Endpiece

As much as necessary, as little as possible

Joe Holyoak

Fifty years ago, on 20th March 1969, the magazine New Society published a feature titled Non-Plan: an experiment in freedom, which became notorious and controversial. It derived from a conversation in a pub between the magazine’s editor Paul Barker and the geographer Peter Hall, one of his regular contributors. Discussing the current state of planning and development, Barker floated a subversive idea – could things be any worse if there were no planning at all? They might even be somewhat better.

Barker invited two other New Society writers to consider the idea, the architectural historian Reyner Banham and the architect Cedric Price, and Non-Plan was published under their four names. Barker later wrote that ‘…at the time, all the architects, conservationists and socialists I knew were highly offended by it’. The Non-Plan thesis certainly fractured ideological boundaries, and had both supporters and detractors among anarchists, left-wing social reformers and Daily Telegraph leader writers. It led indirectly, via Peter Hall, to the Thatcher government’s brief experiment in enterprise zones in 1980. I suspect that its influence could also be traced in an examination question on my MA course at the Joint Centre for Urban Design in that same year: ‘A plan which can’t be implemented is worse than no plan at all. Discuss’. The implication was that an unimplementable plan will prevent any change from happening, thereby leading to decline and decay, whereas no-plan might at least allow some initiatives to start, and lead to growth. The principle I drew from this, which I think has universal application, is that a good plan contains the minimum of rules. It should include only those which are essential to the plan’s success, and include nothing which might inhibit any positive future actions.

This principle applies to the future development of even complex places. Take Digbeth, where I work. Currently, the district’s three biggest landowners – Homes England, the Custard Factory and the Gooch Estate – are funding the production of a proposition for the future of Digbeth which they call Digbeth Vision. It is being prepared jointly by the consultants Allies and Morrison and Egret West.

Digbeth is a complicated place. It is a conservation area, with ancient origins as a suburb of the mediaeval town lying between the manor house and the river Rea. Its street pattern is largely from the 18th and 19th centuries. It is crossed by the river, the Warwick Canal, and three railway viaducts. Its land uses are very mixed up, and in a state of transition. The arrival of the HS2 terminal at Curzon Street in 2026 will complicate it even more. Digbeth has two characteristics which make it special. Its built fabric is predominantly small scale, with two exceptions, Alfred Bird’s custard works and the Typhoo tea factory, and it is diverse in its land uses, with different activities promiscuously mixed up. A design code for Digbeth is needed which addresses these two characteristics. Firstly, there should be a size limit placed upon parcels of new development, in order to keep the scale small. This could be done in a variety of ways, by setting maxima for plot size, plot ratio, street frontage, building footprint, gross floor area, cubic capacity, building height, or some combination of these measures. Whatever the measure, it might vary across the different sub-districts of Digbeth in order to reflect and reinforce existing character as well as economic differences. Secondly, the code should not allow too many parcels of one land use to be built next to each other, in order to keep Digbeth diverse and mixed. There could be a simple numerical rule for this, and again the rule might vary from one sub-district to another.

These are not normal British design rules, but they are simple and I cannot see why they could not be specified. If they were to be embodied in a design code, I believe that little else would need to be specified in order to ensure that new development maintains and enhances the character of Digbeth – except perhaps a rule about building to the back of the pavement. A masterplan is certainly not required. New development could freely employ a variety of different forms, materials and types of buildings. Digbeth is not a conservation area with the special homogeneity of Bournville or Bloomsbury. Its nature is diverse, with surprising juxtapositions and collisions. It does not require the usual conservation area rules about brickwork, pitched roofs, window reveals, proportions and so on. This policy is not exactly Non-Plan; let’s maybe call it As-Little-as-Possible-Plan.

URBAN DESIGN 150 Spring 2019 Publication Urban Design Group

As featured in URBAN DESIGN 150 Spring 2019

Want to read more like this? If you're not already an Urban Design Group member, why don't you consider joining?

Artists’ studios next to a metal recycling business

 

An art gallery next to a taxicab repairers

 

The Custard Factory

 

Joe Holyoak is an architect and urban designer, working in masterplanning, site planning, area regeneration, historic conservation, and community participation .

He is also on the Editorial Board of the URBAN DESIGN journal.