CONTENTS DIARY OF EVENTS - The Urban Design Group

DIARY OF EVENTS
Unless otherwise indicated all LONDON events are held at
The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1 at 6.30 pm.
All tickets purchased at the door from 6.00 pm.
£5.00 non-members, £2.00 members, £1.00 students
WEDNESDAY 13 APRIL
STREETS AND PATTERNS: DECODING AND RECODING URBAN
STRUCTURE
Speaker: Stephen Marshall, Bartlett School of Planning,
University College London
The talk will provide an overview and insight into the recently published book
Streets and Patterns which takes up the challenge of rethinking how urban
layout may be improved towards the creation of better urban places, without
compromising the basic functionality of circulation and access.
This event is sponsored by the publisher Taylor & Francis.
WEDNESDAY 18 MAY
THE WORD ON THE STREET
Speaker: Rob Cowan, director, UDG
Rob Cowan, the author of The Dictionary of Urbanism and co-author of
Re:urbanism, will present the Urbanwords project and radical proposals for
urbanism.
WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE
KEVIN LYNCH MEMORIAL LECTURE
New Urban Futures: Can design coding work here?
Speaker: Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive, Prince’s Foundation
WEDNESDAY 6 JULY
URBAN DESIGN GROUP AGM 5pm at The Gallery
URBAN DESIGN ANNUAL LECTURE
URBAN DESIGN IN EUROPE
Speaker: Sebastian Loew
A discussion about urban design in other European countries and what we can
learn from them. Sebastian Loew will lead the discussion with a few examples.
The event will be shared with the RTPI Urban Design Network.
STUDY TOURS
LYON, FRANCE, 21 – 24 APRIL – there are still a few spaces left
The second city in France and gastronomic capital, Lyon has in the past few years
undertaken a number of schemes aimed at improving the urban environment. In
addition, the old historic centre is on the UNESCO world heritage list so Lyon has
plenty to admire and enjoy. The tour will include a talk by a local urbanist and
visits to as many places/spaces as can be fitted into the three days.
Direct flights are available with British Airways from Heathrow and three nights bed
and breakfast accommodation has been arranged in a central hotel, from £400.
For further details contact Susie Turnbull,
Email udsl@udg.org.uk or Tel 01235 833797
HANSEATIC CITIES OF THE BALTIC PART 2, 4 – 12 JUNE – fully booked
Urban Design Group
CHAIRMAN Barry Sellers
PATRONS Alan Baxter, Tom Bloxham, Sir Terry Farrell, Colin Fudge, Nicky Gavron,
Dickon Robinson, Les Sparks, John Worthington
DIRECTOR Robert Cowan
OFFICE 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ, Tel 020 7250 0872,
Email admin@udg.org.uk
WEBSITE www.udg.org.uk
COVER
Oldham - Satellite at Night, Photo: URBED
LEADER 2
NEWS AND EVENTS
How Can Urban Designers Save the Planet? 3
The Design of Urban Space and Anti-social Behaviour 4
Urban Designers do Speed-dating 4
CABE Summer School / Urban Design in Kent 5
Urbanism at the Heart of the Agenda 5
Brian Richards 1928-2004 6
Master Plans at MIPIM 6
Recycled and Worn Out? 6
CABE page 7
Young Urban Designers 8
Prince’s Foundation 9
INTERNATIONAL
Tianjin Port Artificial Island, Matthias Bauer 10
VIEWPOINTS
UDG Annual Conference, John Billingham 12
Reinventing Road Hierarchy, Stephen Marshall 14
TOPIC: URBAN DESIGN IN LOCAL AUTHORITIES
Introduction, Penelope Tollitt, topic editor 16
Revealing Streetscapes, David McLaughlin 18
SK8MK, Andrew Armes 20
Quality Housing: the Role of the Local Authority, Roger Estop 23
Live-Work: the Ultimate in Mixed Uses? Linda Rand 26
Development Control: Delivering Quality, Philippa Jarvis 28
New Town Regeneration, Andrew Hunter 30
The Role of the Urban Designer, Hugh McCarthy 32
CASE STUDIES
Ox Pens to the West End, Alex Cochrane 34
Norwegian Street Design, Hoshiar Nooraddin 36
Castleford Regeneration ‘Streets’ Ahead, Ian Tod 38
BOOK REVIEWS
Front to Back, Urban Housing Design Agenda, Sally Lewis 39
Designing America’s Waste Landscape, Mira Engler 39
Re-animating the Waterfront, John Moores University 40
Transforming Barcelona, Tim Marshall 40
Measuring Planning Quality, M Carmona and L Sieh 41
Place: Early Years to 1981, Terry Farrell 41
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS 42
PRACTICE INDEX 42
CORPORATE INDEX 48
EDUCATION INDEX 49
ENDPIECE Bob Jarvis 49
FUTURE ISSUES
95 Urban Design in the Developing World
96 Designing Sustainable Communities
CURRENT SUBSCRIPTIONS Urban Design is free to Urban Design Group members
who also receive newsletters and the biennial Source Book
ANNUAL RATES Individuals £40 Students £20
CORPORATE RATES Practices, including listing in the UD Practice index and
Source Book £250
LIBRARIES £40 LOCAL AUTHORITIES £100 (two copies of Urban Design)
OVERSEAS MEMBERS pay a supplement of £3 for Europe and £8 for other locations
INDIVIDUAL ISSUES of Urban Design cost £5
Neither the Urban Design Group nor the editors are responsible for views
expressed or statements made by individuals writing in Urban Design.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 1
CONTENTS

LEADER
TOP TRUMPS
As the season of awards, conferences and the Urban Summit unfolds,
it is worth reflecting on the lot of the local authority urban designer.
This issue is dedicated to these often unsung heroes of the planning
system, who typically don’t have another design colleague within miles
to compare notes with, and yet face sometimes fierce and long running
battles with developers and their designers.
One of my trophies from the Urban Summit was a pack of Top Trumps
from George Wimpey. This card game is great, not only because it still
appeals to children and grandparents alike, but because this version is
about built development projects.
The categories include:
• Density (dw/ha)
• Time to achieve planning (weeks)
• Proportion of affordable homes (%)
• Average SAP rating
• Customer recommendations rating (%)
• S106 contributions, plus
• A key photograph of the built scheme (aesthetics?).
The GW Challenge Game is designed to show George Wimpey’s ability to deliver a range of developments
from rather swanky looking urban apartments to thatched cottages and executive homes. However, as the
introductory card says “…as with many things in life, there are always some trade offs and its up to you to
decide which objective is the most important and which site is best”.
And so here we have it: the policy vs market game is laid out before us, and we can set the rules according
to how we want to play. Is a high density score good or bad? What about affordable homes? Energy efficiency?
Does it matter if it looks good or could be anywhere?
Perhaps this card game explains why the development process can be so fraught with communication
problems, where ‘aces’ can be high or low depending upon whether you are the developer, planner, designer,
occupier or local community neighbour. The only category where perhaps all players would agree is on the Time
to Achieve Planning, where everyone hopes that the first proposals are the best, and can be delivered swiftly
– apart from the consultants on a time charge basis perhaps?
LOUISE THOMAS
Urban Design
EDITORIAL BOARD Sherin Aminossehe, John Billingham,
Matthew Carmona, Tim Catchpole, Richard Cole, Margaret
Downing, Peter Eley, Bob Jarvis, Karl Kropf, Liezel Kruger,
Sebastian Loew, Judith Ryser, Louise Thomas
EDITORS Louise Thomas (this issue) and Sebastian Loew.
louisethomas@tdrc.co.uk
sebastianloew@btinternet.com
MATERIAL FOR PUBLICATION please send text by email
to the editors, images to be supplied as high-resolution
(180mm width @300dpi) preferably as jpeg
2 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES should be directed to
Cathedral Communications Limited
High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA
Tel 01747 871717, Fax 01747 871718
Email ud@cathcomm.demon.co.uk
PRODUCTION Cathedral Communications Limited
DESIGN Claudia Schenk
PRINTING Optichrome
© Urban Design Group ISSN 0266-6480

How Can Urban Designers Save the Planet?
HERBERT GIRARDET ON LIVEABLE CITIES IN A SUSTAINABLE WORLD, THE GALLERY, LONDON 19 JANUARY 2005
Subsequent to the launch of his book
Cities People Planet, Herbert Girardet
discussed his ideas with the Urban
Design Group. He deliberated his thesis
that sustainability must be our key
preoccupation for the 21st century. As
his main points were presented in the
book review (see Urban Design, Winter
2005, Issue 93), this article focuses on
the debate which followed Girardet’s
analysis of the state of our planet and
his vision of where it should be going.
Some of his assertions seemed overoptimistic,
such as the possibility of
establishing worldwide common values
to sustain the planet, whilst maintaining
acceptable lifestyles. For example,
is the smell of ecological human
waste treatment near housing areas
acceptable? Will urban agriculture in the
fast growing Chinese cities be able to
resist development pressures on urban
land? Is it wise to abolish allotments
and displace growing food to the city
fringe, where it will be pushed outwards
until it is divorced from the inner urban
workforce?
Girardet sees the ‘compact city’
as the sustainable model of urban
development. However, can it reconcile
the contradiction between the
unsustainable skyscrapers often required
to make up the necessary density to
support an ingenious transport system as
in Curitiba? Can a sustainable compact
city be market driven? Commercially
driven high-rise Hong Kong may be
great for sustainable mobility, but
its fabric remains very vulnerable
to earthquakes, power cuts, and
terrorism, and elsewhere the free market
produces low density urban sprawl. Can
sustainable intermediate solutions such
as impregnable historic European hill
towns accommodate our contemporary
lifestyles and individual mobility?
Density and design may well
contribute to a sustainable urban
fabric, but land valuation mechanisms,
powerful stakeholders, economic order
and political expediency often override
sustainable design considerations. Is
building in the flood plain of the
Thames Gateway sustainable in terms of
resource consumption, aside from the
financial cost or the merits of growth
concentration in the South-East? Is the
sustainability objective of the mayor’s
London Plan compatible with confining
development to London’s administrative
boundaries - except where a competitive
airport hub expansion is deemed
indispensable for a global city? Can
environmentalists reverse a reality
which produces ever bigger airplanes
such as the latest airbus A580, which
demand outsized infrastructure and
produce congestion in the terminals and
cities around them? Or will these ‘white
elephants’ become extinct, and smaller
more nimble aircraft ferry people direct
to their destinations? Even Girardet
admits that his flying schedule as an
international film maker and campaigner
is not exactly sustainable. This raises the
question of individual behaviour.
If governments themselves are
not willing to sign up to targets
which might save the planet, nor
impose legal restrictions on resource
squandering, how can they expect
commercial corporations, other interest
groups or individuals to curb their
unsustainable lifestyles? For every piece
of scientific evidence, there seems to be
a counterargument. While air travel is
adding to global warming, current global
dimming may protect the earth from the
adverse effects of the sun (and so reduce
the causes of global warming).
Focusing on the role of designers,
even if we propose public transportation
as an inherent part of all ecologically
designed development schemes, funding
restrictions are likely to defeat them.
Similarly, market forces may reject
high density living and continue urban
sprawl; and residents may not accept the
aesthetics of even the most advanced
ecological building technologies. So the
question arises: aside from proposing
sustainable solutions for physical
development, do designers need to
change attitudes towards innovative
sustainable urban design too?
With their ecological base, technical
infrastructure and economic global
superstructures, cities are not natural
systems but ‘superorganisms’ in
Girardet’s view. These eco-technical
systems are the power stations of the
global economy. Still dominated by the
developed world which uses 110 and
60 ‘economic slaves’ per unit of output
in the USA and Europe respectively,
competing cities rather than competing
countries face contradictions, perhaps
because capitalism may be incompatible
with sustainability. Designers must help
to translate sustainability into real
urban development and regeneration
projects, albeit with a better
understanding of sustainability than we
have so far.
Top Barcelona solar power station
Bottom Urban metabolism
Designers must help to
translate sustainability into
real urban development and
regeneration projects
Prompted by the ‘energy crisis’ of
the 1970s, many researchers attempted
to devise equations for the whole
energy lifecycle of buildings, without
conquering the complexity of the
task itself. Attempting to understand
the meaning of a whole sustainable
urban area as a basis for integrated
development may well be beyond our
reach. But this should not rule out
the careful use of resources, even with
commercial short term-ism hampering
rather than fostering sustainable cooperation.
The only way around this
is to convince us all that sustainable
behaviour is in the self-interest of
each and every one of us. Otherwise
only a mega-crisis will kick powerful
organisations into action, driven by their
belief that they can be spared.
Judith Ryser
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 3
NEWS AND EVENTS

NEWS AND EVENTS
Top Traditional city
Bottom Modern city
4 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
The Design of Urban Space and Anti-social Behaviour
‘Make a date with urban designers’ drew
a big crowd to CUBE, Manchester’s
architecture centre. A fringe event
hosted by the Urban Design Alliance
(UDAL), as part of the ODPM’s Delivering
Sustainable Communities Summit, the
evening was designed to build networks
and stimulate recruitment amongst the
professional groups represented in urban
design. We had hugely encouraging
feedback, with one report suggesting it
was the best fringe event of the whole
summit. Perhaps it was the same person
who asked: ‘when’s the next one?’
Over 100 people attended; a terrific
number and far more than we had really
It is an interesting paradox that while we
now have a renewed interest in the design
of public urban space, with many fine
examples of new and remodelled spaces,
and showers of competitions, awards and
books about urban space, at the same
time we have a growing public concern
about crime and anti-social behaviour in
those public spaces. Does the design of
public space have any effect on people’s
behaviour, or are the two things in fact
entirely independent of each other?
That question was the origin
of a conference on January 28th at
Millennium Point in Birmingham,
organised by Noha Nasser and Joe
Holyoak of the MA in Urban Design
course at the University of Central
England, which attracted a big and
diverse audience of local authority
officers, police, academics, consultants
and others. Urban designers are likely
to answer that design does exert a
positive influence, as this extends our
claim over professional territory, and
helps to justify our existence. Perhaps
the strongest support among the eight
speakers came from Tim Stonor of Space
Syntax, who produced documentary
evidence about how spatial form works
directly upon its occupants, and claimed
that most designers do not understand
either space or people. But Roger Evans
mischievously suggested that perhaps
there is in society a fixed amount of
anti-social behaviour, and that all we
designers do is to move it around with
our spatial interventions.
However, the general consensus
among speakers was that design does
have an effect, and that designers broadly
have a choice between two stances;
either discouraging anti-social behaviour
hoped for in planning the event. The lure
of a free drink was not the only element
that brought such numbers to CUBE.
The audience came from a wide range of
groups and practices from both the public
and private sectors, plus students, to
hear George Hazel, the new chair of UDAL
and a past president of the IHT, welcome
speakers and contributions from practices
including EC Harris, URBED, Randall
Thorp, Urban Initiatives and Taylor Young.
All of these are multi-disciplinary
groups, drawing on the range of
professional expertise represented in
UDAL’s membership. UDAL is a network
of organisations which works to promote
by defensive or target-hardening design
tactics, or promoting good behaviour
by introducing attractive design and
place-making. Eloquent support for
the latter stance came from Rachael
Eaton of CABE Space, which has recently
published a guidance note on the subject,
Guy Denton of Whitelaw Turkington,
and Henry Shaftoe of the University of
the West of England. David Chisholm of
John Thompson and Partners agreed, but
maintained that none of this was likely to
be sustainable unless the local community
was able to create ‘social capital’.
Gary Taylor of Argent Estates, the
sponsors of the event, put a cat or
two among the urban design pigeons
by emphasising the virtues both of
privately-owned and managed ‘public
space’, and of the development and
ownership of urban land by developers
in large units. Measured in terms of the
conference’s theme however, the crime
statistics of Argent’s Brindleyplace are
certainly impressive. For Taylor, the
existence of restaurants, as opposed to
bars, is a reliable indicator that urban
design has got it right. There are bars
aplenty in the centre of Nottingham:
space for 104,000 drinkers. Stephen
Green Nottinghamshire’s Chief Constable,
gave a fascinating place-based analysis
of the rocketing numbers of licensed
premises, and the corresponding
numbers and locations of recorded
crimes. He observed that it is the
brewers and drinks industry who have
effectively designed the binge-drinking
centre of Nottingham.
This subject will be the theme of a
future issue of Urban Design.
Joe Holyoak
‘When’s the Next One?’ Urban Designers do Speed-dating
the value of urban design, principally
through collaboration and exchange
across disciplines and practices. On the
evidence of this event, while there is
plenty of exchange and communication
already out there, there is plenty more to
be had. Of course, a glass of wine helps,
but the audience had come to hear what
leading practitioners and institutions
had to say about their roles in the urban
design matrix - the complex web of
people and places currently engaged in
‘delivering sustainable communities’. For
example, planning and architecture are
often considered to be the most visible
professions in urban design, but Edward

Thorp and Dick Longdin made a strong
case for landscape architecture, and
in the second half the Chief Executive
of the RICS, Louis Armstrong made an
equally eloquent case, both for the role of
surveyors in urban design, and for UDAL,
endorsing its work across professional
and disciplinary boundaries.
The format of the event and a
sympathetic master of ceremonies
allowed the informal evening to become
cheerfully anarchic. The predominantly
young audience, keen to participate,
enjoyed a new, entirely spontaneous
feature: an ‘open mike’ session. This
was prompted by a veteran of previous
events, who gamely stepped up to
defend his vision and re-open the
debate about the need – or not – for
professional accreditation in urban
In January 2005, the RIBA held a follow
up meeting to its July 2004 event and
this was designed to flesh out some of
the issues raised earlier. These included
defining the principles of urbanism and
examining educational implications,
and some of this work was due to be
presented at the Manchester Summit.
The meeting in 2004, which was
more strongly supported, proposed that
a Charter of Urbanism should be drawn
up but this intention was superseded
and a set of principles formed the first
part of the discussions. It was felt that
the Congress for New Urbanism which
had produced a Charter reflected the
very different situation in the States and
speakers from Stockholm and Portugal
described other approaches being taken.
John Thompson’s team had already
defined ten principles of urbanism
which people were asked to amplify
by attaching post-it details to the ten
design. Perhaps we should incorporate
such a development into future events
for both the UDG and UDAL. That
willingness to engage in debate added a
real edge to the evening.
Rob Cowan, Director of the UDG
adroitly avoided the can of accredited,
professional worms and encouraged
everyone present to shelter under the
umbrella of the UDG and get involved
with Street (see Urban Design 92: 11).
This left Michael Hebbert, Professor of
Town Planning at Manchester University,
to welcome the recent merge between
the ‘spatial’ disciplines (geography,
development, architecture and planning)
at the university. He hoped that this
would replicate and produce the very
collaboration that UDAL also fosters, and
allow Manchester to create professionals
CABE Summer School 2005
The 2005 CABE Urban Design Summer
School will take place in Accrington, East
Lancashire from 26 to 29 June. As was
Urban Design in Kent
The University of Westminster is
delivering a Postgraduate Certificate in
Urban Design to planners in Kent. The
course, normally delivered on campus,
has been adapted to fit the requirements
of the Kent Planning Officers Group
which commissioned it. Sessions take
place weekly over 20 weeks in Maidstone,
Urbanism at the Heart of the Agenda
points. These were:
• character and legibility
• diversity and inclusion
• culture and identity
• sociability and activity
• continuity and context
• security and safety
• connectivity and movement
• community and governance
• landscape and ecology
• efficiency and economy.
Surprisingly, no reference was made to
earlier definitions used in work such as By
Design. Discussion about these principles
concerned the omission of ‘people’
from the headings, the need for space,
time and dimensions to be included and
whether some of the principles were
preconditions. The intention is to produce
a small publication on Urbanism -
Principles of Placemaking to be available
for the RIBA conference which is to be
the case in the very successful event in
Ashford in 2004, the school will be run
by the University of Westminster and will
and the course is mostly hands-on with
the projects chosen to reflect issues
of concern to Kent planners. The final
session will include a visit to Lille, the
capital of Kent’s sister region on the
other side of the Channel. Each district
has nominated one to three members of
staff, and students who complete the
properly equipped to develop and deliver
a high standard of urban design.
The buzz of a room full of people
actually talking to their professional
colleagues from other groups and
practices was particularly rewarding. The
role of professional and campaigning
organisations in developing the skills
to build sustainable communities can
not be under-estimated, but each of
these groups needs to understand how
mutually inter-dependent they are, and
UDAL brings them together. Perhaps
making a date with urban designers
might just create some sustainable
communities? Not exactly speed-dating
though - urban design seems to demand
long-term commitment.
Amanda Claremont, Co-ordinator UDAL/UDG
held in Bristol at the end of June where
the subject will be Urban Renaissance.
The second part of the discussions
concerned Urbanism in Education -
aiming to get a core foundation discipline
in urbanism - and Sarah Chaplin
presented her ideas about mapping the
curriculum. These included defining
urbanism, finding out what aspects
are taught at FE and HE levels, listing
examples of best practice, defining
skills shortages and identifying CPD
opportunities. This exercise was clearly
going to take a very long time to achieve
and it was suggested that shorter term
objectives were needed. Progress seems
to be happening with the proposed
Urbanism awards it should be possible for
all the contributing bodies to the Urban
Design Alliance to be associated with that
initiative as it develops.
John Billingham
include hands-on design workshops and
a range of expert seminars.
See www.udss.org.uk.
course successfully have the possibility
of continuing to do the Masters in Urban
Design at the university. This formula
of delivering a course to a client group
of local authorities may be replicated in
another county next year.
Sebastian Loew
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 5
NEWS AND EVENTS

NEWS AND EVENTS
Brian Richards 1928-2004
The death of Brian Richards last December
was not only a real loss to his family but
also to transportation research and to
the Urban Design Group, of which he had
been a longstanding member.
I first met Brian in 1965 at the
AA Leverhulme School of Planning in
Bloomsbury Square, where we were
fellow tutors. He had an encyclopaedic
knowledge of public transportation and
a ferret-like capacity for discovering and
then experiencing the latest innovation
in transport development.
This led him, over four decades, to
write four books on the subject: New
Movement in Cities (1966), Moving in
Cities (1976), Transport in Cities (1990)
and Future Transport in Cities (2001).
Recycled and Worn Out?
Do you keep recycling tired and rambling
urban design principles in design
guidance and design statements?
Try this guide to city design, courtesy
of the highly-regarded US Mayors’
Institute on City Design, which brings US
city mayors and architects together to
rethink the shape of their cities.
1. Design streets for people. Most cities
today still allow their streets to be
designed by traffic engineers who ignore
the real needs of pedestrians.
2. Overrule the specialists. The specialist
is the enemy of the city, which is by
definition a general enterprise.
3. Mix the uses. The first step should be
to ask what uses are missing. In many
6 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
He was passionate in his hatred
of traffic and the way that society has
become so heavily dependent on cars.
He was very critical that traffic planning
dominates the way cities are now
designed so that it has, in effect, torn
many of our older cities apart.
He knew that through the proper
control of traffic and cars, combined
with a much more sophisticated public
transport system, the quality of life in
cities could be vastly improved, making
them better places to live and bring up
families. In the last sentence of his last
book he says ’only the political will is
needed to make this happen’.
Very fittingly, at his funeral the
younger members of his family joined
together to sing `the wheels of the bus
go round and round’.
His relatives are determined that
Brian’s contribution to transportation
will not be forgotten and are setting up
a special Transport Prize in his memory.
John Peverley
A Mosaic of Municipal Master Plans at MIPIM
MIPIM 2005 - Special Events - opening night cocktail party, sponsored by
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Photo: Missionning/MIPIM 2005
A visit to MIPIM, the property industry’s
annual conference in Cannes, France
(8-11 March) this year revealed the very
different approaches to development
and urbanism throughout Europe and
developing market areas. There are mixed
messages about where urban design
downtowns, the answer to that question
is housing.
4. Hide the parking lots. It only takes a
20-foot-thick crust of housing or offices
to block a huge lot from view.
5. Small is beautiful. Allowing
skyscrapers just causes a few lucky
sites to become overbuilt while their
neighbours all lay fallow under massive
speculation.
6. Save that building. Historic
preservation may be our best way to
respect our ancestors, but it is justified
on economic terms alone.
7. Build normal (affordable) housing.
Affordable housing is exactly the wrong
place to pioneer new design styles.
fits into the development world. Most
exhibition stands showed city-scale
ambitions to create new environments,
using maps, aerial photography, models
and imagery to conjure up what each
opportunity represents for investors
and occupiers. Some cities (such as the
Commune di Milano quoted in the title)
understand urbanism, and that it takes
more than a wacky building to make
a city. Major city exhibitors included
Moscow, Prague, Brno, Turin (see Urban
Design Issue 92, Autumn 2004), Warsaw,
and Verona, and showed city governments
coordinating linked projects and large
scale inward investments.
Other stands hosted notably by the
private sector – architects, developers
and their agents alike - were myopic,
insular or even naïve in their appreciation
of the urban environment, within which
BRIAN RICHARDS MEMORIAL FUND
If you would like to contribute, please
make your cheque payable to the Brian
Richards Memorial Fund and send it
to Shelly Porter at the Royal Bank of
Scotland, PO Box 3326, 49 Charing Cross,
Admiralty Arch, London SW1A 2BZ.
Experiment on the rich; they can always
move out.
8. Build green. Sustainable architecture
has finally hit the tipping point. Plant
more trees!
9. Question your codes. Conventional
zoning codes, made up of
incomprehensible statistics like floor
area ratios, ignore the differences
between pleasant and unbearable
urbanism.
10. Don’t forget beauty. Many of the
nation’s most beautiful buildings and
parks were built during periods of
unparalleled adversity.
Louise Thomas
they operate. Putting the predictable golf
or resort communities to one side, there
was a proliferation of anonymous angular
towers and geometric patterned housing
estates, with little evidence of the
context, character and humanity of the
places to be built, or how places will fit in
or join up. Poor CAD and Perspex models
do little for the urban design of places.
It takes a certain type of developer
to see the bigger picture in terms of what
they are building or investing in, and their
responsibility in forming another piece in
the urban, suburban or rural jigsaw puzzle.
While profit and turnover will remain their
primary goal, urban design has a long way
to go before it leads the property market’s
thinking. But when it does, it will deliver
much greater rewards.
Louise Thomas

