Designing for New London

Designing for New London

AJ Conference in London, 15 January 2008

For anyone wondering who inhabits the plethora of one and two bed apartments going up everywhere - Nick Shattock from Quintain had the answer – young people who eat breakfast in Starbucks, and may conceive in them, but will then move out. His revealing talk focused on Wembley, where his company is creating three squares each the size of Leicester Square.

Before that in this packed one day conference programme, Spencer de Grey tried to define a successful city seeing London as a series of villages and wanting to see high density ‘hubs’ around transport centres. Connections were one of his ‘must haves’ – apparently the Millennium Bridge witnesses eight million crossings per year and has increased visits to St Paul’s Cathedral and hotel bookings. Peter Bishop’s slogan is ‘London Open City’ – i.e. a place where things happen, but he does not see it as a collection of villages. Talking about the Mayor’s 100 Public Spaces programme, he noted that the cities of Bilbao and Valencia put public money into their spaces and said that this would happen here.

Musings on the importance of ‘team working’ were put forward by Fred Manson and Mark Brearley, who cited Barking as a good example with the Borough, TfL, LDA and DfL coming together. The King’s Cross Station project was described by John MacAslan and Aiden Potter, coining the term ‘Interior Urbanism’ for the spaces inside the station. Next came the exterior urbanism of Tower Hill and its re-instated historic street and Woolwich Arsenal’s series of ‘urban rooms’. Are terms for the exterior and interior are becoming interchangeable?

Terry Farrell later stated that there are ten times more people on the pavements in Marylebone Road than in cars, so why does the car still dominate? His studies are often initially unpaid and deal with issues that no one else will tackle like Tottenham Court Road Underpass, Hyde Park Corner, and Marble Arch. Marc Dorfman from London Borough of Redbridge debated whether planners should get involved in ‘taste’, and saw urban management as more important than design in delivering projects.

I came away from this conference worrying about how public our public realm is and that many of the issues that shape London are just not being examined – unless Peter Bishop or Terry Farrell take them on.

Philip Cave