Articles

Behind the Image
Lionel Eid, George Garofalakis, Rosie Garvey and Alice Raggett

A once divisive (and now much loved) cultural institution and public space in the heart of Paris

View of the A965 in Stromness, paved with stone flags and granite setts
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

I referred in the last Endpiece to Jane Jacobs’ ideas about urban diversity, and I am drawn back to the subject again. Ever since reading Death and Life for the first time, in the final year of my architecture course, I have accepted as an axiom of urban design Jacobs’ argument that cities manufacture diversity, and that a big urban concentration of people is necessary in order to create a diverse and rich range of activities and facilities

My Favourite Plan
Andy Williams

Parc de la Villette, Paris, ©Bernard Tschumi Architects

Behind the Image
Lionel Eid, George Garofalakis, Rosie Garvey and Alice Raggett

A redundant elevated railway line stretching almost 1.5 miles along the west side of Manhattan, now converted into a linear pattern.

Railway arches
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

As a child in the early 1950s, one of my literary heroes was the great athlete Alf Tupper, who appeared weekly in the Rover magazine. He was a working-class mile runner, whose diet was mainly fish and chips. He worked as a welder in an arch of a railway viaduct, and he sometimes slept there too before a race. Ever since I have been interested in railway arches and the businesses that are found in them. Being an academic, I now refer to their premises as parasitic architecture.

My Favourite Plan
Sebastian Loew

First National Bank of Boston map of Buenos Aires

My Favourite Plan
Andy Ward

Taunton Vision 2005

Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

Urban designers like to bang on about the sanctity and the inviolability of public space (well, I do). But there is a sliding scale of value which we put upon different kinds of street. We put a lower value on one which is full of motor vehicles passing through, and a higher value on one where people on foot can move freely and use the street as a social space.

My Favourite Plan
Liz Kessler

Evolving Lobtau, Reviving the town for Dresden

Radburn NJ plan
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

At a meeting of a design review panel we assessed a scheme for 40 houses, most of which were to be built on two cul-de-sacs. We were all decidedly unpersuaded by the proposal, on the grounds of its internal ‘unconnectedness’ as well as for other failings.

My Favourite Plan
Paul Drew

Josef Kleihues’ masterplan for Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

My Favourite Plan
Patricia Gomez

London Underground Map, 1992

Duddeston Flats
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

In July I gave a talk about early municipal housing in central Birmingham. I showed seven case studies, which went from the first council houses (1890), to the first council flats (1900), and on to the first high-rise flats (1955).

My Favourite Plan
Peter Larkham

Copenhagen ‘Finger Plan’ (Fingerplanen) 1947 Regional Planning Office (1947, reprinted 1993) Skitseforslag til Egnsplan for Storkøbenhavn (Copenhagen: Regional Planning Office)

Jane Jacobs
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

The wonderful Flatpack film festival hit Birmingham again in April, with a packed six-day programme of events in 24 different venues. Two documentaries made last year about two parallel lives, those of Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) and Laurie Baker (1917- 2007), were outstanding films for me.

Christopher Martin

Apart from stealing the title of Martin Creed's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery a few years ago, I wanted to collect my thoughts on the power that cities and the public realm have over our health, happiness and prosperity.

My Favourite Plan
Emily Walsh

Palmanova, as depicted in 1598

​Artist’s impression of proposals for the Chance site
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

I am working for a heritage regeneration trust, making a masterplan for the regeneration of the Chance Brothers glassworks site in Smethwick, Sandwell. It is a very historic place: a scheduled ancient monument, in a conservation area, with eight listed buildings.

My Favourite Plan
Bob Phillips

A Plan for Todmorden: Thomas Sharp & Todmorden Borough Council, 1946

South and City College front doo
Endpiece
Joe Holyoak

I was recently on a panel which reviewed a development proposal by University College Birmingham. As well as substantial demolition of old buildings in a conservation area, and their replacement by new buildings, it proposed to take over ownership of a street running between the buildings.

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