Do Codes = Quality + Delivery?
PAUL LAVELLE SUMMARISES FINDINGS FROM THE INTERIM DESIGN CODING REPORT FEBRUARY 2005
A lot was said and written about design
coding during 2004 and opinions still
vary. Are they an unwanted American
import, reflected in developments
like Seaside, Florida? Do they stifle
creativity? Or can they help secure welldesigned
neighbourhoods? Design codes
are not a new idea. They have been
used in one form or another since the
Renaissance, and possibly earlier. Some
of our most cherished developments,
from the Georgian period through to
Garden Suburbs and New Towns were
based on design codes, so are we
rediscovering our roots and learning how
to create great places by applying the
same rigour as our Georgian forebears?
These were some of the early questions
addressed in Design Coding: testing its
use in England (CABE, 2005) an interim
report CABE has produced in partnership
with ODPM and English Partnerships,
following a year of extensive research
and on-the-ground testing of design
coding in England.
The government and its agencies’
commitment to creating new
neighbourhoods that are well designed
adding to the quality of life of their
residents and users, is firmly established.
With the publication of Sustainable
Communities: Building for the Future
(ODPM, 2003), we now need to deliver
against this commitment. The scale of
the challenge is particularly pressing
in the housing growth areas, and
although new housing needs to be
provided speedily, clearly this must
not be detrimental to the creation of
sustainable communities. A number of
agencies at local, regional and national
level have been examining how to ensure
that this quantity of new housing can be
delivered at speed without compromising
but improving on the quality of the
homes and neighbourhoods developed
over preceding decades. However, CABE’s
recent Housing Audit (CABE, 2004)
found that while the majority of house
builders have demonstrated they are
able to deliver places of quality, actually
achieving this is still rare. 1
Delivering large and complex
sustainable communities in both the
Growth Areas and Housing Market
Renewal Areas requires significant effort
from all parties to reach agreement
as to what constitutes acceptable
development. Despite the efforts of all
involved, development can be subject to
significant delays due to disagreements
between stakeholders relatively late
in the planning process. The issue is
whether design coding can facilitate an
upfront agreement on design quality,
thereby providing a degree of certainty
for all parties, and whether it is a tool
to consistently deliver the quantity and
quality of housing that is required.
The Sustainable Communities
Summit in Manchester 31 January-2
February 2005 marked the mid point
of CABE’s research programme, and the
release of the interim Design Coding
report. This will be followed up with
more formal and conclusive findings
in 2006. At the heart of this research
programme is the testing of the
development, adoption and use of design
codes in seven pilot projects across the
country.
The research has focused on the
application of design coding to major
housing developments and seeks to
answer the following:
• What is a design code and how might it
work in the current English context?
• What scope is there for design codes
to speed up the planning process and
delivery of new development?
• Do design codes improve the quality of
development?
• Do design codes deliver more certainty
for all parties, from developer through to
the local community, by creating greater
levels of consensus and buy-in to a
development?
The report provides an insight into
the precedents for design coding,
practitioners’ perceptions of their
potential uses and roles, some lessons
from existing projects which have used
them and early observations from the
pilot projects testing design coding in
the context of current policy, practice
and market realities. Interim conclusions
based on the preceding analysis consider
the three key issues of speed, quality
and buy-in:
• Speed of delivery: clearly preparing
a design code takes time – within the
context of the pilot programme it has
taken between three to five months to
prepare a code, plus time for adoption.
However, initial evidence shows that this
early investment brings dividends during
the planning process, with compliant
planning applications often determined
more quickly.
• Quality of final development: the
advanced case studies suggest that
although quality can be influenced by
many factors, development produced
with design codes is of notably higher
quality. Importantly, the case studies
show that the projects where coding has
been successful are also characterised by
a strong commitment to design from the
outset and strong leadership with a clear
sense of purpose and vision.
• Consensus and buy-in to development:
coding involves a high degree of
professional and technical collaboration
and most participants feel that it led
to improved outcomes for the project.
However, achieving this spirit of
partnership and co-operation between
the various parties takes time and effort.
The research programme will
continue to track the progress of
the pilots and the experience of key
stakeholders, reporting back in 2006,
and we will see how design coding might
be developed as a reliable and replicable
mechanism for wider application.
REFERENCE
1. Just 17 per cent of the schemes assessed
in CABE’s housing audit last year were judged
to be well designed. Copies of the report are
available to download at
www.thehomebuyersguide.org.
Top Extract from
Ashford Barracks
design code,
Image: EDAW, on
behalf of George
Wimpey, Westbury
Homes and Ashford
Borough Council
Middle Code-testing
workshop, Photo:
CABE
Bottom Ashford
Barracks
development brief,
Image: EDAW, on
behalf of George
Wimpey, Westbury
Homes and Ashford
Borough Council
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 7
PAGE

YOUNG URBAN DESIGNERS
Photo: Essex Design Initiative
Big Issues
8 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
The notion of how we attract creative
and talented young people to urban
design was brilliantly covered by Hugo
Frieszo’s article in UD 93. It was full of
ideas that should be taken forward for
making the quality of the environment
a central concern in people’s minds.
Reaching out to young people would
seem an absolutely central task. We need
to go into schools and talk to children
about making decisions about where
they live. And we need to fire up interest
and passion in higher educational
establishments to get creative young
people attracted to the professions.
During my first degree I helped my
tutor start a poster campaign to raise
the profile of planning and urban design
amongst students. The campaign was
called Big Issues, and it eventually
World Habitat Awards - Entries Invited
The World Habitat Awards were initiated
in 1985 and seek to identify housing
projects around the world which can
be adapted for use elsewhere. The
competition is open to all, and can
relate to any form of innovation in
housing provision - large or small and in
any context, in management, design or
funding.
Prize money of £10,000 will be
presented to two winners at the Global
Celebration of World Habitat Day (in
Nairobi, Kenya 2004).
To enter, send a concise summary
of the project for Stage I, and online
applications can be made on the BSHF
website at www.bshf.org. Alternatively
you can submit your entry by post to:
turned into a series of glossy brochures.
But I don’t think it really reached out to
anyone outside the university - it really
wasn’t intended to. But Jon Cooper could
see that there was a yawning chasm of
misconception between the image of the
degree course, and what planning is all
about… ’so, what, you like, design roads
and stuff?’
I believe that to get young people
to sign up to urban design it has to
be cool. I am secretly convinced that
planning is poised to be the most
fashionable profession on earth.
I have already heard the giggles
and snorts, but one thing is clear; its
all happening in the city; apartments,
scooters, café bars, live/work loft space.
The urban renaissance has opened the
door for a generation of café dwelling,
scooter riding, European city breaking
young people to live the urban lifestyle
without needing to be a high flyer at
Merrill Lynch. Has no one ever heard
of regeneration chic? And it isn’t all
happening just in Shoreditch, Glasgow
Harbour and east Manchester. This
writer’s current experience has shown
that ‘City Living’ is where its at in the
fine old market town of Yeovil.
While visiting our ongoing project at
Newhall recently, I was first startled, then
amused, then rather proud to see that
one of the glossy marketing brochures
being handed out in the show home read
Abode – New Urban Design. In the end,
it was sobering because it occurred to
me that urban designers should really be
claiming these successes, and using them
to attract talented young people to join
us in our work.
In some ways, things are cranking
up. Take as a point of reference Will
Alsop’s current exhibition at Urbis
in Manchester. Some may find this
kind of vision for the northern cities
frankly bonkers. Some who read this
publication I know find it really rather
troubling; and certainly, I couldn’t say
with any sincerity that it has instilled a
tremendous public confidence in what
planners and architects are ‘up to now’,
which isn’t really helping. But in a way
Alsop is doing - perhaps by default
- what needs to be done. The point is
here, and it is a genuine one; Supercity
made it onto Radio One.
Stop right there! Now then, I am
not suggesting that the leading aim for
STREET is to don urban design baseball
caps and push for a spot on Colin & Edith
(although I rather like the idea). Surely
though, no one can fail to have at least
a passing interest in a vision of seismic
change. Alsop’s careful attention to
graphic quality and playful imagery are
intended to seduce the eye, and that’s the
kind of thing that will attract interested
and interesting young people to urban
design. Get them thinking about were
they could be living; get them thinking
about what they could be creating.
Sustainability comes in term two.
I am reminded of a comment made
by Mike Hayes, the current president of
the RTPI, that the training route into
planning might be renamed ‘a degree
in Changing the World’. A convivial stab
at stirring up the assembled throng it
may have been; one, which fell rather on
deaf ears. But Mike’s point was entirely
sincere - the possibilities for creative
endeavour are pretty unique.
The challenge is thus; to claim our
successes and shout loud about them;
there are enough out there to claim now,
and the development sector is already
giving it a go. …See that funky new
bit of town? We did that. You could do
that. As Hugo Frieszo has said, it will
take three things; will, commitment
and a bit of financial and professional
encouragement. Can we get going now
please?
Alex Cochrane
World Habitat Awards 2005, Building and
Social Housing Foundation, Memorial
Square, Coalville, Leicestershire LE67 3TU
United Kingdom. Tel 01530 510444 Fax
01530 510332 Email wha@bshf.org.
All Stage I submissions should reach the
Foundation by 1 June 2005.

Nelson - Enquiry by Design
JAMES HULME EXPLAINS HOW THE EBD APPROACH WORKS IN A PATHFINDER CONTEXT
Nelson is one of the former mill towns
of North East Lancashire, and subject
to deprivation after the collapse
of traditional industries left it in
comparative isolation. As part of the
ODPM’s Northern Way initiative, it is
also one of the areas most likely to be
affected by the proposals to selectively
demolish surplus housing stock in the
more depressed parts of Lancashire,
Yorkshire and Humberside.
Elevate East Lancashire is a
government-funded Housing Market
Renewal Pathfinder that has sought
innovative solutions to the problems
of low demand, negative equity, and
housing market collapse in towns across
East Lancashire, with an emphasis on
community renewal and social cohesion.
In partnership with Pendle Borough
Council, English Heritage and English
Partnerships, it engaged The Prince’s
Foundation in an Enquiry by Design
(EbD) process in November 2004.
OPPOSITION TO DEMOLITION
A CPO scheme of demolition had
been proposed for some parts of the
Whitefield Ward for several years, but
had met with rigorous local opposition.
After considerable assessment, English
Heritage has drawn attention to the
area’s intrinsic value as a planned
19th century industrial settlement and
its survival as an unusually complete
Victorian townscape, giving an
indication of the issues that informed
the EbD conducted by The Prince’s
Foundation.
THE PROCESS
This is the first time that the Enquiry
by Design process has been applied in
a Housing Market Renewal Area, and
participants in the five day workshop
were drawn from all areas of the
community. Residents Mohammed Iqbal
and Sylvia Wilson attended throughout
the process and there were numerous
special meetings with community groups
and those whose houses were suffering
with major problems, such as damp.
Pendle Borough Council staff and ward
councillors were there, as were various
heritage groups, and the public session
on Monday 22 November was filled to
capacity.
EBD RECOMMENDATIONS
The study found that the interests of the
housing renewal programme would best
be served by a selective retention and
alteration of existing terraced housing
stock to increase diversity of the housing
offer. At the same time more mixed uses
should be re-introduced in adjacent
buildings, to include provision for
business, leisure and community groups.
As well as re-establishing a broader
spectrum of activity to invigorate the
area, the mix of uses will be how the
specific heritage structures, such as St
Mary’s Church, will have a new purpose
and become new community-oriented
places once again.
A mill complex at the centre of
Whitefield will become the focus of
an Enterprise Quarter. This envisages
the conversion of existing mills and
weaving sheds to provide a range of
accommodation for small business,
creative and craft based industries.
These will provide a lively centre with
employment and training opportunities
as well as starter unit accommodation
for emerging industries such as media
and technology.
Proposals for housing renewal
centred on the conversion of around 60
per cent of the small, terraced houses
from two or three homes into one larger
one. By expanding the range of house
sizes on offer, and raising the standard
of quality, the local housing market
will gain a broader offer, enabling
households with changing needs to
remain in the district, and promoting
community longevity.
The plan is designed both to
regenerate the housing stock and
historic buildings, and create a
sustainable community by revitalising
the economic and social life of the area.
In the emerging model, up to 80 per
cent of the existing housing stock will be
retained and adapted.
Once development plans have been
drawn up, Pendle Council will engage
the community in a review process,
and funding partners are identifying
early ‘wins’ that will form the basis for
Elevate’s funding strategy. Other partners
support the viability of the plan by
pointing to potential public and private
investment of up to £20 million to get
the development underway over the first
five years.
James Hulme, Policy Manager, Prince’s
Foundation
Left Focus on
block conversion
displaying the
adaptability of
the existing street
pattern to offer
different house
sizes
Below EbD master
plan
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 9
PRINCE’S FOUNDATION

INTERNATIONAL
Tianjin Port, Artificial Island
China is booming and finally magazines, papers and TV programmes in
Europe have started to notice. While newspapers are filled with articles
about Shanghai and Beijing, a new generation of hot spots is quickly
emerging and the chances are that you have never heard of them – or
do you know Ningbo, Chengdu, Wuhan or Chongqing?
Another fast-growing city that barely makes it into the news is
Tianjin, located halfway between Beijing and the Bohai Sea in North
East China. Tianjin features an extensive colonial heritage and has one
of the largest old British quarters in Asia as well as French, German,
Russian and even Belgian, Italian and Austro-Hungarian concessions.
During the Ming dynasty, Tianjin rose to prominence as a river port for
vast quantities of rice and grain, transported here from southern China.
Today, Tianjin is a bustling port metropolis of 5 million people (10
million if you count the whole municipality). The largest in Northern
China, the port has been moved to the sea 50 km east of the city, but
it keeps fuelling the city’s rapid development. Its handling capacity
has made record growth in the past decades, with its annual capacity
surging from only 10 million tons in 1984 to 200 million tons in 2004
(2,000%). The container throughput alone has increased by 25 per cent
just in 2004.
Next to the port is TEDA – Tianjin’s extremely dynamic ‘Economic
Development Area’. Here you can see the China of tomorrow – shiny new
buildings, spotless streets, neat housing areas, meticulous landscaping,
a golf course and an abundance of new factories all around.
COMPETITION TO PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
To accommodate the anticipated growth, the local authorities have
decided to extend the port by reclaiming land from the Bohai Sea to
create a vast artificial peninsula. An international competition with
participants from Britain/ China (Scott Wilson), Singapore (Surbana),
Australia (ARM) and the Netherlands (Royal Hakoning) commenced in
July 2004 and has been won by Scott Wilson’s Tianjin office.
Scott Wilson took an interdisciplinary approach and teamed up
experts from the UK and China. While British experts for port planning
and urban design were involved in the initial concepts, the design
development was carried out by the local team in Tianjin consisting of
both Chinese and foreign staff.
10 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Now, try to imagine the sheer scale of the undertaking: An artificial
peninsula of 34 square kilometres (3,400 ha), running from north to
south 10.7 kilometres long (6.6 miles), and 3.0 kilometres wide (1.8
miles) from east to west. Its entire western half will be occupied by
vast container terminals and logistics facilities. For the eastern half,
however, the authorities had different plans. The existing 80 kilometre
long seafront of Tianjin municipality is badly used – a vast treeless
expanse of salt fields, industrial sites and lots of mud. As the east shore
of the peninsula will be the only major access point to the open sea
for the entire region, the authorities sensed an opportunity to create a
unique location for tourism and business.
THE WINNING PROPOSALS
Our general concept keeps the container port as a continuous stretch of
land in the west (facing the existing port), which can be divided flexibly
into cargo terminals with a total length of 7.8 kilometres. Access is via
a new urban expressway and a cross-harbour tunnel, both connecting
directly to a planned new motorway to Beijing.
For the eastern area, the masterplan breaks up the development into
several distinct mixed use ‘towns’ or ‘settlements’, divided by generous
green wedges but linked by the continuous waterfront access and a
central LRT spine. This provides a strong basic structure with possibilities
for flexible, phased development. Driving the ‘Green City Island’
development theme, there are ecological measures such as wetland areas,
use of alternative energies (wind turbines and solar power), extensive
surface water attenuation areas, and desalination works. While current
Chinese planning policy heavily favours private vehicles, the masterplan
gives greater priority to public transport, with most development within
5-10 minutes walk of a LRT stop, as an extension of the existing light rail
system via TEDA east of Tianjin, to create an extremely convenient direct
link from Tianjin city centre right to the peninsula and its attractions.
In the north, next to the motorway, there is a gateway district with
office and service sector buildings, accompanied by logistics and light
industry. Its neighbour is a high-tech research and development park
for alternative and sustainable energy sources and marine technology.
Further south along the shore, there will be residential areas mixed with
tourist accommodation.

The new central business district sits in the middle of the peninsula
where the cross-harbour tunnel joins the island. It will be an area
of higher-rise buildings for offices, hotels, residential, retail and
commercial uses. The dense high-rise centre will create an impressive
backdrop for a large People’s Park, which opens out to the sea.
Moving southwards, there will be waterfront tourist resort areas
and finally, at the tip of the peninsula, a ‘tourism destination’. This
will be a comprehensive cluster of large-scale facilities (international
cruise terminal, convention centres, port and maritime museums, large
marina) interwoven with traditional streetscapes, squares and parks.
An artificial beach and an ‘amusement pier’ will complete this area
providing important relaxation facilities for Tianjin’s people, while a
landmark high rise hotel will mark the very tip of the peninsula.
This competition presented the same problems that you are likely to
encounter all the time working in China – ranging from short deadlines
and vast scope of work to rather modest briefing material, a lack of
background information and ambiguous planning procedures. Add to
that the language barrier and the cultural differences between the
East and West to get a taste of the difficulties at hand. Finally, it did
not help that the land reclamation was in progress already and the
rather uninspiring shape of the peninsula had been fixed before the
conceptual planning had even started, limiting the variations possible.
The overall scale of the project proved quite difficult to handle, not
least because ‘conceptual planning’ in China requires fairly detailed
designs for landscaping and urban design, as well as many renderings,
3D-models and illustrations. Not surprisingly, the final submission
was a huge 200-page illustrated document showing the proposed
environmental systems, views of key places, and demonstration of port
logistics.
Scott Wilson’s Tianjin office is currently preparing an investment
strategy for the peninsula. The much-needed container facilities will be
built first, and everything else will follow. We hope that by around 2010
or 2015 Tianjin’s citizens will hop onto the light rail service to go for a
swim at their new beaches, enjoy the museums and shops or walk along
the tree-lined waterfront promenades.
Matthias Bauer is an urban designer and architect with Scott Wilson (China).
Opposite page Environmental technology
research and development area
Above left The land use plan for the port
and mixed-use LRT ‘towns’
Above right The peninsula as tourism
destination
Right Concept sketch
Below Tianjin city area, TEDA and the port
island (in red)
Bottom View from the south
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 11
INTERNATIONAL

VIEWPOINTS
UDG Annual Conference November 2004
John Billingham describes the diversity of speakers at this two day event
The conference began on the Thursday afternoon in CUBE in Portland
Street with an introduction by Michael Hebbert who defined where
Manchester stands geographically, economically and philosophically.
Some of the key points he identified included its industrial growth
where Manchester developed into the first metropolitan structure, the
economic liberalism expressed in the free trade movement, no influence
by a major ground landlord and no local authority until about 1860.
In urban design terms he referred to the importance of street
architecture and the Venetian influences on 19th century facades. Today
the positive reaction to the IRA bomb as a new opportunity, the creative
industries’ impact on the city, quality development by Urban Splash and
the proactive role of the city council were all contributing to the vitality
of the city’s regeneration.
This talk was a prelude to three walks that focused on Ancoats, the
Bridgewater Canal area and the public realm in the city centre. This
was followed by a talk by Elaine Harwood from English Heritage which
looked particularly at buildings from the 1960s. The evening ended with
a Marketplace event where five practices or organisations presented their
approach to urban design.
The first speaker on Friday was Sir Howard Bernstein Chief Executive
of the city council who emphasised the importance of design in the
renaissance of Manchester and the local authority’s role in grasping
economic opportunities. He illustrated these points by referring to
the Hulme regeneration, the Millennium Quarter centred around the
bomb blast area, initiatives in Piccadilly Gardens and the Spinningfields
area. The design guide for Hulme had influenced the overall city design
principles, competitions for the Millennium Quarter had produced
buildings and spaces of quality and a strategic regeneration framework
was guiding development throughout the city.
Terry Farrell who is working on a plan covering the areas of the newly
combined University (Owens and UMIST), referred back to the city’s
industrial past and showed a series of images examining the pattern
of the city. He stressed the idea of a ‘knowledge capital’ and sought to
create coherence through variety and a density of development taken
out to the edges of the heart of the city. He wanted to reinforce the city
plan with a programme of new spaces and places, to encourage people
12 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
to walk through the city, reveal the city’s rich heritage and continue the
architectural legacy. His pattern for the city was a series of petals around
the core many of which had major uses but all of which would be mixed
use in nature. Manchester and Salford have developed separately as
independent authorities but the River Irwell, the boundary between the
two, could become a new corridor of development and he proposed the
idea of a ‘knowledge high street’ which would run from Salford University
through to Manchester’s two universities on Oxford Road.
Chris Ogelsby of Bruntwood Estates described the nature of the
company’s investments and management policies. The company has over
70 properties mainly based in central Manchester and these had been
based on refurbishment to provide high quality space. They considered
that high quality retail was needed at ground level and they were
prepared to take a lower rent with covenant requirements to get better
uses. An important part of his presentation was the description of the
Piccadilly Partnership in which about five landowners are involved
who managed to get the city to redo the approach from the station to
Piccadilly Gardens in a more people-friendly way and had invested in
the area to achieve quality in the public realm. He maintained that
a Business Improvement District approach wouldn’t have worked,
requiring more owners to be in agreement whereas the Commercial
Partnership had achieved this.
Simon Mabey of Arups demonstrated ways in which IT could enable
the public to understand proposals for development and hopefully to
become involved at an earlier stage. He saw city modelling as a long
term asset, allowing the empowering of communities and enabling
various factors to be integrated during the design process. He illustrated
this by showing work from the Millennium Quarter, the Ancoats Mills
area including New Islington and St Peter’s Square which simulated
pedestrian movement and had been applied to Edinburgh and Beijing
projects.
After lunch, Tom Bloxham, a patron of the UDG, provided an
impressive overview of the growth of Urban Splash over the past 15
years. He began in a small way selling posters and finding he couldn’t
get a building or finance instead found ways to make space available for
small enterprises. This developed into building re-use in Liverpool and

Manchester when his work with Jonathan Falkingham began to bear
fruit, highlighted by the Concert Square scheme in Liverpool which
provided a mixed use solution to a rundown site near Rope Walks. His
next work in Manchester was the reuse/rebuilding of a department store
in Oldham St converted into small retail units and apartments followed
by projects in Castlefield both re-use and new build. Other projects
include New Islington in Ancoats in Manchester, award winning projects
in Liverpool, Royal William Yard in Plymouth and Lister Mills in Bradford.
He places design quality at the top of the agenda and aims to
change people’s perceptions. His inspiring talk ended with the oath for
Athenians -”We will leave this city not less but greater, better and more
beautiful than it was left to us”.
David Rudlin, a director of URBED, described how he has worked
with communities to produce imaginative master plans. He was part
of the Hulme ‘Homes for Change’ initiative, an early project in that
area, in which the future residents of the housing were involved in the
design process. He was then involved with the Architecture Foundation
Glasshouse project known as ‘Place by Design’ when tenants of estates
were given ten days training in how areas could be changed. Glasshouse
will now go out to estates - which they term ‘Homes for Change’ - and
a particularly successful technique is the use of plasticine models of
houses which can be stacked up to create ideas about the density of
development. This process energises residents, makes them informed
clients and reflects honest consultation with the right attitude. The
next step is to run workshops on a bus which can move from area to
area with all the facilities built in.
John Hyatt Director of the Innovation Institute at Manchester
Metropolitan University spoke about his design work for the windmills
outside the major store frontage in Exchange Square where Martha
Schwartz originally intended to have palm trees which didn’t quite fit
into the city’s normal climate.
Overall the conference contained some excellent presentations and
for me the only thing missing was being able to discuss in workshops the
views about why all this had happened in Manchester.
John Billingham
Opposite page New Islington, Manchester, Urban Splash
Top left Major changes initiated by the city council in Piccadilly Gardens
Top right Millennium Quarter development – Exchange Square
Above URBED consultation approaches by bus and with plasticine, Rochdale and
Werneth
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 13
VIEWPOINTS

VIEWPOINTS
Reinventing Road Hierarchy
Stephen Marshall suggests the possibility of reinventing ‘road hierarchy’ as
part of a street-based urban code
The historical transformation from traditional street-grids to the
Modernist system of open plan, hierarchical road layouts and back
to street-grids again must be one of the most significant reversals in
urban design history. As part of the urban counter-revolution, mixeduse
streets are now back in vogue, while old style roads-dominated
approaches to urban layout are on the back foot. Yet, while a variety of
professions and design guidance documents may now be sympathetic
to the street-oriented urban design agenda, many of the principles
which underpin urban layout are still to a significant extent based on
Modernist ideas of road hierarchies and separate land use zones.
Therefore, although it is possible to design neat urbanistic enclaves
such as Poundbury with official approval – as illustrated in the UK
design guide Places, Streets and Movement – it is not so clear what
happens when we come up against the main network of ‘distributor’
roads. In other words, while neo-traditional style developments such
as Poundbury may internally have an urbanistic ‘hierarchy’ of streets,
squares and mews, this hierarchy effectively goes no further than the
nearest distributor road, where it comes up against the constraints of
conventional road hierarchy.
‘GOOD’ AND ‘BAD’ HIERARCHY
Although modern roads layouts are sometimes criticised for being
hierarchical, urban designers and planners do sometimes appreciate
some kind of hierarchy, whether as part of traditional unplanned or
planned settlements. Design guides sometimes call for a recognisable
hierarchy of streets and spaces; this may promote diversity of street
type and legibility of the layout as a whole.
The Craig Plan for Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town, despite being
an ‘urbanistic grid’, employs a hierarchical structure similar to modern
road layouts. The difference is that in the case of the Craig Plan, all the
types are streets of one sort or another (streets, lanes, mews), and they
connect ‘upwards’ to the main streets – that is, to focal ‘people places’,
that form the main backbone or armature of urban structure.
In contrast, in modern road layouts, streets only feature at the
subordinate level of the access road. There is no strategic focus for these
14 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
streets; they often lead or connect ‘upwards’ only to the non-place
disurban realm of the distributor road. In effect, the structural logic of
conventional road hierarchy leads to a discontinuous scatter of street
enclaves forming oases of urbanity in a desert of distributor roads.
So the problem with modern urban layouts is not that they are
hierarchical as such; but that they may use the ‘wrong’ combination of
hierarchical elements for today’s taste – ‘wrong’, that is, for promoting
mixed-use, walkable (and bus-catchable) urban neighbourhoods, rather
than mono-use, car-oriented suburbs.
Accordingly, to achieve more urbanistic layouts does not necessarily
mean abandoning road hierarchy, but could mean reinventing it as a
component of a wider urban code.
HIERARCHY AS CODE
One of the benefits of conventional road hierarchy is that it actually
allows a decent degree of flexibility when it comes to road pattern
or configuration. An observer from space looking down on typical
suburban layouts from the past four decades would note the ‘organic’
feel of the curvilinear layouts bristling with culs-de-sac, noting some
degree of common familial resemblance between configurations,
yet with no two being the same. (This could be contrasted with the
configurational regularity of traditional rectangular grids.)
This combination of consistency and diversity arises because road
hierarchy, while systematic, is not a fixed blueprint or template. It only
governs relationships between components – for example, immediate
adjacency and strategic connectivity. It is effectively a ‘code’, woven
as it were into the urban fabric. The pervasive embedded nature of this
code gives road hierarchy a potency that accounts in part for the impact
that highways and traffic have had on urban form and structure for
decades.
While in practice road hierarchy might have turned out as an antiurban
or at most sub-urban code, it is nevertheless capable of being
reinvented towards more urbanistic ends. That is, a street-based (rather
than road-based) code would have the possibility of generating more
urbanistic layouts, including traditional street grids of various sorts.

