Celebrate the existing. In urban hot spots such as Hackney, Brooklyn or Berlin, wholesale building repair is avoided as a stylistic choice. To people not resident in these design-pioneering neighbourhoods, the thought of maintaining dilapidation seems bizarre. However, the style created by doing this is one with an important message for those who are renovating...

Urban planning is a strategic endeavour. It involves the maintenance and improvements of the existing and facilitation of growth, or reduction. It uses statistical tools to predict future needs and strategically plans for the urban accommodation of those needs. When these strategies are not met, Urban Planning is failing. The “housing crisis” in the UK...

A few days ago I saw a flyer from 1972 promoting a concert by Eric Emerson’s band The Magic Tramps performing at New York’s Mercer Art centre. Later that day I read an article about New York’s High Line Park. The unpleasant details of Emerson’s death and the opening of the park are two seemingly...

The current demolition of many of the buildings, bars, night-clubs and cafes within London’s Soho risks destroying one of the UK’s most idiosyncratic areas. The on-going demolition with its subsequent destruction of the small-grain, combined with the privatisation of public space is erasing the areas history and breaking the continuity with activities that many of...