MasterPLAN: Beginnings + Endings 2021/2022

E D I TO R ’S N OT E We are all very excited to present to you the first edition of Masterplan, a zine written, edited, and published by the 2022 graduating cohort of the City Planning MPlan at UCL. Having started our degrees in the midst of Covid-19 lockdowns, we were worried about losing some of the opportunities for interaction, debate, and conversation outside of a classroom or seminar setting.

We took the chance to learn from each other seriously and this zine is one product of that desire. We hope that through this publication, we can start a conversation that goes beyond us and creates an intergenerational dialogue about our shared interest in the built environment, urbanism, and the urban experience.

For our inaugural issue, we decided to define the theme as ‘beginnings and endings’, both in homage to our departure from the course but also as a nod to the programme’s fifth birthday. Beginnings and endings are nice and broad for a first issue, allowing plenty of interpretation from our writers. The theme is both linear, liminal, and liquid, giving no sense of absolutism in much the same way the built environment can be characterised as both still and ever-changing. There is a sense of drama and theatre to beginnings and endings, a feeling of ceremony whilst also calling to mind an element of inevitability and the everyday. The incredibly talented team interpreted the theme in all manners of ways, discussing mobility, femininity, history, empire, and class within the following pages. We hope that you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed writing them.

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The zine also includes this year’s dissertation titles and a brief description of the research we undertook and why we thought it was important. In the hope of starting that intergenerational conversation, we wanted to both celebrate the work we did and provide food for thought for the years following us. In the same spirit, we have published a directory of students to keep that conversation going, help us grow meaningful connections, and continue to learn from, talk to, and laugh with each other long after we go our separate ways.

With these thoughts, we leave our time capsule, Master Plan, in your hands. A small artefact of our time here at the Bartlett. A guiding document from our community to yours and all the ones after.

HARRISON BREWER, CO-EDITOR, MASTER PLAN

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C ON TEN T S

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BEGINNINGS Pg. 2

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WO M E N I N C YC LI N G

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JOHANNA

VESTIGES OF E M PI R E ( S ) : R e f l e c ti o ns o n He ri t a g e Pla n n i n g fo r a Mo d e rn L a h o re

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TRAINS HARRISON

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JA N E

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T H E LI F E A N D D E AT H O F TOW E R H A M LE T S LI V E A B LE STREE TS

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HER J US T CIT Y HANNAH

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M PL A N 2 0 2 1/ 2 2 T H E SE S

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EN DI NG S Pg. 29

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G I A N LU CA

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1 BEGINNINGS What comes to mind at the thought of “Beginnings”?

Newness, excitement, expectation, mystery, anticipation, or perhaps even anxiety for what is to come.

All of these emotions were certainly experienced by the members of the MPlan upon starting in 2020, accompanied by a strong sense of uncertainty. Many of us were between schooling or jobs, finding our way and certain of only one thing: our passion for the built environment. Amidst the chaos of Covid, which during the first year moved all of our lectures online and sequestered us to the confines of our respective homes, it was this shared passion which allowed us to forge strong bonds with one another. What began as a leap of faith for all of us – a two-year masters, with a mysterious work placement at the end – has led all of us to destinations now which we probably could never have envisaged when we met for the first time in 2020. The following thoughts and reflections in this Zine are the culmination of our multivarious life experiences, all of which have been united in the MPlan process the past two years.

In the built environment we see many examples of Beginnings: in structures, new and old; systems, near and far; policies, popular or ineffective; and perhaps most poignantly, new residents that come into being, whether through birth or moving to a new place. In this latter sense, the built environment becomes

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the backdrop for all of our “Beginnings” at some point – it is the stage on which our lives play out. In this way, its every element is felt, if even subtly. As the articles in this edition will describe, sometimes the smallest of policies, structures, or systems can create shockwaves that reverberate to impact many lives, and indeed the quality of those lives.

Beginnings require faith, as the road ahead is never certain. This is true in life, as in cities. As built environment students and professionals, our reality is comprised of both. We must think of ourselves as part of a bigger picture.

After completing the MPlan, it’s impossible to think of yourself as existing in a vacuum – you become so acutely aware of your own positioning within larger systems and community. With this comes a responsibility – to use this knowledge for good. Anyone can go to work each day, start a new job or new project, and initiate change in the world.

As soon-to-be MPlan graduates, now being launched into careers, it is our responsibility to ensure that what we do begin, is a life committed to improve the lives around us, recognising that we have the tools to do so.

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Articles + Ideas

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2WO M E N I N C YC LI N G JOHANNA The following piece is informed by my own experiences, delving into research on the subject, speaking to friends and surveying people on social media. The success of cycling interventions is revealed in whether cyclists are representative of the city’s population. Men far outstrip women in the number of cycle trips taken in the UK each year. To increase the representation of women in cycling in the UK, massive investment in the expansion of physical infrastructure, traffic calming measures, as well as behaviour change programmes to help people make the modal shift to cycling are crucial, particularly at a younger age.

My research has also led me to believe that the image of cycling in in the UK needs a makeover so that more people can see themselves represented in cycling, and in diverse formats, whether racing on a road bike or going to the shops on a traditional Dutch frame.

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a feel for how the city’s neighbourhoods fit together in ways that aren’t possible if you sit on the tube.

It’s been shown that the formation of cycling habits in childhood is key to forming cycling habits as an adult and yet independent child mobility, whether walking or by bike is decreasing with every generation, in part due to increased fears around safety and the increased dominance of cars (Bikeability Trust

...cycling became more than a way to have fun and relax, but a way to claim my independence...

When I reflect on where my love of cycling began, I think back to the two hour loop I used to do around the meadows and canals in southern Germany with my grandfather as a child. I just couldn’t get enough of the gentle hum of the tyres’ friction on the path beneath me, and the permission the passing scenery gave me to introspect and just not say anything for a while. Later, as a teenager, cycling became more than a way to have fun and relax, but a way to claim my independence. I was fortunate to have a father who encouraged me to get around by bike and took me out a few times to show me the ropes of road safety.

So from the age of 14, I regularly cycled around London, an experience which developed my confidence and gave me

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n.d., Gill 2021). Alongside, mass investment in cycle infrastructure, early cycle training for school children could encourage more people to take up cycling later in life, particularly underrepresented groups such as women.

In a 2017 survey conducted by Sustrans on women’s representation in cycling, a majority of respondents said they enjoyed riding a bike in principle, that things would

be better if more people cycled and that the cities they live in would be improved.

Unfortunately, the same study revealed that in the cities surveyed, only 12% of women cycle at least once a week, compared with 24% of men, with this gap likely to be higher in cities where overall participation in cycling is lower.

Although the pandemic saw a 50% increase in the number of cycle trips made by women

thanks to quieter roads, men still completed more than twice as many trips by bike as women in 2020 (Guardian 2021; Dft 2020).

Common barriers to women engaging with cycling include fears around safety due to a lack of physically segregated cycle infrastructure and adjacent facilities such as parking spaces.