Such a code could be used to underpin a new generation of urban
structures for new development areas.
AN INTEGRATED STREET-BASED CODE
As with conventional road hierarchy, a street-based code would not
have an overall pattern specified – no rigid template churned out from
the drawing board onto each new site; no need to ‘copy and paste’ Craig
Plans or Poundburys across the land. Rather, the structural logic would
be built into the individual elements – the street type, and junction
type and relations between buildings and routes.
Such a hierarchy can form the foundation of a wider urban design
code which could also include building frontages (hence becoming
a hierarchy of streets), frontage uses (hence a land use tool) and
relationships between buildings and spaces (hence an urban design
tool).
The point here is that the hierarchy is working with – and built into
– the urban code, rather than an alien imposition set apart from urban
design. It therefore has the potential to bridge between the different
urban design professions. It can work both as an ‘urbanistic code’,
because it allows and encourages streets as places, and works as a ‘road
code’ because it is a systematic set of relationships, similar to the way
that road hierarchy is conventionally applied. For example, it can still
build in important safety considerations – high speed roads should not
connect directly with low speed roads. But it can be devised to allow
a greater diversity of types of street, including main streets shared by
public transport and pedestrians, and streets with different kinds of
frontage uses, creating mixed-use blocks. In this way, reinvented as a
component of a new more urbanistic code, ‘hierarchy’ could stop being
part of the problem, and start being part of the solution.
Stephen Marshall, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London
This article relates to the author’s recently published book, Streets & Patterns, published
by Spon Press (London and New York, 2005). Research on urban structuring is being
further developed as part of the EPSRC-funded project SOLUTIONS (Sustainability of Land
Use and Transport in Outer Neighbourhoods).
Opposite page left A missing type. Conventional road hierarchy had no place for the
traditional mixed use arterial street.
Opposite page right Enclaves of traditional-style streets are still typically ‘hung’ off a
superstructure of main roads – not main streets.
Left The urbanistic enclave of Poundbury, Dorchester, meets the highway engineered
territory of the distributor road.
Below top Edinburgh’s Craig Plan has a similar hierarchical structure to modern road
layouts, but it has a quite different urbanistic outcome, because of the different
kinds of constituent type, which imply different relationships with buildings,
different scales and modes of movement.
Below middle Possible elements of a street-based urban code, where route types and
relationships are built into the code.
Below bottom The transport land use is topologically ‘central’ to all other land uses.
This makes movement a core consideration of planning – or coding – urban layout.
Type
Main street
Transverse street
Minor street
Mews lane
Housing area
Primary Distributor
District Distributor
Local Distributor
Access road
Housing area
VIEWPOINTS
Above Edinburgh’s Craig Plan has a similar hierarchical structure to modern road layouts, but it has
because of the different kinds of constituent type, which imply different relationships with buildings, d
Supplementary Figure (if would help fill page/layout).
If included this should go next to ‘last’ on the page, ahead of the diagram on the previous page
Above. The transport land use is topologically Urban ‘central’ Design | Spring to all other 2005 land | Issue uses. 94 | This 15 makes mov
coding – urban layout.
Type
Above Possible elements of a street-based urban code, where route types and relationshi
Residential
Land Use
Commercial Land Use
Education
Land Use
Transport land use
Civic
Land Use
Industrial
Land Use

TOPIC
SIMULTANEOUSLY PARTNERS AND
OPPONENTS
Penelope Tollitt explores some of the complexities and
contradictions of delivering the urban renaissance from
the inside
‘Urban design in local government’ is an interesting topic, and a huge one. The collection
of papers gathered for this edition demonstrates the many ‘faces’ of urban design
within local government – and woe betide anyone who confuses urban design in local
authorities with just the output of an urban designer – if one is employed. It is useful to
have an opportunity to explore what the differences might be between private and local
government practice.
The most obvious difference is the political dimension. Hugh McCarthy’s piece
presents the elected member’s view from a district authority planning perspective. But
remember that, except in unitary authorities, the all-important highway function is
under different political leadership at county level.
Another difference is the long-term relationship that officers and members have
with ‘place’. The risk is that familiarity can breed, if not contempt, then a resigned sense
of the not possible. On the other hand, it allows officers to really get to know a place
– and for officers to see the results of their recommendations every day. It also allows
long-term relationships to be built with people in the locality.
16 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94

A further difference relates to the
critical mass of the design disciplines.
Private practices, by definition, are design
based and design motivated. This is a
far cry from local government where
design is only one issue amongst many
hundreds of other statutory and/or
desirable activities that a local authority
should carry out. Fortunate councils
might have just a couple of design
specialists, (out of a total of 600-1,000 of a
typical district). Local authority designers
must not be content to be jacks of all
trades – they must be masters of all trades.
This point is especially important in
relation to what is, perhaps, the most
striking difference between urban design
within the local planning authority, and
the private sector: that of judgement.
The basic skills of urban design are the
same – to read place and understand how
changes can reinforce the good and help
to overcome the bad. So the private sector
asks, ‘Who are you to tell me what I can
and cannot do?’ This lies at the heart of
why local authorities ‘do’ urban design
– to provide the essential challenge
function needed if the built environment
professionals on all sides are to live up to
the rhetoric of the urban renaissance.
The tension created by the judgement
role is all too often translated into an
adversarial approach. But it is quite clear
from these papers that if your aim is
quality, then an adversarial approach
will get you nowhere. Whether your
project is delivering a skate-friendly
public realm, or negotiating a permeable,
legible and humane environment with
a house builder, dialogue, collaboration
and partnership are key. As Roger Estop
says, local authorities and developers
must simultaneously be partners and
opponents – this tension is an essential
part in delivering quality.
This constructive, collaborative
and creative culture does not just
happen. There is a hugely important
civic leadership role to be played by
top officials and elected members in
fostering an enabling culture throughout
the organisation and beyond, and
not just with developers. It must also
embrace community groups. It is, after
all, the public’s environment that we are
planning and designing.
Leadership involves taking the
initiative and having the courage to
set the agenda, often in the face of
fierce opposition, but the experience
of Bracknell shows how it can pay
dividends. Delivering quality design
through relationships of scrutiny and
challenge takes time, but thanks to the
Planning Delivery Grant, time does not
necessarily translate into the council tax.
But it also means doing things
differently. Philippa Jarvis observes how
development control planners are highly qualified professionals
who process applications – is that best use of their time? The
dialogue approach to delivering quality challenges the process
mindset epitomised by the eight week target. Training in design
can give these professionals the confidence to tackle quality
head on – especially if there are in-house specialists for day to
day support. Narrow bureaucratic approaches do not help to
make up real, messy, meaningful, whole places – positive human
habitats.
If future sustainable environments are to be ones of lasting
value and good quality, which serve their communities well into
the future, the culture of the whole council is critical. Leadership
and courage are essential in allowing time to take the initiative
and build a dialogue of creative challenge and scrutiny to allow
the best possible solution to emerge. This integrated culture
needs to transcend the old-style adversarial, rule based approach
if we are to build places which are whole and living, creating
human habitats able to feed the spirit as well as provide for
physical needs.
PENELOPE TOLLITT, Head of Urban Design, Urban Design Division,
Wycombe District Council
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 17
TOPIC

TOPIC
REVEALING STREETSCAPES
David McLaughlin explores how historic records put today’s
designs in context
‘A design does not
come from nothing,
but from a long
history of shapes,
functions and
sensations.’ Renzo Piano
18 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Local government planners and urban designers need to
understand the genesis of place - where it has come from, and
why it is the way it is. If you can explain why things are the way
they are, and demonstrate local knowledge, it strengthens the
negotiating position for change. Each officer needs to have an
understanding of local history, because without it one is applying
a veneer of the present which does not connect back to the past.
Two different Bath-based projects illustrate this well.
REALLOCATING ROAD SPACE
Bath & North East Somerset Council’s former City Initiative:
Transport & Environment team commissioned a streetscape
history before repaving Bath’s 1760s Milsom Street and
redesigning its southern junction with New Bond Street.
The history revealed that a group of mediaeval buildings
(with leases dating back to the 1320s) were severed in 1810
to form a new street - New Bond Street. The island group of
buildings - Old Bond Street - continued northwards leaving
only a very constricted way between the two ranks of buildings.
The narrow gap was gradually increased as the central island
buildings were removed in ones and twos. An 1855 map tellingly
has a heavy pencil line showing the desire for a new kerb line for
a significantly widened street, which in turn would result in the
demolition of yet more of the island buildings.
The new kerb line was implemented
and as Milsom Street was (and remains)
the best street for fashionable shopping
in Bath, it also had Bath’s very first traffic
signal at the junction with Quiet Street
and New Bond Street in the 1930s. At that
time, two-way traffic and parking was the
norm but by the end of the 20th century,
one-way traffic prevailed. Vehicles
completely dominated the vast expanse
of tarmac, leaving pedestrians to brave
their way across a heavily-trafficked but
vacuous space.
This history of change was amply
demonstrated by maps, engravings,
leases and photos, and proved influential.
Coupled with the need for traffic
calming, designs were developed for
a much broader area of paving for
pedestrians to use and enjoy. The letter
cutter Alec Peever was commissioned to
produce a piece of public art, cutting the
words of a poem specially commissioned
from Alyson Hallett into the natural
stone paving during 2001.
KEEPING RECORDS
By contrast, the bombing of Bath in
1942 in the Second World War caused
significant damage and loss of life. The
nights of the 25-27th of April 1942 mark
a harrowing chapter in the history of
Bath - the Baedeker raids. Artists and
photographers recorded the ravaged
city in a series of profoundly moving
paintings, drawings and photographs
that are to form the major exhibition
Paint bombs – recording Bath in wartime
to be held at Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery
from 30 April to 14 July 2005.
The painter, John Piper wrote to his
friend, the poet John Betjeman on 15
May 1942, “I went to Bath to paint bomb
damage. I never was sent to do anything
so sad before. I was miserable there
indeed to see that haunt of ancient waterdrinkers
besmirched with dust and blast.
Three houses burnt out in Royal Crescent,
bomb in middle of Circus, and two burnt
out there; Lansdown Chapel direct hit,
10 bombs in front of Lansdown Crescent,
Somerset Place, almost completely burnt
out: a shell …326 killed, 1,800 houses
uninhabitable …My God I did hate that
week…” 1
Among the bomb-damaged buildings
was Sir George Gilbert Scott’s Gothic
Revival 1870s St Andrew’s Church,
Julian Road. The 73 metre high spire was
the tallest landmark in Bath and was
considered to mar the view of the Royal

Crescent as it jutted above its Palladian
sweep. This incongruity prompted
the architectural historian Nikolaus
Pevsner to write in 1958 of the ruins of St
Andrew’s, “Big … tower with broach spire
… the rest happily bombed. The tower
is now also coming down – a blessing;
for it was unacceptable even from the
picturesque mixer’s point of view.” 2
The site of the church is now simply
a grassed triangular island. English
summers reveal the outline of the walls
and piers of the bombed church as
scorch marks in the grass. The ‘Time
Team’ has dug amid the Victorian ruins,
and Roman remains are found to be far
more extensive than those found by the
Victorian church builders. Roman Bath
is now known to have been a denser and
more urban development in this area
than had previously been understood.
A new history of shapes, functions
and sensations has been revealed, and
beckons a bold, imaginative response.
David McLaughlin, Conservation Architect, Bath &
North East Somerset Council
The views expressed in this essay are his own and may
not reflect those of his employer.
REFERENCE
1. John Piper to John Betjeman, 15 May 1942,
McPherson Library, University of British Columbia,
Victoria
2. Pevsner, Nikolaus, North Somerset and Bristol:
The Buildings of England, Penguin Books Ltd,
Harmondsworth, 1958, p105
Opposite page top left 1810 map of the formation of
New Bond Street, Bath Record Office
Opposite page top right 1855 Cotterell & Spackman
map, Bath Record Office
Opposite page bottom 1930s New Bond Street and its
traffic signal
This page top left and right Alec Peever’s lettering of
Alyson Hallett’s poem
Above Milsom St traffic table
Left R F Wills, St Andrew’s Church, Julian Road, 1942,
National Monuments Record
Below Leslie Atkinson, ARCA, St Andrew’s Church,
Julian Road, 1942, private collection
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 19
TOPIC

TOPIC
SK8MK
Andrew Armes describes how to engage street sports enthusiasts in
making places
20 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Every time we leave our houses and go onto the street we are
faced with conflicts; between car users, pedestrians, cyclists and
public transport; those who use the street for play, for business,
to trade, to promenade, to see and be seen. When managed
properly, the street is both ‘arena’ and ‘artery’, a vibrant public
space allowing all kinds of activity to co-exist and making a city
cohesive and understandable. When it is managed poorly, or one
need is allowed to dominate, it can divide a city, destroy activity
and become a ‘no go’ zone for whole sectors of society. This
article is about the way in which Milton Keynes is addressing
these issues, in particular managing street sports.
While Milton Keynes is not generally known for its street
life, the infrastructure does provide an extremely attractive
‘arena’ for street sports enthusiasts, which include skateboarders,
BMX riders and in-line skaters, and where there are conflicting
demands on space.
Many authorities have tried to ban street sports, putting up ‘No’
signs and devices to stop skaters, with street furniture, steps and
rails being used. In reality, this encourages
street sports enthusiasts to rise to the new
challenges of this kind of intervention.
So in autumn 2002, the SK8MK
initiative was launched to devise a longterm
design and management solution
to some of these areas of ‘conflict’,
recognising that there is a positive side
to ‘street sports’, as well as some wide
unintended negative side effects.
BACKGROUND
Milton Keynes has become a Mecca for
street sports because of its infrastructure
design and, according to Iain Borden,
professor at The Bartlett School of
Architecture and author of Skateboarding,
Space and the City, it is widely regarded as
one of the top five cities in the world for
street skating.
However, years of activity by street
sports enthusiasts have taken their toll on
the infrastructure of the city, and damage
caused to certain areas was becoming a
concern to the land owners, with pressure
put on the police to deter street sports
participants.
However, “skateboarding is not a
crime” (according to Bart Simpson), and
the view from the police is that as there is
no criminal damage deliberately intent on
destroying the infrastructure, and damage
is cumulative, it is difficult to prosecute
any one individual.
However, when the Milton Keynes
Council and English Partnerships
formed a joint venture to regenerate
Central Milton Keynes through a 400ha
development framework, there was an
opportunity to look at these issues. The
obvious imperative within the framework
was to have a robust infrastructure which
could support a diversity of uses, both
planned and ad hoc.
As the creation of a ‘community
for all’ and ‘social inclusion’ are part of
Milton Keynes Council’s objectives,
an inclusive consultative process was
needed. An earlier successful small street
sports facility had been provided in
Newport Pagnell in which young street
sport enthusiasts engaged with the local
bodies. This provided useful lessons for
this city centre project, and ensured strong
commitment from the council.
PROCESS
The first city centre meeting with local
businesses, landowners and councillors in
October 2002 agreed to:
• examine opposing views and the issues
surrounding street sports

• obtain an understanding of how streets are used for street
sports
• engage with the street sports communities, to involve and
empower them in the design, location of facilities and the future
management of street sports in the city, and
• do risk assessments, develop management proposals and
comprehensively consider the safety of any facilities provided.
Throughout the development of the process, events and ideas
were widely publicised on local radio and television, newspapers
and national media such as the RIBA Journal, and on the front
cover of CABE’s 360o magazine and Streetscene. The process also
received great support by the street sports press such as Sidewalk
magazine.
CONSULTATION
The consultation process began with a meeting on 17 October
2002, and featured councillors and officers from the council,
Thames Valley Police, Milton Keynes Youth Service, officers,
English Partnerships, Milton Keynes Parks Trust, representatives
from the retail and business communities, local land owners,
local architects, artists, and skateboarders.
The aim of the meeting was to understand feelings about
street sports in the city centre. Opposing views were aired about
community safety issues and groups of young people on the
streets, fear of collisions, damage and noise. The most extreme
issue was to do with the natural leaning of some skaters towards
anarchy and a wish to do anything, anywhere, anytime.
Milton Keynes Youth Service had previously carried out
a survey of young people about the provision of street sports
facilities that indicated that the preferred location was the city
centre. It became clear that an innovative approach was needed
to fully engage that sector of the community.
The consensus meeting was arranged and fliers were
distributed to schools and youth clubs, other interested parties
and existing partners in the process. Over 50 people attended the
meeting on 6 March 2003 at Xscape in Central Milton Keynes,
and expressed wide ranging views. This event was judged to
have been a tremendous success, giving a common level of
understanding, and a number of key areas to be examined in
more depth. Moreover, it became clear that a traditional skate
park solution would not be effective: Milton Keynes is about
street sports, and so a street based solution was needed.
Working groups were led and coordinated by Milton Keynes
Council officers Andrew Armes, Head of Development and
Design as ‘champion’ and Richard Ferrington, Senior Landscape
Architect, as project manager/coordinator as the groups became
more autonomous and led by the skaters. A series of ‘strands’
were devised:
• branding
• communication
• design
• location
• risk management
• long term management, and
• funding.
In the early stages, branding and communication were the first
two most important strands, using e-mail, texting and logos
(tags). A communication and branding framework was devised,
but all the decisions about the brand and strategy were made by
the wider group. The ‘brand’, SK8MK, is now well established in
Milton Keynes (and beyond) and is instrumental to holding the
process together, being widely adopted and worn on T-shirts by
many young skaters.
In parallel a series of events were held to engage younger
members of the community:
The first event in April 2003 included a free showing of
the cult streets sports film ‘Dog Town & The Z Boys’ at a local
Above Bus station
design event
Right 2K3 consultation
Below Bus station 3D
visualisation
Opposite page Josh
Lock - a participant
in SK8MK
cinema, with workshops examining the
issues raised, a talk by professor Iain
Borden, and a free concert featuring local
bands Graveltrap, Dive, Headfly and
Tempermental. The day was attended
by 140 young skate enthusiasts at the
workshops, and 500 people at the free
concert.
The SK8MK message ‘Your city, Your
sport, Your future, get involved’ was
getting out, and more people from the
street sports community were attending
regular meetings and engaging with
others in the process.
The next event took place over the
Spring Bank holiday, when SK8MK had
a stand for three days in the CentreMK
(shopping centre) at an extreme
sports event called 2K3. The stand was
designed and run by young street sports
enthusiasts, showing films of the heritage
of streets sports in Milton Keynes, and
nearly 300 visitors were polled about
their most popular street sport features.
In June a design event took place at the
former central bus station, now little used
by buses, and a popular skate spot. Artist
Thomas Heatherwick (‘B of the Bang’ and
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 21
TOPIC

TOPIC
Above 2K3 consultation
22 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
The Bluecarpet Newcastle) worked with
members of the street sports community
on ideas about the form of skatable art
features for the city centre. These ideas
are the basis for a project providing
relocatable skate sculptures due to be
completed in the summer of 2005.
A sponsored event took place to clean
up parts of the city centre affected by
street sports. This helped to raise funds
for a group of young skaters and BMXers
to visit Scotland in August 2003 to look
at the design and implementation of
facilities there.
The trip to Scotland involved meeting
other skaters, hearing their views and
learning from their experiences.
Design meetings have continued
to look at the provision of skatable
architecture and facilities at Station
Square, Central Milton Keynes,
temporary facilities within the central
bus station and a wider strategic
approach for provision of facilities within
the city centre.
SK8MK, through Milton Keynes
Council’s Urban Design and Landscape
Architecture team, now employs street
sports enthusiasts on training schemes
to support the project, receiving training
through work experience, funded by
government training schemes, such as
‘E into work’. The SK8MK Generator
group designs street sports facilities and
supports other local authorities as a
design consultancy service.
STRATEGIC APPROACH
The underlying principles of the strategic
approach now adopted are:
To keep the process of engagement
alive, anticipate and respond to, and
perhaps even set new directions in, street
sports and the management of the public
realm.
To develop physical solutions based
upon a series of ‘honey pots’ and routes
throughout the city, with the intention
of minimising clashes by making areas
more attractive to groups with particular
sporting needs.
To ensure that ‘soft-touch’ management is to put into all
facilities so that they are ‘owned’ by the users not ‘park-like’
‘council’ facilities.
WORKING GROUPS
SK8MK has established a number of dedicated working groups
looking at specific issues:
• SK8MK Generator - an independent fund raising organisation
of young and older street sports enthusiasts, which has
raised nearly £6,000 from fund raising, sponsorship from The
CentreMK, Xscape and grant funding. Initial funds raised went
towards research and fact-finding, and some funds raised will be
used for equipment to produce and present filmed evidence of
what is required. This group is a forum for the local street sport
community via the internet, regular meetings and fund raising
events.
• Branding and communications group - organises events,
publicity, and manages the branded image of SK8MK, gathering
and sharing information via the media. The group has also
produced a film on the street sports in Central Milton Keynes and
the SK8MK initiative.
• Funding group - pursues opportunities for sponsorship and
funding; so far £115,000 has been secured from the CMK joint
venture for street sports facilities, with a further £30,000 for
projects via grant funding from Skaters First EBMK (landfill tax).
• Design and location group – addresses the design of facilities,
their location, access routes and materials, meets to discuss
design opportunities within Milton Keynes and provides advice
to a number of local authorities. Research into new materials and
designs to improve the profile and image of street sports is an
essential role for this group.
• Management group - This group examines long term
management issues of maintenance, cleaning, upgrading of
facilities, insurance, safety and a monitoring of facilities.
CMK BUS STATION
This is an extreme ‘honey-pot’ constructed in the former Central
Milton Keynes bus station, and designed by a team involving
local street sports participants, pro-skaters and landscape
architects. The design incorporates legendary street sport
locations from around the world and acts as a laboratory for new
materials and design testing their resilience in this punishing
environment.
The facility is under cover, but open to the sides so is
accessible at all times, and a local skate supply business will
provide a ‘soft-touch’ management by locating a retail outlet as
part of the facility.
MOVEMENT MK
Following the success of the Moving Units Project at London’s
South Bank/Hayward Gallery – a popular skate location - SK8MK
has secured funding to progress designs resulting from the design
workshop with CMK artist Thomas Heatherwick. These designs
and street sculptures will be made by volunteers receiving
training to establish a unique range of relocatable skate units for
Milton Keynes. Their location in underused areas of streetscape
will help to create activity and animation in otherwise barren
areas of the street.
LESSON LEARNED
The key lesson learned through SK8MK is that it is vital to get
the process right, engaging people in a way that they understand,
without being patronising or domineering. For general
information about SK8MK, for advice or for a copy of the DVD
film (£50), contact Richard Ferrington,
richard.ferrington@milton-keynes.gov.uk.
Andrew Armes, Head of Development and Design, Milton Keynes Council

QUALITY HOUSING: THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF THE
LOCAL AUTHORITY
Roger Estop wonders how, given CABE’s recent audit that showed
housing quality is directly related to local authority involvement, can
local councils deal with both quality and growth
For the ODPM and the house building industry, the delivery
of ‘sustainable communities’ means numbers of units
appearing on the programme. This measure dominates policy
and implementation work in the South and East of Britain.
However, it falls to the local authorities, with or without
delivery companies, to conjure up these communities through
the planning system, and adopt and steward them long after
the ODPM has met its targets and the developers have left.
Embedding urban design into the local planning process is vital
to getting a physical structure and character that makes a place
home when the people move in.
LOCAL AUTHORITY INTERVENTIONS
CABE’s housing audit: assessing the quality of new homes
(October 2004) shows that house builders sometimes come
up with good schemes, but generally produce rubbish. When
they get it right there is a direct link to positive engagement
with the local authority. While stressing that house builders
and local authorities are jointly responsible for the quality of
outcome, the CABE audit demonstrates that local authorities
make a difference. They can and do change developer practices,
especially in combating the standard building type.
So, how are major housing schemes improved by local
authorities?
• Firstly, the dedicated attention of individual planners, in
tireless pursuit of making routes, spaces and perimeter blocks
work - ensuring connectivity, continuity, containment of space,
separation between public and private
• Secondly, a good policy base and welloiled
procedures for supplementary
guidance, and
• Thirdly, the vocal support of chief
officer and members - a pro-design
mindset in the organisation that sees
design as problem solving, the route to
sustainability, community and economic
promotion.
NOT PURELY DESIGN SKILLS
Spatial understanding and visualising
skills are key, but hands-on designing
is not always necessary; scrutiny and
challenge forces rigour in the design
process. The key skills are those of the
new vision development control planner
combining a sense of strategic space and
attention to detail. The key resource is
time, and when these skills and resources
are committed to major developments,
places are better.
What do you call the local authority
function in relation to place-making?
Not development control, that’s for sure
- the term is too closely bound up with
the bureaucratic awfulness of getting
planning permission, and not associated
Higgins Homes
canalside development
of apartments and B1
accommodation, at
160 dw/ha, designed
following a planning
brief that suggested a
built form
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 23
TOPIC

