The Developer - New Normal

the developer

spring/summer 2020

new

normal

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the developer The Developer is a publication for enlightened real estate developers working in the private and public sector along with their investors, local government, architects, placemakers and project teams.

It’s major event, the Festival of Place, brings its audience together to learn, inspire and debate the future of placemaking.

We inform and connect professionals working in the development and design of urban spaces through our journalism, podcast, films, magazine and live at the annual Festival of Place, breaking down silos to bring professionals together to define what makes a place worth living in; cities where people thrive.

Our content is free and supported by our subscribers, Patrons and sponsors, tickets for live events and entries to our awards programme, The Pineapples.

For more information, please visit our website: www.thedeveloper.live Published by Tweak Ltd

Director and editor-in-chief Christine Murray christine@thedeveloper.live

Photographers John Sturrock, Andrew McCaren, Marco Ferrari

Creative director Micha Weidmann

Director James Macleod james@thedeveloper.live

Art director Sonny Dhamu Group production director Jon Squire Sub-editor Rob Buckley Production co-ordinator Danny Lyle Contributing editor Patricia Brown Placetesters Rebecca Toop Anna Wood Nitasha Kapoor Drawings editor Richard Marks

© Tweak Ltd 2020

Podcast producer Simon Mercer

No.03 Spring/summer 2020

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Kemp House 152-160 City Road London EC1V 2NX

Director Tim Willoughby tim@thedeveloper.live Subscriptions and back issues info@thedeveloper.live Telephone 020 7772 8384 Printed by Stephens & George Print Group Goat Mill Road Dowlais Merthyr Tydfil CF48 3TD Proud Supporters The following businesses and individuals are Proud Supporters of The Developer on Patreon

architecture | planning | landscape

Contributors Marina Engel, Chris Stokel-Walker, Emma Warren, Clementine Wallop, Catherine Early, Will Sandy, Na’amah Hagiladi, Danny Michael Ball, Lucy Anna Scott, Araceli Camargo, Sarah Aliko, Daniel Akinola-Odusola, Elahi Hossain, Steve Taylor, Nicole Badstuber, Max Farrell, Toby Denham, Aymara Lamche-Brennan, Chris Pask

£30 ISBN 978-1-9160459-2-7

9 781916 045927

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Southend-on-Sea, UK Council community safety officers patrol the beach to enforce social distancing measures on 25 May 2020. Lockdown restrictions put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic were eased earlier in the month, but bathers were still expected to remain two metres apart and maintain strict hygiene requirements on the beach. Photo: Getty the developer pictured 3

Rome, Italy Customers sit at tables placed at a safe social distance in a terraced area outside a cafe on 19 May. Italy had registered the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases since early March, and the government eased a nationwide lockdown to allow shops, bars and restaurants to reopen as long as they respected health and safety rules. Photo: Getty 4

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Krakow, Poland A parkgoer practices social distancing on 21 May by sitting inside one of the squares painted on the lawn next to Vistula Boulevards. The squares are two metres apart from each other and were created by Urban Greenery Board with chalk paint during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo: Getty 6

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London, UK Pictured during lockdown, King’s Cross’ Granary Square is almost empty on 23 March with the iconic fountains switched off in spite of warm weather. The Google HQ construction site, pictured with cranes (top left), downed tools on 13 March after a subcontractor tested positive for COVID-19. Photo: John Sturrock

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London, UK A couple sunbathes on a bench in the City of London while wearing face masks during their one hour of permitted exercise on 23 April, one day after chief medical officer for England Chris Whitty announced that social distancing is likely to be needed until a vaccine is made available for COVID-19. Photo: John Sturrock

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Hong Kong, China Students maintain physical distance in a games area ahead of their diploma of secondary education exams on 29 April.

Temperature checks to detect illness and social distancing measures to avoid the spread of COVID-19 were put in place in schools for the more than 50,000 candidates sitting the exams this year. Photo: Anthony Kwan/Getty 10

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Madrid, Spain Citizens enjoy a walk along the Paseo de la Castellana on 23 May, one of the streets pedestrianised to enable physical distancing, as the country eased its lockdown restrictions. In Madrid, 36 lanes of road were reserved for citizens to use during an evening time slot allotted for exercise and recreation. Photo: Getty 12

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Tourcoing, France Primary schools in France reopened on 14 May as the country eased its lockdown measures. This picture was taken by a television journalist and was met with horror on social media, although the photographer did point out the children were playing happily. Photo: Lionel Top 14

Lyon, France Social distancing rules in France require lines to be marked out in schools to stop children getting too close to one another due to concerns that they may spread the virus. Photo: Getty the developer pictured 15

Mumbai, India Passengers maintain social distancing while waiting to board their flights at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on 28 May after domestic flights resumed, following a two-month shutdown. The government halted all domestic traffic on 25 March after suspending international flights. Photo: Getty 16

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Auckland, New Zealand Bars reopen as the final phase of New Zealand’s COVID-19 measures come into effect on 21 May. Domestic travel has resumed, and restaurants, cinemas, retail, playgrounds, gyms, and schools have reopened. Gatherings are limited to 10 people. The country has been hailed for eradicating the virus, having suffered 22 deaths. On 29 May, just one case of coronavirus remained. Photo: Getty 18

the developer new normal 24 Editor’s letter This edition of The Developer captures a slippery moment in time at the dawn of a new normal

placetest 106 Placetest: Liverpool One One of Europe’s biggest city-centre mixed-used developments has managed to develop a local feel that is embedded in the rest of the city. This exclusive report by anthropologist Rebecca Toop explores the user experience of Liverpool One, with photography by Andrew McCaren

features 28 Letters from lockdown Marina Engel asked architects and thinkers from around the world to consider, or dream about, the role of the architect and urban design post-COVID-19 42 In search of the new normal How do we coax citizens out of their homes and safely back into cities? asks Chris Stokel-Walker 58 Citu has gone from straight-up developer to bringing the whole manufacturing process in-house The biggest challenge? Recruitment.

Christine Murray reports

Repurposing the mall, p64

64 Repurposing the mall Housing, community projects, art installations, music studios, museums... Emma Warren looks at how shopping centres are being reimagined around the country 70 It’s no surprise that during the lockdown, youth workers rolled up their sleeves and got creative A fast-paced digital pivot is turning a crisis into an opportunity, writes Emma Warren 80 London school pupils normally breathe air so dirty it is harmful to their health A handful of schools have been tackling the challenge through exciting innovations and green design. Clementine Wallop reports 146 England’s sites stayed open during lockdown As a result, men in construction have the highest COVID-19 death rate, according to the ONS. Who will be held accountable for the string of failures that cost lives? asks Christine Murray

Citu, p58

166 Net-zero developers are not waiting for a government mandate to make radical changes to the way they build places Catherine Early reports on housebuilding disruptor developers vying to be the hero of net zero and the “Tesla of house builders”

180 We need a revolution. We need landscape-led masterplans Landscape architecture is more than plant pots and pergolas. Its holistic approach could drive radical change if it came first, not last, when planning projects, argues Will Sandy 182 COVID-19 is blurring the boundaries between place-based and virtual communities Na’amah Hagiladi argues that now is a golden opportunity to restore the declining high street and enable new types of communities to emerge 183 One of the most unexpected side effects of the coronavirus lockdown is the impact on sleep Neuroscientist Danny Michael Ball explores the possible implications for long-term health and future planning policy of the lack of natural light in high-density urban areas 188 Can we redesign our cities to stop the spread of diseases?

What would our housing and cities look like if we designed them with pandemics in mind?

Chris Stokel‑Walker reports

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Placetest: Liverpool One, p106 20

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Kings Crescent, p90

places

Rome, p152

90 Kings Crescent Estate, Hackney Between Stoke Newington and Finsbury Park in north-east London, a part-demolished estate is enjoying an ambitious regeneration full of flux and possibility. Anna Wood and Nitasha Kapoor meet the residents enjoying its revival, and Christine Murray talks to Hackney mayor Philip Glanville 134 Mayfield depot Christine Murray learns from U+I’s development director James Heather how the company is drawing Mancunians to a site most had never heard of and bringing green space into the heart of Manchester 152 Rome I Ragazzi del Cinema America has organised a grassroots movement that effects real development changes.

Marina Engel looks at how ‘the boys and girls of Cinema America’ have brought new life to old buildings

162 Beam Park Christine Murray visits the £1bn brownfield redevelopment and reports on the Ford-free future of Dagenham as it swaps manufacturing for high-density housing 172 Watchet Eight women in a deprived seaside town repurposed an old paper mill into a community-focused biotech business and changed everything.

Lucy Anna Scott investigates how the Onion Collective came together to tackle a chronic unemployment problem and the climate emergency 176 Glasgow With intense pockets of deprivation cheek-by-jowl with overheated housing markets, Kevin Rush, director of regional growth at Glasgow City Region, is striving to close the gap with its City Deal and promote inclusive growth, writes Christine Murray

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COVID-19 and biological inequality, p50

research 50 COVID-19 and biological inequality Poor environments heighten the risk of health issues. Araceli Camargo, Sarah Aliko, Daniel Akinola-Odusola and Elahi Hossain have investigated how COVID-19 is interacting with these environments and BAME communities

184 If there is a silver lining to the retail apocalypse and the coronavirus crisis, it will be refreshed and reinvigorated high streets The lockdown has brought new opportunities for retail revitalisation, write Max Farrell, Toby Denham, Aymara Lamche-Brennan and Chris Pask. The challenge is what to do next

74 Tech clusters and innovation centres depress local wages and exacerbate inequality, so why build them?

Councils continue to invest in tech districts based on unproven microeconomic assumptions. Read the research and weep – start-up riches do not trickle down, writes Steve Taylor

events

84 Public transport can only run at onefifth capacity. Roads are gridlocked.

We need people to cycle or walk Nicole Badstuber digs into the numbers and argues that we have to change the way we plan, fund and design our transport networks for the ‘new normal’

156 The Festival of Place preview With a new date of 13 November, Christine Murray reveals programme highlights from The Developer’s annual event, which aims to break down silos, inspire attendees, and ask challenging questions

138 The inaugural Meanwhile Prize Six ‘meanwhile use’ projects have been selected as winners of a new award for pop-up interventions that have made a positive contribution to place in the UK

photo essay 03 Pictured Featuring photography from around the world during lockdown 190 In the photobooth Marco Ferrari usually curates this section of the magazine with selfies taken on location in places across the UK in old-style photobooths. During lockdown, he turned his box camera on himself, and with Arianna Maiello, worked to capture in cyanotype how COVID-19 changed the little things

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This edition captures a slippery moment in time at the dawn of a new normal

Christine Murray tries to make sense of the contradictory muddle of the past 10 weeks and the implications for the future of our places

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Created in lockdown, this magazine is a mix of reports and learnings that strive to make sense of the shocks and shifts taking place around us, especially in retail and transport.

This is the beginning of a conversation that we’ll continue at our Festival of Place on 13 November 2020 at Tobacco Dock in east London.

Some of the articles in these pages were commissioned before the crisis, but all were completed after. I hope that taken together, this collection of photography and words has captured a moment in time, following the great pause, at the forging of a new normal.

What struck me, as our homes morphed into cages and we adapted to life in captivity, is just how much of what we have built has been unmasked as slum.

Over the past two months, it’s become social custom to express gratitude for a balcony, a garden or the view of a tree.

Thoughts of those less fortunate now include inhabitants of shiny towers in prime neighbourhoods with no private outdoor space. Why was this ever OK? More acutely, I’ve been thinking about people in office-to-residential conversions with no windows; residents in airless coliving micro-flats that depend on shared facilities; and of social housing tenants, who are facing the highest level of overcrowding in 22 years, according to the most recent English Housing Survey. Who designed and built these places? Do they regret them?

In the early weeks, stuck in the flat with the kids, the lawn a happy mess of moss and violets, we smiled at our swing-set and scrawny trees like sudden gifts. Even if London Zoo animals have larger enclosures, we were the lucky ones. Our scrub of a garden felt lush and semi-wild. We watched robins, wrens, bees and butterflies. Aside from the occasional bang of a construction site, the constant migraine of traffic had stopped, and the sky turned blue with no contrails, as no planes flew.

Leaning out for the first Clap for Carers, we saw that every terrace windowsill on our Victorian street was filled with neighbours.

I had no idea we had so many. Whole families peered out from top-floor conversions or banged pots on the streets-in-the-sky gangways of a nearby estate, the noise of human hands like thunder.

I counted heads. Nearly every house is divided into two, three, or four flats, roughly one hundred houses on the street – the sound of a thousand souls clapping. And we are just one street among hundreds in Hackney, where house prices have risen by 700% over the past 20 years, according to Lloyds Bank. That night, in short succession, three ambulances drove past our home – no sirens,

Christine Murray. Photo: Anthony Coleman but blue lights. We hoped the children wouldn’t notice, afraid of scaring them.

Ten weeks later, at the final clap, scant faces appear at the windows. One shouts, “Yeah, NHS. Sack Cummings!” If collective gusto has waned and political cynicism peaked, we have quietly become more supportive of each other.

When one by one my family got sick with suspected COVID-19 – first my husband, then the kids, then me – the neighbours dropped off bread, fruit and vegetables, ringing the bell and stepping back. Even from two metres away, their nearness was a comfort. 111 told us to drink fluids and call 999 if we couldn’t speak for breathing.

The neighbours asked if they could help.

We were not alone.

When the weather, and our health, improved, I heard their stories over the fence or out the window. There’s the death of a local childminder; a funeral for a husband and wife; the loss of seven members of a family and a school friend’s grandfather. We are living in an epicentre, the second-most badly affected borough in the country. Hackney is a place where gentrification meets air pollution and deprivation – in 2012, The Economist described Dalston as “a fashionable mix of poverty and cool”.

We spoke more often to the households on our side of the road; parked cars are a conversation blocker. The ordinary shops and services on the high street have meant that we have not run short of what we need.

The big chain supermarkets ran out of flour and eggs, but the Turkish and Kurdish cornershops sourced new suppliers and ordered in bulk quantities, the small Italian delicatessen started delivering, and the

local Growing Communities’ organic fruit and veg scheme never missed a beat. It’s the small, independent traders that proved most resilient and kept us fed – and we loved them.

Central London still feels remote to our village-like life, those empty photographs of Soho and the Southbank like postcards from a world away. How many so-called thriving places were really just full of tourists and office workers? How many neighbourhoods have been revealed as hotel lobbies?

In London, one in 50 homes was estimated to be an Airbnb. There were more than 2,250 Airbnbs in Hackney on 9 March, but it’s been a while since I’ve heard the sound of suitcases being dragged along the pavement, a sound I’d never considered.

In the week beginning 16 March, Rightmove saw a 45% year-on-year increase in new rental listings in London, 78% in Bath, 62% in Edinburgh and 55% in Brighton. Neighbourhoods that depend on tourism will not have proved so resilient.

Perhaps post-pandemic, these homes will be inhabited again.

The green spaces are all busy, however. At first, Twitter chastised parkgoers. In London Fields, a police van drove around the green, broadcasting instructions to only exercise.

Victoria Park closed its gates. Benches and playgrounds were cordoned off. There was no acknowledgment of the elderly, disabled, pregnant or families for whom flats are pressure cookers and parks valves. Women’s Aid reported a 41% week-on-week increase in users visiting their Live Chat between 26 March and 1 April, and Refuge reported a 25% increase in calls to the national domestic abuse helpline.

Then it relaxes. But I find myself increasingly ceding the park to those without gardens of their own. Hackney Downs, usually pretty quiet, once belonged to the neighbourhood children, but it’s now the domain of lycra-clad joggers, workout buffs and 20-something friends. The bushes in which we played hide-and-seek are full of toilet paper – pubs and public lavatories are still closed.

More crowded than our local park is the narrow pavement that leads to it. In early lockdown, the roads were as quiet as Christmas, but the drivers barrel towards us threateningly. They honk loudly should a pedestrian step into the road, swear at cyclists, and stick two fingers up at me and the kids. This is contested space and the bullies taking it over are all men.

“Do you remember before the virus came, mum?” my six-year-old asks. How long before she no longer remembers?

There are things I don’t miss: the commute, the rolling suitcases, the school the developer editor’s letter 25

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run, the smelly air and the noise.

At the park, I notice how much the children just want to run. I question whether we’re living in the right place, even if only for this time. Without schools, the office, friends or culture on tap, what is the city for?

Urban density has failed to preserve the countryside, save the planet, promote biodiversity, provide affordable housing or prevent deprivation, joblessness and homelessness. It seems that to solve these problems, all we needed was the wave of a politician’s magic wand.

At the onset of the pandemic, councils commandeered vacant properties and hotels to rehouse rough sleepers. What will happen to them now the government has quietly withdrawn its funding for this vital programme? After years of rhetoric about the housing crisis, homelessness has been exposed as a policy decision, despite its negative impact on people, public health and economic recovery.

Without Airbnbs and hotels, do we still have a housing crisis? Did we ever have a housing crisis? It’s one of many unanswered questions, along with how we will address prime minister Boris Johnson’s incompetent handling of this pandemic, which has led to the UK having the highest COVID-19 death rate in the world. Johnson’s failure to close construction sites and the corresponding high number of deaths among workers shames this industry, too.

Shortly before the crisis hit, co‑founder James Macleod and I signed the contract to buy The Developer and the Festival of Place from Ocean Media Group. I was grateful for our incubation at Ocean, but I had always felt like The Developer was an independent publication and it was thrilling to buy the business outright. The ink wasn’t even dry on the contract when we realised the scale of the challenge COVID-19 would bring.

We had always intended to launch a patron model to support our free journalism and podcasts, but it became more pressing to do so. We launched on Patreon in April and I am touched by the number of people who have supported us thus far. Many thanks especially to our proud supporters Ash Sakula Architects, A Small Studio, ING Media and Stride Treglown.

At the heart of The Developer and the Festival of Place is my belief that developers, planners, architects and placemakers must be held to account on behalf of the citizen. I hope that through our journalism, placetests and podcasts and by sharing evidence-based research on the social impact of places, we can learn from collective failures and successes and promote better work.

I also believe we need to come together, to

break down silos in this dog-eat-dog industry and ask challenging questions – ideally at the Festival of Place.

For those of us eager to bounce back, this is the time to consider how to bounce forward, as architect Francine Houben writes in her letter from lockdown this issue.

Wars begin and revolutions happen overnight – it’s only a rear view of history that suggests otherwise.

When it comes to trains, planes, buses, cars, bikes, offices, shopping, and exactly where and how we want to live after this, all bets are off.

The only thing that’s certain is that everyone wants a private garden and highspeed broadband.

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NHS staff protest outside 10 Downing Street following the weekly ‘Clap for Carers’ event on 28 May. Photo: Getty the developer editor’s letter 27

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Letters from lockdown

Architects and thinkers reflect on the pause, edited and introduced

by Marina Engel 28

Bright lights, quiet city: Piccadilly Circus in London during the national lockdown. Photo: John Sturrock the developer letters from lockdown 29

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In Naples, Italy, the carabinieri and the helicopters department of Pontecagnano have used drones to help control gatherings during the quarantine. Geofencing has also been used in the country. Photo: Alamy 30

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the developer letters from lockdown 31

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It is possible that we shall not return to ‘normal’ as governments, globally, ease the restrictive measures implemented to contain COVID-19. Some sort of change is likely in the way we experience space in our work, social and personal relationships.

With billions of people all over the world staying home, some changes in working patterns – already on the rise – could become permanent. A move to more home working would reduce transport and ensuing carbon dioxide emissions, as well as decreasing costs notably. Workspace and domestic space, the public and the private, could increasingly overlap. Rising numbers of ‘working homes’ might need to be designed in an expanding shut-in economy.

At the same time, MIT researchers believe that forms of social distancing are here to stay, at least until we manage to suppress COVID-19 and future viruses. Architects could be faced with the challenge of having to incorporate social distancing into the design of high-density cities, of managing public spaces, not only of mass gatherings but also of infrastructure, shopping malls, cinemas, restaurants, gyms etc.

Different species of viruses could reappear in the future, and forms of restrictive government measures, now in place to contain COVID-19, could remain for some time. At the time of writing, among other nations, the Italian government has started to employ drones and geofencing to restrain the movements of its citizens, Israel is relying on its secret services and South Korea is following contagious and quarantined citizens through GPS-based apps. What influence will the growth in government surveillance in an expanding smart city, already on the ascent pre-COVID-19, have on urban design? Will architects need to negotiate expanding digital infrastructure

“What influence will the growth in government surveillance in an expanding smart city, already on the ascent pre-COVID-19, have on urban design? Will architects need to negotiate expanding digital infrastructure to control, not only citizens’ movements, but even their body temperatures?”

The usually packed freeways of Los Angeles have been deserted. Photo: Getty to control, not only citizens’ movements, but even their body temperatures? If the human destruction of nature is perceived, by some scientists, as a cause of COVID-19 and other viruses such as Ebola, will we see, finally, a more concerted effort to respect natural habitats and biodiversity? If there is a correlation between air pollution in our highdensity cities and a faster death rate from COVID-19 and SARS, how will we protect those cities from the spread of future viruses?

Will this be a wake-up call to commit to a greener and more sustainable environment?

Paradoxically, in some places, social distancing stimulated a sense of community.

Support groups for older and vulnerable people are multiplying. On 26 March, nearly half a million people registered as NHS volunteers in the UK. Optimists believe that we shall see a “better world” post-COVID-19.

Indeed, trend forecaster Li Edelkoort maintains that the present “quarantine of consumption” could help reform our values.

During lockdown, I posed some of the questions above to architects around the world and asked them to consider, or dream about, the role of the architect and urban design post COVID-19.

I started in Italy, where at the time of writing, there is hope that the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in the country is over.

Architect Cino Zucchi refers to historian and critic Adolf Behne’s distinction between functionalists and rationalists, and urges us

to reflect on the enduring qualities of Italy’s historic urban spaces and monuments; the design of homes and infrastructure was the subject of Pippo Ciorra, senior curator of architecture at Rome’s MAXXI museum’s reply, as he imagines a new form of dystopian space; architect Stefano Boeri responded to the matter of sustainable design, natural habitat and biodiversity, highlighting the urgent need for a radical change in the way we think about our spaces.

In Dublin, Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects asks whether architects have created the right spaces to support citizens in lockdown. In the UK, author Carolyn Steel contemplated her area of expertise, the impact on food and cities, while architecture critic Joseph Rykwert gives us an invaluable historical perspective and thoughts for the future. Dutch architect Francine Houben is hopeful of designing a world that moves “forward to basics”, and “no comment” is how Reinier de Graaf responds, as he reminds us that these are still very early and indeed tragic times.

Marina Engel is architecture consultant at the British School at Rome and a freelance curator

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“Shopping centres must be demolished. The photos of deserted Italian squares, such as Piazza San Marco, teach us one thing: the public spaces of the city ‘stand’ both empty and full, and do not contract like a deflated balloon if people stay at home” A good urban environment should be built on the deeper states of human well-being, writes architect Cino Zucchi March 2020 In the past 10 years, both urban design and urban regeneration have increasingly been based on the analysis of current evolutions in lifestyles, technological progress, the global economy and the like.

The quality of a project has been judged on the basis of this ‘inductive futurology’, and architects seem to have turned into gurus or fortune tellers, forced by the media to tell us “how we will live tomorrow”.