Further issues include a lack of awareness about the existence of existing infrastructure and of accessibility schemes such as bike giveaways. Moreover, the logic of ‘build it and they will come’ doesn’t always work, especially with underrepresented groups who may face additional social and economic barriers to getting involved. It’s therefore important to invest in behaviour change programmes alongside physical infrastructure, to engage communities and (Sustrans 2021).

I do believe it’s a shame that it is one of the primary images people associate with cycling in the UK. It reveals that cycling is seen as a men’s activity and implies you can only ride a bike if you’re athletic and have all the gear.

This clashes with other expectations and threats that women face – from high body image standards according to which you can’t be dishevelled and sweaty, to street harassment for wearing revealing clothing.

When I surveyed UK based women on social media about the first thing that comes to mind when they think about cycling the results were almost unanimous amongst non-frequent cyclists: variations of ‘man in lycra’, ‘men in lycra wearing googles’, ‘aggressive man not stopping for me at the zebra crossing’ and even, ‘birthday cards for dads’. This reflects a wider resentment of cyclists in society.

Respondents who cycled tended to comment on ideas around freedom, pleasant scenery and so on. Although not part of a scientific study, I think this instant lycra themed reaction amongst so many people is telling of the image we have of cycling in the UK – as a serious, predominantly middle-class sport practiced by men on high spec bikes.

It also contrasts with the image of cycling in countries where cycling is more common.

For example, personally I think of upright Dutch bikes when I think of images I have seen of cycling in places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Similarly, when I think of the town that my grandparents live in in Germany, I think of older women on traditional step through frames with a shopping basket on the front trundling along peacefully.

NOTE ON E-BIKES: it’s been shown that e-bikes could play a critical role in driving increased participation of women, this might partly be because women are more likely to carry out household duties that involve carrying heavy items, such as shopping and children, something which can’t be done easily on typical bikes source.

E-bikes have the further advantage of requiring less physical effort, thus offering a potential gateway to cycling in general for people who don’t identify as sporty or have initial worries about getting sweaty. With many e-bike sharing schemes popping up in UK cities, people don’t even have to commit to spending a large sum on buying one of these bikes permanently, making cycling more accessible. A further advantage of e-bikes is that they actually emit less CO2 than normal bikes, due to their battery charging requiring less energy than the food humans eat to fuel their ride source.

While there’s nothing wrong with lycra as a material, it’s flexible and breatheable after all,

On the following page, I outline some ideas for how we could overhaul the current image of cycling in the UK, as well as other practical steps to take to increase women’s participation in cycling. The aim is to convince people that there is no right way to ride a bike and be respected as a valid cyclist.

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H OW W E G E T T H E R E

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Increase the number of schools that offer bikeability training from 50% to 100% in the UK. Ensure that these programmes are inclusive of all body types and abilities, and start from an early age, so that everyone has the opportunity to begin from an equitable start point.

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Cheap bike rental – Swapfiets (cheapest option starting at £16.90/month)

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Expand cycle proficiency training for adults.

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Massive investment in cycle infrastructure, in particular, segregated cycle lanes wherever possible, create orbital and radial cycle ways in smaller cities that take cyclists away from busy commuter routes to that suburban dwellers can get in by bike.

Accompanied with ample signage so that people feel confident they’ll find their way.

Develop UK wide cycle route app, or at a basic minimum, create cycle route apps for each city or work with existing private providers like city mapper to integrate designated routes into their programming.

E-bike rental schemes • Tier Bikes (£1 to unlock followed by 15p/minute) • Human Forest (first 10 minutes free daily, 15p/ minute, parking fee of £1.50 outside designated areas) • Lime/Uber Bikes (£1 unlock, 15p/minute)

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City Mapper – cycle mapping with a ‘Quiet Routes’ option that genuinely avoids main roads

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Velociposse – women’s cycling club

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Expand e-bike sharing schemes – either by working with private providers like TIER, Lime and Human Forest, or by setting up more publicly owned schemes.

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Introduce a mobility benefit – for people on low incomes to purchase a bike, similar to cycle to work schemes – not offered by all work places.

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Launch a massive communications campaign to change the image of cycling – cycle in a dress day, get athletes involved but also ordinary people.

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VESTIGES OF E M PI R E ( S ) :

R e f l e c ti o ns o n He ri t a g e Pla n n i n g fo r a Mo d e rn L a h o re

Shahdara Bagh

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T H E SI K H S

Lahore, Pakistan. A city nestled beside the wide, brown-running River Ravi, one of the five key arteries which make the state of Punjab’s soil famously fertile. Less than an hour’s drive east along the dusty, boisterous Grand Trunk Road and you’ll reach the border with India, Pakistan’s estranged sibling. Lahore has over one thousand years of history clunked recklessly atop one another, but the beginnings and endings of its great ruling empires become visible in the streets to a curious eye. Snaking through the gullys, bazaars, and great boulevards that make up Lahore’s belly, the dusty vestiges of the city’s Mughal, Sikh, and British eras reveal themselves, serving as useful lessons for planning for a city that today provides the backdrop for 11 million lives.

The era of Sikh rule in Lahore was a time of great development. Historians predict that, had the British not halted Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s ambitions for expansion, the Sikh empire would have extended from Afghanistan in the west to Bengal in the east. The conquest of Lahore was hugely symbolic for Sikhs, many of whom do not consider there to be a severance between their ethnic homeland of Punjab that extends on both sides of the border with India and Pakistan. During this period, Lahore’s old city was canvassed in Sikh architectural characteristics such as the ornate umbrella-like chattris, forms which are also visible on Sikh temples or gurdwaras. These buildings stand today as echoes of a bygone era, amongst the tortuous, tight alleys of the Walled City, buried beneath tangled electrical wires, chaotic shopfronts, and a thick layer of dust.

THE MUGHALS

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Lahore in the time of the Mughal Empire was a capital city and hub of culture. Art, music, and poetry flowed from the opulent courts of the emperors, spilling out onto the fragrant, sprawling gardens, or baghs, and beyond into the winding streets of Lahore’s Walled City.

Lahore’s Mughal era remains largely visible today due to the retention of its palaces, masjids and Islamic gardens throughout the city, meticulously planned to exhibit symmetrical geometric layouts.

SHALIMAR BAGH was meant to embody the sensation of heavens on earth. This oasis remains just off the chaotic G.T. Road, a haven for truckers and whizzing traffic, with nary a leaf or grassy patch in sight.

GREATER IQBAL PARK is a sprawling expanse of field, once the parade ground for Mughal military troops. Situated on the outskirts of the historic Walled City, the commercial and trading hub of Lahore city for centuries, the park offers a chance to reflect on key national monuments such as the towering Minar-e-Pakistan.