TOPIC
24 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Top Barratt development of house and flats, following
a planning brief and detailed negotiation of layout.
This shows a constricted ‘neck’ of the site without
revealing the physical constraint.
Above A four storey shops and apartment building
complex near Chelmer Waterside, where Chelmsford
BC planners identified the site potential and resisted
inappropriate low density development, resulting in
very high site coverage and a building overlooking
a car park which becomes a square.
with a planning process for achieving good places. The local
authority’s role starts well before the planning application and
continues long after permission is granted; it is team-based; it
follows a project management course and its prime activity is
dialogue and negotiation. It is design-led and sees design as an
iterative process of working things out with several generations
of the evolving scheme rather than a proposal for modification
and approval.
ENABLE AND NEGOTIATE
‘Design review’ is a respected activity when undertaken by CABE
or regional panels, but it is not recognised in a local authority
context. This critical analysis is a fundamental part of a council’s
role in terms of overseeing and influencing the development
of urban places, yet it is not helped by the prevailing culture
of local authority planning. The notion of ‘positive planning’
is about problem solving, collaboration and enabling, and is a
helpful way to represent a council’s role in influencing built
outcomes.
The development industry expects the local authority
planning process to be regulatory and restrictive, to rack up costs,
interfere in design and generate public objection. They often get
what they expect, simply because of the way they approach the
process - poor proposals in too much detail, too soon, and a readyto-roll
appeal proof of evidence posing as a design statement.
Establishing relationships between local authorities and
major developers is highly beneficial, whether informally or
through developer forums organised locally. In the development
process, local authorities and developers are simultaneously
both partners and opponents: local authorities on the one hand
supporting and enabling development while at the same time
challenging and negotiating form and content. This tension is
essential to generating quality.
DESIGN CONCEPTS TO DEAL WITH GROWTH
We know that local authorities have to manage growth
and improve design, but what is the new challenge? It is a

multiple challenge – higher densities, more affordable housing,
sustainable construction and performance, and new ways of
building – without repeating the mistakes of the past.
With the lead set by the Essex Design Guide, house builders have,
with gritted teeth, accepted continuous frontage and enabled
the achievement of more than 30 dwellings per hectare. The
challenge of town centre development is to maintain the design
ethos and get much higher densities. Local authorities and house
builders outside the metropolis are learning on the job, and this
needs a new set of tricks, devices, standards and guidance, and a
critical yet championing attitude amongst local authorities.
How secure is urban design as a part of the place-making
process? Still far from being an integral part of planning, urban
design is vulnerable. The CABE audit shows that house builders
do not transfer the lessons from good schemes to other locations.
The perimeter block is seen by some developers and architects
as a planners’ way of stultifying urban form with old townscape,
rather than representing a set of workable objectives for public
and private space, permeability and urban form. Urban form is
also vulnerable to the sheer urgency of building sustainability
which takes designers’ eyes off the public realm.
The encouragement of off-site manufacture means local
authorities are now tackling approaches from developers
who have one specific modular system that cannot go around
corners or up and down slopes. Unite Group, a market leader,
does not produce family housing. The influential Homes 2016
(James Woudhuysen and Ian Abley Blueprint Broadsides 2004)
envisaged housing in the Thames Gateway produced like cars
and is disparaging towards any sense of the importance of public
space and properly designed urban form. In 2016, “site-based
planning has given way to planning for manufacture”. Off-site
manufacture will revive the attractions of standard building
types, which is where this article began. “Volumetric elements
are completed with bespoke, planning-approved architectural
treatments built around them”. So, design in planning becomes
a superficial aesthetic issue again, and this is a worrying concept,
especially in the hands of the volume house builders.
In the development process, local
authorities and developers are
simultaneously both partners and
opponents
Given this futuristic vision, the
positive role of local authorities will
remain vital to the consolidation of urban
design in the planning process and the
delivery of good places.
DEVELOPING GOOD PRACTICE IN THE
EAST OF ENGLAND
1. Chelmsford’s website on making better
places in practice was launched in March
to offer material from its Beacon Council
year as an on-going resource for councils:
www.chelmsfordbc.gov.uk
2. Essex County Council with EEDA
and CABE launched the ‘Essex Design
Initiative’ in January 2005 - a programme
aiming to influence the quality and
sustainability of housing growth: www.
essexcc.gov.uk/edi
3. Inspire East, the Regional Centre of
Excellence will support best practice
in the development of sustainable
communities. Launched in December
2004, it is funded by EEDA and the ODPM:
www.eeda.org.uk
Roger Estop, Principal Urban Designer, Chelmsford
Borough Council
Left Chelmsford Borough Council highway engineer and
planners worked with Wimpey’s team to achieve a
building-to-building shared surface disguising the
line between private and adopted space.
Above Housing audit - assessing the design quality of
new homes, front cover of the CABE publication
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 25
TOPIC

TOPIC
LIVE-WORK: THE ULTIMATE IN MIXED USE?
Linda Rand outlines the value and complexity
of live-work developments
26 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Walk through any North Oxfordshire
village and you will see people sitting at
their computers or at their potter’s wheel
even, all busy working from home. This
is not surprising: it is an attractive rural
area and there are many award-winning
conversions of redundant farm buildings
that lend themselves to the live – work
concept. But what happens when we
look at the market towns in the district?
Here the 2001 census reveals that only
seven per cent of people work from
home. The district council is aware that
there is the demand for such premises
within the urban areas. Enquiries to our
Economic Service Unit indicate that there
are artists, video makers, silversmiths
and chiropractors, just longing to be
able to combine working and living
arrangements under one roof, some
specifically wanting a shop frontage.
Other than resorting to working out of the
spare bedroom of a standard house, where
do they all go? We don’t want to lose such
enterprising people from the district.
In an attempt to encourage sustainable
living-working patterns within our urban
areas that we include a requirement for
a proportion of flexible dwelling types
and live work-units within our design
briefs for new development, whether
brownfield, urban extension or new
village. This requirement is, almost
without exception amongst the volume house builders, greeted
with a negative response. Other than concerns about whether
there is a market for such innovation in a market town, there is
also some bemusement as to precisely what form live-work units
take and how they operate.
When The Live Work Show 2004 was advertised, Natasha
Safavi, Cherwell’s Business Support Co-ordinator, and I, the
council’s Urban Designer, decided this was an opportunity
to find the answers to these questions, amass examples of
successful schemes elsewhere and generally network relevant
contacts. When the event was cancelled due to a fire at the
venue, we decided that we would offer our council chamber
as an alternative venue. So it was that on Friday 14 January
Cherwell District Council came to co-host (with local company
Boilerhouse Communications) a re-convened and re-styled Live
Work 2005 Seminar.
The event focussed specifically at our request on the nonmetropolitan
context and was organised as three interactive
debates, preceded by short presentations.
Roger Turner, of the Countryside Agency, provided a
fascinating analysis drawn from the agency’s detailed figures on
home-working across the country on a district by district level.
Turner revealed that this encourages flexible working practices
and empowers more women, who are still the majority of carers,
to start up their own businesses. However, the research also
revealed a need for more social contact and financial mentoring
amongst lone home-workers and stressed that there was a need
to ensure that live-work units were not aimed solely at ICT based
professionals, but were included in social and affordable housing
schemes too.
David Hackforth, Head of Planning and Transport at Milton
Keynes, traced the history of live-work, from the pre-industrial
area, through its demise due to the industrial revolution and

its more recent renaissance enabled largely by new technology.
He admitted that planning had until recently discouraged the
concept through zoning policies but illustrated his talk with
examples of English Partnerships’ proposals to integrate mixeduse
into developments in Milton Keynes. He explored the issues
that this raises, such as how best to reconcile the ‘looseness of
fit’ and flexibility necessitated by mixed-use development with
the requirement for higher densities and smaller units, and the
difficulty of maintaining the balance of live and work spaces,
when economic forces may push one to dominate was one of
many practical issues.
Gerald Hitman’s Brockhall Village Ltd is a rural property
company concentrating on rural live-work schemes. The
intention is to cater for the owner/managers of small and
medium businesses who wish to employ a handful of staff
in separate B1 accommodation within the curtilage of their
home. The concept is designed particularly to suit brownfield
employment sites in open countryside which have failed to
attract conventional redevelopment.
The company takes its name from its first development in
the Ribble Valley, Lancashire, which involved redevelopment
of the former Brockhall Hospital (200 acres with 1 million
square feet of redundant buildings) as a new village. This
now includes 345 homes, a nursery, a sports science clinic,
Blackburn Rovers training facility, a hotel and a conference
centre. These employment uses generate about 100 jobs.
Nothing unusual there. Interestingly, although none of the
existing homes was specifically designed to accommodate liveworking
arrangements, 41 per cent of the economically active
population work partly or entirely from home. As Hitman
delights in claiming, “Rural housing can produce more jobs per
acre than rural employment sites.” Inspired by the demand for
home–working, Hickman proposes a final phase of the village
comprising 24 apartments for sale, 14 live-work units for self
build, a small village hall, swimming pool and gymnasium club
and open space. However, Ribble Valley District Council refused
consent for this just the night before the seminar, despite an
officer recommendation for approval.
The company’s most recent project is a 16 acre derelict
brickworks site at the foot of Napton on the Hill in Stratford
Upon Avon district. Here the proposal is to build 44 family
homes, each with an office or studio at the bottom of the garden
suitable for about four or five people to work in, serviced by a
separate commercial access. This will include 12 affordable livework
apartments for letting by a housing association to young
local people with viable business plans, three holiday chalets and
a lay-by for three narrow boats and restoration of a historic canal
quay. This development will enable the company’s concept to be
developed further. The employment cluster will be served by a
central facility for meetings, exhibitions, video-conferencing and
simple networking and run by a cluster co-ordinator. The layout
proposed for this site has the building typology rather rigidly
applied and the range of dwelling types is largely restricted
to four and five bed detached units. A planning application
was submitted in May 2004 and the company hopes to receive
approval imminently.
Charles Brocklehurst, Director of Knowstone Creative
Developers, focused on the example of a redundant sawmill at
the Great Hampden Estate within the Green Belt and Chilterns
AONB. Seven thousand square feet of buildings and an acre of
open storage had lain derelict for a decade since the sawmill’s
closure. Given the tendency for villages in the area to become
expensive dormitories whilst the rural economy declines,
Brocklehurst saw this as an ideal opportunity to promote three
live-work units together with six workshops of 500 square
metres. A roundwood construction system is proposed, using
locally sourced young trees (effectively forest thinnings) that
would otherwise only be used for pulp, if at all. Pioneered by
There are artists, video makers,
silversmiths and chiropractors,
just longing to be able to combine
working and living arrangements
under one roof
Opposite page and above A modern-day longhouse proposed for the Great
Hampden Estate using young trees, otherwise used for live-work development
Charles Gulland’s All Round Building
Company, the whole tree is de-barked
and bent, either as green timber or
seasoned and steamed, to form wishbone
arched trusses. These are then stacked
to create a whalebone structure, much
like the hull of an upturned boat and
the structure is set 18 inches above
ground on timber piles. The result is
a modern-day longhouse, not unlike a
cruck-framed barn. At Great Hampden
the Brocklehurst, Gulland collaboration
is resulting in larger units to incorporate
mezzanine floors as well as two storey
units by extending the timber piles
to form columns and elevating the
whalebone structure to first floor level.
Whether the green credentials of the
scheme, which includes locally sourced
materials, district heating fuelled by
woodchip, water recycling, car ownership
limits and a photo voltaic generated
electric powered pool car, is sufficient
justification for the local planning
authority to set aside Green Belt and
AONB policies remains to be seen.
CONCLUSIONS
A number of themes emerged from the
discussion on which there was general
consensus. Home-working, working
from the spare bedroom, study or kitchen
table, enables people, and those with
caring responsibilities in particular, to
live economically productive lives in
a sustainable, flexible and convenient
manner. However, this arrangement poses
limitations, not only in terms of intrusion
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 27
TOPIC

TOPIC
28 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
into family life, but more importantly
in terms of the growth of the business.
Very few home-workers enjoy bringing
employees into this arrangement. This is
where live-work units come in.
With a high proportion of delegates
admitting to working from home
themselves, there were many personal
experiences of inconsistency within the
planning process, council taxation, and
funding sources.
There was debate about the various
mechanisms available to secure the work
element of the scheme in perpetuity
(planning condition, legal agreement,
restrictive covenant, even freehold vested
in the local authority), but also a feeling
that change of use over time was healthy
and merely reflected the evolution found
in the average High Street.
There was a lack of understanding
amongst policy makers as to the economic
benefits to the rural economy of live-work,
particularly of the need to accommodate
expansion from home-working.
There is evidence that some national
DESIGN
‘Design’ conjures up many things to
local authority planners – good, bad,
quality, external appearance, spaces,
environment, trees, hedges, paving, grass,
etc. Not all local authority planners have
the same concepts of what it means,
and not all planners are equipped with
the necessary skills, qualifications,
experience or time to do so! I have no
housebuilders are recognising the commercial benefits of
accommodating live-work within their schemes but little
research into what type of accommodation people actually want.
Eighty delegates attended, representing all aspects of the
development industry, including architects and planning
consultants, local authority planners, local politicians,
housing associations, academic institutions, funding agencies,
governmental agencies and estate agents. But most heartening
for me was that 17 delegates came from volume housebuilders,
many of them currently developing or hoping to develop in
Cherwell District. Perhaps there is a will, if only we can find a
way that suits the mainstream.
In drawing the seminar to a close, Vicky Sargent, of
Boilerhouse Communications, proposed that the organisers
would capture some of the experiences that had been shared
during the morning, to build up a body of case studies. These
could inform the lobbying of the ODPM’s office to ensure that
the revisions to PPG3 make proper provision for the live-work
concept and that it is enshrined in future planning policy.
Indeed, since the seminar, the update to PPG3 published on 26
January states that planning applications for housing or mixed
use development on redundant commercial land should be
considered favourably. Its a start.
Linda Rand, Urban Designer, Cherwell District Council
DEVELOPMENT CONTROL: DELIVERING QUALITY
Philippa Jarvis says ‘I’ve Got A Design Guide And I’m Going To Use It!’
design qualifications, but have learnt through experience and
working with others who did.
JUGGLING AND JUSTIFICATIONS
Those who come into contact with Development Control (DC)
officers probably know that they are always extremely busy
and therefore difficult to get hold of. However, I wonder if the
circumstances in which they work are really understood?
DC officers are usually significantly over-worked, responsible
for as many as 30-40 cases at any time and each with the
applicants’ agents making requests on their time. Each of these
applications is:
• looked at carefully
• sites visited
• neighbours and other consultee comments understood and
taken on board where justified
• amendments negotiated (if these can be achieved within the
statutory time period)
• reports written up which must refer to all relevant policies
and guidance, interpreted and related to the case, and any other
material considerations before it might go to committee.
And this is only one part of a DC officer’s work. There are also
pre-application letters and meetings, attending internal council
meetings, dealing with appeals, responding and liaising with
other departments on policy and other guidance issues. In fact,
it is difficult to believe that anything is achieved, at all, let alone
done well. DC officers are pulled in many directions dealing with
the different needs and desires of all those involved in the process
- so how can quality be achieved at the same time?
GUIDANCE AS THE FIRST STEP
While in truth, these are highly trained professional officers
who are just ‘processing’ applications, there does need to be an

additional layer of quality control. We need a process which
instead of ending up as a battle, creates a managed, guided and
negotiated agreement. If only DC officers had the opportunity
to take a step back from the process, they could have a chance to
assimilate all the guidance out there and learn from their own
experiences and others.
There is of course a vast amount of guidance and advice
available from central government, expert bodies, each local
council, and there are also some excellent built examples,
particularly in larger town and city centres. But the bottom line is:
• are the policies in place to explain what is expected?
• is guidance available to help developers and applicants to
interpret these policies into meaningful designs solutions?
• do local authority planners have the confidence, resources,
experience or time to ask for the highest quality of design in all cases?
• are managers ensuring that their teams are focussed on dealing
with the right issues?
• is there a well trained support network of technical and
administrative staff to assist?
HOW IS QUALITY TO BE ACHIEVED?
There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. For
the local planning authorities (LPA), there must be:
• regular training for all officers involved in development
control, at least to a basic standard
• expert advice – in-house urban designers, landscape architects
or joint working arrangements with neighbouring authorities
• clear adopted policies which provide a statutory background
• detailed supplementary guidance to back up and explain these
policies
• full and proper pre-application discussions, which on larger
projects must now involve wider public consultation
• detailed guidance on what information and detail will be
required to support any application, and if this is not supplied,
the powers to not accept an application until the right
information is provided
• a sharing of ideas and best practice with other authorities and
developers; and
• regular tours to places demonstrating good quality design
ideas, involving officers, councillors, amenity societies,
developers, etc.
For the agent or applicant, there must be:
• an understanding that quality does matter
• a willingness to heed to the published advice
• an understanding of the processes and people involved
• flexibility in their proposals
• a sharing of ideas and knowledge, and
• good quality and accurate submissions.
NEW STANDARDS REQUIRED
Fundamentally, the most basic design standard needs to be raised.
This means discarding ‘off the shelf’ designs and addressing the
local context, so that developers fully investigate and appraise
what this is, with assistance from the local planning authority
and others as the basis for design proposals.
Everyone involved in the planning process has a duty and
responsibility to seek good quality design. This affects all levels
and sizes of developments, as the small scale can cumulatively
have a huge impact. Members of the public also have a role to
play and while they are often opposed to any development,
if they can see that good design is possible, they will be more
inclined to welcome it in the future. There should be no
reluctance to refuse proposals on design grounds if they don’t
make the grade after all, that is what the PPGs and PPSs are for.
Guidance is crucial, because unless it is available in detail,
then LPAs will continue to see mediocre or poor designs out of
context with their local areas. PPG3 may have its problems but it
Fundamentally, the most basic
design standard needs to be
raised. This means discarding ‘off
the shelf’ designs and addressing
the local context
clearly states that high density has to be
achieved with high quality design, and
so each LPA must have policies in place
to fully explain this in supplementary
guidance. Moreover, we are still a long
way from sustainable designs being the
norm.
In order to make progress towards
this better guidance, LPAs should use
some of their hard earned Planning
Development Grant funds to create
the guidance needed using external
resources if necessary, as it is now a best
value performance indicator, so it can be
justified.
Philippa Jarvis, planning consultant, recently
set up as sole practitioner after 20 years in LPA
development control.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 29
TOPIC

TOPIC
NEW TOWN REGENERATION THE URBAN DESIGN WAY
Andrew Hunter describes the process and outcome when local
authorities take the lead
30 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
INTRODUCTION
After two years of supporting one major development scheme
for Bracknell Town Centre and resisting the proposals of another
through a ‘Call-in Inquiry’, Bracknell Forest Borough Council
found itself back at square one with the rejection of both
schemes. In the aftermath of an Inspector’s report (September
2001) that rejected the two major development proposals for
Bracknell Town Centre, Bracknell Forest seized the opportunity
to take a new approach to stimulate the regeneration of its town
centre.
The two previous proposals (which were both focussed on
major covered shopping centres), were considered too big for
Bracknell, did not deal with issues of integration between the
new and the old, and of a design standard which could be greatly
improved. The council was also criticised for its ‘development
partner approach’ being too reliant on developer proposals to
fulfil its vision of a new town centre for Bracknell. So the council
decided to respond to these criticisms and take the lead.
BACKGROUND
Being a New Town, Bracknell was developed along the town
planning principles of the 1950s and ‘60s. The town centre is a
pedestrianised precinct with low concrete buildings and high
rise development at sporadic intervals. The car is kept out by an
outer ring road, leaving the centre as an island accessed only via
service yards and underpasses. This urban fabric is made worse
by the minimal mix of uses and creates a centre which many of
the local population prefer not to use as a shopping destination.
Studies indicate that 80 per cent of the
available spend within the Bracknell area
is actually spent elsewhere.
COUNCIL-LED APPROACH
In September 2001 under the leadership
of the council’s Property and Planning
sections, a new team was given the task of
achieving a ‘Town Centre fit for the 21st
Century’. The team consisted of experts
in project management, retail planning,
transport, property, development control
and urban design. The key aim of this
team was to produce a master plan for
the town centre to secure its regeneration
in the quickest possible time, while
maximising its design potential. This
project was made top priority for all
members of the team allowing the master
plan to take precedence over normal
duties.
Although the in-house team possessed
many of the skills to prepare a first
class master plan, in order to give it
both weight and validity the council
retained retail planning, transport,
property valuation and master planning
consultants, sending a clear message to

the on-looking major landowners that the council was serious
about taking this project forward.
Urban design was considered a key component of the new
master plan development, so a consultancy with a good track
record was essential. EDAW proved the successful candidate, due
to its wide range of experience and ability to take projects from
inception through to delivery. Along with a number of other
consultants, EDAW was tasked with the production of a viable
and creative master plan in a seven month time frame.
Unusually, the council team took the role of project
management (or lead consultant). This approach reflected the
council’s desire to drive the project and with urban design at the
forefront, shaping the master plan.
THE PROCESS
The early stages preparing the master plan for the whole town
centre (much of which is destined for demolition) were a rollercoaster
ride of visioning, public participation, scrutiny from
landowners, and developing master plan principles. In parallel,
the evolution of a permeable and legible town centre was taking
shape, and intensive networking was undertaken with adjoining
authorities, the Government Office, CABE and other bodies to
win their endorsement of the process, the level of development
and the master plan principles.
Having started work in late November 2001, by March 2002
the council was consulting on a draft master plan, (the product
of hard work from both the officer and consultant team.) This
then saw the widest level of planning participation that the
council had ever been involved in. A shop unit in the town centre
became the home of officers over a five week period, capturing
comments from many local residents, as well as landowners,
businesses, and interest group representatives.
This participation and an earlier stakeholder event formed
a key aspect of the work of the council’s urban designer, and
involved developing and organising the events, and manning
exhibitions and meeting with schools, community groups and
existing town centre residents to explain the draft master plan.
With the completion of the consultation, the council began
to assess the draft master plan against the issues and comments
raised including comprehensive comments from the two major
landowners. In the preparation of the draft master plan the
council had endeavoured to involve the two parties in each
developmental stage of the master plan. As the landowners
were previously competitors at the inquiry, the council took
the decision to involve them in joint sessions so that consensus
on the master plan objectives could be reached. This method of
evolving the plan was intended to unite the key landowners so
that a final master plan would be achieved which all judged to be
viable, deliverable and desirable.
The council’s approach and its process of producing a master
plan was met with scepticism at the outset but over time it was
clear that it was working. It was apparent that producing a mixed
use master plan based on strong design principles (tempered
with commercial reality), was a way of achieving landowner buyin.
By the end of the process the council had a master plan that
both landowners felt able to support.
The master plan was developed further and revised in
the light of consultation, and after only nine months it was
submitted to a council meeting in July 2002, where it was
approved as Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG).
BRACKNELL TOWN CENTRE MASTER PLAN
The master plan transforms the current town centre into a mixed
use place, focused on a series of spaces with new pedestrian
connections to the surrounding area (breaking down the existing
ring road). It also introduces large-scale residential development
to a centre (which currently houses fewer than 150 residences) to
add life and vibrancy. Key routes are proposed to the rail station
By the end of the process the
council had a master plan
that both landowners felt able
to support
(currently outside the ring road), across
and through the town centre, breaking
down what is often called ‘Fortress
Bracknell’.
Although the master plan is the
product of many studies (retail capacity,
transport and viability) and has had input
from a great many professionals, it is
urban design which has helped to bond
all of this together. Therefore, issues of
transport systems and commerciality
were balanced against achieving a legible
and well ordered centre, which local
people would feel proud to call their town
centre.
Has the master plan helped?
In the intervening time, the council
(using the experience it gathered in the
process of producing a master plan)
has been working with the landowners
(now working together as one entity) to
produce a planning application for the
town centre. On 22 November 2004 the
council registered an outline planning
application covering the master plan
area, which is broadly in accordance
with the master plan. This responds to
the quantum for the mixed use elements
of the centre as specified in the SPG,
the distribution of uses detailed in the
master plan, the urban design principles
set out by the council, providing a well
considered scheme, now going through
the development control process.
VISION AND LEADERSHIP
What this project illustrates is that
councils need to have vision and courage
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 31
TOPIC

TOPIC
32 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
if they want to achieve and set the agenda
for large-scale development schemes.
Simply responding to development
schemes as they are received is not
enough. Proactive visions and plans can
have a major influence on the proposals
that are finally submitted and ultimately
implemented. As this case shows they
can also bring competing landowners
together, particularly when an enabling
ELECTORATE ISSUES
When I was elected as a councillor to represent a mixed urban/
semi rural ward in the heart of the Chilterns AONB, I had no
comprehension of the political role of the urban designer. My
electorate live in existing built up areas, and as the basic shape of
these is unlikely to change, they generally feel as if they are stuck
with what the developer originally gave them: housing is seen as
a developer and planner problem. But what they do care about
is the loss of green space, trees, parks, playing fields, and traffic.
However, most of these are not seen as ‘urban’ issues, instead
they are about bringing the ‘rural’ to the urban, and traffic is not
perceived as a ‘design’ problem. In fact, ‘urban design’ conjures up
the opposite of what it means to the lay-person and seems quite
irrelevant.
Before my retirement and subsequent election, I spent my
working life in engineering consultancy, so I have the benefit
of a different view: where some architects and designers
had idealistic, almost undeliverable, or worse still, a socially
damaging view of urban design. The examples are everywhere.
Yet, today’s average elector is well informed, articulate,
demanding and quick to criticise members when they don’t agree
with the outcome of the planners’ deliberations. This is largely
due to the high level of public consultation and is generally
positive. It does however place a high level of expectation
on council officers, who need to be completely non-political,
conforming to rules and regulations, and interpreting those rules
with imagination and foresight.
plan of mutual benefit is the final product.
Urban design plays a key role in this process by:
• setting principles for good design
• shaping visions that all can agree with, setting the context for
discussions around detailed issues
• highlighting the importance of public space
• effecting the way in which uses are located
• influencing the extent to which the transport network will
impact on making places for people
• promoting both permeable and legible layouts
• considering the views of local people in the development of
plans, and
• acting as the mediator to find creative solutions to transport
and commercial imperatives.
Without the leadership and courage of the council, Bracknell
town centre could have remained in its current state or the
subject of developer proposals based around commercial
imperatives and land ownerships. However, the town centre
master plan has built confidence in the council’s ability to
facilitate development, and played a central role in the evolution
of a development partnership willing to take such a project
forward. The next challenge is securing the high quality design at
the detailed planning stages.
Further Information on the latest proposals for Bracknell
town centre can be found at www.changebracknell.com.
Andrew Hunter, Team Leader in Planning and Transport Policy, with responsibilities
for urban design, Bracknell Forest Borough Council
THE ROLE OF THE URBAN DESIGNER
Hugh McCarthy provides some thoughts as a planning portfolio holder
SO WHAT DO I WANT FROM MY URBAN
DESIGNER?
Firstly, a new name – ‘urban’ has
connotations of sink estates, and
‘design’ of 1960s idealism that failed;
and secondly, I want a team which
can listen to the needs of the public,
conservationists, planners, regulators,
pressure groups, developers, highways,
police and the purse-string holders, and
produce award winning solutions that
keep my electorate, me, and my political
party happy.
PURSUING QUALITY
So where do we go from here? In today’s
world of almost Orwellian urban
intensification, we clearly need to
take account of the quality of the built
environment. It is totally unrealistic
and potentially socially risky to cram
people into ever decreasing spaces
without considering the quality of their
environment in a comprehensive and
holistic way.
Good urban design costs money, at
least it does upfront, and developers
and politicians have to accept this. It is
not about some bits of ‘green space and

a couple of trees’ to relieve the boring
monotony of look-alike boxes. Excessive
density and tokenistic hard landscaping
are real contributors to aggression and
vandalism. Conversely soft landscaping
is almost frowned upon by the politically
correct and HSE. What a nightmare for
the planning portfolio holder, and is
this really the way to build sustainable
communities?
So back to quality - quality of the
built, spatial, material, social and the
planned environment. Planners are under
continuing pressure to meet targets
and performance indicators, leaving
them little time or indeed need to look
at the wider aspects of an application
before them. However, I have an onerous
responsibility to the public and future
generations, and we all have a duty to
leave the place in a better state than we
found it, handing on a heritage not a
liability.
So the environment, built and natural
is vital to this process. Communities
are not created overnight, they evolve,
mature and then in turn can become
sustainable. However, this natural
human social process only works in an
acceptable environment, and it is very
easy to destroy it with poorly considered
development, however cost effective and
appealing it may be in the short term.
This is precisely where the skill of the
well-funded, experienced and committed
urban designer is so important. All
developments, however large or small, must be looked at with
this expert eye. There must be a process where sufficient time is
given for this to happen. Luckily for me, my authority has this
ability, and it really does make a significant improvement to the
end result. Not always, but on balance there is a tangible and
visible difference. However, there is always a time and resources
problem, and this is particularly so with major applications.
Developers have yet to fully understand the benefits of preapplication
discussions with the urban designer. Wasted time
and bad development can be avoided, and planning committees
feel more confident in their debate when the urban designer’s
clear, firm and visionary input is apparent.
HOW CAN A COUNCIL MEMBER INFLUENCE THIS?
Members can help to protect team budgets, implement
strategic policies to ensure integrated working in the planning
department and beyond, and perhaps soften the minds of hardbitten
developers. But more importantly members can enable
the planning system to create an indigenous, locally distinctive,
socially cohesive, and above all sustainable built environment. We
want the public to feel proud of their towns and neighbourhoods,
and take ownership of it. We also want the urban designer to be
applauded; and the planner and the developer praised for their
contribution.
So let’s ‘think out of the box’: let’s reclaim the roads and make
them tree lined streets, let’s throw away the standard street
furniture (and the catalogue) and be innovative, inventive, and
brave, let’s inspire the highways, police and emergency services to
think laterally and throw away their rulebooks, let’s look at each
situation on its merits, build on natural attributes, and go with
the wind. Higher-density housing does work if human needs and
aspirations are enthusiastically and honestly considered.
Hugh McCarthy, Planning Portfolio Holder, Wycombe District Council
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 33
TOPIC