Nevertheless, this view does not take into account two important factors: the relative ‘inertia’ of urban form once constructed, and the unpredictability of events, such as financial crises, wars, ecological catastrophes or pandemics. Not more than three months ago, the words ‘co-working’ and ‘co-housing’ recurred almost epidemically, in the reports of architectural projects, as the key elements of design. Can we say the same today? Should we now coin new slogans like ‘co(rona)working’ and ‘co(rona)-living’, perhaps helped by some psycho-sociologist on television? Or rather, should we reflect on the more lasting qualities of urban spaces?

Shopping centres based on market research forecasts are, today, abandoned and must be demolished. The photos of deserted Italian squares, such as Piazza San Marco or Piazza del Duomo, teach us one thing: the public spaces of the city ‘stand’ both empty and full, and do not contract like a deflated balloon if people stay at home. Maybe a good urban environment should not be built on lifestyles, interactive sensors, traffic diagrams or even climate change previsions, but on the deeper states of human well-being. A portico sheltering us from the rain, a bench well exposed to the autumn sun or a well-

placed canopy of leaves work equally well for smoochy couples, aged gossips, cyberpunks or melancholic loners, and can welcome us on the day of our promotion as well as the one on which a parent dies.

Generosity and formal clarity are the key qualities of both private and public spaces, and they seem to withstand change and adaption better than designs based on ultradetailed briefs. As critic Adolf Behne pointed out 100 years ago: “While a functionalist searches the maximum adjustment to a goal that is as specific as possible, a rationalist looks for the greatest chance of compliance to the largest number of necessities. Nothing is more understandable for the rationalist than to put an emphasis on form. Form is born with the establishment of human relationships.

“The lonely man, isolated in the midst of nature, has no formal problem. The question of form arises together with the union of more individuals, and form is the condition which makes men living together possible.”

We must not think of an ‘eternal present’ – everyday life continuously tests and adapts existing spaces to unforeseen needs – but only to the need to design ‘robust’ new living environments, capable of surviving the trends of the moment and absorbing the ‘black swans’ that future fate will assign us.

Hoping not to be a bird of ill-omen, the next ‘big one’ could very well be the collapse of the information technology that sustains our urban systems more and more. In this dramatic scenario we could really find ourselves as a future version of the Similaun mummy with his bearskin busby, arrows and linchpin, washing our tired limbs in the Fountain of Trevi.

Cino Zucchi is director of the award-winning practice, Cino Zucchi Architects. He is professor of architecture and urban design at the Politecnico di Milano and visiting professor at Harvard University

“Every home needs broader-band and instant connectivity” Why couldn’t the robot be managed from home instead of Wolfsburg? asks Pippo Ciorra March 2020 I hope that things will slowly go back to normal. It will take time and there will be social and economic casualties

but, to quote Hobsbawm, human progress is also based on the ability to forget and leave behind mistakes and wounds. The alternative would be paralysis and regression.

However, this is a big trauma, just like a world war, and recovery from global trauma always implies that humankind learns something from the experience and turns it into some kind of positive innovation. If this letter aims at identifying areas in which innovation (or relevant changes) should or will happen, I propose three fields of action, all related to the spaces of living and working.

The first and most obvious directly concerns the space of the house. There are already thousands of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 projects posted on the web showing how to expand your home into a mini-office, mini-gym, mini-restaurant, minigarden etc. It is certainly interesting and useful, and will probably give a new impulse to research on residential space. Still, we should acknowledge the incredible resilience of the typology of the house, which has been basically the same for four millenniums, and which has easily absorbed any similar changes in the past.

What will probably achieve more radical change than both living and workspace is infrastructure. Going back to war-fuelled innovations, they mostly happened in the field of infrastructure and tools. It seems clear that this will also happen this time. In the short run, cities will have to manage the conflict between the persistence of fear and the need to bring back the previous degree of activity in physical infrastructure.

In the longer run, every home will need to be provided with a much broader broadband and instant connectivity. It is not simply us teaching students online or companies run from home. Why couldn’t the robot building a car be managed from the worker’s home instead of in Wolfsburg? We will also need to investigate how to combine anti-virus measures with climate consciousness, being aware it could be a very productive alliance.

Coming to the third point, I would like to speculate on the idea of dystopia and ‘smartness’. What we have learned in these days is that the two concepts seem to love each other more than we had already expected. We are seeing a new kind of dystopian space: not the chaos pictured in Blade Runner or by JG Ballard, but images of clean, empty and unpolluted cities with everybody at home and nobody disturbing the beauty of monuments and landscapes.

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have already lost most of the battles in this war, but clearly the virus condition pushes this to the limit. This is where we will have to watch carefully and build some conceptual resistance. It will be important both to go back to the streets, the original space for democracy, and to build consciousness and counteractions in the digital world.

Pippo Ciorra is professor of design and theory at the SAAD School of Architecture and Design, University of Camerino. He is senior curator of architecture at the MAXXI, Rome, and director of the international PhD programme Villard d’Honnecourt at IUAV Venezia

running on fossil fuels will end and that private transport will have to rely only on renewable sources.

Secondly, we need forestry: deforestation, the destruction of natural environments, is one of the main causes associated with the proliferation of viruses, such as those we have seen, which tend to move from one species to another. The deprivation of forests and green surfaces brings a worrying imbalance to all species, including ours. That is why we must give space to nature and we must include a greater presence of trees and plants in contemporary cities, as well as preserving wild, natural habitats.

Then, the energy transition. Every house, every building, every block, must become a hub for both the production and conservation of clean, renewable energy. And we should create the conditions and systems that produce energy locally.

We need a transition towards a new world.

Only if we undergo a deep conversion in our way of thinking, together with our way of acting, will we be able to face this challenge.

Together, and right now – let’s start thinking about it!

“We need forestry. We must give space to nature and we must include a greater presence of trees and plants in contemporary cities, as well as preserving wild, natural habitats” Architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri is Every house, every professor of urban design at the Politecnico in Milan and, since 2018, president of the building, every block, Triennale in Milan. Stefano Boeri Architetti must become a hub for is based in Milan, Tirana and Shanghai both the production and conservation of clean, “As architects we are renewable energy, complicit in making the writes Stefano Boeri containers of society.

Have we given individuals April 2020 Looking at our offices in Shanghai, Milan and Albania, we have enough choice within noticed how in these days, we have lived as their homes, within if in three parallel universes. As if, on the planet, there were different geographical and their cities? Have we temporal areas. This incredible contagion, in allowed for flexibility and an age of great globalisation, has accentuated the construction of a sort of planet with adaptability?” different times.

With social distancing, This third global transformation event, after the two world wars, has created we all know what two a sense of urgency that we did not feel metres or six feet feels before the coronavirus – the urgent need to understand that there must be a transition, like, both physically and but not between socialism and capitalism, emotionally, writes nor between sovereignty and populism; a transition that must bring into play a new Yvonne Farrell way of thinking about the space in which we live, the place we live.

Therefore, we must put into action immediate and strong choices. First of all, mobility. We have to establish that, within a maximum of three years, the era of cars

April 2020 In Anthony Doerr’s book, All the Light We Cannot See, the teenage character runs her fingertips along a model which is a miniature of the city where she lives.

The father of this sightless girl has made the model so that his daughter becomes so familiar with the city that she can navigate its streets independently.

When I walk the streets of Dublin – within the 2km we are allowed to venture during this lockdown – ­ the city appears like an enormous 1:1 scale model, empty, lifeless.

Behind facades are people, coping with new realities. Across the world are similar images. As architects, we are complicit in making the containers of society. Have we given individuals enough choices within their homes, within their cities? Have we allowed for flexibility and adaptability? How can we build to enrich lives during various forms of lockdown?

In The Post-Pandemic Style published in the online publication SLATE, Vanessa Chang traces the impact historically of pandemics on human lives and on architecture. She concludes by saying: “Rather than denying our fundamental social connections, design might cultivate a deeper sense of global belonging.”

This dreadful pandemic has changed our lives. We see clearly how the threads of society need a complex weave to function. We rely on strangers. We need each other.

In Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book, three generations spend time together in the confined space of an island. Jansson beautifully captures place, time, wisdom, imagination and a deep sense of belonging, both to the Earth itself and each character to the other.

Thinking of our confined spaces during lockdown, what I find amazing about this book is its imaginative skill in describing the immense and fascinating world of the ordinary. Esther Freud, who wrote the foreword to the book, visits the island and cannot believe that her walk around the whole island takes her four-and-a-half minutes!

With social distancing, we all know now what two metres (six feet) feels like, both physically and emotionally.

Recently sitting in my garden, I watched a female blackbird (in Irish/Gaelic this bird has her own distinct name: céirseach, pronounced ‘care and shock’) gathering up bits and pieces in her beak to build her nest.

For the first time, and with great pleasure, I noticed that here, naturally building, driven by instinct, is another architect!

Yvonne Farrell is an architect and academic.

She is founder of Grafton Architects in Dublin with architect Shelley McNamara, winners of the Royal Gold Medal 2020.

This year, Farrell and McNamara won the Pritzker Architecture Prize

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“If we are to thrive in the future, we need more resilient, localised, seasonal food systems, more flexible local supply networks and stronger links between city and country” It is only in times of scarcity that we remember what food really is. Food is life: if we treat it as cheap, we cheapen life itself, writes Carolyn Steel April 2020 Whatever our world looks like post-COVID-19, one thing is for sure: it won’t be a return to business as usual. Although a global catastrophe, the pandemic represents a timely opportunity to reconsider how we live; a task that threats such as climate change and mass extinction made urgent even before the virus struck.

As I argue in my recent book Sitopia (food-place), there is no better way to do this than through the lens of food. The greatest force shaping our lives, food binds us to one another and to the natural world.

The fact that the current pandemic started in a Chinese wildlife wet market tells its own story: our relationship with nature is dangerously out of kilter.

Monocultural industrial food production has dangerously weakened biodiversity, while our encroachment on wilderness exposes us to new disease. In the West, we have also seen how fragile our food systems really are, with empty supermarket shelves and warnings from farmers that, without migrant labour, crops will rot in the ground.

Yet positive stories have come out of the crisis too, in the shape of people sharing food with neighbours, celebrity chefs cooking for schools and producers collaborating to create new supply networks virtually overnight. Such rapid responses aren’t new: they also happened after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where food-based social networks sprang up that still exist today.

I call this ‘disaster democracy’: the discovery, in adversity, of what really matters in life: health, safety, love, neighbourliness – and food.

The virus that is killing us has also done us a favour, by reminding us of what a good life really means. If we are to thrive in the

Dublin shops closed down. Photo: Getty future, we shall need more resilient, localised, seasonal food systems; more flexible local supply networks; and stronger links between city and country.

Social resurgence almost always revolves around food: the shared problem of how to eat, after all, was how we evolved as a species. It is only in times of scarcity that we remember what food really is. Food is life: if we treat it as cheap, we cheapen life itself.

Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on food and cities. Based in London, she is the author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (2008) and Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World (2020)

“The impact which seems to me most important and incalculable is the domestication of the office” Working from home reduces travel times and demand on transport services and brings us nearer to the ‘global village’ long forecast by AI theorists, while sheltering us from intrusive statesponsored surveillance, writes Joseph Rykwert

since its impact ran into that of World War I, it fused into a combined disaster whose effect on society was certainly as catastrophic as the events themselves; and greatly beneficial, in fact, even if it did not prevent another and more violent world war from which the social fabric again emerged more equitable; and seems to have resulted in more than half a century without any worldwide conflict.

Nor was there talk after then of a ‘return to normal’.

The coronavirus pandemic may be an isolated disaster, and its victims seem accountable in thousands rather than millions. Although it coincides with no international conflict, it does with a rapidly growing worldwide consciousness of the environmental crisis.

The various ‘temporary’ measures to prevent the spread of infection may well point out the critical conditions of some habits which seemed to have become ‘permanent’ features of the social fabric.

So, the quick rise of online shopping has depressed the use of the out-of-town shopping centres, created a new subproletariat of warehouse operatives and increased the demand on postal services, as it has given new vigour to small-scale high street shops.

The impact which seems to me most important and incalculable is the – enforced – domestication of the office, which reduces travel times radically (and so the demand on transport services) and brings us nearer to the ‘global village’ working conditions, long forecast by AI theorists, and so shelters him and her from the increasingly intrusive statesponsored surveillance, developed during the current pandemic.

How these rather different tendencies will interplay, as the threat posed by coronavirus recedes – as we hope it will in a matter of months – must remain the subject of hopeful speculation.

Joseph Rykwert, CBE, is emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of numerous books. His new work, Body to Town is as Town is to World, will be published later this year

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it comes to COVID-19, all bets are off. In the “Architects seem more face of an urgent global crisis, that might be concerned for the survival one of hardest things to admit. But for the of their predilections than time being, it is perhaps the most courageous thing to do. the survival of the species” Reinier de Graaf is an architect and writer.

Architects will strain to He is partner in the Office for Metropolitan identify an opportunity in Architecture (OMA) and visiting professor of urban design at the University of Cambridge. every crisis. In the face of De Graaf is the author of the book Four Walls COVID-19, our optimism and a Roof: the Complex Nature of a Simple Profession (Harvard University Press, 2017) is exposed for what it is: opportunism, self-delusion, or outright naïveté, writes “I am very positive about Reinier de Graaf the future and that we can craft, step by step, a world April 2020 No comment. that is happier” Architecture entails optimism. Architects will strain to identify an opportunity in every Now is the time for the crisis. And if design websites are anything design community to to go by, the current COVID-19 crisis is no exception: how to design a home to best come together. We need self-isolate in? What could be the co-operation to face the consequences of social distancing for ‘placemaking’? Is 3D printing the future of challenge and prepare, the construction industry? What impetus writes Francine Houben will enhanced surveillance technology give to the concept of the ‘smart city’?

At the time of writing and the most recent count (13/04/20, 5.30pm GMT), COVID-19 has claimed more than 100,000 victims, and there are nearly two million confirmed cases across 210 countries. The future looks bleak.

And in the face of COVID-19, our optimism is exposed for what it is: opportunism, self-delusion, or outright naïveté. Architects seem more concerned for the survival of their predilections than the survival of the species.

Of course, this is by no means endemic to architecture. Across the globe, the common threat posed by COVID-19 is met with the stock response. China hopes to further institutionalise the mass surveillance of its citizens; Putin cites the coronavirus threat as a reason to stay in power beyond 2024; Salvini and Orban blame immigrants; Britain keeps its stiff upper-lip; and the Trump administration claims to be doing great.

Somehow, coronavirus proves everyone right.

And yet, daily we are proven wrong.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 poses a dilemma for which there is no quick fix, whether professional or political. At present there are no answers, only questions. When will the current crisis end, if at all? Will the world return to normal, if allowed? What will become of us, post COVID-19? What will become of architecture?

The truth is that nobody knows, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. When

April 2020 The world is in flux — swept up in climate change, ceaseless urbanisation, the digitisation of systems, knowledge and life, global shifts in power, population, wealth and now a global pandemic.

How do we reconnect space and people in a world after COVID-19? This moment challenges us to reimagine and rethink how we live together as a society and what our role as design professionals should be.

The future is about ‘forward to basics’.

I would like to reflect on this not only thinking about architecture practices, because architecture is all about multidisciplinary teamwork. The lessons we learn from this pandemic will have a deep impact on the future of design, be it cities, public spaces, infrastructure, hospitality, learning environments, public buildings etc.

Going back to basics is not complacency, but rational. These words apply to everything architecture, design and urban planning should do. But what about the people?

Our lifestyle, habits, routines, travel and social interactions have changed completely with most countries going into lockdown.

We have all been directed to stay at home, take precautionary measures, maintain social distancing and even the corporate sector has directed its employees to work from home.

Yes, there is an emergency, but that doesn’t mean we should panic. I am positive

about the future, now it’s time to be resilient.

We know that we cannot keep on travelling as we do, and that is why I am trying to inspire people at my office to look at their surroundings. There is this idea that you need to look further in order to get the best or the most memorable experiences.

That could not be further from the truth.

Some of your best experiences can be found just around the corner.

Over the past decades, encountering people all around the world has shown me and underlined what everyone everywhere wants – the very simple things, to take care of their children and to be able to provide them with a better future. It’s about friends, family and communities.

The human condition should be central to the future of design. We need to recognise the value of every individual, people’s engagement with each other, or culture, or nature, or in many cases a combination of both. Our attitude to Earth needs to change – nature has an irreplaceable value and beauty.

It is vital that we reconnect to it.

As borders close and countries turn inward, it is more important than ever to uphold the value of compassion and knowledge sharing to connect people to one another. The future is likely to bring more focus on the human scale, where the experience of each individual drives design.

I think the concepts of public space and social distance will become central in the future development of our cities and the connection with the countryside.

Mobility as we know it will change. As the current pandemic unfolds, we will see how our systems of support and supply are vulnerable to disruption and most of our networks have been exposed as inadequate.

As I said previously, architecture is all about multi-disciplinary teamwork. Now it is time for the design community to come together – we need cooperation to face the challenge and to prepare the next steps.

And maybe, just maybe, we need to realise that instead of the capitalist model of economic growth, happiness should be the goal for societies to strive for.

Design alone cannot change the global economic system, but it can help craft, step by step, a world that is happier. Be prepared for (un)predictable change. Continue to take care of each other.

Francine Houben is a Dutch architect and the founder of Mecanoo. Her books include People Place Purpose (Black Dog, 2015), Dutch Mountains (Uitgeverij de Kunst, 2011), Mobility, a Room with a View (NAi 2003) and Composition, Contrast, Complexity (Birkhaüser, 2001)

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A cyclist in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, as lockdown is relaxed on 4 May. Photo: Getty the developer letters from lockdown 39

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Chairs stacked in the empty streets of Amsterdam. Dutch architect Francine Houben asks the question: “How do we reconnect space and people in a world after COVID-19?” Photo: Getty 40

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In search of the new normal

How do we coax citizens out of their homes and safely back into cities? asks Chris Stokel-Walker

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Manchester, 16 May: Manchester Council has closed a quarter of a mile section of road in Deansgate to traffic to encourage pedestrians and cyclists to return to the city centre, while still maintaining social distancing. Photo: ABNM Photography

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For all the public messaging by politicians to encourage us to restart the economy – whether it is Donald Trump cajoling Americans to express their constitutional right to roam or Boris Johnson urging us to slowly return to normality while simultaneously warning us to “stay alert” – it appears we are wary of doing so.

An Ipsos MORI survey of British adults found that six in 10 of us would feel “very uncomfortable” or “not at all comfortable” using public transport; 35% of us don’t want to go back to our place of work; and 40% of us want to avoid shopping.

The message hammered home daily by the UK government that the public should stay home, protect the NHS and save lives has had the desired effect – but it may have scared us into not venturing out again.

“It’s important to understand the level of fear imparted in the message given to the public,” explains clinical psychologist Bhavna Jani-Negandhi. Government messaging involves treading a fine line: too frightening and people switch off, too weak and people ignore it.

Each of us experiences fear differently and makes calculations about risk and how much we are willing to chance. Some people are chomping at the bit to return to normal – thus the images of parks full of people sharing pizzas and ice creams. Others will feel the opposite: “They may be anxious and tend to be easily frightened,” says JaniNegandhi. Encouraging them out of their homes and into the city cannot be done for love nor money.

In the same way that the Great Fire of London and the plague reshaped our cities, we may see a shift in urban design as a result of COVID-19. Sick of being cooped up in cramped city-centre flats for weeks at a time to avoid catching the disease and newly adept at home-working, many people may shun smaller homes and demand more space in which to live.

Jen Manuel of Newcastle University’s OpenLab foresees big changes: “The impact

Brussels has brought forward plans for 40km of new bike lanes

“Social distancing and face masks have been going on for a few weeks.

All of that is contributing to people’s fear of going out. You have key workers encouraged not to use public transport and to take their cars to avoid spreading the infection” of the lockdown means we’re using our cities, towns and spaces in different ways.”

She is seeing the effects of cramped living conditions on the most disadvantaged in society: “The way our towns and cities have been planned means there are green spaces but they’re not always accessible to everybody,” Manuel says. “That’s a challenge now, but will affect our behaviours; if people don’t have access to green space, they won’t want to leave the house.”

She has seen a growing recognition of the importance of public parks and the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted how few people can easily access them without driving – which was classed as an inessential journey under the government’s lockdown rules.

Manuel lives on a new build housing estate that has the smallest amount of green space permissible. She has to walk half an hour to her nearest park. “It’s about trying to push for better quality private development and ensuring we get what we need in that for the public good and not just the developer,” she says.

Those who do venture out from their homes before a vaccine is developed will likely want to avoid public transport. On 13 May, transport secretary Grant Shapps said that trains, buses and other methods of public transport will only see a tenth of their capacity used because of the need to maintain social distancing. On 23 May, Shapps revised that figure to one in five, and asked passengers to avoid peak commuting times, when they could end up waiting for a space on a socially distanced train or bus.

“Public transport is experiencing a crisis,” says Matthew Baldwin, deputy director general at the European Commission and the EU’s co-ordinator for road safety and sustainable mobility. “It seems a number of people are going to be nervous about taking public transport, so the numbers are likely to stay way down.”

However, it is vital to rebuild confidence in public transport by improving cleanliness,

instigating social distancing measures, and improving people’s trust that they will be safe when taking the Tube or bus. The London Underground is undergoing deep and more frequent cleanings. “You simply can’t run a city without a big role for public transport,” says Baldwin.

What might replace public transport in the short term? Bike sales surged by more than 50% in April, according to the Bicycle Association. In the same period, car sales were at their lowest since 1946, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Car use could increase as people decide to cocoon themselves in their own vehicles and avoid communal groups.

“Social distancing measures and face masks have been going on for a few weeks now,” says Manuel. “All of that is contributing to people’s fear of going out. You have key workers encouraged not to use public transport and take their cars to avoid spreading the infection.”

If we are not careful, we could then see a perpetuation and magnification of the major issues urban planners already encounter. “In many cases, our road networks are already quite congested. If the situation pushes car use back up, are our road networks going to cope? Will we need more parking facilities?” asks Manuel.

It might also mean all the good work done to reduce pollution from road vehicles could be undone. “The jury is very much still out as to whether we will end up better or worse off,” says Michele Acuto, director of the Connected Cities Lab at Melbourne School of Design.

Manuel says we need to think about how we combat the problem, because “climate change is a real issue, and we can’t just go back to: ‘We’re out of lockdown, let’s get back into our cars.’”

Cities are having to think nimbly – and to promote alternatives to both cars and public transport that have long existed. “If you’re a city and you want to avoid everyone jumping into the car, what are your alternatives?” asks Baldwin. “You want people to walk more, cycle more and use shared mobility like e-scooters.”

That is something which the government seems well aware of – and explains its decision to introduce a package of new ‘active travel’ initiatives worth £2bn and a programme of 500,000 bike repair vouchers, worth £50 each to “drag bikes out of retirement”. Shapps said the plans were designed to “help prepare our transport network for the critical role it will play as we emerge from this crisis”.

Money will be given over to installing pop-up bike lanes, widening pavements and making city-centre streets accessible only

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London, 17 May: There has been a growing recognition of the importance of parks and green spaces for mental health and well-being during the lockdown. Individual perceptions of risk differ, which may explain why not everyone is keeping their social distance. Photo: Getty the developer the new normal 45

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by cycle or bus. In response, cities including Brighton and Hove have since opened a temporary cycle lane on the A270 major dual carriageway, Trafford has opened a sevenmile cycle lane and bollards have been added to Park Lane in London to separate cyclists from cars. On 15 May, London mayor Sadiq Khan announced his plans to make “one of the world’s largest car-free zones” in the city, which could see vehicles banned from Waterloo Bridge and London Bridge.