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At SHAHDARA BAGH, across the River Ravi from Greater Iqbal Park, are the final resting places and burial monuments to Jahangir and his bride, Noor Jehan, whose beauty has been encapsulated in myth across the ages. The wind whistles past these stately tombs, their tall minarets reflecting across the River Ravi’s glassy surface, casting shadows upon the lush lawns emphasising the mausoleums’ majesty.

REFLECTION: The legacy of the Mughal gardens in Lahore demonstrate that it is not just historic monuments and buildings which can teach people about the past. These rich resources create an experiential, interactive way for people to connect with the history of their city and walk in the steps of their predecessors. Additionally, in a city such as Lahore which is rapidly expanding through unchecked, low-density development, protecting this greenery would contribute to the healthy lives of citizens and offset the concreted-over environment. Creating green connections between these gardens would further enhance public access to and enjoyment of them.

1799 – 1849 Today, Ranjit Singh is remembered through his grand samadh, or tomb, which is an exemplar of Sikh architecture in the heart of the Walled City. This samadh stands in the midst of several large Mughal forts and masjids, including that commemorating Wazir Khan, a known adversary of the Sikh armies.

REFLECTION: Lahore’s built environment exhibits the histories of several communities, representing their victories, defeats, loves, and lives. Today, the remains of these oftenconflicting histories are located in each others’ midst. As Pakistan was the world’s first official Islamic nation-state and remains so today, it is crucial that the histories of minority religious communities be protected, so that all may see their identity reflected in the world around them. Planning can be the key that arbitrates these conflicting histories, which still today are emotional issues, ensuring that the highly politicised and communalised city is able to accept certain truths and refuse to silence those narratives.

Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

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T H E B R I T I SH

1849 – 1947

The Sikh empire fell to the British, who consolidated their rule over the Indian subcontinent in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Lahore under British rule came to resemble other cities transformed by the forced hand of imperialism. Outside the historic Walled City with its organic network of twisting, turning alleyways, there was built a wide boulevard named Mall Road around which British courts, civic institutions, gardens, and gymkhanas were built.

The Lahore Junction Railway station is one vestige of the colonial era which is still in operation, opened in 1860. The station was made of solid red brick work forming imported features such as Tudor arches, fortress-style turrets, with battlements and slits for firing weapons.

These elements as an architectural ensemble communicate a defensive attitude; the building stands as a message of the division and hostility between the coloniser and colonised subject. Indeed, as with other railway stations across the subcontinent, Lahore Junction was a symbol of and primary helper in the consolidation of British wealth at the expense of local residents. The railways themselves were used to transport goods stolen from the land by the colonisers, to add to their profits.

The defensive character of the station was perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it was outside this station in 1928 that one of the most important protests against colonial rule took place. As murmurings of calls for independence began to swirl across South Asia, the Simon Commission consisted of several members of British Parliament appointed to make recommendations about how the British could create

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a constitution governing rule of India. This Commission was comprised entirely of white British members, who were claiming to be entitled to make decisions determining the fate of Indians. This rightly enraged many native residents, who, led by the prominent politician Lala Lajpat Rai, peacefully protested against the commission with signs outside Lahore Junction Station. Tragically, the British police unleashed violence on the protestors to silence them, beating the crowd with their bamboo sticks or lathis and killing Rai.

However, Shehbaz Sharif is no stranger to Lahore. He was born there, and served as the Chief Minister of the State of Punjab on various occasions between 1997 and 2018, at which time he gained a reputation for pushing through infrastructure development projects such as Lahore’s metro. However, this expansionist tendency has been criticised for destroying the city rather than bolstering it, as the metro cut through large swathes of homes, both formally and informally occupied, and failed to offer adequate compensation to residents for much of this destruction.

Furthermore, the raised concrete platforms and flyovers for the metro line led to the demolition of many heritage assets, harming their setting and obliterating local histories that stood in its path.

REFLECTION: Heritage is fragile. It is often misplaced or misremembered. It can be fragmented and forgotten. That is, unless someone intervenes to protect it. As Lahore tumbles into the 21st century, and follows a political trajectory mirroring the past shifting volatility of ruling regimes, the city’s built heritage is in need of a guardian.

As infrastructure projects designed to make Lahore a “world-class city” demolish the very history which makes it unique, planners may seize the opportunity to intervene.

Cataloguing, recording, and advocating for built heritage can help identify places of value to local people and ensure they are recognised when new developments threaten them. Heritage protection can help unify local identity in the face of so many social and communal divisions that characterise Lahore, a city which perhaps more than any other has been shaped by layered empires.

Lahore Junction Railway Station

TO DAY – T H E PM L -N

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Pakistan’s post-independence political history is characterised by a tug of war for power between the military and politicians. Lahore itself is a key feature of this struggle, being the national military’s seat of power, as the residents of its Punjab state make up the vast majority of the military forces. The previous prime minister, ex-cricketer Imran Khan, is believed to have been ousted from power after falling out of favour with the military. This recent change in federal leadership has seen a return to power of one of Pakistan’s infamous political dynasties, the Sharifs. Assuming the role of Prime Minister from which his previously-politically-exiled brother Nawaz had retired five years before, Shehbaz Sharif is a figurehead of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML – N) political party.

Chauburji Chowk, with Orange Line metro flyover

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4 TRAINS HARRISON

When thinking about beginnings and endings, I always start with trains. Ever since I was young, train journeys have been blessings, little pockets of free time where you can chat, read, daydream, or just stare out the window, all without judgement or consequence.

Train journeys are both static and dynamic experiences – sitting still in your seat, you hurtle at 125 mph, only made aware of the speed at which you’re travelling by the smear of green and blue out the window and the imperceptible wobbles of the carriage. The tube however is a very different experience. On average, Londoners spend 11.5 days on the tube, 6 of which are underground. As you descend deeper, the air becomes thick and musty and noise reverberates off the grimy oncewhite tiling. There is no way of recording the passage of time without looking at my watch – each stop looks the same, feels the same, sounds the same, smells the same – missing function within contemporary it is a sensory monotony. Without the signage urbanism’ in a world obsessed with efficiency, (which assumes you speak the language), speed, productivity, and motion. We’ve become the tube becomes labyrinthine. Add into this accustomed to taking the express train rather equation the mind-numbing commute to than enjoying the slow one. Time is precious and from work that typifies most Londoners’ and so we prioritise getting to the destination, lived experience and the tube journey I am neglecting the journey itself. If we think about describing is less stairway to heaven and more the tube network, it was feels like a series of highway to hell. water pipes, funnelling people from one place to another, mechanical and cold. What if we In a recent Ted talk, Thomas Heatherwick looked to the natural world for inspiration, decries the direction of modern architecture allowing organic shapes and forms to provide as soulless, boring, and ‘meh’. He argues that the framework for our transit systems? There mundane architecture makes us sad, lowers are some communities that have been getting our wellbeing, is prone to destruction and the balance right and it is probably no surprise reconstruction, actively contributing that they’re Scandinavian. to climate change. Heatherwick’s rallying cry is that ‘emotion is the

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...we prioritise getting to the destination, neglecting the journey itself

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Copenhagen’s ‘Cityringen’ recently updated the facades of each of its station to create an aesthetic quality of arrival and departure for those taking the metro. Each facade echoes the spirit of the station’s locality, integrating the terranean to the subterranean, facilitating the feeling of transition which in turn reifies a beginning and an ending. The architecture of Copenhagen’s ‘Cityringen’ takes on a psychogeographical perspective that aims to improve our wellbeing, relax our minds, and reduce stress. This might take the shape of biophilic environments where natural landscaping, the use of light, sound, and even smells, can make us feel less like we are moving through a nuclear bunker and more a rabbit hole, adding some playful interest to our daily commute.