CASE STUDY
Ox Pens to the West End
Alex Cochrane describes the context to the latest proposals
for this area of Oxford
A new spatial framework for West Central Oxford signals an opportunity
for a case history of the long quest for the ‘lost soul of the Oxford’, and
Alex Cochrane of REAL is your guide.
A legend tells of the foundation of the Christian city of Oxford. The
fair Frideswide, chased by the Mercian King Algar, had fled to the pagan
city of Oxenford in defence of her honour. Just as he was poised to
ravish her, he was stuck down and blinded by a thunderbolt, leaving St
Frideswide to remain chaste and in prayer in her priory on the site of
modern day Christ Church.
The area known as Oxpens is Oxford’s most historic urban quarter,
and was for many centuries the very soul of the city. Named after the
cattle pens that once flanked the River Thames, this ancient urban
quarter has spent much of its long life stubbornly evading Oxford
University’s insatiable hunger for land and property, and remains
Oxford’s original city quarter.
Long before the first university halls and colleges began to spring
up on the high ground along today’s High Street, the city, with its
churches and abbeys, was pitched determinedly toward the River
Thames and its potential for commerce and trade.
Around the time that young Frideswide was evading the keen
attentions of King Algar, settlement was beginning to occur in the
riverside parishes that came to be known as St Frideswide, Oseney, St
Thomas’ and St Ebbes. As a hive of industrial activity from the Saxon
period, the area survived fierce Danish river raids, a suffocating Norman
occupation, and several long sieges during the Civil War in order to be
primed for the Industrial Revolution. The river and its many creeks and
streams were rapidly becoming built up into a shambling concoction of
living streets. The forging of the Oxford Canal and London-Birmingham
railway along the Thames corridor in the 19th century fortified the
area’s role as Oxford’s foremost industrial district.
By the start of the 20th century, the area was the oldest of many
industrial quarters in inner city Oxford. Still dominated by industries
that capitalised on the waterways and largely unassociated with the
publishing and car manufacturing centres of Jericho and Cowley, the
area had become home to a collection of working class communities
gathered around the parish churches of St Thomas’ and St Ebbes.
34 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Photographs of the period show rows of Victorian By-Law housing,
peppered with factories, churches, shopping streets, medieval churches,
mills and inns.
PHYSICAL RECONSTRUCTION
Post war social reform brought with it proposals for comprehensive
physical reconstruction and ‘slum clearance’ in the inner city. The
peripheral estates of Blackbird Leys and Barton were planned as rehousing
projects, and ambitious plans for the area were put forward.
Thomas Sharp’s 1948 Oxford Replanned envisaged a modernist complex
of austere seeming avenues across the west central area, and the Scott
Wilson designs of 1968 proposed a comprehensive inner ring road that
encircled the city centre, and in doing so both proposals laid low most
of Oxpens and a healthy portion of Christ Church Meadow.
Amongst other factors, it was fierce opposition by the university’s
colleges, by now the city’s most powerful landowners, which meant
many of the proposals for reconstruction in the north and east of
the city never came to fruition. It was the Oxpens area, still largely
independent of university influence that was singled out as the city’s
‘soft spot’ for change.
Wholesale clearance of St Thomas’ and St Ebbes wove a blank canvas
for the first section of the proposed inner ring road, which arrived in
the form of Oxpens Road. The other flagship project of the period was
the Westgate Centre; an austere, hulking internalised complex of multistorey
car parks, shopping precincts and civic functions that effectively
replaced the ancient and shambling high streets of St Thomas’ Street
and St Ebbes Street. Coupled with this were pockets of low and mediumrise,
estate-style housing projects on the sites of the old terraced
streets.
By the late 1980s the Oxpens area had undergone a profound and
fundamental change, characterised by the tarmac swathe of the Oxpens
corridor. As an urban motorway flanked by a loose collection of lowslung
modernist pavilion buildings and multi-storey and surface car
parks, the area bore scant resemblance to the tight, medieval streets
that had been there for hundreds of years.

VISIONS...
As the modernist dream of free flowing traffic and systems architecture
revealed its drawbacks, new urbanism was beginning to influence the
vision of the city planners. An approach to re-planning the area that
favoured cars and delivery vehicles brought a substantial amount of
land used for hard infrastructure, so that the whole area effectively
became a barren service yard for the Westgate Centre. Pedestrian
and cycle movement had become difficult, frustrating and wholly
unpleasant.
The city had recognised that a gravitational shift of activity toward
the west was required to provide both a catalyst for regeneration, as
well as a much needed boost to the city’s retail offer.
The first bid for a design-led regeneration proposal was prepared by
Oxford based Roger Evans Associates (REA) in 1999 which attempted
to heal the scars. In studying the ancient quarter that lay underneath
the area, REA proposed a dramatic change in built form and movement
patterns to reflect the historic density, activity and grain of the lost
parishes of St Thomas’ and St Ebbes, in a contemporary urban form. The
‘boulevarding’ of Oxpens Road was balanced by re-establishing linkages
across the entire west of the city, creating a network of streets and
squares, and revealing a web of hidden waterways.
These proposals have formed the basis of the latest Area
Development Framework prepared in 2004 by David Lock Associates
(DLA). Building on fundamentals set out by REA, the masterplan
proposes revealing the ancient and historic spine of the area as a key
structuring element, taking in the Castle Mill Stream, Oxford Castle and
Gaol. Coupled with this are strong street linkages through the area and
blocks of high density mixed use development.
DLA’s framework is met simultaneously with the significant and
much chattered-about extension proposals put forward for the Westgate
Centre. After a rocky time with a previous planning application, which
met with fierce resistance on the grounds that it was perpetuating the
problem the Westgate development had caused from day one, Allies
& Morrison were employed to prepare a remodelling and expansion
masterplan - to respond to both the requirement for an expansion in
modern retail premises in the city, as well as to the growing dossier of
Opposite page left Loggan’s map of Oxford, 1675
Opposite page right Proposals by Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick,1968
Above left The Westgate master plan; an attempt to begin a healing process in the
urban form of Oxpens, Allies & Morrison
Above right New framework for Oxpens, David Lock Associates
Below Environmental contrasts in modern day Oxpens
strategic urban design studies for Oxpens.
Taking the opportunity to set the tone for change by remodelling
and redesigning a few clangers left by the original Westgate designers,
Allies & Morrison have coupled principles of robust urbanism with a
contemporary architectural response, thereby matching glossy shopping
mall style with real streets, strong links and a splash of city living.
It should weigh heavy on the minds of Allies & Morrison that theirs
is a role central to healing the scars of the past, and to giving some
life and respect back to Oxford’s lost heartland. The possibility that
the opportunity will be missed is an unsettling one. Once again, and
with devastating irony, the Westgate Centre finds itself the ‘flagship for
change’.
...AND DREAMS
As plans for West Oxford come to a crescendo, Oxford Inspires has
responded with a fascinating series of events to stimulate debate and
awareness of the opportunities for change. ‘Oxford 2015’ will take place
this summer and will include exhibitions and installations, conferences
and seminars on visions for change in the city. See www.oxfordinspires.
org.
Alex Cochrane is a senior designer with REAL and a citizen of West Central Oxford.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 35
CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY
Trends in Contemporary Norwegian
Street Design
Hoshiar Nooraddin discusses new street design strategies in Oslo
No matter where they are, streets contain a city’s local public life,
culture and business. The design of contemporary Norwegian streets
is largely influenced by environmental issues and creating a balanced
environment in the city. To achieve this, new types of street design
strategies have been applied 1.
STREET DESIGN STRATEGIES
It is possible to identify three major types of street design strategies
which have been applied to resolve the issue of traffic in the city, where
each type has its own way of dealing with design, rules and how it is
used:
• sustainable streets
• separating traffic
• sharing the main street.
All of these strategies consider the street not only as transportation
corridors but also as integral to the urban structure and local
communities. This holistic understanding of the street is aimed at
establishing better places and urban design practice.
SUSTAINABLE STREETS
In 1950 the number of private cars in Norway was 50,000 and by 2000
it had increased to 1.9 million 2. Until the late 1970s, transportation
policies misjudged the car’s impact on the built environment, and
needed redrafting in order to make cities better places to be.
As a consequence, new road systems were built to reduce traffic
numbers in certain areas to less than 10,000 vehicles measured as
Average Daily Traffic (ADT) with speeds not exceeding 50 km/h. This
reduction made it possible to adopt traffic calming to create more
sustainable streets, using innovative physical solutions to make them
healthy, safe and enjoyable by all types of user. This is evident in the
Sustainable City proposals for Gronnland, Oslo.
Among the proposals are widening sidewalks, reducing traffic
lanes, better street furniture and separate lanes for bicycles and public
transportation. The redesigned streets include Kjoelberggate and
Aakeberggate, which both functioned as main arterial roads until early
36 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
1990s, and were rebuilt as ‘sustainable streets’.
An evaluation done by the Road Directorate of some selected
projects transforming roads with large ADT to ‘sustainable streets’
showed that average traffic speeds have been reduced, pedestrians
and bicycles have better environments, the street space has become
more friendly for users, and the visual quality of the street space has
improved. All have contributed to create an active and enjoyable street
life 3.
SEPARATING TRAFFIC
Traffic segregation takes many different forms, such as using tunnels,
elevated streets, or modifying the number and directions of traffic
lanes. Tunnels have been built across Oslo city centre because the
existing historic urban structure could not accommodate increasing
vehicle traffic numbers.
Until 1990, some 70,000 vehicles a day thundered across the
City Hall Square. In 1990 a new tunnel, the Festning tunnel, was
built under the whole downtown, and removed traffic from the City
Hall Square, providing an opportunity to renovate Oslo’s largest
square Raadhusplassen and Raadhus Street in 1994. The square was
reconstructed for recreation and pedestrians, bicycles, and trams, and
repaved in stone with new street furniture. The new spaces also revived
the relationship between the city and its fjord.
Raadhusgata (City Hall Street) is one of Oslo’s oldest streets. Before
the tunnel, it was a one-way road with three traffic lanes and about
38,000 vehicles a day passing through it. Today, the number has been
reduced to about 9,000 vehicles a day.
Urban renovation projects have been undertaken as a consequence
of reducing the traffic, and have involved renovating and rebuilding
older buildings to encourage more mixed uses. Buildings that were used
by City Hall and the hospital now house restaurants, cafes, bookshops
and art galleries, with offices on the upper floors. The street has
one traffic lane and one cycle lane in each direction with sidewalks
paved in asphalt and stone, and planted with trees. Today, the square
(Christaiania torv) is an attractive public space especially in summer
when restaurants put tables in the square.

SHARING THE MAIN STREET
Local and international experience shows that whatever we do to
control traffic volumes, there will always need to be key streets that
have large traffic volumes mixed with other modes. Therefore, it is
important to develop planning policies supported by design guidelines
to ensure that these are ‘shared’ streets.
In 2005 a large area of Kirkeveien adopted design principles to
share the main streets. The designs depend upon innovative design
solutions, using materials and traffic regulations to support this street
environment. The design also promotes seating along the street to
encourage pedestrians to walk longer and more often.
CONCLUSION
Norway is using several strategies in order to win back street life. Each
urban area may need different street design strategies depending on
local needs, space demands and street types in the hierarchy. But
every strategy should consider three major components - design, use,
and rules. The examples here reflect three design strategies which use
different ways of balancing these components.
‘Sustainable streets’ and separating traffic strategies are based on
ADT reduction by relocating traffic to other roads or tunnels. In the
sharing strategy, the design and rules need to encourage different
activities without relocating traffic. Finally, successful street design is
the result of design policies which can be categorised as serving two
major interests:
• functional interests, accommodating all users, and
• common interests, creating better environments using form, colour,
textures, smell, and activity.
Urban design can benefit by learning to develop successful street design
guidelines to deal with both categories and create urban streets that
function both as individual streets in their particular areas and as part
of the city’s street network.
Hoshiar Nooraddin PhD Architect, Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Oslo
Opposite page left Kjoelberggate-Oslo
Opposite page right Raadhusplassen: the main city
square
Left Raadhusgata in 2004
Left small picture Raadhusgata in the 1970s before
building the tunnel; Source, BOTSFOR, Norway
Below Kirkeveien
REFERENCE
1. Kolbenstvedt, Marika et al, 1996, Miljuehandboken (Environmental handbook),
TUEI (Transport Economic Institutt), Oslo pp 233-275
2. Annual reports (1957-2000), Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Oslo
3. Statens vegvesen, 2003, Fra riksveg til gate – erfaringer fra 16 miljuegater (From
road to street – experiences from 16 sustainable street projects), Utbygging Rapport,
Oslo
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 37
CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY
Castleford Regeneration ‘Streets’ Ahead
Ian Tod describes two community-driven design schemes for Channel 4
The former pit town of Castleford in West Yorkshire is regaining its
confidence with a high profile regeneration project involving Channel 4
and some of the UK’s top architects.
Community regeneration specialist Allen Tod Architecture is among
those whose designs have been taken on by the community. Fronted by
Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud, the production team is looking
at the effect of regeneration on the town of Castleford following the loss
of coal - its main industry.
Of the 11 community improvement projects, Allen Tod won two
projects and both involve community groups as the client. The design
brief was to create an ‘object of enchantment’ as a symbol of change and
regeneration for their neighbourhoods.
This high-profile project being filmed by Talkback TV for Channel
4 has a limited budget, but could take any form. With ideas closely
scrutinised by community groups who then decided who they wanted to
work with.
CHILD’S PLAY
The Cutsyke Community Group selected designs for a play forest, which
will feature a forest of steel poles. Nets, ropes, ladders and slides will be
attached to the structure, leading to a viewing platform at the highest
point. Allen Tod has developed the designs with Estell Warren Landscape
Architecture of Leeds, whose dramatic computer generated images and
models won the support of the children, who voted for the designs.
Further community engagement has involved the youngsters in visits
to the best playgrounds in the area, as well as workshops with the local
manufacturer, Sutcliffe Play and building a half-size mock up. Planning
permission has been granted for the scheme, which is due for completion
in April 2005.
Simon Gedye of Allen Tod describes the scheme as “too many
play areas consist of an apparently random layout of manufacturers’
equipment. This design has a strong formal quality and the grid creates
a series of spaces and experiences within its structure, analogous to a
city.”
Steve Warren of Estell Warren Landscape Architecture said, “The
Play Forest is not so much a playground as a 3-D puzzle, there is no
way in, and no way out - you make your own choices and pick your
38 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Left Taking Castleford to new heights: the cargo net
challenge. Image: Warren Landscape Architecture
Above New gateway to Wilson Street, Allen Tod image
of model
own challenges. It is also a ‘one off’. The kids chose it, and the Cutsyke
Community Group and Wakefield Council has backed them all the way.”
IN STEP WITH PEDESTRIAN ZONES
In the scheme for the Wilson Street Triangle, the challenge has been to
reconcile the local community group’s desires and the wider aspiration
for an enchanting object that would signal a ‘step-change’ in the quality
of an area. The triangle is a popular and densely-populated urban area,
close to the town centre, with a mix of owner-occupied and rented
Edwardian terraced houses.
None of the initial design ideas gained the wholehearted support
of the group, which had recently formed and needed time to formulate
its ideas. Allen Tod suggested an interactive community process study
to analyse problems and issues raised by group members. The outcome
suggested an overall strategy for the area with a specific priority scheme
to improve the streets, and to start a scheme for safe pedestrian zones
around the residents’ homes.
However, agreeing the detail of this initial traffic-calming scheme
has proven more challenging. Allen Tod developed a set of modern street
furniture, which would narrow the street, bring interest and identify,
and form places for people to meet and dwell. These elements have been
designed to be prefabricated, and installed on top of existing paving to
bring swift changes to the street scene and minimise the costs of below
ground works.
Fearing that these objects would attract vandalism, and because they
were modern in design, the residents group comprehensively rejected
the scheme and was in favour of more modest proposals similar to other
areas of the town. It will now remain to be seen if using reclaimed street
furniture from the town centre rather than promote a special product
unique to Wilson Street will live up to the promise of the earlier scheme.
The Cutsyke play forest is due for completion by the end of March
2005 and the Wilson Street improvements are due to start on site. All
the projects are expected to be completed by Spring 2006, ready for
broadcast in a five part series.
Ian Tod, director of Allen Tod, is also founder of the annual 4x4 Making Places Urban
Regeneration Forum.

FRONT TO BACK – A DESIGN AGENDA FOR URBAN HOUSING
SALLY LEWIS, ELSEVIER, 2005, £24.99
ISBN 0 7506 5179 2
DESIGNING AMERICA’S WASTE LANDSCAPE
MIRA ENGLER, THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004, £33.50
ISBN 0 801 87803 9
We would much rather take the garbage
out than think about where its going.
Yet it is a key element in the way we
shape our landscape, and we have
overwhelming negative perceptions of
the places where we tip. The subject is
marginalised within the public debate,
which limits our ability to respond
creatively to the growing problem of
waste disposal.
This is an important book at a time when
higher densities are being encouraged
and housing programmes are critical to
proposals for expansion in the south
east. It is a design guide arranged
in two parts, the first describing the
background to housing issues and the
second outlining the design agenda and
providing a detailed analysis of five case
studies.
It is not laid out like a normal book
but as a design primer with consistent
headings of key points and in that
respect will be an invaluable guide to
students involved in this type of project.
The first part contains four chapters
covering urban design, sustainability,
community and social agendas
addressing the key principles that should
be followed, although the social chapter
is perhaps less specific than it might
have been.
The second part includes an
excellent summary of a design agenda
This book is one of a series on
contemporary American landscape
design, providing a workman-like
account of the issues. The author is
a landscape architect with concerns
about waste management which were
aroused by a desire to reuse wasted
neighbourhood open spaces, such
as back alleys and small parks. She
finds the subject seemingly hideous
and prosiac, but she sets free their
contradictory powers, and immersed
herself in research about waste
landscapes and societal issues.
The five chapters start with theories
and constructs, definitions, and the
language of waste - valued and valueless,
smell, taboos, marginalia and cultural
discourse. She sets out a detailed history
with eight distinct periods of residential
landscapes each lasting 30-50 years,
starting in the 18th century, including
the history of the bathroom, the yard,
and alleys. All are illustrated by poorly
reproduced period advertisements and
campaign notices, through to the City
Beautiful Movement (1890s-1910), when
gentility, convenience, health, and
aesthetics prevailed; this is when the
subject of waste was first taken seriously
at higher levels of government. There
listing 14 key principles followed by
five case studies. Parc de Bercy, Bo01
Malmo, Century Court Cheltenham,
Coin Street and a Barcelona infill which
are significant examples to analyse
and compare although only one of
these, from Paris, is an example of
mixed tenures designed together in
one scheme. This is clearly an area in
which more good examples need to be
identified.
It is an unusual form of book but its
format and analysis make it interesting
reading, invaluable for the student and
practitioner alike and it will hopefully
assist more architects and planners to
see housing as it should be – as an urban
issue rather than an architectural one.
The author’s final words are that ‘the
projects are not only about the dancers
but the choreography. No wonder they
perform so well’. Valuable lessons for all.
John Billingham
is a second tranche of photographs, of
the schemes of plants for the 1980s-90s,
which show the influences that have
prevailed on planning at all levels, until
we reach the present day and the green
ethic.
This is followed by private and public
landscapes of waste and dumps, and
covers centres of waste treatment, which
were designed to transform the dumps.
The now valued, beautiful and high rental
areas of the Tulleries, Parc des Buttes
Chaumont. Paris, and New York’s Central
Park, (Olmstead) were in the 1860s each
metropolitan city’s northern wasteland
of slaughter houses and other noxious
establishments.
The book continues with research
and education, from waste recycling
and institutions, places of material
transactions and resource parks, sewage
treatment plants and waste-water
gardens, to the utilisation of grey water.
The author concludes with the challenges
for thought and action because America
is now facing more daunting toxic
landscapes that pose serious radioactive
dangers. The problems are stated, but
there are no solutions put forward here.
Peter Eley
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 39
BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS
RE-ANIMATING THE WATERFRONT
LIVERPOOL JMU CENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURE, NEARHOS PUBLICATIONS WITH LIVERPOOL JMU, 2003
ISBN 1 901585 03 4
Publications of university project reviews
are a dime-a-dozen. The received wisdom
for these works tends to be a jumble of
(usually) seductive, attractive and yet
uninformative images that signal the end
of a certain stage in the student’s career.
The book is usually glossy, with a large
number of photographs with favoured
students getting large double-page
spreads and the least popular, relegated
to the odd black and white images – if
they’re lucky.
However, what makes this round-up
of architectural projects from Liverpool
40 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
John Moores University different is
the relevance of its subject matter
and commercial awareness, in that has
secured an impressive list of sponsors
that include, key players in the North
West region such as Grosvenor, English
Partnerships and BDP. There is also an
egalitarian approach, with each student
allocated the same amount of space,
showing the importance attached to
each individual’s work.
The aim of the projects featured,
which is the regeneration of these
historic waterfronts, is handled
intelligently through a variety of uses
ranging from the practical (mixed use,
retail, office, leisure, transport and so on)
to the bizarre, yet imaginative, such as
Gareth Allison’s ‘Survival training centre’.
Images of the various projects
are mainly vibrant, some are bleak
and hauntingly beautiful (Channel 6
television station – Steven Gallagher) and
others playful and quirky (Magistrates
Court – Berta Willisch), yet all show the
energy and enthusiasm of the students
involved, who have clearly enjoyed
working on what was presumably the last
TRANSFORMING BARCELONA
TIM MARSHALL, ROUTLEDGE, 2004, £27.50
ISBN 0 415 28841 X
Barcelona has rightly become renowned
for the work in remaking the city
over the past 25 years. Visitors often
obtain only a limited impression of the
background to the projects and this book
aims to provide a wide coverage of the
governmental, social and cultural issues.
Tim Marshall has assembled a series
of papers that have in the main been
published separately elsewhere and they
provide a wealth of information. The
first and largest section containing eight
of their diploma projects before they are
let loose on the ‘real world’. My only point
of contention is that, in general, the
projects are very much ‘architecture writlarge’
and what is presented at the end is
mainly and I suppose, understandably the
‘sexy’ image, rather than the analysis that
went into producing them.
With the amount of press coverage
that has been given over to the
Liverpool waterfront due to the demise
of Alsop’s ‘Fourth Grace’, the subject of
the book is also both timely and topical,
as even now, it is unclear how Liverpool
re-engages with its neglected and partly
forgotten waterfront. The book does not
ultimately provide a single real solution
as to how that can be achieved but
shows a myriad of possibilities and more
importantly, engages the interest of the
next generation of built environment
professionals.
I shall scan the pages of BD and
AJ to see what the new generation
of Liverpool architects will do in the
coming years.
Sherin Aminossehe
papers describes what has happened
and the factors seen as important by the
various writers include:
• the outstanding plan by Cerda which
continues to influence the city's layout
• the opportunity taken by the city to
host world events such as the Exposicion
in 1929
• the metropolitan plan approved in
1976 ahead of many areas in Spain which
has provided a basis for later work
• the stable political structure from 1979
• design quality placed high on the
agenda and implemented quickly
• the nomination for the Olympics, and
• the opportunity taken to upgrade
infrastructure and reorient the city to
the sea.
Pasqual Maragall, mayor from 1982-97,
contributes an important chapter making
the case for a special charter for the city
(which was never achieved,) and also
relating the city and its metropolitan
area to Catalonia and Spain although
seeing the city as a capital crossing
national boundaries. Oriol Bohigas
provides ten points for an urban
methodology, previously printed in the
AR, but I found the terminology a barrier
and it needed translating to friendlier
but useful terms - many of which are
similar to New Urbanism ideas.
The second section includes two
papers on present and future projects
which include areas adjacent to the two
rivers, as well as the Diagonal, Poblenou
and the Waterfront, part of which is the
2004 Forum development.
The last section provides a critical
perspective of what has happened from a
social, design and ecological viewpoint.
There are many lessons to be learned
from Barcelona and the book provides a
useful summary of the major issues. It is
significant that Maragall is an economist
and had previously worked for the
city council. Many of the contributors
have also served as councillors and are
or have been involved in teaching in
university courses. One could argue that
this cross fertilisation is something that
distinguishes Barcelona from most UK
comparisons with distinctive effect.
John Billingham