What was only a limited trial of e-scooters across a handful of cities has also been thrown open to any city chiefs brave enough to try it through a pilot scheme that has been fast-tracked.

“We do need to rethink our cities,” says Baldwin. “We needed to do it before COVID, but COVID gives us a huge opportunity to do so.”

Cities in other countries are also bringing forward plans they had to increase space for cyclists and walkers, accelerating a long-term modal shift.

“Brussels has brought forward plans for 40km of new bike lanes,” says Baldwin, who has seen the Belgian city change in the past few weeks. There are 650km of bike lanes planned for Paris and Île-de-France.

“Milan, Bogota, Oakland, Berlin, Manchester, Edinburgh – there are so many examples,” he adds.

Politicians are changing the way their cities work because of public demand.

“Everyone is looking at this, precisely because that’s what people are asking for,” says Baldwin. “This isn’t Brussels or the EU telling cities to do it; it’s a response to citizens saying: ‘This is what I need to stay safe.’”

Baldwin admits it could be a temporary blip in society, but believes that public perceptions have changed permanently.

“I think the cities that have been trying to develop sustainable urban mobility for years do get this,” he says. “There’s a real

“People respond to the pattern of incentives and laws we give them. If you design your city for a car, don’t be surprised if your city is full of cars. If you start to design your city differently – for example, by reallocating space away from the car – you can get very different results”

opportunity now to make these changes.”

That is something with which those involved in the changes seem to agree.

Andrew Gilligan, a special advisor to the prime minister who has long lobbied for changes to make cities more inclusive of cycling, tweeted that “sometimes good things can come out of bad ones”.

The changes run a coach and horses through the idea that any shifts in transport systems need to be costly, time-consuming and carefully considered.

“I get the sense that cities need to act quickly in this emergency to do things on a temporary basis,” says Baldwin. “They’re creating bike lanes simply by painting lines on roads or putting up bollards or temporary signs.”

There will be challenges ahead, not least in policing these giant shifts, especially when car drivers start to return to the roads in more numbers and find pedestrians and cyclists have taken over their streets. But that can be handled, Baldwin believes.

“People respond to the pattern of incentives and laws we give them. If you design your city for a car, don’t be surprised if your city is full of cars,” he says. “If you start to design your city differently – for example, by reallocating space away from the car – you can get very different results.”

What are our future cities likely to look like? “In many cases people will try to go back to some ‘normal’ in retail, workspace and public space practices, but it’s already blatant we might see social as well as policy pressures not to return to crowded offices, packed commuter trains and unregulated public spaces,” says Acuto.

There are two key pieces to that puzzle, he says: “First, whether urban economies, almost certainly all in a state of recession post-COVID, will allow for radical and positive shifts in habits and designs or instead put too much pressure on already pressured urban dwellers.

“Second, whether cities that are experimenting with some possibly transformative change ‘in crisis’ will be able to stick to these – and have the foresight to do so – after the crisis.”

Tough decisions must be made about the longevity of any changes, whether the COVID-19 crisis lasts a matter of months or years.

“I think in all of these cases, whether you’re talking about green spaces, traffic, public transport or whatever it might be, it does have a massive impact on how we plan for our cities and how we plan for our infrastructure,” says Manuel.

“Ultimately, that’s what planning is all about – it’s about the built environment,

taking into account people’s lives. We’re not planning places separate to people. It is about changing the way we think about developing our cities and the places we live.”

Chris Stokel-Walker is a journalist and communicator specialising in digital culture and influencers. He has written for The Times, Sunday Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, the BBC and Wired

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Leeds, 23 April: The ‘new normal’ of queues to enter supermarkets will continue for some time, so planners and designers will need to take this and other social distancing measures into account when designing shops and places in the future. Photo: Getty the developer the new normal 47

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London, 23 April: Many cities are trying to encourage their citizens to make journeys on foot or by bike, rather than by car or public transport.

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Poorly designed and planned communities heighten the risk of health issues: one reason Black Britains are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 It’s not being BAME that is a health risk, it’s the conditions in which BAME communities are forced to live, writes Araceli Camargo, Sarah Aliko, Daniel Akinola-Odusola and Elahi Hossain. It’s poverty supported by racism, executed through urban planning and experienced through health 50

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London, 20 May: Reduced access to public spaces may make BAME people more at risk from COVID-19. Photo: Alamy the developer covid-19 and bame communities 51

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As COVID-19 spread through the British population, a trend emerged: people from poorer ethnic minority communities were the ones most likely to be hospitalised or die as a result of the disease. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Black people in Britain are almost twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as white people, while Bangladesh and Pakistani people are 1.7 times more likely to die than white people.

The discussion of this trend correctly focused on systemic racism and inequality.

This could easily be seen by those planning or designing environment as irrelevant to them, as they might not judge it to be their domain.

However, when investigating the effects of poverty, it is important to identify two elements. The first is “who” is experiencing poverty and the second is “where” poverty is taking place.

In western countries, it is predominantly poor BAME people who are forced to live in badly planned environments – places with high levels of environmental pollutants, inadequate housing infrastructure, inadequate access to blue and green infrastructure, low access to nourishing food, inadequate urban infrastructure, poor access to public transport, and poor access to adequate health resources.

These environments create health risks: for example, people living in low-income households are two to three times more likely to develop mental health problems.

To advance policies that put health at their core, poverty must be addressed and understood beyond the confines of economic statistics. Poverty is supported by racism, executed through urban systems and experienced through poor health.

For example, in East Harlem in New York (East 96th Street upwards), diabetes takes a more lethal and detrimental turn than on the Upper East Side (East 96th street downwards). In East Harlem, it causes more amputations, blindness and death than on the Upper East Side, where it is not as life-threatening or as severe. The main differentiator is poverty: East Harlem’s

We have a chance to further the narrative of how we must approach community health to make our cities more resilient.

This information can mobilise change from the bottom up, through community activism.

Citizens can now ask local governments for better housing and urban realm design, especially as they will need to prepare for a second wave of COVID-19 poverty rate is 31.5% whereas it is just 6.1% on the Upper East Side. Furthermore, East Harlem is a predominantly Latinx and African-American area, whereas the Upper East Side is predominantly white.

This culmination of events is termed ‘structural racism’, which is defined as macro level systems (social forces, institutions, ideologies and policies) interacting with one another to generate and reinforce inequities among specific ethnic groups.

The UK is experiencing similar challenges.

For instance, in England, Black and Pakistani people are more likely to live in the 10% of neighbourhoods most deprived in relation to living environment (16% and 27% respectively). Additionally, Pakistani and Bangladeshi people are more than three times more likely than white people to live in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods in England.

As COVID-19 disproportionately affects BAME communities, it is important to have a deeper understanding of the health disparities caused by the intersection of

Variable 1

Variable 2

r

IMD 2019

COVID-19 deaths per 100k

0.73

BAME density per 100k

COVID-19 deaths per 100k

0.83

BAME density per 100k

IMD 2019

0.62

SRS

IMD 2019

0.41

SRS

BAME density per 100k

0.21

SRS

COVID-19 deaths per 100k

0.23

Table 1. Pearson correlation (r) values among COVID-19 deaths per 100k, BAME population density, Stress Risk Score (SRS) and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2019

poverty, racism and poor urban planning. To do this, a biological framework is needed.

We have mapped where BAME communities live and how that relates to COVID-19 rates. We are now proposing a framework that uses two significant factors: the physical environments people inhabit and the experiences afforded by those environments.

These are important for several reasons: they can be linked to human biology via the stress response, they are highly influenced by systemic racism, and understanding the role neighbourhoods play in health allows for a systemic solution – people can only have agency over their health when they are part of a supportive ecosystem, which includes the places they inhabit.

The stress response is the main link between the world around us and our health.

It is a fundamental biological mechanism through which our bodies adapt to ‘stressors’ – changing conditions in the environment that threaten biological stability.

There are two overarching types of stressor: internal and external. A change within the body, such as a virus, is an example of an internal stressor.

External stressors have two further distinctions: environmental and psychological. Environmental stressors are related to the physical environment and can include air, noise, light or thermal pollutants.

Psychological stressors are those that relate to experiences, such as starting a new job or losing a loved one.

The stress response is mitigated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). When a stressor triggers the hypothalamus, the hypothalamus produces and releases corticotropin hormone. The pituitary gland then synthesises the adrenalcorticotropin releasing hormone (ACTH), which is released into the circulation.

When ACTH reaches the adrenal glands, it stimulates the release of another regulatory hormone, cortisol, which circulates back to the brain in our blood.

This cycle of hormones repeats in a negative feedback loop until the body reaches stability. A process like this in which “an organism maintains physiological stability by changing the parameters of its internal milieu, matching them appropriately to environmental demands” is called allostasis.

This interaction is long-standing and it’s fundamental to how biological systems navigate and interact with all aspects of their environments. However, when someone’s stress response is chronically engaged because they are persistently exposed to stressors, the body may not reach allostasis, leading to ‘allostatic load’

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Figure 1. Structural racism in London (deprivation): BAME population density (per 100k population) overlapped with deprivation (IMD 2019). The darker purple colours are the areas where high BAME population density intersects with high deprivation. The London Borough of Newham scores the highest

Figure 2. Structural racism in London (pollution). BAME density per 100k overlaid with pollution. Darker purple = areas where high BAME population density intersects with high pollution. The London Borough of Newham scores the highest

Figure 3. Structural racism (all domains).

BAME population density (per 100k population) overlaid with pollution (SRS scores) and deprivation (IMD 2019), where darker red = highest structural racism. The London Borough of Newham again scores the highest

(AL). This results in wear and tear to bodily systems that, over time, can impair the function of the immune response.

Herein lies one of the biomarkers in the pathology of a wide range of diseases, specifically metabolic disease (diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular) as well as mental disorders (PTSD, depression and anxiety).

To fully understand the biological mechanisms behind the disproportionate number of deaths in BAME communities in London, AL needs to be contextualised to where BAME communities live and their experiences resulting from those environments. As well as experiencing higher levels of poverty, ethnic minorities disproportionately live in areas with higher levels of air, noise and light pollution, lower levels of green spaces, and higher exposure to urban heat island effects. All of these can be classified as stressors.

The stress response to air pollution engages at first contact, triggering one of the earliest biological responses to the pollutant.

The response will continue until exposure has ended, so the longer someone lives in a polluted environment, the longer the stress response will engage, risking AL. Housing is another physical environment where poverty is experienced and another source of stressors. Poverty often means living in inadequate homes that have poor ventilation, are overcrowded and have poor basic infrastructure (no running water, poor heating/cooling). These conditions require the stress response to engage.

For example, overcrowding has become a topic of interest as it is contributes directly to the spread of COVID-19. However, it is not just a question of contagion – overcrowding also has stress pathways that can contribute to poor health. Overcrowded spaces are often noisier because of human activity happening in close proximity. This noise can cause the stress response to engage, and it can change the body’s blood pressure. They can also be psychologically stressful for a multitude of reasons: a lack of privacy, personal space, psychological safety or restorative space.

Poor housing and poverty also present other psychosocial stressors – external demands that exceed people’s perceived abilities and resources to adequately respond.

For instance, a psychosocial stressor is lacking financial resources while still having to provide for rent, food or childcare. Others include having insufficient heat to keep a household warm or not having the comfort of secure long-term shelter. Psychosocial stressors have biological correlates of AL. Experiencing stress is a natural part of life, but living in impoverished environments exposes people to persistent stressors, risking

Housing is another physical environment where poverty is experienced and another source of stressors. Poverty often means living in inadequate homes that have poor ventilation, are overcrowded and have poor basic infrastructure (no running water, poor heating/cooling) AL, which heightens the risk of disease.

Persistent and disproportionate exposure to environmental and psychosocial stressors is a ‘biological inequality’ – that is, it puts a burden on the stress response, contributing to its dysregulation (AL) and making people more susceptible to a wide range of diseases.

There are two pathways between COVID-19 and susceptibility. Firstly, biological inequality makes BAME people more susceptible to diabetes, asthma, depression and obesity. These are all risk factors for COVID-19, as they cause inflammation in the body through dysregulation of the immune system, which is linked to AL. This increases the risk of contracting COVID-19, as well as the severity of symptoms and the likelihood of death.

The second pathway is through AL. Someone may not seem to have an underlying disorder, but because of biological inequality, their stress response is more likely to be significantly dysregulated. Black communities are twice as likely to die of COVID-19, even when adjusting for health.

There are two caveats here. Firstly, susceptibility is not the same as determinism – being susceptible to a disease does not mean that you will certainly develop it as there are many other factors that contribute to disease pathology. For example, having emotional support can offset some of the effects of neuroendocrine, metabolic and inflammatory profiles that tend to develop after exposure to acute and persistent stress.

Secondly, it is not being BAME that is a health risk – it is the conditions and environments with which BAME communities are forced to engage. BAME communities are more at risk because of the environments in which they are forced to live because of systemic racism and inequality.

To map susceptibility and COVID-19 in BAME communities in London, we combined four data sets. The Index of

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Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is the official measure of relative deprivation in England.

It follows an established methodological framework in broadly defining deprivation to encompass a wide range of living conditions: income (22.5%), employment (22.5%), education (13.5%), health (13.5%), crime (9.3%), barriers to housing and services (9.3%), and living environment (9.3%).

People are considered to be living in poverty if they lack the financial resources necessary to meet their needs, whereas people are deprived if they lack any kind of resources, not just income. Due to the robustness of the IMD, we used it as a proxy for psychosocial stressors related to living in areas of deprivation.

The Stress Risk Score (SRS) is a scale used to measure environmental stress risk factors, based on proxies for noise, air, light, and thermal pollution. It uses a meta-analysis of how each stressor engages with the stress response, specifically AL. SRS runs from zero to four, with zero a less polluted area and four being highly polluted across four environmental stressors.

Areas of Health Risk (AHR) is a calculation based on combining IMD and SRS to determine where there is a susceptibility to disease based on exposure to environmental and psychosocial stressors.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) database was referred to for demographic data: age-standardised mortality rates for all causes and deaths involving COVID-19; deaths per 100k between 1 March and 17 April 2020; and the 2011 England and Wales Census on BAME population density per 100k.

We averaged the IMD, SRS and AHR for each borough, then calculated Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) for COVID-19 cases and each of the IMD 2019 to map structural racism.

The data indicates high correlations between COVID-19 deaths and IMD 2019 by borough (r=0.73), COVID-19 deaths and BAME population density (r=0.83), and IMD 2019 and BAME population density (r=0.62) (see Table 1). Moreover, there was a medium to low correlation between SRS and BAME density and SRS and COVID-19 deaths (r=0.21 and r=0.23 respectively).

These high correlations indicate a strong relationship between deprivation and death from COVID-19, and highlight a possible increase in the number of deaths from COVID-19 among BAME communities.

In terms of biological inequality, environmental stressors have a medium to low correlation (r=0.21), whereas psychosocial stressors correlate highly (r=0.73). This could indicate that

psychosocial stressors could play a more significant role in AL than environmental stressors do; it could also indicate psychosocial stressors are more prevalent and persistent than environmental stressors.

No causal relationships can be inferred from the data, but we can tentatively propose that deprivation and structural racism may be causes of the high number of deaths from COVID-19 in BAME communities.

Figures 1, 2 and 3 show various aspects of structural racism in London. They overlay data about deprivation and pollution on BAME population density.

There is a strong correlation between death rate and health risks (see Figure 4).

For example, Hackney and Tower Hamlets both have high death rates and high health risks. This indicates that identifying hotspots before the pandemic could have been useful in deploying extra resources to those areas.

The maps also indicate that susceptibility, although a strong factor in disease pathology, is not deterministic – other factors are also at play, such as jobs, emotional support through social cohesion, diet and other health indicators.

Conversely, Figures 6 and 7 indicate that BAME communities could be experiencing unique health inequalities. They could be living in these areas for longer, the jobs they hold could also be exposing them to further stressors, or they may have poorer access to health facilities. This is worthy of further investigation.

The limitation with any borough-level analysis is the direct relation between individual lifestyles and risk factors, as some factors are too nuanced to be analysed at such a large scale. The way to overcome this limitation is by ecological research and interventions that incorporate more personal information, demographics and individual risky or compromising behaviours such as commuting, exercise, travel or smoking.

It is important to note that this is a preliminary analysis of COVID-19 and how it relates to biological inequality brought on by systemic racism. Nevertheless, it does highlight future needs, investigations and actions. Future studies could examine more deeply: variations in environmental stressors and COVID-19 cases, especially in areas that have higher levels of air and thermal pollution; the full death rates after the second wave; specific social demographics such as children, the elderly, men and women; and the long-term effects of COVID-19 in these areas, including the trauma of directly experiencing deaths and illnesses among members of their community and how children are affected by this as they age.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted

Figure 4. Areas of health susceptibility due to biological inequality. Deprivation (IMD 2019) was overlaid with SRS, showing areas of high pollution and deprivation posing a risk to health (darker purple = higher risk).

Hackney scores the worst, followed by Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Camden, Westminster, and Kensington & Chelsea

Figure 5. COVID-19 deaths as of 17 April (all ethnicities) (darker red = more deaths per 100k population). Newham and Brent are the most affected areas, followed by Hackney and Tower Hamlets

Figure 6. Structural racism (all domains).

BAME density per 100k overlaid with pollution and deprivation. Darker red = highest structural racism. Newham again scores the highest

the developer covid-19 and bame communities 55

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Birmingham, 23 May: People from BAME communities are more likely to live in poorer areas. Photo: Peter Lopeman/Alamy Live News the fragility of the healthcare systems in many countries and has shed light on the differences in health accessibility and susceptibility of various communities in large cities. The unexpected increase and spread in cases, as well as the high mortality rates compared to Asia-Pacific countries, question the preparedness of Western countries to tackle health emergencies, which are bound to increase with future natural disasters due to climate change.

We have shown there is a relationship

Figure 7. COVID-19 deaths as of 17/04/2020 (BAME communities) (darker red = more deaths per 100k population). Newham and Brent are the most affected areas, followed by Hackney and Tower Hamlets

between COVID-19 and levels of deprivation and pollution in London, the worst-hit area of the UK. We predict the correlation between the three will increase further, reflecting areas of health emergencies. We urge governments and local councils to direct resources for improving health to these areas of risk in the near future. They must also acknowledge that workers and members of the community who cannot afford to self-isolate due to their contributions to the community are a susceptible population and address this in any future community health infrastructure.

The pandemic should serve as a lesson in how to prevent and contain future health emergencies. Pandemics and epidemics are likely to take place at the same time as natural disasters, which will hinder efforts to contain the spread of diseases because of people being displaced. Lack of adequate housing, epidemics and natural disasters pose great threats to the future of human health and life and need to be addressed immediately.

We have a chance to further the narrative of how we must approach community health to make our cities more resilient. This information can mobilise change from the bottom up, through community activism.

Citizens can now ask local governments for better housing and urban realm design,

especially as they will need to prepare for a second wave of COVID-19.

Policy and urban planners and designers of the urban realm must take responsibility to improve areas of biological inequality, which make people susceptible to disease. This is especially relevant as many councils and planning authorities move towards healthbased drivers and metrics.

London is not a city that has health resilience and will be vulnerable to crises, whether pandemics or climate change.

Araceli Camargo is the co-founder and lab director of The Centric Lab; Sarah Aliko is a computational neuroscientist at The Centric Lab; Daniel Akinola-Odusola is head of data at The Centric Lab; Elahi Hossain is a neuroscience researcher at The Centric Lab The Centric Lab is a neuroscience lab focused on understanding how the built environment presents risks for certain health issues, such as depression, anxiety, obesity, and PTSD

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“Excellent from start to finish” Kevin McCauley, executive director, CBRE “Diverse line-up of speakers and great venue and environment for meeting other people in the industry” Honor Fishburn, director of placemaking, Battersea Power Station “Genuinely vibrant, exciting and thought provoking… It captured the passion of what true placemaking is about” Nigel Brewer, planning and design director, Places for People

NEW DATE ANNOUNCED 13 November 2020 at Tobacco Dock, London Festival of Place is an annual content-led event that brings together developers, the public sector, investors, architects and the wider project team to unpick what makes a place thrive. Join key influencers to connect, inspire and learn.

“An event that will pave the way for change… challenging the status quo and pioneering original thought and ideas in space creation” Architect and 2019 delegate “High standard of presentations and workshops, great venue, and it’s a long time since I’ve been to an event that was so conducive to networking” Consultant and 2019 delegate

Secure your ticket www.festivalofplace.co.uk For enquiries contact james@thedeveloper.live

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Citu has gone from straight-up developer to bringing the whole manufacturing process in-house

The biggest challenge?

Recruitment. Christine Murray reports

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Citu’s new homes are located over a Corten steel bridge from its factory

Citu uses materials including recycled polystyrene and timber to build its prefabricated houses the developer citu 59

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“The biggest barriers are culture, skills and training,” says Chris Thompson, managing director of Citu.

We’re talking about blockers to innovation in construction. I’ve come to Leeds’ Climate Innovation District to record a podcast in the Citu Works, where house components are assembled before being erected on a 21-acre site just over the River Aire. The factory can produce up to 750 homes each year.

“We moved from being a developer that outsources everything, to a contractor, to vertically integrating the whole design and manufacturing process in-house,” says Thompson.

He founded the company 16 years ago, but it was only six years ago that Citu hit on the potential of using factory-built modular timber-frame homes to reduce embodied carbon – a switch that would see its workforce grow from 10 to more than 150.

Thompson says development is still stuck in old ways of thinking. “The construction industry is used to working in a certain way.

Projects are put together with quite specific time and financial outcomes and it drives a certain type of behaviour that tends to be every man for himself.”

The resulting culture causes problems with quality control, breakdowns in

Several of the terraced houses are built backto-back so have an internal triple-height void with a rooflight

The site has a resident gardener, who has tiered the landscape to enhance biodiversity

“The construction industry is used to working in a certain way. Projects are put together with quite specific time and financial outcomes and it drives a certain type of behaviour that tends to be every man for himself” teamwork, and a failure to modernise, Thompson says.

Citu has always been what Thompson describes as a “purpose-led development business” with a mission to tackle the climate emergency. Its first project was a highly insulated polystyrene house. The move to modular prefabricated timber as a primary material was Citu’s response to a series of overlapping questions. “Productivity in construction is woefully low,” says Thompson.

“We’ve got quality issues and we have embodied carbon. It was the opportunity to address all of these by re-engineering from first principles: what and how you build.”

Developed with Leeds Beckett University and part-funded by an Innovate UK grant, the airtight timber frame reduces carbon use by sourcing wood from Scottish forests, and minimises waste and transport by being manufactured locally to a site.

The homes are then finished by a “multiskilled team” of electricians, plumbers and joiners who are all directly employed by Citu.

“They go in and complete a house, working as a team. It’s a very different culture because those different trades are put together as one team and measured by the quality of their output.”

Thompson comes from a construction background, having trained as a commercial manager with Balfour Beatty. He worked as a quantity surveyor and project manager for several developers before founding Citu.

But to change the way it worked, Citu looked to recruit outside the industry – its operations director is ex-BMW, and roughly 80% of the senior management team hails from manufacturing.