In Stockholm, metro stations have been redecorated and redesigned to add some visual theater in an attempt to improve people’s moods on the way to work. Cavernous passages are illuminated in vibrant colours. Natural rock formations are preserved and celebrated bringing disorganised and random architectures to an otherwise bland and sterile environment. The best comparison in London is TfL’s ‘Art on the Underground’ project which introduced installations to some of the network’s many stops. Good in theory but lack-lustre in delivery, there are currently four live projects, easily missed during rush hour, leaving much to be desired.

Let’s be ambitious for a moment and consider what could be done to add some interest to the London’s tube network.

Taking inspiration from the locally sensitive and naturally inspired facades of the Cityringen, I was curious about how the variety and aesthetics of the natural world could be imbued into the subterranean placemaking that typifies station planning. In recent years, architecture has come alive with living walls, breathable materials, and smart sensors that regulate the temperature just as the human body does.

Neri Oxman, bridging architecture, engineering, and biology, encased melanin, the pigment that gives our hair, skin, and eyes their colour, within a 3D printed column.

As the sun shines, the structure changes colour, the static form revealing dynamic self-regulatory qualities that act just as our own skin does. Oxman’s work is often about blurring the distinction between human and non-human production, introducing a dynamism and a playfulness into material science and construction. Within that, time too begins to shift. When buildings can breathe, adapt, react, and grow, the built

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environment moves from a static environment of physical structures to a thriving network of interconnected living forms that supports humans and non-humans alike. Buildings become like trees with intergenerational lifespans and important roles to play within our shared ecology.

Imagine train station tiles dyed with melanin that could change colours according to the humidity of the surface, giving live indications of what the weather was at street level. Perhaps an army of silkworms creating translucent membranes that allow sunlight to pour down into the tunnels. Luminescent fungi farms that could act as natural night lights as well as alternative food sources. How can Nature, an infinitely varied and complex ecology, bring that variety and diversity of experience to an otherwise sterile and monotonous urban environment such as tube stations?

Of course, all these improvements are quality of life changes that are dependent on a wellfunded and supported TfL. Priorities should still be improving accessibility, implementing smart technologies to improve safety, supporting TfL drivers and support staff with decent wages and ethical working conditions, modernising stations, and improving air quality. However, just as placemaking, beauty, and wellbeing is becoming increasingly prominent within the English planning system, I feel that tube stations need that same level of attention considering how long we spend in them and how often they bookend our working lives. If we can sprinkle a little bit of that long-train-journey experience into our daily working lives, some sense of travel, distance, and destination, I wonder what that would do to the way in which we perceive the cities we inhabit and the lives we lead.

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Returning once more to our moving train window, I’ve realised that I’ve set up a rather bleak dichotomy between the soporific rocking of a cross-country train whisking you away on holiday and the sweltering Pringles I can wedge

into each weekday morning. In the end, any journey taken for pleasure will outweigh those taken by necessity - no amount of decoration or design can assuage the dread of the Monday morning commute. However, after two years of government-imposed lockdown and the subsequent helter-skelter lifestyle to make up for lost time, I am acutely aware of how impactful our surroundings can be on our minds and bodies. There are countless things we must do in our lives, commuting being one, where we accept a lot of the drudgery and anxiety as part of the bargain we strike moving through life. The same applies to decisions about partners, careers, parents, friends - many times it’s easier to accept than to address the things we don’t like in and around us. What this elongated ramble about tube stations and train windows is driving at, is the ability for urban designers and planners to identify the innate points of pleasure that we all share, such as looking out of windows, being in nature, sunshine on one’s face, and to begin bringing that quality of environment into those spaces that have been designed for efficiency and little else. The tube station is a liminal zone, straddling the beginning and ending of a journey, designed for speed and expediency but what if we encouraged people to slow down and enjoy the journey? Taking a look out the window and watching the world go by.

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5T H E LI F E A N D

D E AT H O F TOW E R H A M LE T S LI V E A B LE STREE TS

G I A N LU CA In the summer of 2020, Tower Hamlets Council brought in Project Centre, an urban design consultancy to begin to consult on and implement a borough wide ‘Liveable Streets’ scheme. The scheme was designed to reduce traffic and promote active transport in line with the predominantly Labour Council’s ambitious manifesto targets from the 2018 Council elections. The scheme’s suggested road closures and other forms of traffic management, packaged in the form of ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’ in Bow, quickly began to highlight the divide between two different groups that populate the East End. In opposition to the scheme, you had the more long-term residents of Bow, predominantly from a more working-class background, and likely to drive for or to work, and on the other side, the almost entirely white, middle to upper class residents of Bow, who were very supportive of the restrictions on the grounds of tackling issues such as rat-running, speeding and air pollution.

As a child of the internet there’s nothing I love more than to dig into the online comments of a political issue. And so, with professional curiosity I quickly joined the WhatsApp groups for both the pro- and anti-Liveable Streets groups. Quietly ‘lurking’ in both spaces, I was privileged to be able to see not only what they were both planning, but what they were both saying about each other. The antis were very quick to make the issue one of class. They very

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quickly typified the pro-group as ‘middle-class hippie bike lovers’, and the council as a proponent of social cleansing. The pro-group on the other hand were quick to point out the influence of the cabbie lobby in resisting road closures in London, and that a lot of the antis were not actual residents of Bow. These of course are my own assumptions, and not necessarily reflective of the compositions of these groups.

This brought into question many issues that whilst being relevant to Bow, are also very much representative of wider issues in London: issues like gentrification, inequality and air pollution.

The divide between the Georgian terraces of Bow West and the council estates of Bow East is a divide we can see across our city. What arose from this divide was the issue of authenticity and how both groups were claiming to be the authentic local voice and therefore the one whose views should be taken more seriously by the Council.

Both sides made claims to be in the majority, and both sides were quick to put themselves on the moral high ground. However, can we solve our city’s issues on the basis of listening to the ‘authentic’ voice? Who gets to decide what makes up the ‘authentic’ voice? If anything, this battle over authenticity has only served to drive a wedge through the local community.

In 2022, we’re seeing the end of the ‘Liveable Streets’ scheme. Newly elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman was elected with a landslide majority, campaigning on a platform of ending road

closures. Since the May elections, the pro- WhatsApp chats have been filled with people planning protests, or at least the middle-class equivalents (strongly worded emails and maybe some petitions), while the anti- group has been crowing their success, pointing to Rahman’s election as evidence of a public tired of road closures (conveniently ignoring the many other failures of the previous Labour council).