MEASURING PLANNING QUALITY
MATTHEW CARMONA AND LOUIE SIEH, SPON PRESS, HB £85.00, PB £35, 2004
HB ISBN 0 415 315239
PB ISBN 0 415 31524 7
The authors of this book have set
themselves an almost impossible task;
they seemed to know this, yet felt
that the subject was too important
to be neglected, and therefore they
persevered. Their basic premise is
perfectly legitimate: planning is a public
service that has a claim on resources;
therefore it needs to show some kind of
added value which must be measurable.
The research aims to find a methodology
to achieve this measurement. To
illustrate their point, Carmona and Sieh
refer to the issue of ‘time vs quality’:
the government’s obsession with speed
of delivery of planning decisions works
against the quality of the product.
However, an investment of additional
time may only achieve an improvement
in quality to a point.
One of the main problems is to decide
what is being measured: is it service,
process or outcomes? And in the case of
outcomes, are they to be measured per se
or in relation to the policies they relate
to? In other words is a development
successful because it complies with the
local authorities’ development plan,
or because it sells well, or because it
enhances the life of the local population?
These questions, complex as they already
are, are simple in relation to those asked
by this research. The result is a very dense
text, not for the fainthearted. To be fair,
the authors do not suggest reading it
all, but recommend specific chapters for
specific purposes.
Unfortunately, not much of it
relates to urban design and there
aren’t many illustrations to enliven
the text. The analysis of the Marsham
Street redevelopment however, reveals
PLACE: TERRY FARRELL, LIFE AND WORK, EARLY YEARS TO 1981
TERRY FARRELL, LAWRENCE KING PUBLISHING LTD, 2004, £29.95
ISBN 1 85669 332 5
Launched at the UDG Conference in
Manchester last November, this book
tells the story of how Terry Farrell
became the person we know today. It is
divided into five sections: Childhood,
College, America, Practice and 25
Projects, from architecture projects in
1959 to the first projects as Terry Farrell
& Partners.
The story starts in Sale, Manchester
where Terry was born, follows him and
his family to Newcastle and Blackpool,
the start of his architectural training
back in Newcastle and the University of
Pennsylvania, and onto work in London
and a curious time at the LCC. However,
he describes himself as an ordinary
boy - an underachiever academically
and a loner socially; yet with the
encouragement of teachers and mentors,
he developed his appreciation of cities,
towns and neighbourhoods, and an
unusual drawing style to become a
confident and thoughtful designer.
Influential travel scholarships and
study tours to Scandinavia, America,
Japan, India, and Hong Kong are well
documented. He also describes various
New Towns, what they were aiming to
create and the places they are today with
an enthusiasm that doesn’t seem to have
been distorted over the years as fashions
change.
What is interesting is that Terry
Farrell has always been more of an urban
designer than an architect. His early oneoff
buildings and later spectacular megaprojects
mask a deeper and consistent
a potential for design related research
- the authors analysed the influence of
planning on the evolution of the design;
this isn’t pursued very far and there is no
comparison between the first proposal
and the final project (some ten years
after), but it is the kind of approach
which could develop into a methodology.
The research described is extensive
and intensive; it covers the UK and
several other countries, it includes a
number of innovative practices and is
well grounded on theory. Ultimately and
unavoidably, this theory seems mostly
related to management, and the ‘new
measurement system’ offered at the end
addresses service quality, organisational
structures and in a fuzzier way, the
product. The procedures to implement
this system are complex - as complex
as what it tries to measure - and while
resourceful and enlightened authorities
may be able to put them in place, the
great majority will probably not. This
does not diminish the value of Carmona
and Sieh’s research but it condemns it
probably to stay at that, an academic
pursuit.
Sebastian Loew
care for how cities work. His role in the
UDG and UDAL demonstrate that.
The book is certainly worth reading,
but don’t expect to read it in bed or
on the bus or tube, it is too big and
heavy, and much more informative than
its coffee table format suggests. I had
expected glossy full page drawings
and photos, but the majority of the
illustrations are interleaved with the text
as the story unfolds.
The subdivision of Terry’s life story
and its ‘product’ is clever, as it is as
chronological as an autobiography,
but also allows you to dip into the
projects as case studies, including
some updates on how buildings have
been used. In a few instances within
this autobiographical structure, it
occasionally seems too providential
that life has panned out like this so
far. But unlike some famous architects’
biographies, the person described
doesn’t lose his ‘human’ character and
appeal as he grows in stature.
Louise Thomas
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 41
BOOK REVIEWS

INDEX
CONTRIBUTORS
Sherin Aminossehe, urban
designer with Terry Farrell and
Partners
John Billingham, architect and
planner, formerly Director of Design
and Development at Milton Keynes
Development Corporation
Peter Eley, architect in private
practice specialising in the re-use
of buildings
Joe Holyoak, architect and urban
designer, Principal Lecturer in
Urban Design at University of
Central England
Bob Jarvis, Principal Lecturer,
London South Bank University
Sebastian Loew, architect and
planner, writer and consultant,
teaching at University of
Westminster and in Paris
Judith Ryser, researcher, journalist
and writer on environmental and
design issues
Louise Thomas, urban designer
42 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Directory of practices, corporate
organisations and urban design
courses subscribing to this index.
The following pages provide a service
to potential clients when they are
looking for specialist urban design
advice, and to those considering
taking an urban design course
Those wishing to be included in
future issues should
contact the UDG, 70 Cowcross Street,
London EC1M 6DG
Tel 020 7250 0892
Fax 020 7250 0872
Email admin@udg.org.uk
PRACTICE INDEX
ACANTHUS FERGUSON MANN
Royal Colonnade, 18 Great George Street,
Bristol BS1 5RH
Tel 0117 929 9293
Fax 0117 929 9295
Email admin@acanthusfm.co.uk
Website www.acanthusfm.co.uk
Contact George Ferguson
Registered architects and urban
designers. Masterplanning, new
buildings, historic buildings, urban
renewal, feasibility studies, exhibition
design and inspiration.
ALAN BAXTER & ASSOCIATES
Consulting Engineers,
70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ
Tel 020 7250 1555
Fax 020 7250 3022
Email abaxter@alanbaxter.co.uk
Website www.alanbaxter.co.uk
Contact Alan Baxter FIStructE MICE MConsE
An engineering and urban design
practice with wide experience of new
and existing buildings and complex
urban issues. Particularly concerned
with the thoughtful integration of
buildings, infrastructure and movement,
and the creation of places which are
capable of simple and flexible renewal.
ALLEN PYKE ASSOCIATES
Urban Design, Landscape Architecture,
Environmental Consultancy
The Factory, 2 Acre Road, Kingston upon
Thames, Surrey KT2 6EF
Tel 020 8549 3434
Fax 020 8547 1075
Email info@allenpyke.co.uk
Contact Hugo Frieszo
Innovative, responsive, committed,
competitive. Process: Strategy,
framework, masterplan, implement.
Priorities: People, spaces, movement,
culture. Places: regenerate, infill,
extend, create.
ANDREW MARTIN ASSOCIATES
Croxton’s Mill, Little Waltham, Chelmsford,
Essex CM3 3PJ
Tel 01245 361611
Fax 01245 362423
Email ama@amaplanning.com
Website www.amaplanning.com
Contacts Andrew Martin / Richard Hall
Strategic, local and masterplanning,
urban design, project coordination and
implementation, development briefs
and detailed studies, historic buildings,
conservation and urban regeneration
and all forms of environmental impact
assessment.
ANTHONY REDDY ASSOCIATES
Dartry Mills, Dartry Road, Dublin 6
Tel 00 353 1 498 7000
Fax 00 353 1 498 7001
Email info@anthonyreddy.com
Website www.anthonyreddy.com
Contacts Tony Reddy / Brian O’Neill
Architecture, planning, urban design,
project management. Masterplanning,
development frameworks, urban
regeneration, town centre renewal,
residential, and mixed-use development.
ARNOLD LINDEN
Chartered Architect,
54 Upper Montagu Street, London W1H 1FP
Tel 020 7723 7772
Fax 020 7723 7774
Contact Arnold Linden RIBA
Dip Arch Dip TP
Integrated regeneration through the
participation in the creative process of
the community and the public at large,
of streets, buildings and places.
ARUP SCOTLAND
Scotstoun House, South Queensferry,
Edinburgh EH30 4SE
Tel 0131 331 1999
Fax 0131 331 3730
Email arup.edinburgh@arup.com
Website www.arup.com
Contact David Anderson
Multidisciplinary consulting engineering
practice in Aberdeen, Dundee,
Edinburgh and Glasgow. Transport and
environmental planning, infrastructure
planning and design, civil and building
engineering.
ATKINS PLC
Woodcote Grove, Ashley Road, Epsom, Surrey
KT18 5BW
Tel 01372 726140
Fax 01372 740055
Email atkinsinfo@atkinsglobal.com
Contact Nicola Hamill (BA Hons) MAUD MLI
Multi-disciplinary practice of urban
planners, landscape designers,
transport planners, urban designers,
architects and environmental
planners, specialising in masterplans,
development frameworks and concepts,
development briefs, environmental
assessment, environmental
improvements, town centre renewal,
traffic management and contaminated
land. See outside back cover.
AUKETT ASSOCIATES
2 Great Eastern Wharf, Parkgate Road,
London SW11 4NT
Tel 020 7924 4949
Fax 020 7978 6720
Email email@aukett.com
Contact Nicholas Sweet
We are a multi-disciplinary design group
offering architecture, urban design,
engineering, landscape architecture
and interiors. We operate through 14
European offices and specialise in
large-scale commercial, mixed-use
masterplanning.
AUSTIN-SMITH:LORD
Architects Designers Planners Landscape
Architects
5–6 Bowood Court, Calver Road, Warrington,
Cheshire WA2 8QZ
Tel 01925 654441
Fax 01925 414814
Email aslwarrington@dial.pipex.com
Contact Andy Smith
Also in London, Cardiff and Glasgow
Multi-disciplinary national practice with
a specialist urban design unit backed
by the landscape and core architectural
units. Wide range and scale of projects
providing briefing, concept development,
masterplanning, design guidance,
implementation and management.
BABTIE GROUP
School Green, Shinfield, Reading, Berks
RG2 9XG
Tel 0118 988 1555
Fax 0118 988 1666
Email urban.design@babtie.com
Contacts Bettina Kirkham Dip TP BLD MLI
Paul Townsend BSc (Hons) CEng
MICE MCIT MIHT
A truly ‘one-stop’ consultancy of
landscape architects, architects, urban
designers and planners specialising in
town and landscape assessment, urban
design frameworks, regeneration visions
and strategies, quality public space
design, integrated strategies of public
consultation.
BARTON WILLMORE PARTNERSHIP
Beansheaf Farmhouse, Bourne Close, Calcot,
Reading, Berks RG31 7BW
Tel 0118 943 0000
Fax 0118 943 0001
Email
masterplanning@bartonwillmore.co.uk
Contact Clive Rand DipTP DipLA MRTPL MLI
Urban design from concept through to
implementation. Complex and sensitive
sites, comprehensive and innovative
design guides, urban regeneration,
brownfield sites, and major urban
expansions.
THE BECKETT COMPANY
Architecture and Urban Design
Beauchamp Lodge, 73 Coten End, Warwick
CV34 4NU
Tel 01926 490220
Fax 01926 490660
Email
beckett.architecture@btinternet.com
Contacts Roger Beckett DArch, Dip TP, Dip
Urban Design or Sarah Grierson BA
Hons, Dip LA
Waterside regeneration and community
collaboration – our partnerled approach
to the creation and repair of places turns
the vision into a coherent reality.
THE BELL CORNWELL PARTNERSHIP
Oakview House, Station Road, Hook,
Hampshire RG27 9TP
Tel 01256 766673
Fax 01256 768490
Email savery@bell-cornwell.co.uk
Website www.bell-cornwell.co.uk
Contact Simon Avery
Specialists in urban and masterplanning
and the coordination of major
development proposals. Advisors on
development plan representations,
planning applications and appeals.
Professional witnesses at public
inquiries.
BISCOE & STANTON ARCHITECTS
Studio 2 10 Bowling Green Lane, London
EC1R 0BQ
Tel 020 7490 7919
Fax 020 7490 7929
Email mail@biscoestanton.co.uk
Contact Henry Shepherd
As commercial and residential
architects, we are especially interested
in meeting the challenges of designing
on urban sites, with mixed uses and
higher densities; experienced in existing
buildings and new construction.
BLAMPIED & PARTNERS LTD
Areen House 282 King Street, London
W6 0SJ
Tel 020 8563 9175
Fax 020 8563 9176
Email yvette.newton@blampied.co.uk
Website www.blampied.co.uk
Contact Clive Naylor
Architectural masterplanning, urban
design, tourism, education, commercial
expertise United Kingdom and overseas.

BROADWAY MALYAN ARCHITECTS
3 Weybridge Business Park, Weybridge,
Surrey KT15 2BW
Tel 01932 845599
Fax 01932 856206
Email d.moore@broadwaymalyan.com
Website www.broadwaymalyan.com
Contact David Moore
A multi-disciplinary practice providing
the highest quality services in
masterplanning, urban regeneration
and funding. Planning, architecture,
landscape architecture, interior design
and sustainable energy efficient design.
We also have offices in London, Reading,
Southampton, Manchester, Lisbon,
Madrid and Warsaw.
BROCK CARMICHAEL ARCHITECTS
19 Old Hall Street, Liverpool L3 9JQ
Tel 0151 242 6222
Fax 0151 326 4467
Email office@brockcarmichael.co.uk
Contact Michael Cosser
Masterplans and development briefs.
Mixed-use and brownfield regeneration
projects. Design in historic and sensitive
settings. Integrated environmental
and landscape design skills via BCA
Landscape.
BUILDING DESIGN PARTNERSHIP
16 Brewhouse Yard, Clerkenwell, London
EC1V 4LJ
Tel 020 7812 8000
Fax 020 7812 8399
Email aj-tindsley@bdp.com
Website www.bdp.co.uk
Contact Andrew Tindsley
BDP offers town planning,
masterplanning, urban design,
landscape, regeneration and
sustainability studies, and has teams
based in London, Manchester and
Belfast.
BURNS + NICE
70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ
Tel 020 7253 0808
Fax 020 7253 0909
Email bn@burnsnice.com
Website www.burnsnice.com
Contacts Marie Burns BA (Hons) MAUD
DipLA MLI MIHT FRSA or
Stephen Nice BA (Hons) MAUD
Dip LD MLI MIHT
Urban design, landscape architecture,
environmental and transport planning.
Masterplanning, design and public
consultation for community-led
regeneration including town centres,
public open space, transport,
infrastructure and commercial
development projects.
BURRELL FOLEY FISCHER
York Central, 70–78 York Way, London
N1 9AG
Tel 020 7713 5333
Fax 020 7713 5444
Email mail@bff-architects.co.uk
Website www.bff-architects.co.uk
Contact John Burrell MA AADip RIBA FRSA
Urban regeneration and arts and
cultural buildings – museums, galleries,
theatres, cinemas. Redevelopment of
redundant estate land, urban housing.
New settlements. New design in historic
contexts. Waterfront buildings and
strategies.
BUSINESS LOCATION SERVICES LTD
Innovative Urban Design and Planning
2 Riverside House, Heron Way, Newham,
Truro, Cornwall TR1 2XN
Tel 01872 222777
Fax 01872 222700
Email blsltd@globalnet.co.uk
Website www.bls.co.uk
Contact Russell Dodge BSc(Hons) MRTPI
BLS provides a multi-disciplinary
approach to town planning, urban
regeneration, grant funding, economic
development and property consultancy.
CAREY JONES ARCHITECTS
Rose Wharf, 78 East Street, Leeds LS9 8EE
Tel 0113 224 5000
Fax 0113 224 5001
Email chris.bailey@careyjones.com
Contact Chris Bailey
CDN PLANNING LTD
77 Herbert Street, Pontardawe, Swansea
SA8 4ED
Tel 01792 830238
Fax 01792 863895
Email cdnplanning@btopenworld.com
Website www.cdnplanning.com
Contact Kedrick Davies DipTP DipUD(Dist)
MRTPI
Urban design, planning and
development. Integration of landuse
planning and urban design.
Collaborative and community working
to enhance the environment. Feasibility
studies and design.
CHAPMAN TAYLOR
96 Kensington High Street, London
W8 4SG
Tel 020 7371 3000
Fax 020 7371 1949
Email ctlondon@chapmantaylor.com
Website www.chapmantaylor.com
Contact Adrian Griffiths and Paul Truman
Chapman Taylor is an international
firm of architects and urban designers
specialising in mixed-use city centre
regeneration projects throughout
Europe.
CHARTER CONSULTANTS
ARCHITECTS
Architecture and Urban Design
2 St Stephen’s Court, 15-17 St Stephen Road,
Bournemouth, Dorset BH2 6LA
Tel 01202 554625
Fax 01202 294007
Email
bournemouth@charter-architects.com
Contact Martin Dobbs
Charter is committed to the delivery of
excellence in design and service and
offers expertise and project experience
in diverse sectors including; leisure,
mixed use, residential, commercial,
retail, education, health and
government facilities. Based in four
national offices, Bedford, Bournemouth,
London and Ipswich, Charter employs
over 100 committed and enthusiastic
staff.
CHRIS BLANDFORD ASSOCIATES
1 La Gare, 51 Surrey Row, London SE1 0BZ
Tel 020 7928 8611
Fax 020 7928 1181
Email pbonds@cba.uk.net
Website www.chris-blandford-assoc.com
Contacts Chris Blandford and Philip Bonds
Also at Uckfield
Landscape architecture, environmental
assessment, ecology, urban renewal,
development economics, town planning,
historic landscapes, conservation
of cultural heritage.
CIVIC DESIGN PARTNERSHIP
22 Sussex Street, London SW1V 4RW
Tel 020 7233 7419
Fax 020 7931 8431
Contact Peter J Heath
Led since 1990 by architect and town
planner Peter Heath, the practice
undertakes all aspects of public realm
projects throughout the UK for public
and private sectors. Recent London
projects include proposals for the
setting of Parliament, regeneration in
Fulham and pedestrianisation plans
for Trafalgar and Parliament Squares.
Specialisms also include lighting
strategies, product design, street
furniture manuals and design guides.
CIVIX
Exton Street, London SE1 8UE
Tel 020 7620 1589
Fax 020 7620 1592
Email mail@civix.demon.co.uk
Website www.civix.co.uk
Contact Daniel Bone MA DipArch RIBA
MRTPI MAPM
Urban design, development planning
and project management devising
town centre appraisals, urban design
frameworks, site development briefs,
design guidelines, masterplans
and management strategies for
implementation.
CLARKE KLEIN & CHAUDHURI
ARCHITECTS
5 Dryden Street, London WC2E 9NW
Tel 020 7829 8460
Fax 020 7240 5600
Email info@ckcarchitects.com
Contact Wendy Clarke
Small design-led practice focusing on
custom solutions for architectural,
planning or urban design projects.
Emphasis on research and detailed
briefings to explore the potential for
appropriate and innovative urban design
proposals.
COLIN BUCHANAN & PARTNERS
Newcombe House, 45 Notting Hill Gate,
London W11 3PB
Tel 020 7309 7000
Fax 020 7309 0906
Email cbp@cbuchanan.co.uk
Contact Michael Wrigley MSc, MRTPI, MCIT
Planning, regeneration, urban design,
transport and traffic management and
market research from offices in London,
Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester.
Specialism in area based regeneration,
town centres and public realm design.
COLOUR URBAN DESIGN LIMITED
Milburn House, Dean Street,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1LE
Tel 0191 242 4224
Fax 0191 242 2442
Email colour@colour-udl.com
Website www.colour-udl.com
Contact Peter Owens
Concept to completion on site. Delivery
of design oriented projects with full
client participation. Contemporary
public spaces, regeneration,
development, masterplanning,
residential, education and healthcare.
COLVIN & MOGGRIDGE
4 Bourlet Close, London W1H 6BU
Tel 020 7323 9752
Fax 020 7323 9777
Email london@colmog.co.uk
Contacts Martin Bhatia (London) / Michael
Ibbotson (Glos) 01367 860225
Long established practice of landscape
architects with expertise in the full
range and complexity of projects
including planning and design of public
and private space in towns and cities.
CONROY CROWE KELLY ARCHITECTS
65 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Tel 00 353 1 661 3990
Fax 00 353 1 676 5715
Email info@cck.ie
Website www.cck.ie
Contacts Clare Burke B Arch MSc UD MRIAI
David Wright Dip Arch (Hons) Dip
UD MRIAI
Architecture, urban design,
masterplanning, town village studies,
urban frameworks. The practice
advocates the design of mixed used
residential developments with a strong
identity and sense of place
CONSERVATION ARCHITECTURE &
PLANNING
Wey House, Standford Lane, Headley,
Hants GU35 8RH
Tel 01420 472830
Fax 01420 477346
Email cap@capstudios.co.uk
Contact Jack Warshaw, BArch Dip TP
AADipCons ARB RIBA RTPI IHBC
CAP connects urban design and
conservation of good places. CAP is
government approved. CAP’s clients
cover all sectors nationwide. CAP
accepts historic areas, regeneration,
topic studies, buildings, settings, new
design, conservation solutions and
expert witness commissions.
COOPER CROMAR
Newton House, 457 Sauchiehall Street,
Glasgow G2 3LG
Tel 0141 332 2570
Fax 0141 332 2580
Email info@coopercromar.com
Website www.coopercromar.com
Architecture and urban design for inner
city commercial, residential and offices.
Masterplanning and feasibility studies
for business and industrial parks.
DAVID HUSKISSON ASSOCIATES
17 Upper Grosvenor Road, Tunbridge Wells,
Kent TN1 2DU
Tel 01892 527828
Fax 01892 510619
Email dha@dha-landscape.co.uk
Contact Rupert Lovell
Landscape consultancy offering
masterplanning, streetscape and urban
park design, landscape design and
implementation, estate restoration,
environmental impact assessments and
expert witness. Quality assured practice.
DAVID LOCK ASSOCIATES LTD
50 North Thirteenth Street, Central Milton
Keynes, Milton Keynes MK9 3BP
Tel 01908 666276
Fax 01908 605747
Email mail@davidlock.com
Website www.davidlock.com
Contact Will Cousins DipArch DipUD RIBA
Planning, urban design, architecture,
land use and transportation planning.
Urban regeneration, mixed use projects
including town and city centres, urban
expansion areas, new settlements and
historic districts. Strategic planning
studies, area development frameworks,
development briefs, design guidelines,
masterplanning, implementation
strategies, environmental statements
and public inquiries.
DEGW PLC ARCHITECTS &
CONSULTANTS
8 Crinan Street, London N1 9SQ
Tel 020 7239 7777
Fax 020 7278 3613
Email lnicolaou@degw.co.uk
Website www.degw.co.uk
Contact Lora Nicolaou
Development planning and briefing.
Masterplanning and urban design.
Strategic briefing and space planning.
Architecture and interiors.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 43
INDEX