“We were looking to facilitate continuous improvement at a micro level, taking a longterm approach,” says Thompson. “We are producing a number of homes per month that is increasing each month.”

Last year was dramatic. There was momentum for environmental construction as several local authorities declared a climate emergency. Then the ban on

combustibles hit timber construction hard: “The fire regulations post-Grenfell set us back to re-engineering and lots of testing, demonstrating and giving evidence.”

In the end, Citu re-engineered most of its buildings to be less than 18m tall.

“I don’t think the ban was intended to catch timber out as a structural material, but it has. I know swift action was required post-Grenfell and understandably so. But I expect a more holistic approach will be taken.” A government consultation on the combustible ban was open until 25 May, and the Architects Climate Action Network in particular has urged the industry to respond and request that timber primary structure be made exempt.

The Citu Works factory produces floor and wall cassettes just-in-time for the neighbouring site. The windows and insulation are put in place, and the walls tested for airtightness, before being erected within a day or two of assembly.

“That’s the ambition, but the inevitability of winter means there are days like today when the crane can’t operate because of 30mph winds.”

The cassettes are screwed together and stacked on top of a carpark – a steel and concrete foundation. For phase two of the district, Thompson says the company is trialling a cement alternative called Cemfree.

“We have a team that puts on the waterproofing and the finishing materials on the outside, then we have a team that does the fit-out. The only bits of construction we don’t do ourselves are groundworks, roofing and cladding, decoration, and kitchens.”

Why build homes only to Passive House equivalency and not to the actual standard?

Thompson says, “If we optimised everything for Passive House, the orientation and building forms would be slightly different and that might not fit with the place.” For example, that could mean turning away from the river. “We’ve got the opportunity to make the most of that relationship and we’re trying to grab that.”

The homes are located over the Corten steel Citu Bridge. The masterplan, designed

by White Arkitekter, includes 121 homes and 191 flats, which incorporate rainwater and stormwater collection, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, cycle storage, solar panels, and green roofs. The houses form an appealing and quiet pedestrian street.

You can imagine bumping into and greeting neighbours here. Although the landscaping is not playful, there is space to play.

Inside, the show home feels narrow, but comfortable and stylish. Unfortunately most of the riverside terraced houses are single-aspect, built back-to-back, which

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2 1

5

3

4

Phase one

7

6 8

Phase two

9

1 House types 1 and 2; House type 3; The Honeycomb; 4 Secret Garden; 5 Solar Avenue; 6 The Green; 7 River Aire; 8 Citu Bridge; 9 Citu Works the developer citu 61

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Communal spaces include a timber deck near the river leaves no views from one or two of the four bedrooms. These rooms have windows that look onto a blank wall – an internal tripleheight void with a rooflight. It is a shame, solving the problem of a site level change but compromising the home. These rooms are more suitable for storage, a den or home gym.

“We have to create a great place, but we also have to make the land economics work,” says Thompson. “We’ve got to get a density that makes the appraisal stack up.”

The site has a resident gardener, who has tiered the landscape to enhance biodiversity.

The riverbank is more natural, while upper tiers are cultivated, and it is said around one in five plants is edible. There’s a wooden riverside deck for barbecues or outdoor yoga. It’s very peaceful and doesn’t feel like a place that (according to the brochure) is a 15-minute walk to the city centre.

Later phases are said to include a twoform entry primary school, care home, commercial offices and leisure facilities. The second phase is designed by Manchesterbased Ollier Smurthwaite Architects.

Thompson says that among the completed homes, there is an interesting mix of residents (he lives there, too).

“There are families, there are couples,” he says. “We have downsizers, where the kids have left home and they want to move back into the city and enjoy the amenities.

It’s a much simpler existence to having a big Victorian suburban house that needs a lot of maintenance and work in the garden.”

The ambition is to attract families: “There hasn’t been family housing built in Leeds city centre for about 100 years,” Thompson says.

“There’s a big focus on walkability, so it feels very safe and very grounded.”

There’s also underground car parking.

“We’ve got about 0.7 spaces per dwelling.

Whilst we think that the number of cars will reduce, we can’t really say that completely for sure today,” Thompson says. “We’ve got to meet some of the market needs.”

Find out more Listen to the full interview with Chris Thompson on The Developer Podcast at www. thedeveloper.live/places/re-engineer-fromfirst-principles-what-and-how-you-build

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Repurposing the mall

Housing, community projects, art installations, music studios, museums...

Emma Warren reports on how shopping centres are being reimagined around the country

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Artists Stik and Thierry Noir painted sections of the Berlin Wall to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its fall. Their work has now moved from the Imperial War Museum to Lewisham Shopping Centre’s Migration Museum. Photo: Migration Museum

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There are two sections of the Berlin Wall in Lewisham Shopping Centre. A couple walk past with their Sainsbury’s bags and stop, bending at the waist to read the blurb to the side of the most iconic slabs of concrete in the world. The pieces of wall are on loan from graffiti artist Stik. One is painted with one of his recognisable stick people, the other features a colourful image of a figure leaning forward, as if in conversation, by fellow street artist Thierry Noir. They stand, relocated and repurposed, as part of the newly opened Migration Museum, beautifully anomalous in this late ’70s south London shopping plaza.

“The Berlin wall is the most powerful and infamous symbol of a physical divide – a barrier, a boundary,” says the museum’s head of communications, Matthew Plowright, who helped oversee its move from Vauxhall to this retail space previously occupied by H&M. “People walk past and go: ‘Bits of the Berlin Wall? Really? What’s it doing in the middle of Lewisham Shopping Centre?’ It’s the start of a conversation.”

The Migration Museum and the slabs of history placed outside its open-fronted space represent a reimagining of shopping centre space being replicated across the country.

Town centre retail faces widespread and structural challenges: the growth of online shopping, historically high business rates and occupancy costs, political and economic uncertainly, and high vacancy rates. Now add COVID-19 social distancing to the list.

Liverpool performing arts institution LMA has plans for a campus at Metquarter centre

Aerial view of Intu Trafford Centre at Stretford, Manchester. Photo: Alamy

“Everyone comes to a shopping centre. It’s a space for people from all backgrounds and there aren’t many places like that. We’ve had parents with young babies and older people on mobility scooters. We’ve had people who regularly visit galleries through to people who’ve never been into a museum” Shopping centres remain a staple of British life: Wikipedia lists more than 430 shopping centres in the UK, excluding retail parks, and the recent Global Data report on the top 50 shopping centres found that more than a third of shoppers visited shopping centres at least twice a month – up from 2018’s numbers. Under-35s remain the most frequent visitors.

Lewisham Shopping Centre, which is owned by Landsec, ranks at 42 in Global Data’s list. “It’s a brilliant place for the museum to be,” says Plowright. “Everyone comes to a shopping centre. It’s a space for people from all backgrounds and there aren’t many places like that. We’ve had parents with young babies and older people on mobility scooters. We’ve had people who regularly visit galleries through to people who’ve never been into a museum. For us, that’s really powerful.”

The Migration Museum is not the first cultural or social organisation to see a shopping plaza as a prime location – and it is prime: the museum had 10,000 visitors in its first three weeks. A recent Twitter thread by Simon Stephens at the Museums Association revealed a range of curatorial uses elsewhere across the country, from Bristol Museum’s M Shed, which ran a pop-up in the Broad Walk Shopping Centre in Knowle to the halftermly pop-up museums in a vacant unit at the Highcross Shopping Centre in Leicester.

More than 40,000 people visited The Fire Within exhibition, which took place across six spaces at the Galleries Wigan.

It’s not just museums. There are many inventive grassroots organisations making the most of shopping centre vacancies.

South London arts groups have taken over an old furniture store in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon to run easy-access workshops and events and there is Butterfly, a new community dance studio in the Ellandiowned Swan Centre in Eastleigh, Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Liverpool media, music and performing arts institution LMA, which is co-owned by singer Robbie Williams, is set to expand with a brand new state-of-the art campus in the city’s Metquarter shopping centre. LMA will invest more than £15m to convert 50,000 square feet into film studios, dance studios, music rehearsal rooms, classrooms and recording studios.

Richard Wallace, who created LMA with brother Simon in 2008, says: “We’ve been working for some time to find the perfect location in the city centre that would house our world-class facilities for students and staff, and Metquarter is absolutely ideal for us. Not only is it right in the heart of the city centre, but the building itself gives us a lot of freedom to create a unique learning space where our students can study and hone their craft. There is a lot of potential for what we can do at the site.”

Ellandi is one of the UK’s largest investors in towns and shopping centres, owning 29 centres across the country that receive 160 million visitors each year. Director and cofounder Mark Robinson is enthusiastic about both shopping centres’ potential in the face of sobering structural challenges and how Ellandi has been putting GP surgeries, clinics and co-working hubs into its spaces. One of its centres now has a digital innovation lab, created in collaboration with Gloucestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, and the company is looking at cinemas and residential options in other locations.

“People want to be in our town centres but they don’t necessarily want to be there to shop,” he says. “They want to live, work and play there, and that’s a great opportunity to reinvigorate our town centres by putting those uses back in – and of course it supports retail if you do that.”

He praises Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, which just bought its two local shopping centres. The council is decanting all the tenants of one centre into the other, so it can demolish the empty one to create a park that’s three times the size of Trafalgar Square.

The development will connect the traditional high street to the river by putting a park over a dual carriageway.

“It’s an amazing scheme,” says Robinson.

“It’s out there in terms of bold, brave work by a local authority.”

He adds that we’ll see more ‘de-malling’, citing Stretford Mall in south Manchester where the previous owner got planning permission to demolish a third of the shopping centre, taking one of the malls away to put housing on it.

His background plays a role in Ellandi’s stated focus of creating community. “I was born in Hartlepool, I’ve lived in towns all

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Canada Water shopping centre in London will be partially demolished as part of a ÂŁ4bn redevelopment scheme. Photo: John Sturrock the developer shopping centres 67

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Arts groups have taken over an old furniture store in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon. Photo: Alamy over the country. My business partner is from Maesteg in south Wales. We’re not a couple of public-school hoorays running an investment business. We grew up in left-behind places and the role that town centres play in a wider community has always been very important to us.”

Retail and placemaking advocate Revo recently highlighted the role of councils in revitalising shopping centres. Revo’s research shows that the private sector has divested itself of £1.85bn in shopping centre assets since 2016, with local authorities picking up the greatest share – they have purchased one in five shopping centres at a cost of £775m in that time. Revo says local authorities are having to take the lead role in the planning, funding and delivering of new regeneration projects, and suggest this is an upward trend, with council investment in shopping centres reaching £1bn by the end of this year.

The Migration Museum is an example of a mutually beneficial setting for a cultural organisation and shopping centre stakeholders. “In the current climate, there are going to be occasions when shopping centres have vacant units,” says Plowright, “and clearly there are organisations seeking venues to stage things and reach audiences so it does seem like a good fit.”

Or, as Ellandi’s Mark Robinson puts it, it is about getting rid of excess capacity “and filling it with something that fulfils the societal or commercial need”.

He concludes: “What’s happening in retail is a once-in-a-generation structural change.

It’s brutal, but if we approach it in the right way, with the help of the government, it could be one of the most exciting times for urban renewal the UK has seen. Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, has been talking about the scale that’s required to

sort out the challenges in our towns and cities across the country. He likened it to the reunification of Germany after the wall fell down. That cost €1.7tn (£1.5tn).”

Emma Warren is a journalist and author who has been documenting culture since the mid-1990s when her friends started influential magazine Jockey Slut. Warren worked on staff at The Face as clubs and ‘Hype’ editor, and as The Fader’s editorat-large. Warren’s recent book, Make Some Space: Tuning into Total Refreshment Centre, chronicles the role of the built environment in the emergence of the London jazz scene

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29/05/2020 15:29

Even before COVID-19, youth clubs were getting inventive after a decade of austerity. Now a fast-paced digital pivot is turning a crisis into an opportunity, writes Emma Warren. But that doesn’t means youth work has gone digital. In the new normal, kids will still need safe and creative physical spaces to meet

Youth clubs are seedbeds of music, arts, innovation and culture. So it should come as no surprise that during the lockdown, youth workers rolled up their sleeves and got creative

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A group of boys practising their instruments at the CLYP Youth Club, 19 October 1978. Photo: Getty

Young people in the music studio at the Copenhagen Youth Project. From jazz to grime, youth clubs are seedbeds for the British music industry the developer youth clubs 71

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Ten long years of austerity meant the south London borough of Lewisham has been bringing a high degree of inventiveness to its youth work. One of the borough’s remaining youth clubs took place in the spacious foyer of the Glass Mill Leisure Centre, a pop-up where teenagers in school uniforms scuffled about, eating crisps and laughing with youth workers while families streamed past for a swim in the pool.

Now, like other providers of youth services worldwide, the social enterprise that took over Lewisham’s youth clubs and adventure playgrounds in 2016 is having to adapt again.

“We’ve had to work out quickly what Lewisham’s virtual offer will look like,” says Youth First’s CEO Mervyn Kaye. Quick to see the upside, he adds: “Interestingly, my staff are getting much quicker with [our digital] offer. Staff who are real luddites are like, ‘I’ve got to do this now,’ so out of a crisis comes an opportunity.”

He pauses, before delivering the inevitable downside. “The danger is that funders go, ‘Oh, that worked well and it’s cheaper so let’s fund that.’ There will never be a time when you don’t need space for people to socialise.

This moment is not an excuse to say that we don’t need space because we can do it online.

We’d be storing up a massive problem.”

Over in north London, the Copenhagen Youth Project (CYP) has been running against the odds for two decades. It’s an old-style youth club off the Caledonian Road in Islington, running traditional youth club sessions three evenings a week alongside football for boys and girls, an enterprise programme helping young people start their own businesses, peer mentoring, a cooking club in the local primary school, and a fully kitted-out music studio. It drew more than 300 young people through its doors last year.

“For me, it doesn’t matter what [we’re offering] – it’s about the space and what the

“The danger is that funders go, ‘Oh that worked well and it’s cheaper so let’s fund that.’ There will never be a time when you don’t need space for people to socialise. This moment is not an excuse to say we don’t need space because we can do it online.

We’d be storing up a massive problem”

Young people listening to beats and working on lyrics with a youth worker from the Copenhagen Youth Project during lockdown space gives you to progress in life,” says CYP project director Stephen Griffith. He grew up in 1970s and ’80s London, when there were multiple youth clubs in the city and country-wide.

Griffith recognises their ongoing value: “They offer a core social education,” he says.

“Don’t do to people what you wouldn’t want done to yourself. Respect the rules of the building and respect people. The very basic things we do to get on.”

We need to support youth clubs, he says, because they socialise young people who might not get a social education anywhere else.

There is another reason that youth clubs matter – they’ve acted as an invisible foundation for UK music and culture over decades. In south London, a network of youth clubs offered teenagers ‘lovers’ rock’ and reggae dances, immortalised in John Goto’s famous 1977 photographs. Sheffield DJ Winston Hazel remembers a network of youth clubs across Sheffield, Birmingham and Nottingham in the 1970s and ’80s, with juice bars and disco rooms where local breakdancers and proto-DJs could practise and showcase their skills to their musically literate peers, who went on to become musically sophisticated audiences

in emerging UK club culture.

“There was nowhere else for young black kids to hang out together other than on the street, so youth clubs would bring us together,” he recalls. “It helped us form an identity. It allowed a sense of belonging, but it was a breeding ground, unbeknown to us, for what was to come later. We learned as individuals what we had to offer our collective: dancing, clothes, personality, music. It helped to fashion different elements of what was possible for us.”

In Bradford, there was even a ‘jazz officer’ whose role was to work with teenage dancers and DJs – many of whom went on to influence what became the national explosion of rave culture that began in the late1980s and positioned the UK as a globally influential centre of new music. During the late-’90s and early-2000s, a network of youth clubs in Tower Hamlets, centred around Oxford House in Bethnal Green, provided space for MCs, DJs and audiences to create grime and later spawned globally influential artists such as Stormzy. By 2019, British music was worth £5.2bn.

When COVID-19 hit, CYP created an online youth club through Instagram that provided challenges and opportunities with rewards – always a good way of keeping in touch with young people, says Stephen Griffith – as well as a variety of WhatsApp groups for the footballers, the musicians, and those into arts and culture. “We’re doing it so we can continue to support and maintain the relationships,” he says.

They are also finding ways to support young people IRL (in real life). “We have youth workers going round the estate twice a week. We have young people walking around with trauma. There are some who will be fine behind a screen, but there will be others who won’t cope. It’s about reassuring young people. Those who are anxious anyway – this will be a real struggle for them.”

UK Youth is a national organisation for youth work and youth workers. It’s been running for 50 years and last year, it worked with 5,500 organisations, reaching more than 1.6 million of the 11 million-plus 10-24-yearolds in the UK. The vast majority of young people in its network – more than 90% – are faced with at least one significant barrier to progression, such as living in an area of high unemployment and homelessness or because they grew up in care.

It is obvious but worth stating: the people who force councils to shut youth provision rarely have experienced its value.

It is also worth stating how brutal austerity has been on the sector, not to mention the ambient devastation caused by cuts to all the interconnected surrounding

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“Youth clubs are run by trained professionals – and therefore paid... Youth work is a fricking profession.” Photo: Copenhagen Youth Project services. More than 1,000 children’s centres have closed since 2009 and 760 youth centres have closed since 2012, according to UK Youth’s annual report. Meanwhile, the average cut to spending on youth services by local authorities over the past three years alone is 40%.

Nationally, UK Youth is now dealing with the same questions as CYP and Lewisham’s youth clubs – how to maintain relationships in the face of enforced social distancing.

One response is the social media hashtag #StillYouthWork. A quick scroll through the tagged posts shows a range of ways youth workers are managing this conundrum: helpfully collated round-up lists of ideas; Queen Bee in Leicester getting its young people to make a stay at home video; youth workers in Bristol creating ‘boredom busting’ origami tutorials on YouTube; or the launch video for Somerset’s new ‘virtual youth club’.

There are also links to UK Youth’s open letter asking the government to provide immediate support for the sector to meet the needs of vulnerable young people and to name youth workers as key workers.

It’s something that Youth First’s Kaye raises independently. “Youth clubs are run by trained professionals – and I’m making a key point here about trained professionals – and therefore paid,” he says. “Youth work is a fricking profession, like nurses, doctors,

teachers. It’s not easy, as a lot of parents are finding out right now, to entertain and keep kids safe.”

Emma Warren is a journalist and author who has been documenting culture since the mid-1990s when her friends started influential magazine Jockey Slut. Warren worked on staff at The Face as clubs and ‘Hype’ editor, and as The Fader’s editorat-large. Warren’s recent book, Make Some Space: Tuning into Total Refreshment Centre chronicles the role of the built environment in the emergence of the London jazz scene

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Tech clusters and innovation centres depress local wages and exacerbate inequality, so why build them?

Councils continue to invest in tech districts based on unproven microeconomic assumptions. The truth is that, of every seven local jobs created by 10 tech jobs, six are low-skilled and lowpaid, while the high-paid jobs drive up house prices, pushing out locals. Read the research and weep, start-up riches do not trickle down, writes Steve Taylor 74

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Cities such as Glasgow have tried to boost their economies by attracting technology companies and creating business innovation districts.

But few – if any – such initiatives have truly benefitted those who already lived in the areas where these hubs have been created. Photo: Getty the developer science hubs 75

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In April this year, LSE professor David Madden tweeted a provocative question: “Do professional urbanists bear some responsibility for the precarious state of urban life right now – for pushing the idea that cities should be filled with start-ups and ‘innovation districts’, and not prioritising public health, social welfare infrastructure and housing justice?”

Madden is the co-author with Peter Marcuse of In Defense of Housing: the Politics of Crisis, so while not referring explicitly to COVID-19, the timing of his post leaves little doubt as to its topical resonance.

Madden’s question deserves to be raised, not so much for its singling out of possible culprits but for the spotlight it shines on current urban priorities. Simultaneously, cities are the sites of the most virulent concentrations of COVID-19 cases and deaths, and the locations where the economic consequences of slowing capitalism to a crawl in a lockdown are most visible. The way to resolve this contradiction has been hotly contested; in March, London major Sadiq Khan called for a complete stop to work on construction sites across the city, only to be overruled by a UK government determined to maintain ‘business as usual’.

Local authorities and the NHS have struggled to respond to the pandemic, provide enough personal protective equipment and hospital and intensive care beds, deal with unprecedented increases in unemployment and financial precarity, tackle an exploding crisis in social care, alleviate food poverty, and secure accommodation for the homeless. Local government in the UK is in a parlous financial state after a decade of austerity that has seen central government funding to councils cut by 60%.

Speaking with tragic prescience in early February, Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, told the Financial Times: “Our social care system is no longer on the edge, it’s fallen off the cliff.” By mid-April the Local Government Association was warning that many councils were on the “brink

Glasgow Riverside Innovation District does not aim for social inclusion

A recent quantitative study of US cities by Enrico Berkes and Ruben Gaetani found that “the rise of an innovationbased economy is causally linked to the surge in income segregation” – in other words, innovation exacerbates inequality of financial failure”, despite the promise of additional crisis funding from central government.

Cities across the UK have invested – in every sense – in the idea that one way to replace depleted funding and secure local economies is to support the incubation of innovation-based enterprises. Phrases like ‘innovation district’, ‘knowledge-based economy’ and ‘the clustering of technology and creative industries’ that pepper the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s industrial strategy echo many local authorities’ economic plans.

One of a series of controversial urban policies adopted by UK cities over the past four decades, including the privatisation of public spaces, business improvement districts and defensible space, the startup/innovation ‘solution’ is a neoliberalera import from the US. Innovators are incentivised to locate ‘disruptive’ start-ups in a city, forming networks of expertise, talent and money, and foster mutually supportive connections between their businesses, universities, sources of finance, landowners and local government to create a selfreinforcing ecosystem through a process of ‘agglomeration’.

One of the theoretical foundations of this policy was proposed by economist Enrico Moretti in 2010. His ‘multiplier effect’ is the idea that every high-tech job generates an additional five, “spurring a virtuous cycle of economic development and employment growth”. This lent legitimacy to the principle of ‘trickle-down economics’ developed by Ronald Reagan’s favourite economist, Arthur Laffer, which is the idea that lowering taxation rates for successful companies and wealthy individuals benefits the whole of society. The pervasive influence of Richard Florida’s 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class helped embed the multiplier effect in urban policy.

A growing body of research has challenged Moretti’s theory over the past decade. Most

of the jobs created by the multiplier effect are low-paid service positions, tech cities have obvious burgeoning income inequalities and the expansion of well-paid high-tech jobs escalates housing costs, pushing out the middle classes. A recent quantitative study of US cities by Enrico Berkes and Ruben Gaetani found that “the rise of an innovationbased economy is causally linked to the surge in income segregation” – in other words, innovation exacerbates inequality.

By 2019, the tide had decisively turned.

Jordan Weissmann, Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent, was describing Laffer as ‘the worst economist in the world’ for inspiring some of the most destructive economic policies of recent times. Florida issued a grudging mea culpa for his contributions, acknowledging the blatant inequality engendered by policies that encourage the “creative destruction” of entire industries, housing and communities.

Stratospherically successful investor Warren Buffett stated that “the tsunami of wealth didn’t trickle down, it surged upwards”.

In the UK, recent research by the LSE’s Neil Lee and the Resolution Foundation’s Stephen Clarke found that each new hightech job only generates 0.7 jobs in its local labour market. Of the seven local jobs generated by 10 tech jobs, six are low-skilled, low-paid and depress average local wages.