Tower Hamlets is a borough where 71% of households do not own a car, and where 1/3 of trips are less than 1.2 miles. In other innercity boroughs with similar conditions like the nearby Hackney or Islington, elections were won by parties and mayors who backed an increase in walking and cycling provisions. On a personal level, as someone who cycles occasionally, I am envious at the thought of these boroughs creating segregated cycle lanes, reducing car access, and protecting cyclists from having to share the road with vans and trucks (such utopian ideals, I know). On a political level, however, I am concerned that these ‘wins’ for low traffic neighbourhoods only paper over the cracks developing in London communities.

Winning a majority is always great. In Tower Hamlets and in Hackney the newly elected mayors and local councils will feel empowered to get on with their own agendas, be that building cycling infrastructure, or tearing it down. At least in Tower Hamlets, I hope that Rahman and his Aspire Party Council looks to begin his term in no way like the Labour Council ended theirs: building relationships and speaking across issues (but in a good community building way, not in a lame right-wing Labour politician way). In fact, both residents and the Council need to realise that if we’re going to build a just and democratic city we need to move beyond flimsy consultationsand outside of online echo chambers. Together we need to build consensus, work out compromises, and most importantly, build our communities. Of course, when doing this we need to keep in mind that democracy and consensus in itself is not ‘just’ if we do not address the inherent injustices and marginalisation of groups within our communities, a task easier said than done.

As ridiculous as it sounds, within this issue of Liveable Streets and the divide it has created in communities I see the wider issues and the divides in London’s community. Often the diversity of neighbourhoods is upheld as positive, and before I’m cancelled, let me say that I enjoy and believe in diverse neighbourhoods. But just existing in a neighbourhood with lots of different people does nothing to address the fact these diverse groups of people who come from incredibly different backgrounds may have vastly different opinions on how the neighbourhood should be run and what it should look like. And again, maybe (definitely) I’ve just spent too much online than is healthy, but I really despair at the fact that I don’t see anything being done by the Council to even begin to address this growing divide in Tower Hamlets.

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6 H E R J US T C I T Y HANNAH A beginning and an end symbolise a journey.

Journeys are not only the mapped geography of getting from a to z - they also incorporate the psychogeography of individual experience.

Consider the man who takes the exact same daily commute as me, from one side of London to the other - despite walking the same pavement and waiting at the same platforms, our experiences remain unshared. It’s this exact individualism which sparked my love for cities; the ability to feel part of a community through shared space whilst simultaneously feeling insular in your experience.

I felt cities placed value on the identity and uniqueness of their inhabitants - I believed that by doing so, they rejected homogeneity and allowed for the pursuit of diversity through freedom. It is for that reason that I have often argued that I love the inconspicuousness of the city - I can be whoever I want to be, and it’s unlikely that anyone I encounter will judge my choices. However, the longer I live in a city, the more I am aware that being invisible is only enjoyable if you have the choice to be so and that perhaps, as a woman, I am not the concealed flâneuse I’d once romanticised.

Much of the feminist theory and research surrounding urban life falls under the context of the security and safety of women. Wilson addressed this within her works on Sphinx in the City, arguing that women should not be seen as the victims of urbanism and instead suggests alternative ways of urban living, utilising ‘a new “feminine” voice in praise of cities. This highlights the distinction, which exists in most cities globally, between those who construct and plan cities, their outcomes, and the impact which it has on the lived experience of women within cities.

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The ability to traverse a city unnoticed has been romanticised through the male character of the flaneur who has the freedom to saunter the city, observing others. Women, amongst other subjugated groups within society, do not share the same luxury. Instead, they experience the city under a constant panoptic gaze. This gaze is built into the fabric of the city through the processes and politics which have historically defined our cities. I am not attempting to paint a picture of literal city-sized panopticons, instead, I’m suggesting that the built form of our cities embody the governmentality of control which restricts feminine freedom.

Despite being so conspicuous within such a system, the voices of women have often been suppressed, rendering them seen but unheard.

As voiced by Audre Lorde, those who experience subjection from those in positions of power are often silenced and therefore they must rise and speak in order to create change and bring about equality - for “it is not difference which immobilises[...] it is silence”.

W H AT D O E S A F E M I N I S T C I T Y LO O K LI K E A N D W H AT CA N BRING ABOUT CHANGE? Inspiring and motivational examples of community-led groups and organisations are emerging throughout cities to encourage and promote gender equity within urban environments. Within London, grassroots campaigns and communities have been established by women, addressing the challenges they face in order to reclaim their right to the city. The displacement of mothers through cuts in funding and reductions in social housing in Newham, for example, birthed the Focus E15 campaign. The original Focus E15 hostel housed young homeless people, often single mothers who, on the closure of the hostel, were being forced to move outside of London to private

In Hackney, 2016, an empty council flat was reclaimed by a feminist action group Sisters Uncut, who created a community centre raising awareness for their opposition to government funding cuts for domestic violence services and victims. Their movement was inspired by the first women’s refuge set up in Chiswick in 1971. The original refuge was a four-bedroom, short-life property leased by Hounslow Council to a group of women for community use as a space where women could gather and talk about the issues they were facing. The refuge became an integral part of the community, accommodating around 40 women and their children. The women worked collectively repairing the house and making it livable, creating a space where abused women could come together and form a community, breaking the cycle of violence and preventing isolated women from returning to abusive households.

In the research for Vienna’s redevelopment, the voices of teenage girls were heard within the design of public parks in order to understand how to make these urban spaces more appealing.

The result was larger areas, often dedicated to football, being divided up into smaller spaces so that multiple groups could play in the same space.

Improved seating areas were integrated and the number of public toilets increased. Importantly, the safety fears, held by many females, also were addressed with straight well lit pathways lined with bushes and set back at a distance. Vienna not only listened to the perspectives of females within their research, but they also empowered women through increased visibility. In the city’s urban development project Seestadt Aspern, many of the streets, squares and parks have been named after women, contrary to the historically predominant male naming. As requested by girls at the nearby school - a stage, called the Mädchenbühne (girls’ stage), which can be used by anyone, was designed within one of the city’s most prominent squares.

The stage not only responds to the direct needs of the local female community, but it also stands as a physical space for expression and AUDRE LORDE performance, as well as a symbolic space allowing the voices of all to be seen and heard.

Both of these examples of informal grassroots movements demonstrate the importance of the collective voice and the role which safe spaces and places in the city play in the empowerment of women. Whether that be through safe housing or through spaces to voice concerns - the public realm can facilitate change. More formal examples of equitable practices in urban design that empower women can be seen in case studies around Europe. Vienna is an example often praised for its approach to gender mainstreaming within urban planning, having designed spaces around the challenges women face in transport around the city, extending into residential architecture, featuring on-site childcare, health services.