INDEX
DENIS WILSON PARTNERSHIP
Windsor House, 37 Windsor Street, Chertsey,
Surrey KT16 8AT
Tel 01932 569566
Fax 01932 569531
Email leslie.rivers@deniswilson.co.uk
Contact Les Rivers
A comprehensive transport and
infrastructure consultancy service
through all stages of development
progression, from project conception,
through planning, to implementation
and operation. Transport solutions for
development.
DLA LANDSCAPE AND URBAN
DESIGN
6 Saw Mill Yard, Round Foundry, Holbeck,
Leeds LS11 5DW
Tel 0113 297 8400
Fax 0113 297 8401
Email info@dla-landscape.co.uk
Website www.dla-landscape.co.uk
Contact Chris Dykes
Site evaluation, landscape and visual
impact assessments, 3d modelling,
urban design studies, development
frameworks, site planning, landscape
design, public consultation, contract
documentation, cost advice and
landscape management strategies.
DPDS CONSULTING GROUP
Old Bank House, 5 Devizes Road, Old Town,
Swindon, Wilts SN1 4BJ
Tel 01793 610222
Fax 01793 512436
Email dpds.swindon@dpds.co.uk
Website www.dpds.co.uk
Contact Les Durrant
Town planning, environmental
assessments, architecture, landscape
architecture and urban design:
innovative solutions in masterplanning,
design guidance and development
frameworks.
DNA CONSULTANCY LTD
Dulwich House, 24 North Malvern Road,
Malvern, Worcestershire WR14 4LT
Tel 01684 899061
Email info@dnaconsultancy.com
Website www.dnaconsultancy.com
Contact Mark Newey
Urban design practice providing a
responsive and professional service
by experienced urban designers from
both landscape and architectural
backgrounds.
EATON WAYGOOD ASSOCIATES
8 High Street, Stockport, Cheshire SK1 1EG
Tel 0161 476 1060
Fax 0161 476 1120
Email
terry@eatonwaygoodassociates.co.uk
Contact Terry Eaton BA (Hons) Dip LD
Environmental artists concerned with
the fusion of art and public space in
urban regeneration including sculpture,
lighting and landscape architecture.
EC HARRIS LLP
The Royal Exchange, Manchester M2 7EH
Tel 0161 214 0214
Fax 0161 214 0215
Email chris.standish@echarris.com
Website www.echarris.com
Contact Chris Standish
Specialist in understanding the process
of urban design. Engagement and
empowerment of local stakeholders.
Project management from a regeneration
perspective. Early win projects.
Community involvement strategies.
Linking stakeholder needs in major
mixed used projects. The value (£) of
people to places.
44 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
EDAW PLC
1A Lonsdale Square, London N1 1EN
Also at Manchester and Edinburgh, Scotland
Tel 020 7700 9500
Fax 020 7700 9599
Email edaweurope@edaw.co.uk
Contacts Bill Hanway BA MArch AIA or
Jason Prior BA Dip LA MLI
EDAW’s European region is led from
London, with offices in Manchester
and Edinburgh providing urban design,
planning, landscape architecture
and economic development services.
Particular expertise in market-driven
development frameworks, urban
regeneration, masterplanning and
implementation.
EDAW PLC
Express Networks Phase 2, 3 George Leigh
Street, Manchester M4 5DL
Tel 0161 200 1860
Fax 0161 236 3191
EDAW PLC
5 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 7AL
Tel 0131 226 3939
Fax 0131 220 3934
ENGLISH PARTNERSHIPS
Urban Design Team, National Consultancy
Unit, Central Business Exchange,
414-428 Midsummer Boulevard,
Milton Keynes MK9 EA
Tel 0190 869 2692
Fax 0190 835 3605
Email
IrinaMerryweather@englishpartnerships.co.uk
Contact Irina Merryweather
ENTEC UK LTD
Gables House Kenilworth Road, Leamington
Spa, Warwicks CV32 6JX
Tel 01926 439 000
Fax 01926 439 010
Email marketing@entecuk.co.uk
Website www.entecuk.co.uk
Contacts Nick Brant
Master planning, urban design,
development planning and landscape
within broad based multidisciplinary
environmental and engineering
consultancy. Related expertise in
project management, consultation,
transportation, sustainability,
contaminated land remediation, ecology
and air and noise quality assessment.
FARMINGHAM MCCREADIE
PARTNERSHIP
4 Chester Street, Edinburgh EH3 7RA
Tel 0131 625 5050
Fax 0131 625 5051
Email mail@tfmp.co.uk
Contact Donald McCreadie
Fully integrated multidisciplinary
practice which specialises in delivering
a high quality service in masterplanning,
urban design, landscape design,
development planning, architecture,
sustainable design and energy efficient
buildings and transportation – from
inception through to implementation
and management.
FAULKNERBROWNS
Dobson House, Northumbrian Way, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE12 0QW
Tel 0191 268 3007
Fax 0191 268 5227
Email info@faulknerbrowns.co.uk
Contact Andrew Macdonald BA(Hons)
Dip Arch (Dist) RIBA
Architectural design services from
inception to completion: Stages
A–M RIBA plan of work. Expertise
in transport, urban design,
masterplanning, commercial and leisure
projects. Interior and furniture design.
CDM-planning supervisors.
FAULKS PERRY CULLEY AND RECH
Lockington Hall, Lockington, Derby DE74
2RH
Tel 01509 672772
Fax 01509 674565
Email tim.jackson@fpcr.co.uk
Website www.fpcr.co.uk
Contact Tim Jackson
Integrated design and environmental
practice of architects, landscape
architects, urban designers
and ecologists. Specialists in
masterplanning, urban and mixed use
regeneration, development frameworks,
EIAs and public inquiries. 45 years
experience of working extensively
throughout the UK and overseas.
FEILDEN CLEGG BRADLEY
ARCHITECTS LLP
Circus House, 21 Great Titchfield Street,
London W1W 8BA
Tel 020 7323 5737
Fax 020 7323 5720
Email pg@feildenclegg.com
Website www.feildencleg.com
Contacts Keith Bradley and Penny Garrett
An architectural and urban design
practice with particular expertise in
education, housing, cultural projects,
work places and urban regeneration.
FITZROY ROBINSON LTD
14 Devonshire Place, London W1G 7AE
Tel 020 7636 8033
Fax 020 7580 3996
Email london@fitzroyrobinson.com
Contact Alison Roennfeldt
Fitzroy Robinson is an internationally
established firm of architects who work
primarily, although not exclusively,
in the workplace, retail, hospitality,
residential and masterplanning sectors.
4D LANDSCAPE DESIGN
PO Box 554, Bristol BS99 2AX
Tel 0117 942 7943
Fax 0117 914 6038
Email 4DLD@4DLD.com
Contact Michelle Lavelle
Our design decisions are not based on
any systematised approach, rather a
considered response to the client, brief,
site and budget. We endeavour to create
spaces that make people feel special.
FRAMEWORK ARCHITECTURE AND
URBAN DESIGN
140 Burton Road, Lincoln LN1 3LW
Tel 01522 535383
Fax 01522 535363
Email fworkarch@yahoo.co.uk
Contact Gregg Wilson
Architecture and urban design. The
fundamental approach of the practice
is characterised by its commitment to
the broader built environment. Work is
born out of an interest in the particular
dynamic of a place and the design
opportunities presented.
GILLESPIES
Environment by Design
GLASGOW
21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP
Tel 0141 420 8200
Fax 0141 429 8796
Email admin.glasgow@gillespies.co.uk
Contact Brian M Evans
MANCHESTER
Tel 0161 928 7715
Fax 0161 927 7680
Email
admin.manchester@gillespies.co.uk
Contact Fraser Teal
OXFORD
Tel 01865 326789
Fax 01865 327070
Email admin.oxford@gillespies.co.uk
Contact Paul F Taylor
Urban design, landscape architecture,
architecture, planning, environmental
assessment, planning supervisors and
project management.
GL HEARN PLANNING
20 Soho Square, London W1D 3QW
Tel 020 7851 4900
Fax 020 7851 4910
Email david_beardmore@glhearn.com
Contact David Beardmore
Masterplans and development briefs for
new communities and brownfield sites;
urban design framework studies; fine
grain studies addressing public realm
design and improvement. Specialists in
retail and economic regeneration.
GMW ARCHITECTS
PO Box 1613, 239 Kensington High Street,
London W8 6SL
Tel 020 7937 8020
Fax 020 7937 5815
Email info@gmwp.co.uk
Website www.gmw-architects.com
Contact Terry Brown
Land development appraisals. Urban
planning and regeneration strategies.
Formulation of development and
design briefs including packaging to
suit appropriate funding strategies.
Masterplan design studies. Architecture
and design management skills relevant
to project partnering, framework
agreements and multi-disciplinary
teamwork.
GOLDCREST HOMES PLC
3 Hurlingham Business Park, Sullivan Road
London SW6 3DU
Tel 020 77317111
Fax 020 7381 7782
Email adams@goldcresthomes.co.uk
Contact Alan Roake
GREATER LONDON CONSULTANTS
127 Beulah Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey
CR7 8JJ
Tel 020 8768 1417
Fax 020 8771 9384
Email jpa@btinternet.com
Contact Dr John Parker Dip Arch ARIBA
DipTP FRTPI FRSA
Town planning, architecture, urban
design and conservation related to:
traffic schemes, pedestrians, townscape,
security, town centres, masterplans,
marina development and environmental
impact assessment.
HALCROW GROUP LTD
44 Brook Green, Hammersmith, London
W6 7BY
Tel 020 7603 1618
Fax 020 7603 5783
Email shaheed@halcrow.com
Website www.halcrow.com
Contact Asad A Shaheed BA Arch MArch
Award winning urban design
consultancy, integrating planning,
transport and environment. Full
development cycle covering feasibility,
concept, design and implementation.

HALPERN PARTNERSHIP LTD
The Royle Studios, 41 Wenlock Road, London
N1 7SG
Tel 020 7251 0781
Fax 020 7251 9204
Email info@halpern.uk.com
Website www.halpern.uk.com
Contact Greg Cooper DipTP DipUD MRTPI
Metropolitan urban design solutions
drawn from a multi-disciplinary studio
of urban designers, architects, planners,
and heritage architects. Full range of
projects undertaken for public and
private sector clients.
HANKINSON DUCKETT ASSOCIATES
Landscape Studio, Reading Road, Lower
Basildon, Reading RG8 9NE
Tel 01491 872185
Fax 01491 874109
Email consult@hda-enviro.co.uk
Contacts Ian Hankinson Dip Arch, Moira
Hankinson B Sc(Hons) DipLD FLI,
Brian Duckett B Sc(Hons) M Phil
MLI
An environmental planning
consultancy with landscape architects,
architects and ecologists, providing
a comprehensive approach which
adds value through innovative
solutions. Development planning, new
settlements, environmental assessment,
re-use of redundant buildings.
HEPHER DIXON
100 Temple Chambers, Temple Avenue,
London EC4Y 0HP
Tel 020 7353 0202
Fax 020 7353 1818
Email vicki.ingleby@hepherdixon.co.uk
Website www.hepherdixon.co.uk
Hepher Dixon offers a full range of town
planning and urban design services.
These include housing capacity studies,
masterplan work and development
briefs.
HOK INTERNATIONAL LTD
216 Oxford Street, London W1C 1DB
Tel 020 7636 2006
Fax 020 7636 1987
Email tim.gale@hok.com
Contact Tim Gale
HOK delivers design of the highest
quality. It is one of Europe’s leading
architectural practices, offering talented
and experienced people in a diverse
range of building types, skills and
markets. Tim Gale heads the landscape
planning and urban design group.
HOLMES PARTNERSHIP
89 Minerva Street, Glasgow G3 8LE
Tel 0141 204 2080
Fax 0141 204 2082
Email glasgow@holmespartnership.com
Contact Harry Phillips
Urban design, planning, renewal,
development and feasibility studies.
Sustainability and energy efficiency.
Commercial, industrial, residential,
health care, education, leisure,
conservation and restoration.
HYLAND EDGAR DRIVER
One Wessex Way, Colden Common,
Winchester, Hants SO21 1WG
Tel 01962 711 600
Fax 01962 713 945
Email hed@heduk.com
Website www.heduk.com
Contact John Hyland
Hyland Edgar Driver offers innovative
problem solving, driven by cost
efficiency and sustainability, combined
with imagination and coherent aesthetic
of the highest quality.
INDIGO PLANNING LTD
Queens House, Holly Road, Twickenham
TW1 4EG
Tel 0208 607 9511
Fax 0208 607 6512
Email info@indigoplanning.com
Website www.indigoplanning.com
INTELLIGENT SPACE
81 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3AY
Tel 020 7739 9729
Fax 020 7739 9547
Email eduxbury@intelligentspace.com
Website www.intelligentspace.com
Contact Elspeth Duxbury
Planning analysis and support,
pedestrian modelling, GIS and
specialists in retail and urban
masterplanning.
JOHN ROSE ASSOCIATES
The Old Pump House, Middlewood Road,
Poynton, Cheshire SK12 1SH
Tel 01625 873356
Fax 01625 859459
Email admin@johnroseassociates.co.uk
Contact Colin Parry
We have an enviable record of success
including: development appraisals
and strategies. Development plan
representation and review. Planning
appeals, enforcement and negotiation.
Urban design, masterplanning and
conservation. Urban capacity studies.
JOHN THOMPSON AND PARTNERS
Wren House, 43 Hatton Gardens, London
EC1N 6EL
Tel 020 7405 1211
Fax 020 7405 1221
Email jtplon@jtp.co.uk
Contact John Thompson MA DipArch RIBA
Multidisciplinary practice, working
throughout the UK and Europe,
specialising in architecture, urban
design and masterplanning, urban
regeneration, new settlements and
community consultation; addressing
the problems of physical, social and
economic regeneration through
collaborative interdisciplinary
community based planning.
JON ROWLAND URBAN DESIGN
65 Hurst Rise Road, Oxford OX2 9HE
Tel 01865 863642
Fax 01865 863502
Email jonrowland@jrud.demon.co.uk
Website www.jrud.co.uk
Contact Jon Rowland AADipl MA RIBA
Urban design, urban regeneration,
development frameworks, site
appraisals, town centre studies, design
guidance, public participation and
masterplanning.
KOETTER, KIM & ASSOCIATES (UK)
LTD
71 Kingsway, London WC2B 6ST
Tel 020 7404 3377
Fax 020 7404 3388
Email office@kka.co.uk
Website www.koetterkim.com
KKA is pre-eminent in the planning
movement of new urbanism, which seeks
to enhance the sense of place, historical
context and cultural continuity in the
city.
KPF
13 Langley Street, London WC2H 9JG
Tel 020 7836 6668
Fax 020 7497 1175
Email info@kpf.co.uk
Website www.kpf.co.uk
Contact Marjorie Rodney
Architecture, urban planning, space
planning, programming, building
analysis, interior design, graphic design.
LANDSCAPE DESIGN ASSOCIATES
17 Minster Precincts, Peterborough PE1 1XX
Tel 01733 310471
Fax 01733 53661
Email info@lda-peterborough.co.uk
Contact Robert Tregay
OXFORD
Tel 01865 887050
Fax 01865 887055
Email info@lda-oxford.co.uk
Contact Roger Greenwood
EXETER
Tel 01392 411 300
Fax 01392 411 308
Email mail@lda-exeter.co.uk
Urban design, urban regeneration,
development masterplanning, public
realm strategies and town centre
appraisals. development briefing,
design guidance, design enabling and
community initiatives.
LAND USE CONSULTANTS
43 Chalton Street, London NW1 1JD
Tel 020 7383 5784
Fax 020 7383 4798
Email luc@london.landuse.co.uk
Website www.landuse.co.uk
Contact Mark Lintell
Urban regeneration, landscape
design, masterplanning, sustainable
development, land use planning, EIA,
SEA in UK and overseas. Offices in
London, Glasgow and Bristol.
LATHAM ARCHITECTS
St Michael’s, Queen Street, Derby DE1 3SU
Tel 01332 365777
Fax 01332 290314
Email enquiries@lathamarchitects.co.uk
Contact Derek Latham Dip Arch RIBA Dip TP
MRTPI Dip LD MLI IHBC IHI FRSA
The creative reuse of land and
buildings. Planning, landscape and
architectural expertise. Town and city
centres, national parks, conservation
areas, listed buildings, combining the
new with the old. Masterplanning,
development proposals, EIAs.
LDA URBAN DESIGN
15 Little Portland Street, London W1W 8BW
Tel 020 7323 9523
Fax 020 7637 9671
Email info@lda-urbandesign.co.uk
Contact John Phillips, Nick Shute
EXETER
Tel 01392 411300
Fax 01392 411308
Email info@lda-exeter.co.uk
Contact Bernie Foulkes
Other offices in Oxford and Peterborough
Specialist urban design team of
Landscape Design Associates. Urban
regeneration, masterplanning,
development briefs, public realm
strategies, design guidance and
community participation as well as
landscape design and ecology.
LEVITT BERNSTEIN ASSOCIATES LTD
1 Kingsland Passage, London E8 2BB
Tel 020 7275 7676
Fax 020 7275 9348
Email post@levittbernstein.co.uk
Website www.levittbernstein.co.uk
Contact Patrick Hammill
Levitt Bernstein are acknowledged
leaders in the fields of urban renewal,
housing and buildings for the arts and
winners of many awards. Services offered
include urban design, masterplanning,
full architectural service, lottery grant
bid advice, interior design, urban
renewal consultancy and landscape
design.
LHC URBAN DESIGN
Design Studio, Emperor Way, Exeter Business
Park, Exeter, Devon EX1 3QS
Tel 01392 444334
Fax 01392 445080
Email jbaulch@ex.lhc.net
Contact John Baulch
Urban design analysis and frameworks.
Masterplanning of greenfield and
brownfield regeneration sites. Home
zones: new build and retrofit. Visual
impact studies.
LIVING CITIES CONSULTANCY LTD
Cavendish House, St Andrew’s Court,
Burley, Leeds LS3 1JY
Tel 0113 243 5808
Fax 0776 458 8932
Email contact@livingcities.co.uk
Contact Farouk Stemmet
Urbanism: understanding all professions
involved in making cities but taking a
broader view than each: enabling an
open and integrated approach that
gives sustainable city-wide results.
Identifying synergies that realise project
benefits beyond the brief.
LIVINGSTON EYRE ASSOCIATES
35–42 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3PD
Tel 020 7739 1445
Fax 020 7729 2986
Email lea@livingstoneyre.co.uk
Contact Laura Stone
Landscape architecture, urban design,
public housing, health, education,
heritage, sports.
LIZ LAKE ASSOCIATES
William Robinson Buildings, Woodfield
Terrace, Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex
CM24 8AJ
Tel 01279 647044
Fax 01279 813566
Email office@lizlake.com
Website www.lizlake.com
Contact Matt Lee
Urban fringe/brownfield sites where
we can provide an holistic approach to
urban design, landscape, and ecological
issues to provide robust design
solutions.
LLEWELYN-DAVIES
Brook House, 2 Torrington Place, London
WC1E 7HN
Tel 020 7637 0181
Fax 020 7637 8740
Email info@llewelyn-davies-ltd.com
Contact Simon Gray
Architecture, planning, urban design,
development and masterplanning;
urban regeneration, town centre and
conservation studies; urban design
briefs, landscape and public realm
strategies.
LOVEJOY
Level Seven, 52 Grosvenor Gardens,
Belgravia, London SW1W 0AU
Also in Birmingham
Tel 020 7901 9911
Tel 0121 329 7976
Fax 020 7901 9901
Email enquiries@lovejoylondon.uk.com
Contact David Blackwood Murray,
Martin Kelly
Land planners specialising in environmental
planning, urban design and landscape
architecture in the UK and overseas.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 45
INDEX

INDEX
LSI ARCHITECTS LLP
The Old Drill Hall, 23 A Cattle Market Street,
Norwich NR1 3DY
Tel 01603 660711
Fax 01603 623213
Email
david.Thompson@lsiarchitects.co.uk
Contact David Thompson
Large scale masterplanning and
visualisation demonstrated in specific
sectors such as health, education and
business, and in detailed proposals
for new sustainable settlements on
brownfield sites, such as the 4th
millennium village in King’s Lynn.
LYONS + SLEEMAN + HOARE
Nero Brewery, Cricket Green, Hartley
Wintney, Hook, Hampshire RG27 8QA
Tel 01252 844144
Fax 01252 844800
Email colindarby@lsharch.co.uk
Contact Colin Darby BSc DipTP Dip Urban
Design MRTPI
Architecture, planning, masterplanning,
urban design – commercial practice
covering a broad spectrum of work
– particularly design of buildings and
spaces in urban and historic contexts.
MACCORMAC JAMIESON PRICHARD
9 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ
Tel 020 7377 9262
Fax 020 7247 7854
Email mjp@mjparchitects.co.uk
Website www.mjparchitects.co.uk
Contact David Prichard DipArch RIBA
Range from major masterplans to small,
bespoke buildings. We have designed
acclaimed contemporary buildings for
historic centres of London, Cambridge,
Oxford, Bristol and Durham. In Dublin,
our Ballymun Regeneration masterplan
won the Irish Planning Institute’s
Planning Achievement Award.
MACGREGOR SMITH LTD
Christopher Hse, 11–12 High St, Bath BA1 5AQ
Tel 01225 464690
Fax 01225 429962
Email michael@macgregorsmith.co.uk
Website www.macgregorsmith.co.uk
Contact Michael Smith
A broad based landscape/urban design
practice with considerable experience
of masterplanning, detail design for
construction, EIA work and urban
regeneration studies, with particular
emphasis on high quality prestige
landscape schemes.
MASON RICHARDS PLANNING
155 Aztec, West Almondsbury, Bristol
BS32 4NG
Tel 01454 853000
Fax 01454 858029
Email planning@bristol.mrp.co.uk
Website www.masonrichardsplanning.co.uk
Contact Roger Ayton
Sustainable strategies for residential
and commercial development:
brownfield regeneration, site promotion,
development frameworks: detail design
and implementation: development
guides, design statements and planning
enquiries for public and private sector.
MATRIX PARTNERSHIP
70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ
Tel 020 7250 3945
Fax 020 7336 0467
Email m.lally@matrixpartnership.co.uk
Contact Matt Lally
Matrix Partnership provides a fully
integrated approach to urban design
– combining planning, architecture
and landscape. Work is focused on
masterplans, regeneration strategies,
development briefs, site appraisals,
urban capacity studies, design
guides, building codes and concept
visualisations.
46 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
MAX FORDHAM LLP
42-43 Gloucester Crescent, London NW1 7PE
Tel 020 7267 5161
Fax 020 7482 0329
Email post@maxfordham.com
Contact Adam Ritchie
MELVILLE DUNBAR ASSOCIATES
The Mill House, Kings Acre, Coggeshall, Essex
CO6 1NN
Tel 01376 562828
Email cad@mda-arch.demon.co.uk
Contact Melville Dunbar
Architecture, urban design, planning,
masterplanning, new towns, new
neighbourhoods, neighbourhood
centres, urban regeneration,
conservation studies, design guides,
townscape studies, design briefs.
MICHAEL AUKETT ARCHITECTS
Atlantic Court, 77 Kings Road, London
SW3 4NX
Tel 020 7376 7525
Fax 020 7376 5773
Email mail@michaelaukett.com
Website www.michaelaukett.com
Contact David Roden RIBA
Architectural, urban design and
masterplanning services. Regeneration
and development frameworks for mixed
use, commercial, retail, residential,
leisure, cultural, transport and business
park developments.
MONO CONSULTANTS
32–34 Gt Titchfield St, London W1W 8BG
Tel 020 7462 6940
Fax 020 7462 6941
Contact Simon Chapman
Email
simon.chapman@monoconsultants.com
Planning consultancy; economic
development and regeneration
strategies. Provision of funding advice
and application to a range of sources;
environmental consultancy and advice
including EIA.
MOORE PIET + BROOKES
33 Warple Mews, Warple Way, London
W3 0RX
Tel 020 8735 2990
Fax 020 8735 2991
Email mpb@moorepietandbrookes.co.uk
Contact Colin Moore
Regenerating the public realm
environment to enhance the quality of
people’s lives: strategies, masterplans,
community participation, design guides,
imaging and legibility. Implementation
of town centre, streetscape, park,
waterway, environmental and business
area improvements.
MURRAY O’LAOIRE ARCHITECTS
Fumbally Court, Fumbally Lane, Dublin 8
Tel 00 353 1 453 7300
Fax 00 353 1 453 4062
Email mail@dublin.murrayolaoire.com
Website www.murrayolaoire.com
Contact Sean O’Laoire
TRANSFORM is Murray O’Laoire
Architects’ urban design and planning
unit. This multi-disciplinary unit
synthesises planning, urban design,
architecture and graphic design
to produce innovative solutions in
comprehensive masterplanning, urban
regeneration, strategic planning and
sustainable development.
MWA PARTNERSHIP LTD
Parkway Studios, Belmont Business Park,
232-240 Belmont Road, Belfast BT4 2AW
Tel 028 9076 8827
Fax 028 9076 8400
Email post@mwapartnership.co.uk
Contact John Eggleston
The planning and design of
the external environment from
feasibility stage through to detail
design, implementation and future
management.
NATHANIEL LICHFIELD &
PARTNERS LTD
14 Regent’s Wharf, All Saints Street, London
N1 9RL
Tel 020 7837 4477
Fax 020 7837 2277
Email nthompson@lichfields.co.uk
Website www.nlpplanning.com
(also Newcastle upon Tyne and Cardiff)
Contact Nick Thompson BA BPI MA
(UrbDes) MRTPI
Independent planning consultancy:
analytical and creative. Urban design,
masterplanning, heritage/conservation,
visual appraisal, regeneration, daylight/
sunlight assessments, public realm
strategies
NJBA ARCHITECTS & URBAN
DESIGNERS
4 Molesworth Place, Dublin 2
Tel 00 353 1 678 8068
Fax 00 353 1 678 8066
Email njbarchitects@eircom.net
Website homepage.eircom.net/~njbrady1
Contact Noel J Brady Dip Arch SMArchS
MRIAI
Integrated landscapes, urban design,
town centres and squares, strategic
design and planning.
NOVO ARCHITECTS
2 Meard Street, London WIV 3HR
Tel 020 7734 5558
Fax 020 7734 8889
Contact Tim Poulson
Urban design and masterplanning,
creative and innovative design solutions
for brownfield and other complex
sites to realise single or mixed use
development opportunities.
OCA
5 Manchester Square, London W1A 1AV
Tel 0870 240 6775
Fax 020 7486 9917
Email london@OCArchitecture.com
Contact Peter Ching or Peter Verity
A significant design practice covering:
planning, development planning,
urban design, new community design,
regeneration, tourism, architecture,
landscaping.
MOUCHEL PARKMAN SERVICES LTD
Mouchel Parkman Services Ltd
209 - 215 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NL
Tel 020 7803 2600
Fax 020 7803 2601
Emai david.orr@mouchelparkman.com
Contact David Orr DipLA MLI MIHT
Integrated urban design, transport
and engineering consultancy providing
services in changing the urban
landscape in a positive manner, creating
places for sustainable living.
PAUL DAVIS AND PARTNERS
178 Ebury Street, London SW1W 8UP
Tel 020 7730 1178
Fax 020 7730 2664
Email info@pauldavisandpartners.com
Contact Charlotte Stephens
PEGASUS
6-20 Spitalgate Lane, Cirencester, Gloucester
GL7 2DE
Tel 0128 564 1717
Fax 0128 588 5115
Email mike.carr@ppg-llp.co.uk
Contact Mike Carr
Masterplanning, design codes,
sustainable design, development
briefs, development frameworks, expert
witness, community involvement,
sustainability appraisal. Offices also at
Birmingham, Bristol and Cambridge.
PHILIP CAVE ASSOCIATES
5 Dryden Street, London WC2E 9NW
Tel 020 7829 8340
Fax 020 7240 5800
Email principal@philipcave.com
Website www.philipcave.com
Contact Philip Cave BSc Hons MA (LD) MLI
Design-led practice with innovative yet
practical solutions to environmental
opportunities in urban regeneration, town
centre projects, urban parks, community
art, public participation. Large-scale
site/masterplanning through to small
scale detailed design, from studies to
constructed projects. Specialist expertise
in landscape architecture.
PLANIT EDC LTD
David House, Cecil Road, Hale WA15 9PA
Tel 0161 928 9281
Fax 0161 928 9284
Email mail@planitEDC.com
Contact Peter Swift
PMP
Wellington House, 8 Upper St Martins Lane,
London WC2H 9DL
Tel 020 7836 9932
Fax 020 7497 5689
Email mail@pmp-arch.co.uk
Contact Tessa O’Neill
Medium sized practice specialising in
retail and urban architecture, interior
design and project management.
POLLARD THOMAS & EDWARDS
ARCHITECTS
Diespeker Wharf 38, Graham Street, London
N1 8JX
Tel 020 7336 7777
Fax 020 7336 0770
Email robin.saha–choudhury@ptea.co.uk
Website www.ptea.co.uk
Contact Robin Saha–Choudhury
Masterplanners, urban designers, developers,
architects, listed building and conservation
area designers; specialising in inner city
mixed-use high density regeneration.
PRINGLE BRANDON
10 Bonhill Street, London EC2A 4QJ
Tel 020 7466 1000
Fax 020 7466 1050
Email post@pringle-brandon.co.uk
Contact Alison Anslow
Offices, hotels, workplace design.
PROJECT CENTRE LTD
Saffron Court, 14b St Cross Street, London
EC1N 8XA
Tel 020 7421 8222
Fax 020 7421 8199
Email info@projectcentre.co.uk
Website www.projectcentre.co.uk
Contact Peter Piet
Multi-disciplinary consultancy providing
quality services including landscape
architecture, urban design, urban
regeneration, street lighting design,
planning supervision, traffic and
transportation, parking, highway design,
traffic signal design and road safety audits.