However, job creation is only one piece of the puzzle. My own research on mapping capital movements in local economies incorporated multiple factors including: company ownership and domicile; the availability of properly affordable housing; wage levels in different sectors and strata; where workers in local businesses actually live; land ownership; the sources and destination of rents, interest, dividends, profits and taxes; and the financial flows of local production, manufacturing and consumption.

For example, a multinational real estate behemoth running co-working facilities and renting space to fledgling enterprises is more likely to be sequestering its profits in distant tax havens than reinvesting them in the local economy.

Similarly, the funding secured for startups in UK regions from the 57% of UK angel investors based in London and the South East is unlikely to trickle back to Sheffield or Belfast. That’s even less likely of profits generated from the $6bn of investments in UK start-ups by US and Asian investors in 2019.

Nevertheless, councils throughout the UK continue to pursue multimillion-pound innovation hub projects predicated on the principles of trickle-down economics. These

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Artist activists were behind the community-led redevelopment of the former GDR’s Haus der Statistik building. Photo: Getty

Tramshed in Cardiff, home to innovator firms, has also been used as a music venue, with Example performing there last February. Photo: Getty the developer science hubs 77

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projects are often located close to areas of marked socio-economic deprivation on the peripheries of city centres, where land is comparatively cheap and substantial buildings left over from de-industrialisation can be redeveloped to create ‘cool’ spaces for innovator firms, such as Cardiff ’s Tramshed Tech. Uplift in the value of under-priced land is one of the main sources of investors’ financial gain from innovation clusters.

The Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID), one of the City Region’s three Innovation Districts, is situated in Govan, a formerly thriving centre of shipbuilding that is now one of the 10 most deprived areas in the UK – a community marred by poverty, drug addiction, gang culture and low life expectancy. GRID’s relationship with the residents of Govan appears to hinge on a strategy of ‘outreach, stakeholder and community engagement’, rather than a robust process of economic inclusion. As Kevin Rush, Glasgow City Region’s director of regional economic growth acknowledged in February, the “success” of recent investments across the region “has not been shared by all”.

Perhaps in a belated response to mounting evidence that refutes trickle-down theory, councils like Glasgow are becoming more nuanced in its strategies to disseminate the wealth generated by innovation hubs and clusters, its goal now tending towards a form of “inclusive growth”.

The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s industrial strategy, ‘Economic Growth for Everyone’, sets out a progressive intention “to ensure that everyone benefits, not just a favoured few”. Again, this promise is to be fulfilled through job creation: “Whatever their background, our residents will enjoy opportunities open to few, with excellent jobs on offer in 21st century industries such as bio-tech, digital and creative’ achieved through ‘apprenticeship,

Perhaps in a belated response to mounting evidence that refutes trickle-down theory, councils like Glasgow are becoming more nuanced in their strategies to disseminate the wealth generated by innovation hubs and clusters, their goal now tending towards a form of ‘inclusive growth’

employment and training packages built around business needs.”

How credible is such a strategy?

Can support mechanisms oriented around ‘business needs’ benefit everyone, when those businesses predominantly operate in sectors such as ‘biotech, digital and creative’?

Or could support be built around the needs of citizens, the people of the borough, and the enterprises they desire to launch and the local economy genuinely needs?

It is unclear exactly how frontier tech firms incubated in the borough’s ‘new innovation district’ at White City will drive better economic outcomes for children coming of age in the area, as well as in the adjacent wards of College Park, Old Oak, Wormholt, Shepherds Bush Green and Askew, which are the most deprived in the borough. The prospective success of the council’s strategy continues to rely on unproven assumptions.

A handful of local authorities are following the lead of Preston, the poster child for ‘community wealth building’, by moving past this position and replacing a ‘growth’ strategy with one of building an inclusive economy.

In 2018, Asima Shaikh, the London Borough of Islington’s executive council member for inclusive economy and jobs, detailed a strategy to challenge the “regeneration juggernaut” with interventions designed to ensure “wealth is broadly owned and locally rooted”. The borough’s affordable workspace strategy has secured tens of thousands of square feet of space from developers “to support local businesses, entrepreneurs and pathways for residents into work”. The council has used a social value commissioning process to contract locally rooted, socially oriented firms such as the tech co-operative Outlandish to manage the spaces.

Local ‘inclusive economy’ strategies are likely to need further revision when communities eventually emerge from the restrictions of COVID-19. In a prescient paper published in February, Love’s Labours Found: an Industrial Strategy for Social Care and the Everyday Economy, Isaac Stanley argued that a focus on high-tech sectors goes hand-in-hand with “the neglect of vast swathes of the economy” – the “foundational”, “overlooked” or “everyday” economy, the “infrastructure of civilised everyday life”, including housing, energy, water, waste management, social care, public health and the mostly unpaid labour of “social reproduction” such as childcare and housework. It’s a concept that builds on pioneering work by the Foundational Economy collective, which describes it as “about politics as much as economics”.

Stanley argues for a fundamental

reorientation of innovation and industrial strategy “towards the parts of the economy where most people work and whose activities give our lives meaning” – precisely those that have been sharply foregrounded by the current crisis. You won’t find fintech entrepreneurs, inventors of ‘smart materials’ or the founders of a flying taxi company on any list of essential workers.

The crisis is an opportunity to bring the frontier of innovation closer to home, bringing human ingenuity, collective effort and capital to bear on the immediate problems of living together in and as a society. The best place to start may also be spatially close to home, by recreating and reanimating local economies to benefit everyone who lives within them. There are scores of working models of how to do this, from the anti-gentrification repair-andreuse policies of the Seoul Metropolitan Government or Denmark’s widespread community and co-operative-owned wind farms, to the artist activists behind the €140m community-led redevelopment of the former GDR’s Haus der Statistik, working with state officials and architects as “accidental planners”.

All the necessary elements are working somewhere in the world. All that’s needed is a council brave and visionary enough to put them together.

Steve Taylor is a writer and editor who has also worked in innovation with start-ups and accelerators. He recently completed an MRes in Architecture at UEL, led by Anna Minton, where his research involved developing a mapping technique for charting the capital flows through and from Delancey’s redevelopment of the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre

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Silicon Roundabout in Old Street, London, has launched numerous tech start-ups, leading to a 1,000% rise in flat prices, despite Shoreditch remaining an economically deprived area with above-average rates of unemployment. Photo: Alamy the developer science hubs 79

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A handful of schools have been tackling the challenge through exciting innovations and green design. But at a time of budget cuts and strained resources, these options aren’t easily available to all.

Clementine Wallop reports

London school pupils normally breathe air so dirty it is harmful to their health. As lockdown lifts, how can we keep pollution down?

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The Chiswick Oasis in London is helping to improve the air quality at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School. But parents had to raise £90,000 to get the ‘green wall’ installed, even with funding from mayor of London Sadiq Khan (pictured) the developer clean air in schools 81

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There are two lollipop sticks in west London with Sadiq Khan’s name on them. They poke out of a ‘living wall’ at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School that’s known as the Chiswick Oasis: a 400ft-long installation of plants that stands between the school and the A4, which has made St Mary’s one of London’s most polluted schools, with levels four times the legal air pollution limit.

When the mayor opened the Chiswick Oasis in June 2019, he added two plants to the wall with his name alongside them.

Pupils are encouraged to do the same – the labelled lollipop sticks are part of the school’s work to create a relationship between pupils and their new, green environment.

The oasis was opened as a result of a parent-led campaign to improve pupils’ air quality. Headed by Andrea Carnevali, the campaign raised more than £100,000 in three months. The school has also painted its dining room with Airlite paint, which the manufacturer claims can remove pollutants from the air, and has installed an air purifier in one of the classrooms closest to the main road. Data shows all these measures are proving effective, Carnevali says.

“We built the wall in June. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because it was the summer, but for the whole month after that, you should have seen the happiness. It sounds cheesy and trite, but everyone really embraced it. Before, because we were on the list [of 50 most polluted schools named in a mayoral audit], the headteacher had a rule that children had to be inside, so the freedom to play outside was just very reassuring and heart-warming,” he says.

St Mary’s is one of a number of London schools taking steps to tackle pollution levels.

Hugh Myddelton Primary in Islington has installed clean air technology in classrooms and anti-pollution mesh on its perimeter; it also has plans for a pollution tower in the playground. Christopher Hatton Primary near Holborn installed air purifiers in every

As well as green walls, schools are installing air filters and even using air-purifying paint

classroom in 2018 to tackle toxic air, and early last year, a chain of state-run nurseries in London received funding for air purifiers.

According to charity London Sustainability Exchange, 802 out of 3,261 nurseries, schools and colleges in London are within 150 metres of nitrogen dioxide pollution levels that exceed the European Union legal limit.

“There is basically no limit to what the impact of polluted air is and can be: stunted lung growth, cancers, slow development, mental illness,” says Jemima Hartshorn, founder of grassroots organisation Mums for Lungs, which campaigns for cleaner air.

The coronavirus lockdown has dramatically improved the quality of London’s air, but as traffic starts to increase again, there is a push to maintain that air quality – not least because studies are showing there is a link between air pollution and severe illness from COVID-19; even a small increase in fine particle pollution increases death rates by about 15%.

Temporary road closures are being brought in across London and considered elsewhere, especially around schools during rush hours. “The last thing we want… is to see increasing air quality problems around schools,” London’s walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman told The Guardian.

Demand for solutions to the pollution problem was already rising steadily pre-pandemic, according to Steve McIntyre, urban environment consultant at ANS Global, which supplies green walls.

“When we started in the living wall marketplace in 2007-08, they were a niceto-have. But as the industry has grown in the past five or six years, there’s been a complete curveball… It’s gone to them being a planning requirement,” McIntyre says.

But funding shortages have meant hard decisions for headteachers, as clean air technology doesn’t come cheap.

“Schooling is something that concerns me,” McIntyre says. “In the past year, I have been in maybe 10 or 15 schools in ideal locations for living walls, but right now they have budget restraints and they’re struggling to deliver what they need to go forward. I tell schools to try to get parents and businesses together to raise the funds. We need to change and we know those changes should begin in the playground.”

Hartshorn agrees, saying: “Our schools are cash-strapped. Anything that adds to that burden is difficult and all parents are asking for something – for some, it’s a new computer room, for others it’s clean air. I have a friend who designed a beautiful roof for a school that had insulation, plants, solar panels…

it was an amazing project. But the school couldn’t do it because the roof was leaking and you can’t build on a broken roof.”

Installing clean air technology also demands maintenance that’s a deterrent for many heads. Although companies often offer cut prices or free maintenance to schools, any additional cost that comes with new kit is a reason to think twice.

“A lot of parents are coming and saying they’re trying to put tech in schools but they’re being blocked by the school. They say, ‘We can get the technology in, but what about the maintenance? Who is going to look after it?’” says Richard Greenwood, founder and chief executive of clean air technology company Radic8.

A second problem is public relations: headteachers are reluctant to mark out their schools as having poor air. “You don’t want to present your school as one of the most polluted in London and therefore in the country – you just don’t want that on the website.”

Carnevali says that he tried to “spin that headline on its head” but he has struggled, despite his success, to get other schools on board. “Even after I did it and I tried to contact the other schools [on the mayoral audit list]… spreading the idea of it was impossible. Headteachers ask how they’re supposed to allocate money that they don’t have.”

The mayor’s office said in February 2019 that it would provide £1.27m to tackle toxic air, with 29 primary schools located next to some of London’s most polluted roads set to receive payouts from a pot of £400,000.

Queensbridge Primary School in Hackney was awarded just under £49,000 to create green spaces, while Marner Primary School in Tower Hamlets was awarded £30,000 to install green screens.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said most of these projects are now complete and

Carnevali says he has struggled, despite his success, to get other schools on board. “Even after I did it and I tried to contact the other schools… spreading the idea of it was impossible. Headteachers ask how they’re supposed to allocate money that they don’t have”

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“Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was because it was the summer, but for the whole month after that, you should have seen the happiness. It sounds cheesy and trite, but everyone really embraced it. The freedom to play outside was just very reassuring and heart-warming” that all completed projects have received their funding. But campaigners are quick to note that the funds are insufficient to make a substantial difference to the worst affected schools. Awards around £10,000 represent recognition of a problem, but not an answer to it, they say – the Chiswick Oasis demanded 10 times that amount.

Schools with access to fundraising resources, affluent social networks or generous corporate sponsors have the chance to receive a cash injection. But for those that don’t, it’s a grim picture. If they can raise enough money for a single air purifier, for example, where should it go? The classroom closest to the road, the classroom with the youngest children or the classroom with the most asthmatic children?

These challenges sharpen the focus on the need for systemic rather than incremental change, according to charity the FIA Foundation, which promotes safe, sustainable mobility globally.

Its research shows the children in London most affected by air pollution are less likely to travel to school by car, limiting the usefulness of anti-idling areas or School Streets, which restrict motorised traffic near schools at drop-off and pick-up times.

This raises issues concerning social justice around clean air in schools. “Pupils from these schools are more likely to come from areas where car ownership rates are lower. Equity issues around the causes of this local air pollution are thus raised. Measures that target pupil car travel, including vehicle idling, are less likely to have an impact at these schools,” the foundation said in its 2017 report London’s Polluted Schools: the Social Context.

Activists say the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone is a must, but that progress depends on consistent support from local government that is as active as Khan has been. As FIA’s deputy director Sheila Watson says: “If you get dirty cars

off the road then you have the same clean air on the Old Kent Road as on Chiswick flyover. Arguably, that’s going to make more difference than green screens in individual schools – what we have to do is make cities for people, not vehicles.”

Unfortunately, and not without irony, several UK cities have postponed their introduction of low-emission zones for more polluting vehicles because of the coronavirus crisis. Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Oxford and Bath have all delayed the introduction of clean air zones until at least 2021.

Clementine Wallop is a writer and researcher based in London. She has written for publications including The Telegraph, The Independent and The Wall Street Journal, and is currently seeing every city in Britain #EveryCityProject

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Public transport can only run at one-fifth capacity.

Roads are gridlocked.

We need people to cycle or walk. “This is not ideological opportunism.

This is a necessity”

Nicole Badstuber digs into the numbers and argues that we have to change the way we plan, fund and design our transport networks for the ‘new normal’

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London Tube journeys dropped to just 5% of normal levels during the lockdown, but passenger levels are unlikely return to normal and social distancing rules will still be in force for some time. Photo: Getty the developer transport post-covid 85

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Public transport usage has fallen off a cliff since the coronavirus crisis hit mid-March.

Passenger numbers were down to just 10% of pre-pandemic levels on buses and only 5% on National Rail, while in London, they sunk to a mere 15% for buses and 5% for the London Underground.

But the use of public transport was falling even before lockdown was imposed.

Passenger numbers on the London Underground, for example, were down to just 60% of normal levels a week ahead of the official lockdown, falling to just 15% by the time restrictions were introduced.

In contrast, the decline in car travel has been less dramatic. After a steep fall in the week before lockdown, car travel levelled off at around a third of normal levels in the following three weeks. Since then, car trips have been on the rise and traffic levels are now at around 50% of normal. This is attributable in part to recent government advice to work from home if possible and to use cars rather than public transport, to maintain social distancing.

Demand for bus services has typically fallen less than for rail, with passenger numbers on buses typically falling to 20% of normal; the exception is North America, where passenger numbers have only fallen to 50%, because lockdown has been less comprehensive. The smaller drop-off in bus usage is largely because passengers on public transport are predominantly travelling to commute and buses have disproportionately catered for key workers’ travel needs, both historically and during the current crisis.

Imperial College’s Transport Strategy Centre reports that passenger numbers in cities across the world have plummeted between 80% and 95% during lockdown.

If the UK follows the pattern seen globally, public transport numbers could climb back to 50% of normal, as lockdown and social distancing restrictions are relaxed.

Public transport will be different in the new normal. Most transport organisations and cities are adjusting their services to

Old Street roundabout in London is being made more cycle and pedestrian-friendly

“If passenger numbers rise considerably after lockdown eases and social distancing cannot be maintained, measures that normally only occurred in the busiest cities during their rush hours will become the norm everywhere at all times” enable socially distanced travel, but this will slash capacity. New signage advises passengers to maintain social distancing, and contact between frontline staff and passengers is limited. London’s busiest stations and its bus shelters are now dotted with more than 20,000 social distancing stickers explaining queuing etiquette.

Dozens of stations have one-way and queuing systems to direct passenger flow while maintaining social distancing. Signs on escalators ask passengers to stand six steps apart and for only four people to use lifts at one time. To reduce physical contact with frontline staff, passengers can no longer board buses using the front door and payment is contactless (in London, 33 transport workers and 29 bus drivers have died of COVID-19).

But if passenger numbers rise and social distancing cannot be maintained, measures that normally only occurred during rush hour will become the norm at all times. Entry to stations and public transport vehicles will be restricted, with passengers having to wait to enter stations that are only partially full and for the next bus to arrive if the latest has no more room for social distancing.

The British Transport Police has drafted in thousands of officers and volunteer marshalls to patrol platforms, but as of 13 May they have no enforcement powers and can no longer fine or arrest people for failing to socially distance. Bus franchise owner First Bus, which runs services across Britain, will fill just one in four seats of its vehicles, with passengers counted on and off. Destination screens will display ‘bus full’ signs when that limit is reached and drivers will miss stops and refuse to let others board.

Transport for London (TfL), lost 90% of its income when passenger numbers nosedived. TfL’s drop in income has serious implications, as it undermines its ability to provide reliable, frequent services and maximise the capacity of the system under social distancing.

Before the lockdown, 60% of London’s nine million inhabitants travelled to work by public transport; now the Tube will only be able to carry one in seven of its former passengers – 50,000 instead of 325,000 passengers every 15 minutes during peak travel. Capacity is currently further reduced by fewer services running because of reduced transport workers as staff are off sick, shielding or self-isolating. TfL is running only 85% of its usual bus services, 75% of London Underground services, 80% of London Overground and Docklands Light Rail services, 100% of all TfL rail services (future Crossrail routes), 95% of tram services and 95% of cycle hire services. But London mayor Sadiq Khan’s £1.6bn funding deal with central government requires a full service to resume as soon as possible on the London Underground. On 22 May, transport secretary Grant Shapps announced £283m to move public transport across the UK back towards a full timetable, but stressed people should still work from home and that services will run at roughly one-fifth capacity.

The challenge is to prevent frightened citizens retreating into private cars as a result of these and other measures, or else we will face a future of gridlocked transport. Fast, targeted action is needed. Cities around the world are taking at least some of the steps necessary to prevent cars dominating transport. Authorities are freezing fares, offering free travel temporarily, or allowing more flexible conditions for refunds, and implementing special dispensations for health workers.

But the key to the future of transport, as we transition out of lockdown, is to shift a substantial share of journeys once made on public transport to cycling and walking.

These enable a greater number of people to social distance than cars do, because walking and cycling take up less space per person than single-occupancy motor vehicles.

A relatively quick, easy and inexpensive solution to support more walking and cycling while observing social distancing is to reclaim road space with paint or temporary markers such as bollards and planters. A 3.5 metrewide road lane has an hourly capacity of 2,000 car drivers but 14,000 cyclists – a sevenfold increase (pre-pandemic, it could have held 19,000 pedestrians).

That reallocation of space is already happening across the UK. Shapps created a £250m emergency active travel fund as the first tranche of a promised £2bn investment in cycling, to be spent on pop-up cycle lanes with protected space for cycling, wider pavements, safer junctions, and cycle and bus-only corridors in England. This was to assist with social distancing during the

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New cycling and pedestrian routes announced, 15 May Cycle superhighways Quietways Cycleways Proposed cycle routes

London was already improving its cycling and walking infrastructure, but the impact of COVID-19 means additional roads will be changed into walking and cycling routes and ‘pop-up’ cycle lanes are receiving government funding transition out of lockdown, so sustainable long-term funding will be needed to provide durable and lasting infrastructure changes to boost walking and cycling. The transport secretary also announced £25m for bike repairs in the form of £50 vouchers.

In London, the mayor has announced that the main streets between London Bridge and Shoreditch, Euston and Waterloo, and Old Street and Holborn, will be limited to buses, pedestrians and cyclists. Cars and lorries will be banned from Waterloo Bridge and London Bridge. London boroughs have also implemented similar restrictions on some of the roads they manage, as well as widening pavements and creating pop-up cycle lanes.

The congestion charge has been increased from £11.50 to £15 (there is a reimbursement scheme for NHS and care home workers).

Bus fares, which were removed during the lockdown, are back, however free travel for children is temporarily suspended with over-60s and those with disabilities’ free fares limited to off-peak hours.

Birmingham’s emergency transport plan will also “reallocate road space”, taking

room away from private cars and giving it to public transport, walking and cycling. There will be “limited access for private cars” and parking spaces will be removed, while a ‘popup’ cycleway will link key workers to City Hospital via the Jewellery Quarter.

Bristol is advancing plans to remove cars from the historic centre by the end of the summer, including Corn Street, St Nicholas Street and Small Street. As well as new cycle paths and widening pavements, there are plans to close Bristol Bridge, one of the main routes into the city, to cars and lorries.

Meanwhile, in Manchester, a quartermile stretch of Deansgate in the city centre has been closed off to traffic. ‘Surface guard’ barriers will be installed between King Street West and Blackfriars Street, with the council hoping the change will become permanent, subject to consultation. The local authority also has revealed plans for 240km of protected cycle track.

“The move will aid the city’s economic recovery by making it easier for people to socially distance while getting to work or visiting local businesses, as and when

restrictions on movement to restrict the spread of coronavirus are eased,” Manchester Council revealed.

In many ways, this comes down to the basics of transport planning: shifting travel behaviour with carrots and sticks. Road restrictions, congestion charges and lowemission zones are the sticks; more space for walking and cycling are carrots.

“The only way London is going to operate in terms of our capacity on our roads and capacity on our public transport is to move wherever possible to cycling and walking,” says walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman. “This is not ideological opportunism. This is a necessity.”

This crisis has highlighted the value of transport not just to the individual travelling.

Looking ahead, this should give us pause to rethink our models for funding transport and the value of the vital service the transport system provides.

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Social distancing requirements on London’s Underground mean the Tube’s capacity is set to drop to just a seventh of what it was before the lockdown, with commuters left to find alternative ways to get to work, if they go at all. Photo: Getty 88

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By converting a road, social distancing can be maintained and throughput increased – a 3.5 metre-wide lane has an hourly capacity of 2,000 car drivers but can carry up to 14,000 cyclists or 19,000 pedestrians. Photo: Getty the developer transport post-covid 89

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Kings Crescent Estate, Hackney: what if the council is the developer?

Between Stoke Newington and Finsbury Park in north-east London, a part-demolished estate is enjoying an ambitious regeneration full of flux and possibility. Anna Wood and Nitasha Kapoor meet the residents enjoying its revival. Photography by John Sturrock

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Play areas are central to the development because “you prioritise either cars or children� the developer

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Kings Crescent Estate has survived more than four decades of mixed fortunes. It had its streets-in-the-sky beginnings in the ’70s, then suffered partial demolition in the ’90s.

The 2000s brought stalled regeneration projects from various developers, and now there is ongoing redevelopment by Hackney Council, designed by Karakusevic Carson Architects with Henley Halebrown Rorrison and Muf Architecture/Art. Work began on site in spring 2015 and the first two phases of 269 new homes and 101 refurbished homes were completed in 2017.

