RUDI publishes original features by urban design writers and professionals working around the world. Our peer-reviewed content covers all aspects of placemaking and sustainability.We also publish shorter pieces commenting on the latest placemaking opinion, trends, debate, proposals and analysis from around the world.
For news, events, tender and competition information visit Urban Design Update
We welcome ideas for articles from our members, but we cannot be responsible for unsolicited materials.
Please contact us to discuss your editorial and content ideas before sending text or pictures.
If you'd like to air your views on placemaking and sustainability, please access RUDI's forum.
Click here for a 'quick link' to an alphabetical listing, by title, in date published order of articles, to provide fast access to information for those of you who know what you are looking for.
Alternatively, you can browse the taster pages below for the feature articles currently on RUDI and click on the hyperlinks to the full information.
If you are a non-member you will need to subscribe now or register for a free trial in order to see the features.
By Jonathan Schifferes, new economics consulting
The Big Society project seeks to 'give increased power to people to solve problems closer to where they live. Under the current economic climate, meeting housing needs is increasingly difficult for people and governments. The need for affordable housing is stark, and the Coalition says it wants more affordable homes. They have introduced a series of reforms to localise decisions around new housebuilding, but there are fundamental challenges in this approach
The evidence that car use may have passed its peak – and be on the way down – is especially significant since the cases cited – young people, the capital, towns with the most enlightened ‘smart choices’ policies and towns improving public transport most dramatically – are associated with positive messages for the future, says Phil Goodwin in the conclusion to a series of articles in RUDI sister publication
Local Transport Today
Is transport modelling an art or a science? Are transport professionals showing a growing appreciation and understanding of a space-related approach to integrating transport and urban development plans?
Just how integrated do we want our transport to be? Far from seeing bikes as competition, some bus operators are allowing them on board, and train companies are offering cycle hire schemes, says Richard Armitage
The Urban Transport Design Award is presented at the Annual Transport Practitioners’ Meeting and is intended to promote good urban design practice within transport schemes
By Matthew McMillan
In a world where the high street is not the only destination for the provision of goods, it has to re-examine its function, re-establish its identity and re-engage with the modern urban dweller.
What is the function of the 21st century urban high street? The once bustling hubs of community life have been through a pretty torrid time over the past fifty years. Split asunder by Colin Buchanan’s influential Cars in Cities in the 1960s, squeezed by the rise of out of town shopping centres through the 70s, hit by recession in the 80s and homogenised by the rise of globalisation in the 90s, the high street limped into the new millennia. Now in the face of slowing sales, the rise of internet shopping and bloated corporate mergers further reducing choice, where do we go now?
By Tom Evans
The third annual conference on art and urban design organised by RUDI, in partnership with Milton Keynes Gallery and David Lock Associates, took place on 15th July to explore creativity in placemaking and the input of art and other creative activity in place development.
Seen from this broader perspective, better urban design is an unavoidable necessity if we’re to enable sufficient people to bridge gaps they currently consider too wide. Put another way, better urban design will be essential in meeting the tripartite challenge of delivering the economical provision of genuinely attractive alternatives to the car for the many. Think about it. And then get on with it…
We now know whom it is that will run the country for the foreseeable future (however long that may be); however, while that particular intrigue will have run its course, the controversy about the system we’ll use to choose the next Government will still be raging. Even though some form of proportional representation would sometimes have been to the parliamentary detriment of the crew we voted for, it has always seemed quite clear to us that, whatever its alleged merits – and there are some, first-past-the-post is just wrong in at least two respects.
This paper debates over how we should choose our leaders has some interesting parallels with how we choose to design our streets
For the past few years it’s been my privilege to be an advisor to the City of Edinburgh Council, part of the joy of the role being the need to make regular visits to one of my favourite cities. My involvement began with a weekend-long workshop focused on the urban design aspects of the Edinburgh tram project. To cut a long story short, although this project was already fully up and running – with funding, contractors, a delivery programme and of course penalty clauses in place – some council officers, along with the city’s design champion, had recognised that the range of influences on its design had been too narrow. The workshop was an attempt to begin the process of retro-fitting other design considerations into the project.