PRP ARCHITECTS
1 Lindsey Street, Smithfield, London
EC1A 9BP
Tel 020 7653 1200
Fax 020 7653 1201
Email lon.prp@prparchitects.co.uk
Contact Barry Munday Dip Arch PNL RIBA
FFB
Multi-disciplinary practice of architects,
planners, urban designers and landscape
architects, specialising in housing,
urban regeneration, health, special
needs, education and leisure projects.
QUARTET DESIGN
The Exchange, Lillingstone Dayrell, Bucks
MK18 5AP
Tel 01280 860500
Fax 01280 860468
Email quartet@qdl.co.uk
Contact David Newman
Landscape architects, architects and
urban designers with wide experience
of masterplanning, hard landscape
projects in urban areas and achieving
environmental sustainability objectives.
QuBE
Building 7, Michael Young Centre, Purbeck
Road, Cambridge CB2 2QL
Tel 01223 271 850
Fax 01223 271 851
Email enquiries@qube.org.uk
Contacts Andy Thompson and Jon Burgess
Integrated urban design, planning
and conservation practice specialising
in developing site specific design
solutions related to urban design and
masterplanning; site development
briefs; public realm design; historic
building and environments as well
as conservation appraisals and
management plans for buildings, spaces
and places; community consultation.
RANDALL THORP
Canada House, 3 Chepstow Street,
Manchester M1 5FW
Tel 0161 228 7721
Fax 0161 236 9839
Email rt@rt-landscape.co.uk
Contact Pauline Randall
Masterplanning for new developments
and settlements, infrastructure design
for new developments and urban
renewal, design guides and design
briefing, public participation and public
inquiries.
RANDOM GREENWAY ARCHITECTS
Soper Hall, Harestone Valley Road
Caterham Surrey CR3 6HY
Tel 01883 346 441
Fax 01883 346 936
Email
rg@randomgreenwayarchitects.co.uk
Contact R Greenway
Architecture, planning and urban
design. New build, regeneration,
refurbishment and restoration.
RICHARD REID & ASSOCIATES
Whitely Farm, Ide Hill, Sevenoaks, Kent
TN14 6BS
Tel 01732 741417
Fax 01732 740569
Email richardreid.co.uk
Contact Richard Reid
RICHARD COLEMAN CONSULTANCY
Bridge House, 181 Queen Victoria Street,
London EC4V 4DD
Tel 020 7329 6622
Fax 020 7329 6633
Email r.coleman@citydesigner.com
Contact Lewis Eldridge
Advice on written assessment of
architectural quality, urban design,
and conversation, historic buildings
and townscape. Negotiation with and
production of supporting documents for
the local and national bodies involved
in these fields, including environmental
statements, listed buildings/area
consent applications.
RMJM
83 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NQ
Tel 020 7549 8900
Fax 020 7250 3131
Email london@rmjm.com
Website www.rmjm.com
Contact Lis Kennish, Business
Development Manager
Email l.kennish@rmjm.com
International architects and urban
designers with a strong track record
in the masterplanning, design and
implementation of major developments
and individual buildings.
ROGER EVANS ASSOCIATES
59–63 High Street, Kidlington, Oxford
OX5 2DN
Tel 01865 377 030
Fax 01865 377 050
Email design@rogerevans.com
Website www.rogerevans.com
Contact Roger Evans MA (UD) RIBA MRTPI
A specialist urban design practice
providing services throughout the
UK and abroad. Expertise in urban
regeneration, quarter frameworks and
design briefs, town centre strategies,
movement in towns, masterplanning and
development economics.
RPS
at London, Birmingham, Bristol, Swindon,
Oxford, Durham
Tel 0800 587 9939
Email rpspte@rpsplc.co.uk
Website www.rpsplc.co.uk
Part of the RPS Group providing a wide
range of urban design services including
masterplanning and development
frameworks, design guides and
statements, regeneration strategies,
detailed architectural design and
implementation, and environmental
planning throughout the UK.
RTKL-UK LTD
22 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HP
Tel 020 7306 0404
Fax 020 7306 0405
Email gyager@rtkl.com
Website www.rtkl.com
Contact Gregory A Yager
Multidisciplinary practice of urban
designers, planners, architects and
environmental designers with expertise
in urban regeneration, mixed use
development, urban residential design,
master and corporate masterplanning.
SCOTT BROWNRIGG LTD
St Catherine’s Court, 46–48 Portsmouth
Road, Guildford GU2 4DU
Tel 01483 568686
Fax 01483 575830
Email l.juarez@scottbrownrigg.com
Website www.scottbrownrigg.com
Contact Luis Juarez
Providing an integrated service of
architecture, urban design, planning,
masterplanning, interior architecture
and technical services, involved in
several major mixed-use schemes
regenerating inner city and brownfield
sites.
SHEILS FLYNN LTD
Bank House High Street, Docking, Kings Lynn
PE31 8NH
Tel 01485 518304
Fax 01485 518303
Email uk@sheilsflynn.com
Contact Eoghan Sheils
Creative urban design taken from
conception to implementation. Award
winning town centre regeneration
schemes, urban strategies and design
guidance. Specialists in community
consultation and team facilitation.
SHEPHEARD EPSTEIN AND HUNTER
Phoenix Yard, 65 King’s Road, London
WC1X 9LW
Tel 020 7841 7500
Fax 020 7841 7575
Email stevenpidwell@seh.co.uk
Contact Steven Pidwill
The provision of services related to
architecture, planning, landscape
architecture, project management and
the CDM regulations.
SHEPPARD ROBSON
77 Parkway, Camden Town, London NW1 7PU
Tel 020 7504 1700
Fax 020 7504 1701
Email sally.upton@sheppardrobson.com
Website www.sheppardrobson.com
Contact Nick Spall
Manchester office
113-115 Portland Street, Manchester M1
6DW
Contact Phil Doyle
Planners, urban designers and
architects. Strategic planning, urban
regeneration, development planning,
town centre renewal, public realm
planning, new settlement planning,
tourism development. Associated offices
across USA.
SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL INC
30 Millbank, London SW1P 3SD
Tel 020 7798 1000
Fax 020 7798 1100
Email somlondon@som.com
Contact Roger Kallman
Also Chicago, New York, Washington,
San Francisco, LA, Hong Kong
International multi-disciplinary
practice. Masterplanning, landscape
architecture, civil engineering and urban
design. Urban regeneration schemes,
business park masterplans, university
campus, transportation planning.
Associated services: environmental
impact assessments, design guidelines,
infrastructure strategies.
SMEEDEN FOREMAN PARTNERSHIP
8 East Parade, Harrogate HG1 JLT
Tel 01423 520 222
Fax 01423 565 515
Email trevor@smeeden.foreman.co.uk
Contact T A Foreman
Ecology, landscape architecture
and urban design. Environmental
assessment, detailed design, contract
packages and site supervision.
SMITH SCOTT MULLAN ASSOCIATES
378 Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH7 4PF
Tel 0131 555 1414
Fax 0131 555 1448
Email
e.mullan@smith-scott-mullan.co.uk
Contact Eugene Mullan BSc Hons Dip Arch
ARIAS RIBA MSc UD
Architects and urban designers
dedicated to producing high quality
design solutions for our clients.
Particular experience of working with
communities in the analysis, design
and improvement of their urban
environment.
SOLTYS: BREWSTER CONSULTING
87 Glebe Street, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan
CF64 1EF
Tel 029 2040 8476
Fax 029 2040 8482
Email enquiry@soltysbrewster.co.uk
Website www.soltysbrewster.co.uk
Contact Simon Brewster
Assessment, design, planning in UK and
Ireland. Expertise includes urban design,
masterplans, design strategies, visual
impact, environmental assessment,
regeneration of urban space, landscape
design and project management. Award
winning design and innovation.
SPACE SYNTAX
11 Riverside Studios, 28 Park Street, London
SE1 9EQ
Tel 020 7940 0000
Fax 020 7940 0005
Email t.stonor@spacesyntax.com
Contact Tim Stonor MSc DipArch RIBA
Spatial masterplanning and researchbased
design; movement, connectivity,
integration, regeneration, safety and
interaction. Strategic design and option
appraisal to detailed design and in-use
audits.
STUART TURNER ASSOCIATES
12 Ledbury, Great Linford, Milton Keynes
MK14 5DS
Tel 01908 678672
Fax 01908 678715
Email st@studiost.demon.co.uk
Website www.studiost.demon.co.uk
Contact Stuart Turner Dip Arch (Oxford)
Dip UD (PCL) RIBA
Architecture, urban design and
environmental planning, the design of
new settlements, urban regeneration
and site development studies for
commercial and housing uses.
TAYLOR YOUNG URBAN DESIGN
Chadsworth House, Wilmslow Road,
Handforth, Cheshire SK9 3HP
Tel 01625 542200
Fax 01625 542250
Email stephengleave@tayloryoung.co.uk
Contact Stephen Gleave MA DipTP (Dist)
DipUD MRTPI
Liverpool Office
Tel 0151 702 6500
Urban design, planning and
development. Public and private sectors.
Town studies, housing, commercial,
distribution, health and transportation
are current projects. Specialist in urban
design training.
TEP
Genesis Centre, Birchwood Science Park,
Warrington, Cheshire WA3 7BH
Tel 01925 844 004
Fax 01925 844 002
Email tep@tep.uk.com
Website www.tep.uk.com
Contact David Scott
Multi-disciplinary consultancy
in environmental planning and
regeneration masterplanning, landscape
and urban design, ecology, urban
forestry, arboriculture, land stewardship,
community consultation and graphics.
TERENCE O’ROURKE
Everdene House, Deansleigh Road,
Bournemouth BH7 7DU
Tel 01202 421142
Fax 01202 430055
Email maildesk@torltd.co.uk
Website www.torltd.co.uk
Contact Terence O’Rourke MBE DipArch
DipTP RIBA MRTPI FRSA
Town planning, masterplanning,
urban design, architecture, landscape
architecture, environmental consultancy,
graphic design. Urban regeneration,
town centre studies, new settlements
and complex urban design problems.
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 47
INDEX

INDEX
TERRA FIRMA CONSULTANCY
28 The Spain, Petersfield, Hants GU32 3LA
Tel 01730 262040
Fax 01730 262050
Email contact@terrafirmaconsultancy.com
Contact Lionel Fanshawe
Independent landscape architectural
practice with considerable urban design
experience at all scales from EIA to project
delivery throughout UK and overseas. 2004
LGN Street Design Award winners for best
home zones and runners up in waterside
category for recently completed projects in
Portsmouth and Paddington.
TERRY FARRELL AND PARTNERS
7 Hatton Street, London NW8 8PL
Tel 020 7258 3433
Fax 020 7723 7059
Email tfarrell@terryfarrell.co.uk
Website www.terryfarrell.com
Contact Maggie Jones
Architectural, urban design, planning and
masterplanning services. New buildings,
refurbishment, conference/exhibition
centres, art galleries, museums, studios,
theatres and visitor attractions, offices,
retail, housing, industry, railway
infrastructure and development.
TETLOW KING GROUP
Lone Barn Studios, Stanbridge Lane, Romsey,
Hants SO51 0HE
Tel 01794 517333
Fax 01794 515517
Email melvyn@tetlowking.co.uk
Contact Melvyn King MA (Urban Design)
MSAI MCIOB FRSA
Multi disciplinary practice incorporating
urban design, architecture, town
planning and landscape. Specialising
in urban design strategies in
masterplanning and development
frameworks for both new development
areas and urban regeneration.
TIBBALDS PLANNING & URBAN
DESIGN
Long Lane Studios, 142-152 Long Lane,
London SE1 4BS
Tel 020 7407 5544
Fax 020 7407 8822
Email mail@tibbalds.co.uk
Website www.tibbalds.co.uk
Contact Andrew Karski BA (Hons) MSc
(Econ) FRTPI
A multi disciplinary urban design and
planning practice, with a team of
architects, planners, urban designers,
landscape designers and tourism
specialists. Expertise in masterplanning
and urban design, sustainable
regeneration, development frameworks
and design guidance, design advice,
town planning and consultation.
TP BENNETT URBAN PLANNING
One America Street, London SE1 0NE
Tel 020 7208 2029
Fax 020 7208 2023
Email mike.ibbott@tpbennett.co.uk
Contact Mike Ibbott
Development planning, urban design,
conservation and masterplanning –
making places and adding value through
creative, intelligent, progressive,
dynamic and joyful exploration.
TREVOR BRIDGE ASSOCIATES
7–9 St Michael’s Square, Ashton-under-Lyne,
Lancs OL6 6LF
Tel 0161 308 3765
Fax 0161 343 3513
Email info@tbridgea.co.uk
Contact Trevor Bridge Dip LA DA FFB MI
Hort MLI
Landscape architecture, urban design,
environmental planning, ecology,
expert witness. Landscape for housing,
industry, urban renewal, environmental
improvement, visual impact assessment,
masterplanning and implementation.
48 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
TURNBULL JEFFREY PARTNERSHIP
Sandeman House, 55 High Street, Edinburgh
EH1 1SR
Tel 0131 557 5050
Fax 0131 557 5064
Email tjp@tjp.co.uk
Contacts Geoff Whitten BA(Hons) MLI,
Karen Esslemont BA(Hons)
MLI Dip UD
Award winning design-led landscape
architect practice. Expertise:
Landscape architecture, urban design,
masterplanning, landscape design and
implementation, environmental/visual
impact assessment, urban regeneration,
environmental strategies.
TWEED NUTTALL WARBURTON
Chapel House, City Road, Chester CH1 3AE
Tel 01244 310388
Fax 01244 325643
Email entasis@tnw-architecture.co.uk
Contact John Tweed B Arch RIBA FRSA
Architecture and urban design,
masterplanning. Urban waterside
environments. Community teamwork
enablers. Design guidance and support
for rural village appraisals. Visual impact
assessments and design solutions within
delicate conservation environments.
URBAN DESIGN FUTURES
97c West Bow, Edinburgh EH1 2JP
Tel 0131 226 4505
Fax 0131 226 4515
Email info@urbandesignfutures.co.uk
Website www.urbandesignfutures.co.uk
Contact Selby Richardson DipArch DipTP
MSc ARIAS MRTPI
Innovative urban design, planning
and landscape practice specialising in
masterplanning, new settlements, urban
regeneration, town and village studies,
public space design, environmental
improvements, design guidelines,
community involvement, landscape
design and management.
URBAN INITIATIVES
1 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 5HE
Tel 020 7380 4545
Fax 020 7380 4546
Email m.adran@urbaninitiatives.co.uk
Website www.urbaninitiatives.co.uk
Contact Kelvin Campbell BArch RIBA MRTPI
MCIT FRSA
Urban design, transportation,
regeneration, development planning.
URBAN INNOVATIONS
1st Floor, Wellington Buildings, 2 Wellington
Street, Belfast BT16HT
Tel 028 9043 5060
Fax 028 9032 1980
Email ui@urbaninnovations.co.uk
Contacts Tony Stevens and Agnes Brown
The partnership provides not only
feasibility studies and assists in site
assembly for complex projects but also
provides full architectural services for
major projects. The breadth of service
provided includes keen commercial
awareness, which is essential to
achieving creative solutions and for
balancing design quality with market
requirements.
URBAN PRACTITIONERS
70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ
Tel 020 7253 2223
Fax 020 7253 2227
Email antony.rifkin@towncentres.ltd.uk
Contact Antony Rifkin
Specialist competition winning urban
regeneration practice combining
economic and urban design skills.
Projects include West Ealing
Neighbourhood Regeneration Strategy,
Plymouth East End Renewal Masterplan,
Walthamstow Urban Design Strategy.
URBAN SPLASH
Timber Wharf, 16-22 Worsley Street,
Castlefield, Manchester M15 4LD
Tel 0161 839 2999
Fax 0161 839 8999
Email design@urbansplash.co.uk
Contact Jonathan Falkingham / Bill
Maynard
Property development and investment.
Project management, implementation
and construction. Architecture,
interior design and graphic design.
Multi-disciplinary urban regeneration
specialists concentrating on brownfield
regeneration projects.
URBED (The Urban and Economic
Development Group)
10 Little Lever Street, Manchester M1 1HR
Tel 0161 200 5500
Email urbed@urbed.co.uk
Website www.urbed.com
Contact David Rudlin BA MSc
Also 19 Store Street, London WC1E 7DH
Tel 020 7436 8050
Urban design and guidance,
masterplanning, sustainability,
consultation and capacity building,
housing, town centres and urban
regeneration.
VINCENT AND GORBING LTD
Sterling Court, Norton Road, Stevenage,
Hertfordshire SG1 2JY
Tel 01438 316331
Fax 01438 722035
Email
urban.designers@vincent-gorbing.co.uk
Website www.vincent-gorbing.co.uk
Contact Richard Lewis BA MRTPI MA Urban
Design
Multi-disciplinary practice offering
architecture, town planning and urban
design services for private and public
sector clients. Masterplanning, design
statements, character assessments,
development briefs, residential layouts
and urban capacity exercises.
WEST & PARTNERS
Isambard House, 60 Weston Street, London
SE1 3QJ
Tel 020 7403 1726
Fax 020 7403 6279
Email wp@westandpartners.com
Contact Michael West
Masterplanning for achievable
development within (and sometimes
beyond) the creative interpretation of
socio-economic, physical and political
urban parameters: retail, leisure,
commercial, residential, listed buildings,
expert witness evidence, statutory
development plan advice.
WHITE CONSULTANTS
18–19 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3DQ
Tel 029 2064 0971
Fax 029 2064 0973
Email
sw@whiteconsultants.prestel.co.uk
Contact Simon White MAUD Dip UD (Dist)
(Oxford Brookes) Dip LA MLI
A qualified urban design practice
offering a holistic approach to urban
regeneration, design guidance, public
realm and open space strategies and
town centre studies for the public,
private and community sectors.
WHITELAW TURKINGTON
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
354 Kennington Road, London SE11 4LD
Tel 020 7820 0388
Fax 020 7587 3839
Email post@wtlondon.com
Contact Ms L Oliver-Whitelaw
Award winning, design-led practice
specialising in urban regeneration,
streetscape design, public space,
high quality residential and corporate
landscapes. Facilitators in public
participation and community action
planning events.
WILLIE MILLER URBAN DESIGN &
PLANNING
20 Victoria Crescent Road, Glasgow G12 9DD
Tel 0141 339 5228
Fax 0141 357 4642
Email mail@williemiller.com
Contact Willie Miller Dip TP Dip UD MRTPI
Conceptual, strategic and development
work in urban design, masterplanning,
urban regeneration, environmental
strategies, design and development
briefs, townscape audits and public
realm studies.
WYNTHOMASGORDONLEWIS LTD
21 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3DQ
Tel 029 2039 8681
Fax 029 2039 5965
Email glewis@wtgl.co.uk
Contact Gordon Lewis
Urban design, town planning, economic
development, architecture and landscape
architecture for public and private sector
clients. Regeneration and development
strategies, public realm studies,
economic development planning,
masterplanning for urban, rural and
brownfield land redevelopment.
YELLOW BOOK LTD
Studio 1010, Mile End, Abbey Mill Business
Centre, Paisley PA1 1JS
Tel 0141 561 2325
Fax 0141 561 2328
Email john.lord@yellowbookltd.com
Contact John Lord
CORPORATE INDEX
BROXAP LIMITED
Rowhurst Industrial Estate, Chesterton,
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs ST5 6BD
Tel 01782 564411
Fax 01782 565357
Email sales@broxap.com
Contact Robert Lee
The design and manufacture of street
furniture, cycle and motorcycle storage
solutions and decorative architectural
metalwork in cast iron, mild steel,
stainless steel, concrete, timber,
Duracast polyurethane, plastic and
recycled plastic.
ISLAND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
PO Box 43, St Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 1FH,
Channel Islands
Tel 01481 717000
Fax 01481 717099
Email idc@gov.gg
Contact W Lockwood
The Island Development Committee
plays a similar role to a local authority
planning department in the UK.
ST GEORGE NORTH LONDON LTD
81 High Street, Potters Bar,
Hertfordshire EN6 5AS
Tel 01707 664000
Fax 01707 660006
Contact Stephen Wood
London’s leading residential developer.

EDUCATION INDEX
EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART/
HERIOT WATT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
OF ARCHITECTURE
Lauriston Place, Edinburgh EH3 9DF
Tel 0131 221 6175/6072
Fax 0131 221 6154/6006
Contact Leslie Forsyth
Diploma in Architecture and Urban
Design, nine months full-time. Diploma
in Urban Design, nine months full time
or 21 months part-time. MSc in Urban
Design, 12 months full-time or 36 months
parttime. MPhil and PhD, by research full
and part-time on and off-campus.
LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF ART, ARCHITECTURE
AND DESIGN
Brunswick Terrace, Leeds LS2 8BU
Tel 0113 283 2600
Fax 0113 283 3190
Contact Edwin Knighton
Master of Arts in Urban Design consists of
one year full time or two years part time
or individual programme of study. Shorter
programmes lead to Post Graduate Diploma/
Certificate. Project based course focussing
on the creation of sustainable environments
through interdisciplinary design.
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
Cities Programme, Houghton Street, London
WC2A 2AE
Tel 020 7955 6828
Fax 020 7955 7697
Email d.church1@lse.ac.uk
Contact Dominic Church
LSE runs a MSc in City Design and Social
Science which can be studied full time
over a one year period or part-time over
two years. The course is designed for social
scientists, engineers and architects.
LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences,
103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA
Tel 020 7815 7353
Fax 020 7815 5799
Contact Dr Bob Jarvis
MA Urban Design (one year full time/two
years part time) or PG Cert Planning
based course including units on place
and performance, sustainable cities as
well as project based work and EU study
visit. Part of RTPI accredited programme.
OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY
Joint Centre for Urban Design, Headington,
Oxford OX3 0BP
Tel 01865 483403
Fax 01865 483298
Contact Jon Cooper
Diploma in Urban Design, six months full
time or 18 months part time. MA 1 year
full-time or 2 years part-time.
SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY
School of Environment and Development,
City Campus, Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB
Tel 0114 225 2837
Fax 0114 225 3179
Contact Debbie French
MA/PGD/PGC Urban Design full and
part-time. A professional and academic
programme to improve the built
environment, enabling a higher quality of
life and economic growth by sustainable
development.
UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH
School of Architecture and Landscape,
Oakfield Lane, Dartford DA1 2SZ
Tel 020 8316 9100
Fax 020 8316 9105
Contact Richard Hayward
MA in Urban Design for postgraduate
architecture and landscape students,
full time and part time with credit
accumulation transfer system.
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ENGLAND
IN BIRMINGHAM
Birmingham School of Architecture and
Landscape, UCE, Perry Barr,
Birmingham B42 2SU
Tel 0121 331 7755
Fax 0121 331 5114
Email built.environment@uce.ac.uk
Contact Noha Nasser
MA Urban Design. This new course
enhances the creative and practical skills
needed to deal with the diverse activities
of urban design. Modes of attendance
are flexible: full-time,. Part-time or
individual modules as CPD short courses.
The course attracts students from a wide
range of backgrounds.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Development Planning Unit, The Bartlett, 9
Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0ED
Tel 020 7388 7581
Fax 020 7387 4541
Contact Babar Mumtaz
MSc in Building and Urban Design in
Development. Innovative, participatory
and responsive design in development
and upgrading of urban areas through
socially and culturally acceptable,
economically viable and environmentally
sustainable interventions.
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON
TYNE
Department of Architecture, Claremont Tower,
University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
Tel 0191 222 7802
Fax 0191 222 8811
Contact Tim Townshend
MA/Diploma in Urban Design. Joint
programme in Dept of Architecture and
Dept of Town and Country Planning.
Full time or part time, integrating
knowledge and skills from town planning,
architecture, landscape.
UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE
Dept of Architecture and Building Science,
Urban Design Studies Unit,
131 Rottenrow, Glasgow G4 0NG
Tel 0141 552 4400 ext 3011
Fax 0141 552 3997
Contact Hildebrand Frey
Urban Design Studies Unit offers its
Postgraduate Course in Urban Design
in CPD, Diploma and MSc modes. Topics
range from the influence of the city’s
form and structure to the design of public
spaces.
UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF
ENGLAND, BRISTOL
Faculty of the Built Environment, Frenchay
Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY
Tel 0117 3218 3000
Fax 0117 976 3895
MA/Postgraduate Diploma course in
Urban Design. Part time two days per
fortnight for two years, or individual
programme of study. Project-based course
addressing urban design issues, abilities
and environments.
UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER
35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Tel 020 7911 5000 x3106
Fax 020 7911 5171
Contact Marion Roberts
MA or Diploma Course in Urban Design for
postgraduate architects, town planners,
landscape architects and related
disciplines. One year full time or two
years part time.
BACK TO THE WORLD
While you were out… Rather like a huge existential Post-it note
across the screen of consciousness, there’s a whole lot of catching up
to do as I try to get back to the world of design and planning after my
sojourn in literature.
First of all, I find that town planning has reinvented itself as
‘spatial planning’ which we are advised in the draft PPS 1 is going
“beyond traditional land use planning to integrate policies for the
development and use of land with other policies and programmes
which influence the nature of places and how they function”.
Politicians and academics need these rhetoric shifts to keep ahead of
the game, to keep the world reinvented.
I was just getting to grips with this, when among the Christmas
post I find a letter from one of my friends in the north about the
retired chief officer who now speaks publicly of how he had seen the
potential in that site all along, yet when in practice he’d sung a very
different tune - don’t waste the council’s time on it. More rewriting,
but this time it’s personal.
Revising history and rewriting the recent past to make sure the
record is straight and true and to keep ahead of the game comes as
part of the professional territory. Of course, we were right all along.
It’s what I always said. It was the committee’s decision. The client
changed the brief and ignored my masterplan. Being a professional
means never having to say you’re sorry.
One of my writing projects was autobiography. I tried to find planners’
autobiographies, but they are few and far between. Now know why.
There’s no-one there. Professional life is impersonal. Disconnected.
Once you’ve written yourself into history you can’t unwrite yourself.
Professionals need fast feet, a Teflon coated CV, a convincing future
and not too much past.
The autobiographies that I did find offered more insight into
the person behind the mask of professionalism than many would feel
comfortable with. From Cathy Stansfield’s thesis 1, I pieced together
fragments of Thomas Sharp’s unpublished Autobiography of a Failure
and I tracked down Frank Tindall’s Memories and Confessions of
a County Planning Officer 2. Both used autobiography to render a
personal account, to establish the person in the bureaucracy, the
ghost in the machine. They emerge as individuals. Who might get
things wrong.
Writing personally in the professional and academic world is not
easy. It’s subjective and anecdotal. It isn’t suitable for the journals.
Writing of these personal struggles needs discipline and reflection, a
different way with words. In the exigencies of practice they are all
too easily left aside, and as a result our understanding of professional
activity is impoverished. The devices and techniques of creative
writing, allowing ourselves into our work is dangerous. My epic poem
The Dunston Manuscript 3 which I read to the UDG was a prototype. I
long to hear of others. Then it won’t be so easy to rewrite what we do,
or what it is called.
Bob Jarvis
REFERENCE
1. Stansfield K, The Poetry of Planning Unpublished MA thesis, Manchester
University 1972
2. Tindall F, Memories and Confessions of a County Planning Officer, Pantile Press,
Ford House, Midlothian
3. Still unpublished , but if you would like a copy, email your postal address to
jarvisb@lsbu.ac.uk
Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94 | 49
ENDPIECE