The next phases are due to start in 2021, to provide a further 28 council, 75 shared ownership and 116 private homes, as well as ‘upgrades’ to 174 existing properties.

“There’s a feeling of things happening, of life coming back to Kings Crescent again,” says resident Jill Walker-Murrain. “And it makes me smile. I love it. We’d been fighting for the regeneration for so many years and a lot of us were quite worn out.”

Walker-Murrain has lived on the estate for 38 years. She moved in when she was 22, before being ‘decanted’ from Sandridge Court to another block before it was demolished, and has raised her three daughters here. She has been secretary of the tenants’ association, set up youth clubs, been a youth mentor, co-founded a gardening group and had been active on steering committees; she now works as site administrator for Higgins, the construction company for the current redevelopment.

Her husband, Vince Murrain, was equally vital to the estate. The chair of the tenants’ association, he died in 2012 but remains a much-loved man – the new community centre and the main street running through Kings Crescent are named after him.

“It started off with just kids from the estate,” Walker-Murrain says of the youth club, delighting in how small initiatives grow.

“And then it was, ‘Can my friends come?’

Then social services heard about us, so we’d be getting referrals of kids-at-risk, and then I became a mentor. We’d have up to 150 kids a day, which was amazing, so we employed other people, tutors and different coaches, all through word-of-mouth.”

Children are still at the heart of the estate – even more so, now that a new “play street” designed by Muf Architecture/Art runs down the centre of the development.

The play street, a (mostly) pedestrianised road, is at once a playground and the main thoroughfare for Kings Crescent. Groundfloor spaces along it are used for kids’ play mornings, and the new cafe round the corner is a meeting and relaxing spot for toddlers and their carers. The next phase of development includes more swings, benches

and climbing structures between the play street – Murrain Road – and the Vince Murrain Community Centre. A Sainsbury’s on the edge of the estate helps blur the line between Kings Crescent and the wider world.

Emley Pine is a young mother taking an ever-expanding role on the estate. She and her partner live with their two children in one of the flats being refurbished as part of the development; she is in the tenants’ and residents’ association, which has been working with local arts charity Hackney Showroom to fund, refurbish and run another community space along Murrain Road.

“You can feel stuck in a hamster wheel of meetings,” she says. “Sometimes you get things off your chest but that’s it – you don’t get anywhere. So, we’ve been bringing the right people from different groups to meet face-to-face.”

Residents who have been here for decades are living alongside newcomers who have moved into flats they bought off-plan; those new builds are different to, but sympathetic with, the older blocks, which have been refurbished as part of the regeneration.

Residents share locked and fobbed courtyards, but another big play area with more traditional equipment is planned that will be open to all residents and anyone else who wants to come and share the space.

“All new buildings benefit from a variety of tenures and are designed as fully tenure blind,” architect Paul Karakusevic says.

“Tenures are split by cores. The entrances are all ‘through-lobbies’ with access directly to the courtyards. Ultimately the decision on detailed security lines and fobbed access is decided by the client team, in conversation with the residents and design team.”

There is plenty of unfinished work here – more buildings will go up in the next three years, but currently, there are empty lots fenced in by builders’ boards.

“The new allotments are there because we had that precedent and we said, in the tenants’ association that we have to have space for people to be able to grow food. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for your mental health, it’s good for bringing community together”

“There’s a feeling of things happening, of life coming back to Kings Crescent again. And it makes me smile. I love it.

We’d been fighting for the regeneration for so many years and a lot of us were quite worn out” It is all in-progress, not fixed – Kings Crescent, to paraphrase Robert Venturi, chooses “messy vitality over obvious unity”.

There are problems, too. There is not nearly enough social housing here to meet local need yet there are also objections to the 12-storey blocks that will soon go up and inevitably block light and views for existing flats. And there are other, smaller but not insignificant issues. There is a loss of social spontaneity that affects some more than others – you need advanced permission to have a party outdoors, for example, and barbecues aren’t allowed anywhere. One young resident in an older block says the one thing she would change is “the smell in the hallway” (residents in the new blocks are not greeted by the whiff of urine). Some of the paving stones are slippery with mossy growth all winter; they are apparently immune to scrubbing and almost begging to break someone’s hip.

But Hackney Council has succeeded where at least three other housing associations failed – it has found a way to regenerate Kings Crescent that is financially viable and socially valuable.

“It feels like the same estate as it was 40 years ago,” says Walker-Murrain. “It’s the same and it’s changed. You want continuity and you want fresh blood coming in: you need both.”

Like Venturi, she is enthused by complexity and contradiction, richness and ambiguity. Venturi wrote: “Architecture must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion.”

Walker-Murrain puts it more succinctly: “Everybody has to be OK or there’s no point.”

Liza Fior, founder of Muf Architecture/ Art, is in chorus with Walker-Murrain, particularly when it comes to providing for young people with the utmost ambition and generosity. Fior argues that the play street was perhaps the keystone to her company’s proposal, because “you prioritise either cars or children”.

Fior shares a lot of Walker-Murrain’s

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To the north, phases 1 and 2 of the masterplan have been built, with phases 3 and 4 and a large central square and playground to come the developer

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Play Street runs through the centre of the development to the park great energy, priorities and insights. Through projects with local authorities across London, including Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, Ruskin Square and the Max Roach Play Park, Fior has a bone-deep sense of how to get on with things, relish untold possibilities, and nurture ever-changing networks of people and ideas – collaborating with the future.

Muf co-founder Kath Shonfield also coined the term ‘premature gratification’.

Evident at Kings Crescent in the play street, premature gratification helps guarantee the completion of a project by making it satisfying and fully itself straight away.

Rather than expecting people to trust you when you say that this new place will be worth waiting for, you make sure, right from the start, that each aspect gives you a sense of why the whole thing deserves your time.

Or as Shonfield puts it: “It makes you want to eat more because the hors d’oeuvres tasted so good.”

The play street caters to diverse and multiple needs. The main route into and through the estate, it is also a place for play and relaxation, and leads to Clissold Park.

Theatre, nature and function are all playfully mixed together.

Fior says it is partly inspired by Venice – a city that doesn’t need playgrounds because children can play anywhere they like. The design is wilfully unclear and non-prescriptive, with objects open to interpretation, but also perfectly accurate, sized and laid out for children so that it “makes invitations”, as Fior puts it, without telling you what to do.

Groups of young men meet up and hang out there. Two siblings we spoke to run races along the long concrete table fixed in the middle of the street. “Is it a sacrificial plinth?” a resident asks, arching an eyebrow; another young woman had a birthday party around the table.

There are benches as well; Fior points out that benches are easy and important, adding: “If children and older people are OK then everyone’s OK.” There are whispering posts, and a carefully arranged and secured pile of logs provides home to untold insects. There’s

a hammock that Walker-Murrain’s severely autistic young granddaughter loves to lie in.

“It’s safe because there are no cars, so we go down there and she lies on the hammock,” says Walker-Murrain. “She just swings away and she’s happy, and I sit there and watch her be happy.”

The design of the estate mirrors the behaviour of those living there: you start specific and small but also open-ended and generous, and that enables things to grow.

“Introducing play allows more play,” as Fior says, talking about how once they designed one play area, there came a demand for more play areas, which then became part of the next phase of regeneration.

Walker-Murrain saw the same thing happen with the estate’s gardens: the new allotments and the orchard along the east side of the estate emerged from a gardening club set up years ago, a meanwhile-use affair in another part of Kings Crescent the success of which demonstrated abundantly that there was demand for community gardens.

“The new allotments are there because we had that precedent and we said, in the tenants’ association that we have to have space for people to be able to grow food,” says Walker-Murrain. “It’s good for the environment, good for your mental health, and good for bringing community together.”

Kings Crescent was designed with shared informal spaces in mind, so that residents (and non-residents) feel that they are in a place that connects and responds not just to the surrounding streets and buildings but also to their own needs and wishes. After the hard, practical work (on all sides) of steering groups and permissions and funding and logistical puzzles, room has been left for the unknown.

There is a future unknown person who will walk safely up the pedestrianised Murrain Road, who will eat vegetables grown in the allotments and eat fruit from the orchard, who will whisper through the listening posts on the play street, and perhaps lie back on the long concrete table to soak up some sunshine. That person will have the sense, as with reading a book or listening to a piece of music, that someone else somewhere has thought well of them and has written, composed or designed something with specificity, honesty and a keen belief that they deserve the best of everything.

Anna Wood writes about music, sex and politics for publications including Mojo and The Quietus. Nitasha Kapoor is an anthropologist and social researcher

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Children can play safely in the hammock, as there are no cars nearby

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Once a no-go area, the play street encourages the public to walk through the estate to Clissold Park

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The lack of “high-falluting� amenities keep the service charge down while fostering this tenure-blind community

The council has sought to create car-free areas by retaining legacy car parking for existing tenants only while building car-free new homes the developer

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“You have to remember what it was like” – Hackney mayor Philip Glanville on the Kings Crescent Estate redevelopment After several false dawns, Glanville describes the moment the council gave up on public-private partnerships and built housing again. Interview

by Christine Murray Can you tell me about the origins of the Kings Crescent Estate redevelopment?

I’ve not lived the experience of existing residents. I’ve not lived on a regeneration estate either as a leaseholder or a tenant. But in one way or another, I’ve been involved in Kings Crescent for 15 years.

I remember going there when I was selected as a candidate for counsellor in Hoxton. We were campaigning in what was then Woodberry Down Ward, and you had Woodberry Down [Estate] on one end and Kings Crescent on the other. They were partially demolished, partially decanted.

We were just setting up our ALMO [arm’slength management organisation] as a council, so there were some strange branding things going on… The borough was changing, but it felt like places had been left behind.

For that community, regeneration had been talked about and failed so many times on Kings Crescent. I’ve been to so many moments, Christmas parties, groundbreakings or topping-outs.

You just have to remember what it was like to live there and be told that you were going to be regenerated… and then suddenly, half of it is blown up… and then that’s never finished… and then it never happens.

When we went into the great recession, the public-private partnerships failed and the council, which had already been talking and pushing and thinking about it, said: “We want to build council housing again.”

This was a moment to really reconsider the delivery models for these schemes.

Eighteen sites across the borough were reviewed and in that work was an acknowledgement that a lot of Kings Crescent was really sound: that while the tower blocks and the streets in the sky hadn’t been successful, actually once you stripped it back and reflected – the

maisonette vernacular with its large family homes overlooking the park, dual-aspect – there were all the things that people would highlight as being important. There were issues with prostitution. There were the hoardings, the poor maintenance and the partially demolished bits of the estate. But there were also good transport links, Clissold Park and a really strong sense of community.

The decision was made to do it in-house: we’re going to re-masterplan, we’re going to have a resident steering group, and we are going to invest in the existing estate and bring it up to Decent Homes-plus standard; we’re going to build new council housing, new private housing and new shared ownership; at the end, it will be co-produced with the community, and it will be owned by the council and managed by the council.

That was quite a radical departure because we retained, repurposed and renewed. You can’t do that everywhere, but here we really thought we could because it was high-quality family housing. I took it over in 2011, with Kings Crescent as one of our first fully inhouse, self-funded projects.

Did you have the expertise you needed in‑house at the time?

There had been a small team in the council involved in development… Now it’s 60-strong. In the decade that we’ve been delivering Kings Crescent and other projects, we’ve been ramping up that arm. It’s a much more ambitious programme and we’ve been constantly increasing the amount of affordable housing in it as well.

Kings Crescent did perform better than we thought. The way we recycle the profits back into our programme means that in the third or fourth phase [of the estate redevelopment], there will be more affordable housing.

Can you take me through the mix of affordable, social and private property at Kings Crescent?

In phases one and two, there are 79 social rented homes, approximately 36 shared ownership, and then 150-plus private sale to pay for that phase. On the south side, we are delivering a mixture of just under 30 social rent, just over 70 shared ownership and approximately 130 private sale, as well as a community facility, a public square, multi-use games area and affordable workspace.

What’s interesting is that it’s completely tenure-blind, shared courtyard, shared management. The ‘poor doors’ and divided playgrounds, which have happened across London, do not happen here. The five tenures do not necessarily share the same core, but they share all the courtyards. That’s

its strength.

We’ve also put in a very clear sales regime around wanting resident buyers. There have been no foreign off-plan sales, only five homes were sold buy-to-let and if you go there, that extra effort has [meant] that it feels like Hackney in those courtyards. It is still the borough. You can see developments that become sort of polarised, but that’s one of the big strengths in what we’ve tried to do.

Why do cores tend to be segregated? What are the barriers in creating wholly tenureblind developments?

There’s a mixture of challenges that are real and perceived. The real challenges are issues around service charge and making sure you can deliver enough genuinely affordable products to social tenants and shared owners.

One of the tools we’ve used here is that the council ultimately is the managing agent. So you haven’t got multiple managing agents.

There is no part of the development that is purely for private owners, so there’s no concierge, there are no club rooms, there’s no gym, there are no high-falluting features like that.

So, overall, the service charge is lower for everyone than a comparable private development. And that means you don’t have to carve it up. You don’t have a situation where the private towers have got the concierge and the social tenants don’t. There are no people peering in through a glass door and seeing a gym or playground they don’t have access to. If there’s that inequity, then you can get into a debate that if you want the concierge, you’ll have to pay for it.

That’s really important. So while the mixes tend to be social rent-shared ownership or shared ownership-private, there are very few lift cores that are mono-tenure. They all open up into shared streets and shared courtyards behind the security doors. So if you want to use the playground, you want to access the

“It’s completely tenureblind, shared courtyard, shared management.

The ‘poor doors’, divided playgrounds, which have happened across London, do not happen here.

The five tenures do not necessarily share the same core, but they share all the courtyards”

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“There are no people peering in through a glass door and seeing a gym or playground they don’t have access to. That’s why I’m so proud of it. If you’re thinking of the need for gyms and things like that, provide them out in the open or nearby and make them accessible to all” bike storage, that is all shared.

Like I said, there are real and perceived challenges. There is a real service charge issue. If you design a scheme that’s going to have concierges and private gyms and stuff, then inevitably that will lead to much higher degrees of segregation.

Hackney’s a very economically mixed borough, and parks, spaces and entranceways should be the same. Then you get the sort of results that you see at Kings Crescent and it’s why I’m so proud of it. If you’re thinking of the need for gyms and things like that, provide them out in the open or nearby and make them accessible to all. That was the principle behind the play street and the integration across the scheme.

We try to have the maximum flexibility around the [key] fob, and also you haven’t got a situation where an existing social tenant is looking out of their winter garden into a courtyard they can’t access because they’re not part of the new development.

There is a big park with a very large playground across the street and you could easily have relied on its green spaces. Why have you included a lot of public, playable space in the development?

I wasn’t there at the origin of the play street.

I’ve seen it delivered and shaped. It really captured the public imagination for where we’re going, with becoming a child-friendly borough, and how you integrate a new development into a wider community.

There are probably two or three things here. There are lots of families on the estate.

There’s the idea that the estate had been, at some point, a sort of no-go type place for the wider community: you would not walk through it from Finsbury Park to Clissold Park; it would have been a place you’d have circumnavigated.

There was a wish to reduce the amount of the estate given over to cars. There’s car-free

Mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville at Kings Crescent in 2017. Photo: Tim Foster development for new builds, but legacy car parking for existing tenants. You can’t go to a community that is already using a certain level of cars and [remove the parking]: there’s a lot of people in the estate that use their cars for work – builders, mini-cabs, that sort of thing. The idea was that it would become less car-dominant, given how well placed it is for good transport.

Embedding those play principles was about a space that encouraged people from off the estate to come into the estate, by improving safety, permeability, those moments to stop. Contrast that to the kind of prostitution and anti-social behaviour that fuelled the previous view of the estate, and I think it was a really positive, bold statement to say this is part of the wider public realm.

It will always have teething problems, but it was really important to the design team [as an expression of] what they wanted to achieve on the estate.

It would have been quite easy to just build out phases three and four [of Kings Crescent] as we’d already got outline planning permission. But there was quite a lot of feedback and reorientation [of the masterplan]. The idea of creating a new square came from thinking about what older children and young adults want out of a space, and making that feel safe and overlooked. It will be really interesting when it’s complete to think about that [new public square] and the play street, and how they interact.

shared public space?

We tried to do everything possible, while recognising that we needed that crosssubsidy model of private sales, to make sure it was as integrated as possible – designing homes that encourage people to live there and not to speculate, buy there and rent out.

That part of the borough is really interesting in that it’s more mixed than you think.

You can have a public realm that is designed to sell homes and be perfect and never used. Kings Crescent isn’t that. It is high quality and high aspiration; it should be beautiful and it should help sell our homes.

But we also have a big food-growing area in one of the courtyards. Show me any private-led scheme that has that. There might be some now, but it came out of Turkish and Kurdish families on the edge of the steering group thinking about food-growing when there weren’t any green spaces on the estate and saying: “Why should that just be a lawn?

What is the point of a great big lawn? We think we can have a play courtyard, a foodgrowing courtyard and a more naturalistic courtyard.”

Now a lot of our new regeneration schemes all have in-built food-growing areas.

That is something that brings people together – it’s food, it’s sharing experience.

The hardest bit at King’s Crescent is that there’s no external long-term partner, so there’s no community development budget.

That’s a bit tougher. So what we don’t have is permanent animation of the community hall. We’ve been doing some work in that temporary space, but that’s something that needs to be thought about and reinvested in to make sure that we’re bringing the community together and holding it as it goes through this change.

Philip Glanville is the elected mayor of Hackney in London

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Placetest: Liverpool One Liverpool One is one of Europe’s biggest city-centre mixed-used developments but has managed to develop a local feel that is at one with the rest of the city. This exclusive report by anthropologist Rebecca Toop explores the user experience of Liverpool One, with photography by Andrew McCaren 106

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Liverpool One is unique as an open-air shopping centre integrated with the city streets the developer liverpool one 107

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The Dinosaurs Unleashed app enables children to interact with the centre (and its dinosaurs). Photo: Alamy

Liverpool One is one of the most popular areas of the city. Photo: Alamy 108

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The steps to Chavasse Park are a good place for shoppers to rest, and also link the centre to an important local area

Families and friends visiting Liverpool city centre will often go to Chavasse Park. Photo: Alamy the developer liverpool one 109

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Masterplan for Liverpool One: 1. Paradise Street 2. Chavasse Park 3. Albert Dock 4. Canning Dock 5. John Lewis 6. Hilton Liverpool City Centre 7. Q Park – John Lewis 8. Novotel Liverpool Centre 9. Q Park – Hanover Street 10. Tesco Superstore 11. Premier Inn 12. Bluecoat: Liverpool’s Centre for the Contemporary Arts 13. Merseyside Maritime Museum 14. JD Sports 15. Information centre and toilets 16. Foot Locker 17. Debenhams 18. Zara 19. Victoria’s Secret 20. Custom House Place 21. Bridge Street Apartments 22. Byron 23. Nespresso 24. Epstein Theatre 25. Quaker Meeting House 26. Liverpool One Bus Station 27. BBC Radio Merseyside 28. One Park West 29. The Club House 30. Law courts 31. Queen Victoria Monument 32. Derby Square 33. Merseyside Police 34. Marks & Spencer 35. Duke Street

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If Western culture is often called consumerist, there is more to shopping than consumption.

Shopping outlets provide a stage for people to explore ideas about their identity, all while buying into the sense of being in a community that these spaces can provide.

Developed by Grosvenor, Liverpool One is one of Europe’s biggest city-centre mixed-use developments at 42 acres and the very name suggests that it belongs to Liverpool (“You know, it’s Liverpool’s!”). It opened in 2008 and it is widely acknowledged that Liverpool City Council’s partnership approach to the development of Liverpool One is a tale of success. As one visitor says: “To me, it’s not a retail park. A retail park is like you’re in a shopping mall in America. You drive in and then you drive out. With this, it’s the heart.

It’s now to me the heart of the city.”

Scores of Liverpudlians who used to travel to Manchester’s Trafford Centre for their retail fix welcomed the development in the city centre, most of which opened during Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture. Estimated to have cost £920m, it has since acted as a catalyst for a wider renaissance of the city, being developed around its architectural heritage and existing street layout. It blends into the fabric of the city, which means there is very little sense of other streets or shopping areas being cut off and so forgotten about. Bookended by flagship stores Debenhams and John Lewis, which are said to draw the public into the space, the site has a flow, with people constantly on the move, albeit at a leisurely stroll. “In London, everyone is rushing everywhere, but here it’s very chilled, slow, easy. It’s a more enjoyable experience than London for sure.”

The significance of the site in Liverpool’s history cannot be underestimated – it sits on top of the world’s first commercial wet dock, the place that gave Liverpool its name and enabled it to become the first global city.

The Old Dock has been buried underground

Liverpool One is close to the River Mersey, as well as the city centre

since 1826 and was only excavated when Liverpool One was being built. It remains under the site, with a small area allocated to the museum tour run by the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Nods to the site’s significance are built into the architecture. Thomas Steers Way is named after the engineer who built the Old Dock, and hosts a water feature the circular pool of which represents the ‘liver’ (muddy) pool. The fountains that come on in the summertime outside the Hilton celebrate the achievements of William Hutchinson, dock master at the Old Dock from 1759, who recorded high tide and low tide every day for nearly 30 years.

Other prominent reminders of the area’s historical significance are found at a boundary position to the site, next to John Lewis: a replica golden eagle, once a prominent signpost to many illiterate seafarers, adorning the site of the world’s first American consulate (the original is in the Liverpool Museum); and the ornately sculpted gate to the old Liverpool Sailors’ Home (demolished in 1974) has been placed more or less in its original position. As one person remarked, “People really appreciate Grosvenor’s attempt to mention the tradition of the site.”

Merseymade, an artist’s studio, gallery and cafe situated just next to Liverpool One’s bus station, benefits from the footfall of those parking nearby to avoid the £11.50 four-hour parking fee in Liverpool One. Vicky Gawith, owner of Merseymade, has a personal relationship to the building that they inhabit – her father used to work for its previous iteration, the Gordon Smith Institute for Seamen. Given the area’s rich history, it would be great to see more Liverpudlians given the opportunity to reconnect with their heritage in this way.

While Liverpool One is home to all the big global brands, they are presented in a framework that speaks to the local – even the name, Liverpool One, implies being ‘for Liverpool’. The site offers the usual range of mid to high-end stores, bars and restaurants, a cinema complex and an indoor crazy golf course (Junkyard Golf Club). But it caters particularly well to Liverpool’s obsession with sports fashion, with numerous sports shops including, of course, the Liverpool FC Store and ‘Everton Two’. The more upmarket areas of the site are differentiated in the architecture, with black gloss walls framing the entrance and a covered avenue housing glass-fronted high-end shops, such as the Nespresso ‘concept boutique’.

The site also holds accessible large-scale events and has family-friendly augmented reality apps – Dinosaurs Unleashed and

“I went to Liverpool One on the day it opened because I work in the city centre.

A couple of us went down.

We couldn’t wait to go, all excited, and that was the thing we said. It’s like, ‘Well, this will never catch on.

The roof doesn’t go right across.’ We were so wrong, obviously, because you don’t think twice about it” Zombies Unleashed – that turn the shopping centre into a theatre space with participants as actors.

The open street layout means you can wander and explore, without it feeling overly scripted – unlike in a more traditional mall where you walk from one end to the other. There is a sense of there being more to discover, up a side street or around the corner. Thanks to the open-air design, light filters down to the bottom level found in South John Street, but you would not realise that above you is an amphitheatre of restaurants and a ‘park in the sky’.

