjoyable for international discussions to accept and respect such diversity. This booklet, as the first edition, consists of seven articles from seven countries at present. 

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Shedding light: a survey of local authority approaches to lighting in England

Posted on: 28 April 2014
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The Campaign to Protect Rural England has published a report which is described as the first research to survey councils specifically on how they control light pollution. As a result of the research CPRE is calling for councils to do more to control lighting in their areas. The report makes nine recommendations including: preserving dark skies by having a presumption against new lighting in existing dark areas; allocating lighting zones to help determine where streetlights should and should not go; and preventing inappropriate and badly designed lighting of development that masks views of the night sky.

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Landscape futures

Posted on: 22 April 2014
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Videos are now on YouTube of the first two Landscape Futures debates, held in Sheffield and Birmingham. The Sheffield debate was on the subject ‘Making the World we Want’.  A challenging talk by Jonathon Porritt of Forum for the Future opened the series, arguing that the sustainability imperative must be integral to land use planning, and asking whether landscape education was equipping tomorrow’s professionals to work with the global challenges we face.  Pam Warhurst responded by focusing on local scale activism, and the power that communities have to shape their landscapes, in this instance through urban food growing in Todmorden. The Birmingham debate asked the question ‘How can we build beautiful places?’

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Down under placemaking

Posted on: 11 April 2014
By: mackene
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For decades, Melbourne has been the hotbed of experimentation and innovation that has attracted new thinking, new leadership, enlightened developers and progressive governance. An Integrated Placemaking approach, which Melbourne-based Village Well has developed and implemented for the past 22 years is explored with specific case studies. The retrofitting of Melbourne Central, a city mall, made it into a real place, creating one of the world’s great markets. The activation of the Melbourne Laneways caused the once lifeless laneways to become the city’s number one tourist attraction, and the development of the Docklands, a vast urban renewal project, doubled the city’s footprint.

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Building for wellness: The business case

Posted on: 11 April 2014
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The economic benefits of building healthy places are outlined in a new publication from the Urban Land Institute (ULI). The report examines the investment payback on incorporating amenities that promote health and wellness, how developers have pursued this objective, and the resulting market response. The report was prepared as part of ULI’s Building Healthy Places initiative, a two-year global program of work that seeks to raise awareness of the connections between health and the built environment, and to encourage the development of communities that are conducive to healthy living. Building for Wellness profiles 13 completed projects from around the world, including ten in the U.S., two in Asia Pacific and one in Europe, each representing one of three development strategies: renovation / redevelopment, new construction and master-planned communities.

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What are the best contemporary landscape architecture projects in London?

Posted on: 8 April 2014
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This post argues the case for 10 contemporary landscape architecture projects in London.

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Cities alive: Rethinking green infrastructure

Posted on: 4 April 2014
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Urban farms, glow-in-the-dark trees and solar powered pathways feature in a vision of a greener city created by Arup in its new Cities Alive report. The report proposes an economic way to address challenges of population growth and climate change in cities by working with nature and through high quality landscape design. It highlights the need for the natural environment to be made a primary concern in urban development, considered from earliest planning stages.

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