Whilst I am not suggesting that changing street names would change the way in which we individually experience the city or solve urban sexism single-handedly - there is an implied sense of empowerment and ownership in knowing that your identity (gender included) is included within the planning of the space you traverse. From a broader perspective, increasingly inclusive design not only helps to serve the needs of the wider population, but it also aids in acknowledging the heterogeneity of the city. In such a way, perhaps it is through inclusion that it becomes possible to truly experience the individual freedom which I believe a city has the potential to create.

rented accommodation as far as Manchester, if they wanted to be rehoused. Women who were impacted joined forces to create a collective voice, taking their concerns to positions of power in the council and media outlets. By taking advantage of the city as a platform for activism, their campaign resulted in the rehousing of all 29 mothers within Newham.

“

it is not difference which immobilises... it is silence.

“

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7 T H E SE S

“Why did you choose your dissertation topic?”

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The editors called upon members of the 2020-2022 MPlan cohort to share about their dissertation topic; why they chose it, and with what issues in particular they felt it was important to engage. For many of us, these dissertations were a labour of love and the hours poured into producing these works were motivated by reasons deeper than just a passing interest: they were topics we truly cared about.

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JA N E K I S T L E R “Bu i l d i n g i nst a b i l i t y ” : Th e i m p a c t s o f re g e n e rati o n a c ti v i t y o n l o c a l re s i d e nt s : Th e c as e o f S o u tha l l , London

I am investigating perceived density and the built environment, related to objective density and the perception of density. The inspiration for this were the changes I experienced. I am scared to be in the crowds of people after the pandemic, and I want more space in restaurants, so I am curious about what other people with diverse backgrounds think of high density after the pandemic.

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After five years of frequent trips to Southall, I was unable to ignore the drastic changes to the built environment that I was progressively seeing. Towers of brick and glass over ten storeys high had been erected during those years, now looming above the worn-in Victorian terraces and shops of this outer London enclave. Upon noticing that the voices of local people were conspicuously absent from the policy and planning processes driving these seismic changes to the fabric of their area, I wanted to ask residents how their lives are being impacted by this amplified development activity. I felt this was especially important, as the development of potentially unaffordable housing is occurring at rapid pace without substantial recognition of the historic struggle for South Asians to claim Southall as a communal hub amidst ongoing widespread racism historically and in modern times. How regeneration activity will impact this sense of community solidarity remains to be seen as time goes by. It was clear to me Southall is a special place that is of central importance to several communities and I wanted to know how this character might be altered by the “regeneration” style of development activity taking place here.

S T E PH A N I E H UA N G Un d e r st a n d i n g th e ro l e o f p e rc e p ti o n a n d to l e ra n c e o f d e ns i t y a n d b u i l t e nv i ro n m e nt c ha ra c te risti c s re late d to o b j e c ti ve d e ns i t y i n fo rm i n g p a n d e m i c re s i l i e n c e c i ti e s— Th e c as e o f Wo o d b e rr y D own

My principal interest in planning has always been in seeking to understand what gives places meaning and character, and conversely what strips places of those qualities. It’s always fascinated me how seemingly small urban changes and interventions can have such a significant impact on people’s relationship with their surroundings. My dissertation sought to interrogate how such changes in the form of new development on Brick Lane affected local residents’ sense of Brick Lane’s character. I suppose it was a passion project in that I have long been sympathetic to residential anger over some pretty terrible new development in London, but there was a practical aspect to it, in that neighbourhood character forms a fundamental conceptual pillar of the English planning process, and can make or break an application, despite it remaining a fairly esoteric concept.

R OZ A M O M OT S a c re d Su b u r b ia : Wh e n A m e ri c a n E va n g e l ism a n d Ne w Ur b a n ism Me e t

ED LEAHY Cre ati ve c o nti nu i t y : h ow re s i d e nt s p e rc e i ve neighbourhood c ha ra c te r o n Bri c k Lane amid new d e ve l o p m e nt

I chose my dissertation topic because I came across a very curious development in my hometown that was an intersection of evangelicalism and new urbanism, and I had never seen this overlap, and evangelicalism more generally, discussed in planning literature. They always say to find a gap in the literature, and I think I found a very big one, so I was very excited to have a lot of freedom to explore this huge topic. At the same time, this topic had personal significance to me due to my background, and allowed me to interweave so many of my personal and academic interests into one dissertation.

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G R E TA G E S o c ia l e xc l us i o n fa c e d b y th e f l o ati n g p o p u lati o n i n th e h o us i n g ma r ke t : a c as e stu d y i n S h e n z h e n , Ch i na

I researched the social exclusion faced by the floating population in the housing market because, as a graduate and a member of immigrant cohort, I along with others will face housing pressure after going back to China due to the characteristics of the Chinese people-management system. Therefore, I chose this topic out of my curiosity to explore the exclusion of the floating population in the housing market.

Looking for connections between housing and care for my dissertation research has meant finding connections across many different scales, from personal relationships, to care, to more political conceptions of care. My dissertation research investigates the interface between housing and care, focussing on a single case study in one of London’s rapidly developing Opportunity Areas (OA).

I focussed on qualitative research methods and wanted to think about care being built into the methodology too. Working with the estates Tenants and Renters Association (TRA) we established a way of working that would centre the estate’s needs and concerns. The findings gathered address many aspects of housing and care spanning the general feeling of the estate and what people’s lives have been like there, feelings towards the many developments happening in the Old Kent Road Opportunity Area (OKR OA), residents’ fundamental concerns about the re-development of the estate and the consultation process that has accompanied this. Some residents also shared broader views about the role of the council and housing provision.

The research really confirms that housing and care are intertwined.

In the conversational interviews housing was a constructive way to open up discussions around care practices and definitions of care.

Lack of care took on many forms and had a variety of impacts upon the residents, their well-being and attitudes towards the proposed infill development on their estate. This lack of care led to a number of implications that included the creation of further mistrust and resistance towards the proposed development, disengagement, feelings of stress and anxiety amongst residents and other voluntary organisations having to attempt to plug gaps in care on the estate.

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CH E N H AO L I U Ur b a n a g g l o m e rati o n as c at a l y st fo r re g i o na l i n n o vati o n : A stu d y o f p la n n i n g p o l i c y i m p l i c ati o ns i n Ya n g t ze R i ve r D e l t a

SAFFRON M U S TA FA Ho us i n g re g e n e rati o n a n d th e e th i c s o f c a re

I chose this topic based on my placement experience in China and England and my general interest in international planning. I also chose it because it is an area of which I have some prior knowledge. I thought this topic would make my dissertation process easier with prior knowledge although it was actually not the case when I started my writing.

I encourage the next classes of MPlan students to think of the difficulty level of the methodology before embarking on an interesting topic, which I did not do well at and resultingly caused me much stress!