Not all visitors appreciate the open air – as one Norwegian tourist remarked: “It’s strange that they made the shopping centre outside, with all the bad weather. It should be inside.” But it does appear to give visitors a greater sense of ownership of the space: “I would consider all of this to be public space, to be honest… because we all walk through it like it’s just outdoors.”

Another visitor remarked: “I went to Liverpool One on the day it opened because I work in the city centre. A couple of us went down. We couldn’t wait to go, all excited, and that was the thing we said. It’s like, ‘Well, this will never catch on. The roof doesn’t go right across.’ We were so wrong, obviously, because you don’t think twice about it. I think it makes it more airy, I guess. I don’t know. Welcoming. But I can remember us all laughing as if like, ‘Oh, they must have run out of money’ and things. But it was obviously the design.”

There are benches, but these are sporadically placed and come across as utilitarian – somewhere to rest between shops or wait for your partner, rather than relaxing places for people to spend time. On the other hand, Chavasse Park and the Sugar House steps (a nod to Liverpool’s historical role in the global sugar industry) are obvious

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meeting places and somewhere for people to “have their sandwiches in the summertime”.

Chavasse Park is one of the few places in which you can stay in Liverpool One without spending money and fulfils a need for open green space in the city centre. Located between the old docks, the Cavern Quarter (think The Beatles) and the Ropewalks (the creative quarter and host to Chinatown), Liverpool One is an ideal location for a central meeting place.

“That’s something that Liverpool lacks – a centre,” says one visitor. “There’s no central square – well, there’s Concert Square, which is dreadful – but there’s no square that people can sort of chill out in. Up at the top there [Chavasse Park] is all right but it’s a bit blowy.”

Dinosaurs Unleashed encouraged you to find dinosaur eggs around the site, hatch them, feed them and fight them in a battle arena in Chavasse Park. Launched to coincide with the Easter holidays last year, the app was well-publicised and ‘Chavassic Park’ was given an overhaul, with uniformed park rangers creating a buzzing atmosphere.

Initiatives such as this and Zombies Unleashed dissociate the space from being a shopping centre, enabling people to have a formative experience and develop a personal connection to the space.

One visitor said, “When [the kids] were younger we used to come up here [to Chavasse Park] all the time… They used to have events, like little concerts for kids and things.” She now regularly comes with her son, who looks to be in his early teens, and they get milkshakes and sit in the sun when the weather is nice.

The lack of clear boundaries to the site and toned down on-site branding further lead to the sense that Liverpool One is ‘for the people’. Very few of the visitors I spoke to could accurately tell me the extent of the site, with many thinking it was just South

“That’s something that Liverpool lacks – a centre,” says one visitor. “There’s no central square – well, there’s Concert Square, which is dreadful – but there’s no square that people can sort of chill out in. Up at the top there [Chavasse Park] is all right but it’s a bit blowy”

The Liverpool One centre bus station

Dinosaurs Unleashed is now available for children to use at home as well John Street, bookended by John Lewis and Debenhams, and extending out to Paradise Street.

But there are none of the usual signs of citizen appropriation around the site, whereas just outside at the docks, people have quite literally made their mark – locking padlocks with names and messages to the railings. Also not found on the site are forms of political messaging (“Fight Racism!

Fight Imperialism!” seen on nearby Church Street) or protests (PETA’s ‘no fur’ campaigns outside Flannels), which are swiftly moved on – if you wish to stage a protest on the site, you have to apply in advance.

Liverpool One’s proximity to the city’s cultural quarter (huge vinyl adverts around the site state ‘So close… five minutes away’) has enabled a connection to the city’s museums. Dinosaurs Unleashed signposted users to the World Museum’s dinosaur exhibit, and National Museums Liverpool was involved in the interpretation of the Old Dock under Liverpool One. It “brings it all to life” and still runs the guided tours to it.

The Museum of Liverpool’s Chris Kerfoot says: “In my eyes, we are all in this together with this element of tourism, an element of celebrating our city. Sunday morning is their day of culture, their day to find out things about the city. It’s relaxing. It’s quiet.”

Liverpool One’s shops don’t open until 11am on a Sunday.

But there is a not-insignificant physical barrier between the museums on the docks and Liverpool One – the Strand, an eightlane A-road. Although well served with pedestrian crossings, the demolition of the pedestrian bridge in 2007 has left many people intimidated by this busy road, with accidents not uncommon.

One visitor says: “When there are big events on in the city like the Giants [a parade of huge marionettes], they close that road.

And again, that makes it a whole.”

There is competition for Liverpool One from areas of local, independent shops such as Bold Street, which has a vibrancy and a sense of life being lived that is lacking in Liverpool One. “I’d prefer to eat elsewhere.

A lot of these [restaurants] are chains – I prefer smaller places. We usually eat at Bold Street,” a visitor tells me.

The proliferation of well-known brands and chains at Liverpool One means that Grosvenor has to work harder for people to feel they are gaining a unique experience on the site. This is achieved through different means: non-retail elements such as events and apps; pop-up shops (the ‘Barbie Store Fashion Pop Up’ was a particular favourite for shoppers); and, of course, the open-air street layout.

One of the biggest successes of the development is to have made Liverpool One feel like it belongs to the locals – something of which Liverpudlians can be proud of.

Grosvenor has tried to tone down its presence as an external developer by using limited on-site branding and unclear boundaries to the site. This gives a sense of any added atmosphere created in the space being a public service as opposed to a PR stunt. It supports local charities, such as Claire House Children’s Hospice, has a ‘One Community Stand’ that raises awareness of different causes, and the Liverpool One Foundation, which has donated more than £1.5m to community projects that “promote positive mental health and well-being amongst our city’s young people”. This ethos of keeping it local has obviously rubbed off on even the big global brands, with Adidas-branded cupcakes actively promoting a local bakery.

To compete with the rise of online shopping, the power of aligning with the local isn’t to be underestimated. People want to feel like they are buying into something bigger, and gaining something more for their money than items as commodities.

Physical shops currently have the advantage over online shops (although this may change with advancements in augmented and virtual reality, as well as

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“The thing that concerns me with Liverpool One is that for whatever reason, the shops seem to be closing or changing hands.

The one that concerns me is the flagship store of Debenhams on the corner.

And they’re struggling, aren’t they? And if that closes down, who will take over that massive space?” the enduring legacy of COVID-19), as they provide a stage for the theatrical act of shopping – the ability for people to try on outfits and explore different ways of expressing themselves. Purchases are inscribed with meaning, whether that’s improving your home sanctuary, constructing images of the ideal husband or child, or developing your concept of ‘self ’ and selfimage – shopping is almost always linked to social relationships and is therefore easier to express in a social, public setting. Given the sociable nature of shopping for many people, the employee discount offered across the site means that friends and family of staff will be encouraged to shop here.

Liverpool One is not immune to the decline of the high street, with the closing of shops a worry for many people who frequent the space: “The thing that concerns me with Liverpool One is that for whatever reason, the shops seem to be closing or changing hands.

And that’s probably because of the way of the world at the moment, because lots of places are struggling. The one that concerns me is the flagship store of Debenhams on the corner. And they’re struggling, aren’t they?

And if that closes down, who will take over that massive space?”

When I was undertaking the research for this article, it was still the old normal: people were out shopping with their families, meeting friends for drinks and wandering into the city centre after football matches. But at the time of writing, the shopping centre looks vastly different – most inessential stores are closed and Liverpool One is deserted.

Yet Liverpool One has maintained an active presence online during the lockdown.

It has adapted Dinosaurs Unleashed to enable you to set up dinosaur hunts in your own home. Now online, the ‘Tickle the Ivories’ project, currently in its tenth year,

provides pianos throughout Liverpool One and encourages passers-by to play them – videos of which have been known to go viral – and invites buskers to submit videos.

Material on the MyONE app has changed from restaurant deals and giveaways to ‘things to do at home’ – word searches and recipes predominantly.

It will be interesting to see how Liverpool One emerges from the COVID-19 crisis and whether there will be any closing down sales for businesses that haven’t made it through the lockdown. Several big stores have already announced plans for social distancing for when shops reopen. In the event that any future vaccine is seasonal, shopping centres will come under scrutiny for the level of hygiene they can maintain to keep their customers safe. But its open-air design might have a positive impact on people’s perceptions regarding the spread of the virus in Liverpool One. Grosvenor is obviously keen to maintain the community it has tried so hard to build up. With governance over the whole site, it may be in a stronger position than individual businesses on a high street to keep the retail park alive after this crisis.

Fact sheet Site area: 42.5 acres Total development: 2.5 million sq ft Retail: 1.65 million sq ft Leisure: 230,000 sq ft Open space: 5.5 acres John Lewis: 240,000 sq ft Debenhams: 185,000 sq ft Liverpool ONE was delivered by The Paradise Project, the development vehicle created by Grosvenor and its investment partners.

Grosvenor Liverpool City Council selected Grosvenor as the ‘preferred developer’ in March 2000.

It was also a key investor in the project, and along with a consortium of other investors, has raised the full cost of the development works. The consortium includes investors Hermes, Redevco and Liverpool Victoria, and banks RBS, Barclays, HSBC and Eurohypo.

Masterplan team Building Design Partnership: masterplanners Capita Symonds: transportation engineers and health and safety consultants Cesar Pelli Associates: urban design consultants Waterman Partnership: structural and environmental engineers WSP Group: infrastructure and building services engineers Construction partners Laing O’Rourke: site and design co-ordination and principal contractor property/planning consultants DTZ: advisors to Grosvenor Liverpool Fund Drivers Jonas: planning consultants Cushman & Wakefield, Strutt & Parker and Tushingham Moore: leasing agents Edmund Kirby: party wall and rights of light surveyor Cost consultants Davis Langdon: quantity surveyor Lawyers Berwin Leighton Paisner and Boodle Hatfield: solicitors Denton Wilde Sapte: planning lawyers

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South John Street in the Liverpool One centre. Being in the open air gives the centre a different feel to other shopping complexes 116

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The ornately sculpted gate to the old Liverpool Sailors’ Home (demolished in 1974) has been placed more or less in its original position

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The centre is built on the historic Old Docks, near the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Tate Liverpool and Museum of Liverpool 122

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Quirky items for sale on Bold Street near the Liverpool One centre

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The arrival of coronavirus has closed shops in both Liverpool One and Bold Street

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The proximity of maritime heritage to Liverpool One helps to make it feel intrinsic to the city and its past 126

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The Tate gallery in Canning Dock opposite the Liverpool One centre

Padlocks on railings at Canning Dock opposite the Liverpool One centre 128

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Outside Liverpool One, political signage is more common the developer liverpool one 129

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Is it still about shopping?

Alison Clegg, director – asset management, at Grosvenor Europe, responds to the Placetest: Liverpool One Clegg talks about virtual experiences, heritage and culture, and tells The Developer how Liverpool One will adapt to social distancing once it reopens Can you tell me a bit about decisions surrounding branding on the site – it seems quite low key. Why is this?

It is very important Liverpool One feels part of the rest of the city, so the low-key branding is deliberate, as is the continuation of longestablished street names.

Is Liverpool One shifting more towards food and beverage, and events, or is it still primarily about shopping?

Liverpool One has always been about providing a range of experiences, from shopping to socialising. People can also stay here and live here. Clearly, the shops are a vital component, but we offer so much more.

What is your relationship with Liverpool’s cultural quarter and the docks? Do you co-ordinate and if so, what connections have been made there?

We partner with many of our neighbours and organisations in Liverpool to host or support city-wide initiatives. These include the world-renowned Giants parade, Christmas activations and a variety of sporting events.

Liverpool One is part of the wider Liverpool success story, one that contains many elements. We have always viewed ourselves as having a role to play in the bigger piece, actively supporting others so collectively we all thrive.

In relation to heritage, have any stories been collected or archives put together to explore people’s experiences of Liverpool One or the history of the site?

We have integrated and preserved many historic features, such as the street names, the eagle, gates and Old Dock. There are also many people working at Liverpool One, in our team and among the retailers and

restaurants, that have a great connection with the city. Given the typical Liverpudlian’s pride in their home city, they are very much our living historians.

How many original buildings are still in use on site?

A number of original buildings were retained in the creation of Liverpool One, including College Lane warehouses (now home to Barber Barber and COS), the building occupied by Bravissimo, Eagle House (now Côte Bistro), Compton House, Russell Building and Stanley Building. In addition, Liverpool One developed and integrated historical buildings such as Bluecoat and what is now home to Salt House Tapas on Hanover Street.

The historic buildings have also been complemented by the use of original street and place names. We have also retained, restored and revealed many original historic features, such as the eagle crest from the former US consulate to the gates to the preserved dock.

How do you go about ensuring shops aren’t left empty?

We actively manage Liverpool One to ensure we provide visitors with the latest and broadest range of shops, restaurants, leisure activities and other experiences. Our objective is to offer the strongest line-up in the UK outside central London, so this attracts brands, too.

Last year, for example, 17 new brands opened at Liverpool One, including ROX, Polo Ralph Lauren, Morphe, Junkyard Golf, Too Faced, Pull & Bear, Oliver Bonas, Mint Velvet, Kate Spade and Jo Malone.

In the first three months of this year, a number of leading UK and international brands signed for new stores at Liverpool One. These included MAC Cosmetics, Penhaligon’s, Kiehl’s, Virgin Holidays for its

“Being an open-air environment with every store and restaurant opening onto wide streets, we are confident we can accommodate social distancing while supporting our tenants as they rebuild their businesses following the lockdown”

largest store in the UK, and premium British sportswear pioneer Castore. The latter will open its first store outside of London at Liverpool One later this year.

Liverpool One seems positively placed, being semi-outdoor, to reopen with social distancing. Can you share any plans?

We have been working on plans to reopen for some time, but will be led by the government’s strategy, details of which are only just beginning to become clear. Being an open-air environment with every store and restaurant opening onto wide streets, we are confident we can accommodate social distancing while supporting our tenants as they rebuild their businesses following the lockdown.

Why is supporting community projects, local charities and initiatives so important at Liverpool One? Grosvenor is committed to ensuring Liverpool One makes a positive contribution to the health, well-being and success of the city region and its people.

Liverpool One has donated £2m to the community via the Liverpool One Foundation, an enterprise set up before Liverpool One opened to provide support to community projects across the city region.

This is in addition to a £2m endowment that has been built up over the same period. Since its launch, the Liverpool One Foundation has awarded almost £1.9m in support of 339 community and voluntary projects. An estimated 380,000 people have been directly assisted by the foundation.

In addition, by the time Liverpool One celebrated its tenth anniversary in October 2018, it had contributed £1.20 of every £100 generated in the Liverpool City Region GVA [gross value added], accounting for 3% of all GVA growth.

How do you decide what events to put on, and what was the approach and purpose of the digital transformation during the COVID-19 lockdown?

We host a variety of events, experiences and enlivenment activities through the year.

Many are in partnership with third parties, such as other entities in the city, brands and sporting organisations, and are held to entertain and engage visitors. Others, such as our reading trees, are designed to inform as well as entertain and engage.

Responding to research showing that having a focus and interest enhances overall mood and gives an improved sense of well-being, Liverpool One has created a series of virtual experiences that can be enjoyed via social media. The family-

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As Liverpool One reopens, Clegg says Grosvenor will support its tenants as they rebuild their businesses orientated online initiatives are designed to help the community stay entertained during lockdown. They include the popular Dinosaurs Unleashed event, which has been relaunched to play in homes and gardens. The Dinosaurs Unleashed home edition is free and transports budding palaeontologists back to the Jurassic era, allowing them to hatch dinosaurs, feed and interact with them, and go into battle against other dinosaur fans online. It is available on Android and iOS devices.

Another digital initiative is the online ‘Tickle at Home’ music festival, an adaptation of our popular ‘Tickle the Ivories’ pianos.

To further encourage engagement with the community, established and budding musicians can upload their own clips, tagging Liverpool One, with the aim of creating shared experiences online.

How has Liverpool One changed or evolved, if at all, and where do you see it going?

Liverpool One has evolved virtually and physically to reflect how consumers, brands and the city have changed over time.

The offer is ever-evolving to bring in the latest brands and a range of events and experiences. Our sense of place is also reflected in the growth of our online community, an aspect of Liverpool One

that is particularly important in the current circumstances during the lockdown.

Why do you think Liverpool One is successful where other high streets struggle and how does online shopping influence retail strategy?

There are several reasons why Liverpool One has been successful. Its position at the heart of the city, its seamless integration with the surrounding streets and the philosophy it is ‘owned’ emotionally by the city are all key.

More than that, being in a city centre means people visit Liverpool One for a variety of reasons. This creates a varied but sustained footfall throughout the year. It also means people enjoy Liverpool One perhaps as part of a larger visit to the city, be it work, tourism or education. This is a very different dynamic from standalone destinations, for which every trip is a conscious decision.

As for managing the influence of online shopping, providing an engaging, enjoyable experience is a key differentiator, which we achieve in part through our enlivenment programme. We also work to create a virtual relationship with consumers, so that Liverpool One continues to be part of their lives even when they are not visiting.

Alison Clegg is director – asset management, at Grosvenor Europe

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‘Meanwhile use’ suggests something is temporary, which is why U+I prefers to describe the activities at its Mayfield development in Manchester as ‘worthwhile’

Christine Murray talks to development director James Heather about how the developer is drawing locals to a site most had never heard of, and bringing green space into the heart of Manchester

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Dirt Factory’s bike park inside the Mayfield depot is one of the meanwhile or ‘worthwhile’ uses the development offers. Photo: Mark Waugh the developer u+i mayfield 135

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“It’s all around trying to create a place that people want to be in, and once they want to be there, they want to feel a part of it,” says James Heather, development director for developer U+I. We’re talking about the £1.4bn Mayfield project in Manchester, which Heather is responsible for delivering for U+I as part of the Mayfield Partnership consortium, which also includes Manchester City Council, LCR and Transport for Greater Manchester.

“Mayfield represents an amazing opportunity,” says Heather. “We’ve got 24 acres that sit within 150 yards of Manchester Piccadilly Station, with a river running through the middle of it.”

However, apart from the impressive bucolic ruins of the former Mayfield railway depot situated near the station, the site isn’t much to look at yet, judging by the view outside Heather’s office window. Despite this, it carries a licence for up to 10,000 people and has already played host to major events including Manchester International Festival 2019, a Pride festival, a regular street food market, electronic music shows and mountain biking.

U+I has a strong reputation for its ‘meanwhile use’ projects on redevelopment sites, but Heather is quick to distance himself from the term: “We use the expression ‘worthwhile use’ because ‘meanwhile’ feels a bit temporary.”

Whatever it’s called, the purpose is the same – Heather says events will help put the site on the map long before anything permanent is built there.

“When we first started in 2016, we found that 4% of the population knew where Mayfield was. Over the past three-and-a-half years, that’s grown to more than 50%. We are reintroducing the forgotten 24 acres back into the psyche of Mancunians.”

Heather explains that once “you’ve got the people, you’ve got the environment, you’ve got the activity and the life, then obviously commercial operators, leases and offices will come, because you’ve got all the assets

Mayfield will provide offices, homes and a public park by Manchester Piccadilly Station

“When we first started in 2016, we found that 4% of the population knew where Mayfield was. Over the past three-and-a-half years, that’s grown to more than 50%. We are reintroducing the forgotten 24 acres back into the psyche of Mancunians” they want to have on their doorstop when they arrive”.

With its industrial past, central location, blue infrastructure and site bordered by railway tracks, it’s inevitable to compare Mayfield to the larger King’s Cross Central redevelopment project.

“King’s Cross is the most astonishing regeneration project,” Heather admits. But he is keen to stress that a local approach is needed for Manchester.

He says it will be “hugely important for us” to make sure that the place remains relevant to the local communities. “There are so many schemes that you can look at that actually do that and are genuinely supported and loved by the local community,” he says.

The project won planning permission in February for a public park and a 32,000 sq ft office block. Heather says the park will feel welcoming, “that you can walk into it from any walk of life, from any place of life”.

But it is the River Medlock, which runs through the site, that has become a central focus of the masterplan. There is a 6.5-acre corridor of green space along the river’s banks that links a complex of big office blocks to family housing and flats.

Heather says: “We always felt when we were looking at the masterplan that we needed to open up the connections to the river.” Manchester has three rivers, but Heather says these have always been seen as “facilitating industrial growth and industrial uses as opposed to recreational uses”.

He adds: “There are no places, or very few places, within the city centre where you can actually walk alongside the water. We felt having a park, having a river, was a unique feature of the Mayfield site. It enables us to bring green spaces and provide reasons for people to actually want to locate around Mayfield – you have space to walk and play in a very public, but managed environment.”

Critically, Mayfield also needs to serve the city’s needs for large commercial and residential buildings. One of the first

buildings set to be delivered is a 580-space car park. I ask Heather why that’s necessary in such a central location, given the city is seeking to transition to more activebased travel with investments in cycling infrastructure such as the Bee Network.

“As you say, people still drive in Manchester and people will continue to drive in Manchester,” Heather says. “Looking forward, there will still be the need for a multi-storey, car-park-shaped box that is going to house a vehicle, whether that’s an autonomous vehicle, an electric vehicle, or an Amazon or Google last-mile drop-off or collection point.”

This interview took place in the early days of COVID-19, just three days into the first three-week lockdown. Neither of us were yet considering the impact a long stretch of home-working on office demand, but we were both surprised at how easy the transition to a virtual office had been.

“Actually, we can still work, and we’re still working today,” Heather says. “Yesterday, I was on either Zoom or Team meetings all day, and you can still get work done. It’s just working in a very different way. We’ve just got to adjust ourselves and it’s going to be fascinating to see what happens when the world settles down again as to whether we do go back to the old way of doing it or stick a lot with the new way.”

With such a long project timescale, Heather does not foresee the crisis having a significant long-term impact on the consortium’s ambitions for Mayfield.

Nevertheless, U+I has now withdrawn guidance to investors on future schemes, temporarily suspended future dividend payments to shareholders, furloughed staff and announced redundancies to cut overheads. Yet at the same time, U+I has also announced it is intending to make further acquisitions.

“The world is going to continue to spin, and we are going to have to continue to bring projects like this forward because the city will continue to grow,” Heather says.

But Heather also admits in the wake of COVID-19, it’s important for U+I to ensure it doesn’t end up with an historic model of development that could become obsolete.

“Making sure that Mayfield is entirely relevant to tomorrow is going to be the challenge for us,” he concludes.

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The former railway depot may be empty but it nevertheless has a licence for up to 10,000 people. Photo: Luke Hayes

Manchester International Festival staged a dance, theatre and musical performance, Invisible Cities, at Mayfield. Photo: Tristram Kenton the developer u+i mayfield 137

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These are the winners of the Meanwhile Prize for temporary projects Six ‘meanwhile use’ projects have been selected as winners of a new award for pop-up interventions that have made a positive contribution to a place in the UK The Developer has revealed the six winners of its inaugural Meanwhile Prize, which recognises the breadth of exciting projects taking place in this young field of urban development. Over the next few pages, you will see the six best temporary interventions that have made positive contributions to place in the UK. Temporary projects can support places in transition. They can foster community and facilitate co-creation, attract people to a new area, provide essential interim services, or simply inject a bit of excitement and character into a forgotten space, vacant site or construction zone.