As a previous Economics student, I am always interested in how economics interacts with urban development and shapes cities for better living, so my dissertation focused on urban economics. With the geographical expansion and evolution of production methods, urban agglomeration and innovation have become the new arena and incentive for contemporary economic development. Whilst research has stressed spontaneous and institutional choices of the clustering of industries, few of them examine the effect of planning policies that foster the agglomeration of innovation. My dissertation aimed to explain the evolution of regional innovation from the policy perspective and chose Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA) as the case study, which is one of the most strategically important areas with an intensive concentration of innovative activities in China.

H UA I WA N G Th e “p ro j e c t p la n” a n d “strate g i c p la n” b as e d a p p ro a c h e s i n c o nte m p o ra r y m e tro p o l i t a n p la ns : a c o m p a rati ve c as e stu d y o f th e L o n d o n Pla n 2 0 2 1 a n d S ha n g ha i Maste rp la n 2 0 1 7

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J O R DA N BI SH O P Th e R is e o f D i g i t a l No ma d i c i t y i m p l i c ati o ns fo r Pla n n i n g i n th e Mo d e rn Day D i g i t a l City

I chose my dissertation topic because I wanted to investigate the possible impacts of the next generation worker on the cities we live in today.

The changes we have seen since the pandemic regarding how people work have already disrupted common conceptions and notions of how the city is used, so by using the digital nomad as an example of how productivity in the city has become despatialised to an extent, I wanted to see how the world of planning can respond to such pressures.

Being from Singapore I was always interested in the Isle of Dogs’ claim to be one of the densest places in the world.

I chose to investigate how densification and high-rise development are impacting its residents for two reasons.

The first is that I think whether you agree with it or not, densification and high-rises are inevitable in the modern global city and therefore need to be studied and understood.

Secondly, residents are the most important stakeholders in a neighbourhood and their voices and opinions on this issue are incredibly understudied.

Being from Singapore I was always interested in the Isle of Dogs’ claim to be one of the densest neighbourhoods in the world. Additionally, the Isle is the birthplace of UK highrise development and its experience of rapid densification from the mid 20th century until now has created a unique and intriguing spatial and political landscape.

J E N N I F E R CH A N To what e x te nt d o d i ffe re nt p u b l i c au th o ri ti e s sha p e th e publicness of public o p e n sp a c e i n p ri vate d e ve l o p m e nt i n Ho n g K o n g

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G I A N LU CA CAVA L L A R O -N G R e s i d e nt s ’ e x p e ri e n c e o f h i g h-ris e d e ve l o p m e nt a n d d e ns i f i c ati o n o n th e Isl e o f D o gs

In places like Hong Kong where all land is owned by the government, I am interested in investigating the efficiency of public-private partnership in providing public open space in Hong Kong under limited land resources.

CH A R L I E G AO Pla n n i n g fo r ra i n b ow : th e re lati o nsh i p b e t we e n p la n n i n g a n d LG BTQ + v is i b i l i t y

We’ve seen anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime soaring and LGBTQ+ venues/spaces closing since COVID-19. With no doubt, planning could help with LGBTQ+ visibility to be more proudly presented by our built environment.

However, have our local authorities done anything? Do they know how they could help by using planning as a tool? This is what my dissertation wanted to explore and help us to achieve a more inclusive future for LGBTQ+ communities.

JOHANNA G E WO L K E R

He a l th D e p ri vati o n Cha n g e i n L o n d o n 2 0 1 0 – 2 0 1 9 : A n e x p l o rati o n o f th e ro l e p lay e d b y p la n n i n g a n d h o us i n g i nte r ve nti o ns i n th e c o nte x t o f auste ri t y The goal of improving people’s health through changes in the built environment was at the heart of planning when it emerged as a formal discipline in the Victorian era in England. In my dissertation I explored the role played by physical environment factors that are influenced by planning, in contributing to relative health deprivation changes in London between 2010 and 2019. There is much literature in the field of planning that examines the relationship between specific planning interventions or physical environment factors (eg. neighbourhood walkability and the presence of green space) and how these relate to health. However, less research has been carried out that looks at longer term health changes and the physical environment patterns associated with them. Using open data, I ran correlations on the relationship between physical environment factors and health deprivation changes at the LSOA level after controlling for population change. Interestingly, most of these, apart from investment in council housing maintenance and repair, were shown to have no significant relationship with health deprivation change.

When case study clusters that had health deprivation change and no population change (mostly limited to Outer London) were examined, a consistent pattern of increasing health deprivation was identified in neighbourhoods with a higher than borough average proportions of over 65s and homeownership, but with lower property values. This finding suggests that it may be older people’s access to housing assets, possibly as a way to fund social care since the austerity informed reforms to the sector since the early 2010, that may be responsible for increased health deprivation in these neighbourhoods. While these factors are beyond the immediate control of planning, the latter is still implicated in the construction of an asset-based welfare system that has produced these circumstances. Systemic changes would be required to address potential root causes of the problem in these neighbourhoods, systemic changes to welfare provision. Nonetheless, planning and housing policy could help circumvent some of the current outcomes by providing more suitable housing for older people and by introducing grants through which older homeowners with less money can maintain their homes to a safe and healthy standard.

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H A R R I S O N BR E WE R Is the Georgian terraced house more beautiful than the Modernist estate? To me perhaps it is, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find someone who disagrees with me. These debates often make for fun, light-hearted discussions - reserving beauty as a matter of taste - but when beauty is enshrined within policy, its subjectivity becomes a matter of politics.

H A N N A H AV E R BE CK

If b e au t y is th e a nswe r, what is th e q u e sti o n?

- A d is c o u r s e a na l y s is Whilst beauty may be found within the eye of o f b e au t y wi th i n the individual beholder, the pursuit of beauty as a common social good is more difficult to argue nati o na l p la n n i n g with. It is such a consensus, formed within the ideologies of beauty, which kickstarted my interest policy in its impacts on the power dynamics within policy. As such, my thesis sits at the intersection between aesthetics, social justice and the politics of planning policy. I have always been intrigued by the subjectivity of aesthetics, particularly in relation to public spaces and city planning - who gets to decide what the spaces we all live in look like and how do design based policies impact agency in the built environment? Such questions of aesthetic control date back to the origins of planning. However, the introduction of the word ‘beautiful’ into the 2021 NPPF brought these conversations to the fore once again within a modern neoliberal context. The assumed subjectivity of beauty and the politics of policy imply questions of justice and democracy - therefore, a lens of social justice was used to focus the analysis within the paper, assessing the impacts of the policy against the criteria for a ‘Just City’.

The agenda for beauty was introduced within the 2021 NPPF as a social objective alongside the Planning for the Future White Paper which aimed to provide a ‘fast-track’ to beauty through local design codes. My thesis conducted a critical

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discourse analysis of national planning policy documents alongside published consultation responses to the policy reform, with the intention of revealing underlying assumptions, governmentalities and unbalanced power dynamics. A framework, established within policy analysis methodologies, was employed - asking ‘what is the problem represented to be?’. This provided the opportunity to delve deeper into the politics of the word beauty, setting a starting point for critical analysis in an urban planning policy context.

The paper demonstrated that beauty holds power within knowledge when being utilised as a market mechanism and holds discursive power within its use as a political device. Therefore, whilst beauty may be objective in the pursuit of it, the experience of beauty remains subjective.

As such, any attempt to objectify beauty through policy becomes a misuse of power which, in turn, creates subjects out of citizens and reduces the democracy and equity required for a just city.

Tra c i n g th e s o c i o -p o l i ti c a l g e o m e tri e s o f v i o l e n c e th ro u g h p o st- c i v i l wa r B e i ru t Whilst I was watching a clip on the war in Ukraine, a 27 year old woman is crouching in a metro station, flanked by her mother and daughter.

She is awaiting the all-clear siren to ring from above and signal that Russia’s bombing of Kyiv has paused. During the interview, the journalist asks what she hopes to find when she goes above ground tomorrow. “I just want everything to be quiet and calm. Even if there is destruction, it can all be rebuilt. Over time, everything can be restored”. The young mother echoes the hopes of those displaced by war – that the city can be ‘restored’, returned to a previous state when life was simple and secure. Sadly, the devastation of urban conflict bleeds beyond the damage done to buildings.

Urban violence leaves scars in the memory of the afflicted, erodes economic connections, reduces state capacities to provide for its people, and creates opportunities for systems of corruption and control to embed themselves within the urban fabric. Post-conflict reconstruction is the urban planner’s solution to this wicked socio-political, economic, historical, and cultural problem. The complexity of the problem often means that the solution misses the mark. Yet, as urban planners and designers, we are often proposing perfect solutions in imperfect conditions, leading to a disparity between potential and practice. Instead, we need to work with and within these difficult contexts rather than ignore the realities on the ground.

I wanted to explore how the realities of postconflict reconstruction impact the theoretical ‘blue-sky thinking’ of urban planning through a close examination of post-conflict urban recovery in Beirut. Beirut’s contemporary history has

been characterised by intense internal civil conflict, the decay of state infrastructure and governance, deeply divided religious and ethnic communities, and intervention and invasion by regional and global powers making it a complex post-reconstruction project whilst providing an adequate period of analysis for my thesis. Beirut is a historical palimpsest, constructed of layers of historical meaning and significance, which was platformed in the post-war period as part of a series of drastic excavation, development, and reconstruction projects. How do the layers of history interact with the web of power that was tenuously holding the capital together in the aftermath of a 25-year long civil war? I decided to trace the socio-political geometries of that post-war consensus through time and space into the current day and uncover how post-conflict reconstruction is shaped by the conditions and complexities that came before it.

It is my hope that the reconstruction of Ukraine will look very little like that of Beirut. Whilst the reasons for this would be the topic of another dissertation altogether, what is key to acknowledge is the need to critically judge who rebuilds and what is rebuilt. The reconstruction of Beirut was taken out of the hands of Beirutis as soon as the civil war had ended. If Ukraine is going to thrive after the war, it is the young mother sheltering with her daughter who must decide how her homeland is to be rebuilt. It is the duty of the global community to ensure she has that opportunity.

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8E N D I N G S

T H E M PL A N

The creation of a new master’s programme is always a challenging endeavour, not least when the model of development and implementation has promoted and favoured a one-year intensive course. Along with Dr Ben Clifford we set about developing our vision of a 2-year MPlan City Planning master’s programme for a number of reasons (all the way back in 2015). Initially, we felt that there was a market for a high-quality course of two years to allow students to explore some of the great challenges facing the planet. Secondly, we wanted students to explore both domestic and international planning practice and culture, offering the opportunity to further embed learning through either a term spent in practice, or at an international partner institution, as well as a significantly longer dissertation than the oneyear programmes. Thirdly, and crucially we wanted students to think independently and critically about the definition of, and solutions to, city and regional planning problems and the nature of existing planning systems and practices. The programme particularly emphasises the importance of a spatial and comparative perspective to planning, the need for integrated solutions to planning problems for planning cities and regions, and the need for creative and research-based solutions to the management of our built and natural environments.

The programme started in September 2017 and has attracted a range of high calibre students from across the globe, and from across a wide range of disciplines. The programme is jointly accredited by the RTPI and RICS

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and is is designed to be small in terms of student numbers, with a close relationship between director and students; each student is encouraged to develop her/his/their own path through the programme with some arriving with a clear desire to specialise in one area of planning, and others to explore the widest possible range of planning material. The result is the highest standard and calibre of graduate, with an excellent employment rate and a tight-knit alum network. Graduates have gone on to work in the full range of planning practice and academia in London and further afield.

This zine comes at an exciting time for the programme, 5 years after we welcomed the first students. The collection of material in this zine attests to the range of interests of the students on the programme and their engagement with some of the great challenges that we face here in the UK, the rest of Europe, and globally. It is a testament to their hard work, dedication, and long hours of study. One of the great pleasures of an academic is to work with such talented and intelligent students, and to see them emerge into practice and start changing the environment around us for the better. To say that I am extremely proud of their achievements on the course is an understatement.

DR MICHAEL SHORT, PROGRAMME DIRECTOR

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CRO S S WO R D AC R O S S [2] Early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between 16th and 19th centuries [5] Feminine conjugation of the french term for an urban walker [7] A step-through bicycle with moustache handlebars [8] Famous British designer known for his seed pavilion [10] A document and policy guide designed to help communities create a vision of what they want to look like in the future.

[11] Hot Metal Transportation [12] Surname of the author who wrote ‘Feminist City’

D OWN [1] Site of the largest London regeneration project [3] River running alongside Lahore, Pakistan [4] Capital where you find the ‘Cityringen’ [6] London Borough [9] Ancient Phoenician city [10] Dye that gives our skin, hair, and eyes their colour

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D I R E C TO R Y C H A R LI E G AO

cgao1996@gmail.com C H E N H AO

c.liu65@outlook.com G I A N LU CA CAVA LL A R O -N G

gianlucaziming@gmail.com H A N N A H AV E R B E C K

hbfaverbeck@gmail.com

HARRISON BREWER

harrisonfbrewer@outlook.com JA N E K I S T LE R

janekistler1@gmail.com

JENNIFER CHAN

jcwc1111@gmail.com J O H A N N A G E WO LK E R

johannagewolker@hotmail.com J O R DA N B I SH O P

jordan_bishop@msn.com

R OZ A M O M OT

rozamomot97@gmail.com S A F F R O N M US TA FA

Saffronmustafa@gmail.com XUA N W E N H UA N G

x.hua38@gmail.com

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AC K N OW LE D G E M E N T S E D I TO R S

G I A N LU CA CAVA LL A R O -N G H A N N A H AV E R B E C K HARRISON BREWER JA N E K I S T LE R S A F F R O N M US TA FA

PH OTO G R A PH Y HARRISON BREWER

D E SI G N

H A N N A H AV E R B E C K

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