With this new prize, The Developer hopes to find innovative approaches to mitigating the disruption of construction and the stress of change, while making a positive social impact with projects that feature a generosity of spirit or joie de vivre.

Entrants for the prize were encouraged to submit words, photographs, clippings, drawings, letters and other supporting documentation. The winners were then exhibited in a dedicated gallery on Stand H260 at the HOMES UK 2019 exhibition, which was followed by an informal drinks reception open to anyone who wanted to attend; the winners also said a few words about their projects.

Judges Pam Alexander OBE, chair, Commonplace Digital; non-executive director, London Legacy Development Corporation Angus Dodd, former chief executive, Quintain Darren Comber, chief executive, Scott Brownrigg Liza Fior, founder, Muf Architecture Christine Murray, editor-in-chief, The Developer Honourable mentions Boots Corner Temporary Public Realm, Cheltenham, by Cheltenham Borough Council Cargo, Bristol, by Alec French Architects Printworks London, London, by Broadwick Live Collective Auction Rooms, London, by Camden Town Unlimited Community Project Breathing Space, London, by Hassell Edouard Malingue Gallery Project Space, London, by Apsara

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The six winners The Meanwhile Prize sought to recognise this unique and inspiring form of temporary development which turns vacant sites, forgotten spaces, future projects and construction zones into places in which people want to live, work, rest or play the developer meanwhile prize 139

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London’s Biggest Play Street gave children the space, time and permission to play freely. Photo courtesy of ZCD Architects

Winner: London’s Biggest Play Street Museum of London, ZCD Architects, Islington Play Association and Play Association Tower Hamlets

Attendance increased over the three sessions, from 300 people on the first day to almost 700 on the second, and several thousand at the third event, which was incorporated as part of a wider street party

Across three weekends in August 2019, ZCD Architects created London’s Biggest Play Street, where children took over a 1,000 square metre street space in Smithfield, with freedom to play in an area not known for its child-friendliness.

The Grand Avenue in Smithfield Market and Smithfield Rotunda (on the final day) were closed to traffic and divided into a water area, jumping area, den area and safe area for smaller children.

Children were free to use recycled loose parts – cardboard boxes and tubes, tyres, carpet, and materials – to invent, interact and play as they chose in each zone. This structured environment meant that they could play in a way that was genuinely creative and self-directed.

The project was delivered with Islington Play Association and Play Association Tower Hamlets as part of the Museum of London’s Culture Mile programme. It took place outside the museum’s new site at Smithfield Market, and tested ways to transform the public realm and build on pedestrian priority plans.

London’s Biggest Play Street provided the space, time and permission for children to play freely, successfully demonstrating what a child-friendly public realm could look like in an area that is about to undergo significant redesign.

It was also delivered on a modest budget.

All activities were entirely free, to attract the widest possible range of users. Attendance increased over the three sessions, from 300 people for the first day to almost 700 on the second. Several thousand attended the third event, which was incorporated as part of a wider street party. Dwell time was long and several families made repeat visits across the three days.

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Hugg Homes’ modular units make use of inactive land to meet immediate housing needs. Photo courtesy of Hugg Homes

Winner: Hugg Homes Southampton City Council, Hugg Homes

Unlike bed and breakfasts, hostels and other forms of temporary accommodation often resorted to by local authorities, Hugg Homes are purpose-built, bespoke to the site and properly insulated to thermal and acoustic standards

Established in 2017, Hugg Homes’ bespoke modular units make use of inactive land owned by parent company Inland Homes or a third party to provide a high-quality, cost-effective and quick solution to meeting immediate housing needs.

Three million new social homes are needed by 2040, but only 6,000 are being built each year. For local authorities, this shortfall is reflected in ever-increasing waiting lists and a growing number of families seeking temporary accommodation.

Rather than dormant sites lying empty, it makes more sense to use the land to meet the local need for high-quality housing, alongside longer-term regeneration investment.

Unlike bed and breakfasts, hostels and other forms of temporary accommodation often resorted to by local authorities, Hugg Homes are purpose-built, bespoke to the site and properly insulated to required thermal and acoustic standards.

The homes can be available in as little as 12 weeks and their ‘pop-up’ nature means family displacement can be avoided, offering continuity of community services, education and family support networks. Modular homes also benefit from flexibility and can be tailored to the land available – from one or two units to whole communities.

The first Hugg scheme to go live was Hugg Southampton in the Chapel Riverside area

of the city on land that is being developed

by Inland Homes in partnership with Southampton City Council.

Twenty-two properties were made available for occupancy in November 2018 and were fully let by February 2019. The scheme is mixed tenure, with six Huggs let to Southampton City Council and provided as social housing, with the remainder offered for private rent at 20% below market rates.

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Crate turned a former car park into an enterprise hub that included a pub. Photo courtesy of Crate Places UK

Winner: Crate St James Waltham Forest Council, Crate Places UK and St James Big Local

The scheme has brought benefits to Walthamstow town centre, increasing footfall and acting as a catalyst for future commercial development, with more residential development in the pipeline

A former car park, the Crate St James meanwhile enterprise hub was launched in June 2019. Part of Waltham Forest Council’s South Grove/St James Quarter planning policy framework, the overall development proposes a new neighbourhood of up to 700 new homes and commercial space for creative industries.

While these plans are developed and brought forward, the council and local community group St James Big Local worked closely to develop a shared vision for activating the car park site through shortterm creative use. The council offered a fiveyear temporary lease on the site and worked closely with Crate to agree flexible planning use classes.

The council and the local community group undertook an expression of interest process, which shortlisted and selected Crate Places UK as the preferred operator to bring the vision to life.

The scheme has brought benefits to the western end of Walthamstow town centre, increasing footfall and acting as a catalyst for future commercial development, with more residential development in the pipeline.

Crate Places UK invested £1m in enabling and developing the site and – through creative use and layout of crates and careful curation of uses – the meanwhile use includes two open terraces, landscaping and further

public realm improvements.

This has resulted in interest and investment in the St James Street area, with new businesses relocating to the area in the four-month period since Crate launched.

The 32 affordable workspaces are 100% occupied, 70% by local SMEs. There were 600 expressions of interest for the space – a strong indication of the demand for affordable workspace.

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The Silver Building has hosted artistic events, including the Re-Textured festival, which attracted 1,500 people. Photo courtesy of Projekt

Winner: The Silver Building Projekt, Justin Burt of Soda

The 50,000 square feet imposing brutalist block lay derelict for 15 years. It now consists of 40 studios, large workshops, an art gallery, a cafe/bar and various event spaces. Within a year, all the workspaces in the building were full

The Silver Building is a bustling artistic, entrepreneurial and events hub that is home to scores of creative businesses, providing genuinely affordable workspaces for everyone from large-scale set designer Block 9 to photographers and traditional artists.

Working with the London Regeneration Fund and the Greater London Authority, the Silver Building has brought social value to a once barren area of London. Vacant while the new Thameside West development is under construction, the businesses will have a new permanent home once it is complete.

The 50,000 square feet imposing brutalist block lay derelict for 15 years. It now consists of 40 studios, large workshops, an art gallery, a cafe/bar and various event spaces. Within a year, all the workspaces in the building were full. Six local Newham residents work there, with five new jobs created at the cafe.

The Silver Building has hosted music events, bringing culture to the area from artists such as world-renowned Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and events from Patta/Deviation, NTS, Block 9 and the Re-Textured festival, which attracted 1,500 people over the course of a weekend.

Art exhibitions have included Silver Sehnsucht (international group show), which brought in 2,000 visitors over two weekends, as well as group show Underground On The Up, the London Festival of Architecture,

Pervillion, and student shows for the University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Art.

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Open House was a public talking shop on housing and homelessness in an empty shop front in Oxford. Photo courtesy of Transition by Design

Winner: Open House Oxford Transition by Design, Alex Towler, Katie Reilly, Andy Edwards, Charlie Fisher, Emma Gordon and Mina Samangooei

Open House welcomed more than 5,500 people through its doors. Visitors included young families living in temporary accommodation, people who were rough sleeping and a homeowner seeking options for what to do with spare bedrooms

In November 2018, Transition by Design launched Open House, a ‘public talking shop on housing and homelessness’, in an empty shop front on Little Clarendon Street – a popular shopping destination in the centre of Oxford.

Oxford is a polarised city, with extreme levels of both wealth and poverty. There is little understanding between socioeconomic groups as to how people are experiencing housing.

Building on the ‘urban room’ recommendations from the Farrell Review, the brief was to build a room that connected people, built empathy, and catalysed conversations about and action on creating a fairer housing system.

Participatory workshops were run to co-design an environment that made it easy for participants to talk to strangers about housing, and catered for people experiencing trauma, were neuro-divergent and/or had some chaotic behaviours. The space also acted as a venue for events and was open for seven hours a day, four days a week.

Over 195 days, Open House ran 159 events and welcomed more than 5,500 people through its doors. Visitors varied hugely and included young families living in temporary accommodation, people who were rough sleeping and a homeowner seeking options for what to do with spare bedrooms.

Open House served as an example of how Oxford’s many empty shops could be better used for community projects and drew increased footfall to a high street in decline.

Transition by Design is now working with Lankelly Chase to develop the idea and take it to other areas with empty shops and housing needs.

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Ballymore activated a derelict pocket on the River Brent to bring Brentford’s waterfront to life. Photo courtesy of Ballymore

Winner: The Brentford Project Ballymore, HAL Architects, AHMM, Glenn Howells Architects, Maccreanor Lavington, Johnson Naylor, Amos & Amos, Huw Morgan and Octink

The Brentford Project began as a three-month cultural and community engagement initiative celebrating the town’s creativity and establishing it as a platform for the arts, live music and food

An eight-year regeneration project spanning 11.8 acres, The Brentford Project establishes a new town centre and revitalised high street, with 876 homes alongside retail, leisure, commercial, cultural and community spaces.

Following a lengthy planning and compulsory purchase order process, there was confusion and lack of confidence in the community about delivery of the project.

To re-engage locals and share the vision, Ballymore activated a derelict pocket on the River Brent to bring the waterfront to life.

The Brentford Project began as a threemonth cultural and community engagement initiative celebrating the town’s creativity and establishing it as a platform for the arts, live music and food. Ballymore transformed abandoned warehouses into a 4,000 square feet event and exhibition space, information centre, and restaurant and bakery Rye by the Water.

The Brentford Project has brought previously unused spaces back into use sooner than planned, creating an inviting area in the heart of Brentford where people can gather, relax and spend time – something the area previously lacked.

Also on site is the interim home of classic car hub Duke of London. Ballymore put on events and workshops in collaboration with local businesses including: affordable co-working studio The Maker Station;

artist collective Johnsons Island Artists; Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society; local musician Robert Hokum; and nearby independent craft brewer Kew Brewery.

The Brentford Project welcomed more than 3,000 visitors throughout the summer.

Many attended several events, returning with family and friends. Rye by the Water has been popular since opening on 25 June 2019, averaging 50-60 visitors per day, with more at weekends.

Since launch, positive sentiment has grown around future plans for Brentford, with negative feedback about the project drastically reducing throughout the summer.

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During the peak of the pandemic, construction sites in England kept going while senior management stayed home. As a result, men in construction have the highest COVID-19 death rate, according to the ONS. Who will be held accountable for the string of failures that cost lives?

Christine Murray reports

Industry shame: England’s sites stayed open during lockdown and hundreds of construction workers died

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Social distancing is in force on the Hinkley Point C construction site where five workers tested postive for COVID-19

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There’s a stark white-collar, blue-collar divide when it comes to the threat of COVID-19 in England. While the corporate offices of property developers remain closed, with employees furloughed or working from home, many construction sites stayed open throughout lockdown.

In contrast, Scotland advised all construction sites to close from 23 March (with the exception of those serving the pandemic) and only announced a sixphase reopening beginning 28 May. Wales introduced health protection regulations to maintain social distancing on sites with a threat of unlimited fines for breaches.

Yet building work was still being carried out on some sites across England throughout the lockdown, with 70% of sites open by 29 April, according to Build UK. The government also singled out construction as one of the first sectors that must return to work despite fears this would put workers, their families and communities at risk.

On 11 May, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that men working in construction had the highest rate of deaths involving COVID-19 leading up to 20 April, making them three times more likely to die than nursing assistants, care workers and ambulance drivers, in an analysis of death certificates attributed to Coronavirus.

The data also revealed that skilled trades occupations, and process, plant and machine operatives had high mortality rates from COVID-19.

On the same day as the ONS figures were made public, Prime Minister Boris Johnson explicitly singled out and “actively encouraged” construction workers to return to work in an address to the nation: “We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work.”

The ONS data confirms what campaigners had been saying for weeks. Opposition to keeping the sites open has been vocal and emotive. Campaigner David Smith, leader of a grassroots #ShutTheSites campaign, shared

Hinkley Point has erected screens in canteens to help with social distancing

“There are people working here who have had heart attacks and people who have poorly families at home who are high risk, so nobody wants to be here – people are terrified,” a Newcastle worker told Chronicle Live. “They are playing with people’s lives by not closing.” a video that included an interview with Steve Tombs, a professor in social policy and criminology, who describes the government’s approach as criminal negligence: “It’s manslaughter, it’s social murder.”

In another video, critical care nurse Dave Carr begs construction workers to stay home, published by Reel News. “If they can bail out the bankers, they can bail out the construction workers,” Carr says, asking workers to lobby their unions. Meanwhile, a petition on the UK government website to close sites gained thousands of signatures.

Throughout the pandemic, guidance for construction workers has differed vastly from the government’s message to other citizens in its ‘Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives’ campaign. Before the easing of lockdown restrictions, health secretary Matt Hancock warned that even outdoor exercise could be banned and the police admonished parkgoers for loitering in public spaces.

However, despite growing concerns that sites were a potential source of infection, the government doubled down on initiatives to keep construction going and downgraded precautionary measures.

On 8 April, a cross-party group of 50 MPs wrote to business secretary Alok Sharma, asking him to ban all inessential construction work. The group said building work “should be restricted to construction firms involved in supporting health, emergency services, essential post-Grenfell safety work and works essential to the public”.

On the same day the letter was made public, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, stated that construction workers were only required to observe social distancing “wherever possible”.

The guidance was also changed to make face-to-face contact on-site permissible where it hadn’t been before, specifying that it should be kept to 15 minutes or less. This safety guidance was downgraded again in

May, to avoiding face-to-face work “wherever possible”, meaning at the time of writing, workers can be made to work face-to-face all day long.

Then there was the farce of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) withdrawing its updated site operating procedures, which enforced two-metre social distancing on construction sites, just hours after it published them on 1 April. The procedures were withdrawn after building firms advised that the guidance would force sites to close. The CLC immediately replaced these procedures with the less stringent advice it had issued on 23 March, which suggested that two-metre social distancing was just a good idea.

On 15 April, the CLC updated its site procedures again, with version three advising on alternative ways of working, such as limiting the number of workers in a space where social distancing is not being observed. However version three fell short of mandating social distancing or recommending the wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect against virus transmission, saying it should only be used as a “last resort”.

By the time version four of the site procedures was published on 18 May, it read that PPE should not be used on construction sites at all to prevent infection, despite the further relaxation of social distancing procedures: “Coronavirus (COVID-19) needs to be managed through social distancing, hygiene and the hierarchy of control and not through the use of PPE... Workplaces should not encourage the precautionary use of extra PPE to protect against Coronavirus.”

The removal of PPE from the guidance may have been a reaction to mounting concerns that sites were using up vital stocks at a time of international shortage, including the commonly used FFP2 and FFP3 masks.

When it closed its sites on 24 March, Barratt Homes donated more than 2,300 PPE items to UK hospitals including masks, gloves, overshoes, goggles, antibacterial wipes and hand gel.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said in early April that it would issue enforcement and prohibition notices to any firms failing to follow Public Health England guidance during the lockdown, despite the fact that routine inspections had been stopped. On 20 May, it was revealed that no enforcement notices relating to Coronavirus had been issued by the HSE between 9 March and 7 May. In addition, while the HSE specifies that reports must be made under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)

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after a worker’s “possible or actual exposure to”, diagnosis of, or death resulting from COVID-19, as of 13 May no cases have been reported under RIDDOR to the HSE on construction or demolition sites, a request under the Freedom of Information Act by The Developer has revealed.

Lisa Pasquale, director of building performance consultancy Six Cylinder, points out another health and safety issue thrown up by COVID-19: the added risk to trained first aid responders on-site in case of accidents. “We’re not trained to treat injuries from two metres away. We can’t deliver first aid to an injured person from a distance.”

While the public were told to stop driving, to prevent road accidents and avoid placing additional stress on emergency response teams, construction work continued, even though there are roughly twice as many serious injuries annually on construction sites as on roads. Last year, there were 54,000 cases of non-fatal, work-related injuries on construction sites, with a third of these requiring more than seven days’ absence from work; in comparison, there were 25,511 serious injuries from road traffic accidents the year before.

Throughout the pandemic, construction workers and unions have been speaking out about unsafe working conditions. Responses to Construction News’ coronavirus survey launched on 25 March saw 73% of its 1,043 respondents call for sites to be shut.

“Our workers are extremely worried about travelling to sites, mixing with other workers, having to call in at petrol stations…” one respondent writes.

Another worker compares the crisis to safety measures for asbestos: “We would have full isolation and ventilation systems in place and full PPE for workers – why is this any different?”

Construction workers have also been whistleblowing to the regional press: “There are people working here who have had heart attacks and people who have poorly families at home who are high risk, so nobody wants to be here – people are terrified,” a Newcastle worker told Chronicle Live. “They are playing with people’s lives by not closing.”

Before the government halted its NHS testing programme on 12 March, high profile sites including the Google HQ site in King’s Cross and Crossrail’s Bond Street Station in London were shut down and deep cleaned after workers tested positive.

Once testing stopped, those with symptoms were instructed to self-isolate and not tested unless they presented at hospital, making the ONS data the first evidence that the COVID-19 was spreading on construction sites. When testing was extended to

“Subcontractors on zero hours and freelance contracts say government measures to help workers don’t go far enough. Many construction workers do not qualify for sick pay, let alone government help, and if they do, may not be able to hold out until compensation payments are made” construction workers after 27 April, five workers tested positive at Hinkley Point C’s nuclear power plant, which has more than 2,500 workers on site. But fears regarding the lack of social distancing at Hinkley Point C were reported as early as 24 March, when an unnamed worker contacted Somerset Live with photographs of a crowded canteen, saying, “No one is happy or feels safe.”

The UK is not the only country to see clusters of cases focussed around sites.

Singapore has linked 132 cases of COVID-19 to a single construction site, Kenyon/UBS, with an additional 97 linked to the 107 West Coast Vale site and 91 to the Jovell construction site among others.

The UK government’s insistence that construction work continue has placed undue pressure on contractors to under contractual obligations and the threat of financial penalties from property developers and landowners.

The Financial Times has reported that delays to construction will breach existing contracts with landowners and litigation could ensue, as ‘force majeure’ clauses in contracts were not triggered as long as government advice holds that sites can stay open. The use of force majeure would also likely to be necessary for insurance claims.

An article posted on law firm Trowers & Hamlins’ website suggests that “each building contract should be checked to understand what the relevant contractor’s entitlements to extra time and/or loss and expense are in these circumstances. For example, a standard industry form, such as the JCT 2016 Design & Build, provides a contractor with an ability to claim an extension of time if, amongst other things, it can show the works are delayed due to ‘force majeure’. The burden of proof in that instance would be on the contractor to establish that because of COVID-19 the works were delayed, the

contractor’s failure to perform was due to circumstances outside of its control and that there was nothing that the contractor could reasonably have done to avoid the event or mitigate its effects.”

Solicitor Natalie Taylor of Blake Morgan writes in an article dated 8 April, “Employers/project managers might claim that the change in law has not caused an increase to the cost, or a delay. It is therefore unclear that a contractor would be entitled to additional time or money due to the introduction of the new regulations. What is likely to be of greater concern to contractors (at least in the short-term) is the ongoing lack of clarity around the CLC’s position and whether sites can continue to remain open.”

Some sites did close, however, citing safety concerns or material shortages due to COVID-19, which affected global supply chains. Lendlease told The Developer during the first stage of the lockdown that all its sites were “on pause for the near term”.

“Where practical, we will restart work as soon as possible but our priority remains being able to operate safely at those projects.

We will continue to liaise with government, industry bodies and other stakeholders about how we can do so. The safety of our employees and the wider community will always be our most important consideration,” a spokesperson for Lendlease says.

Other developers restarted works after brief closures to adjust working practices to match the CLC’s site operating procedures.

Cole Waterhouse said via a spokesperson that on its sites in Manchester and London, “Both contractors took a pause to review and enhance [health and safety] and social distancing measures before returning to site in accordance with government advice.”

First Base says its contractor, McLaren, continued work on Edward Street Quarter in Brighton. In a statement, McLaren said it had “put in place measures to control access, welfare and site-working practices so that they not only meet the guidelines for construction sites but also for social distancing, etcetera”.

British Land has posted a message on its website saying contractor Sir Robert McAlpine (SRM) was conducting limited works at 100 Liverpool Street in London.

However, it listed a number of new measures, such as replacing the site’s fingerprint entry system with a paper-based process, subcontractors being encouraged to avoid using public transport, and free on-site parking. “We have also been assured by SRM that everyone on site is comfortable being at work. We will keep this situation under daily review and take further action if necessary,” the statement read.

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Hinkley Point has blocked off some urinals, to prevent men from standing less than two metres away from one another Pressure to return to work has been compounded by the lack of government support for subcontractors on zero hours and those on freelance contracts. Many construction workers do not qualify for sick pay, let alone government help.

A respondent to the Construction News survey said, “If we don’t attend there is no pay – nothing. No SSP [statutory sick pay], no 80%, nothing… It’s a terrible situation to be in with the rest of my family at home practising social distancing and me still going to work.”

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lighthouse Club construction industry charity has seen calls to its Construction Industry Helpline increase by 25% per week.

“Many of the calls received are from selfemployed tradesmen, agency staff or workers on zero-hour contracts who cope from week to week. They are often only one or two paydays away from poverty,” Lighthouse Club CEO Bill Hill says. “One desperate caller to our helpline told us that he was number 22,000 in an online queue to get access to Universal Credit.”

The charity launched a crisis appeal for donations to provide financial aid to more construction workers. Hill has also called on government to divert the £54.5m in health and safety fines received by the Treasury in 2018/19 to support workers in crisis.

“In an industry where two construction workers take their own life every single working day and where 20% of all work absence is due to poor mental well-being, a pandemic such as COVID-19 is always going to have a devastating impact,” he says.

Mace Group, which reopened its sites after lockdown, has said it continued works “for the sake of the UK economy”. CEO Mark Reynolds said in a statement: “Guidance from the prime minister and his cabinet has been clear that construction is a vital element of the UK economy that will be critical in our recovery from this crisis – and that where we can open sites in accordance with the Construction Leadership Council’s standard operating procedures, we should do so as soon as possible.”

In an attempt to boost morale, a letter from was distributed in March “to everyone working in the UK’s construction sector” from the business secretary in which Sharma extends his “heartfelt and personal thanks”.

“I salute you for the enormous efforts you are individually undertaking to support the UK economy,” he adds.

Hundreds of construction workers have died thus far in service to the property industry and the economy, as the ONS figures show. Who will be held accountable for the failure to lockdown and the safety guidance that may have cost them their lives? the developer construction and coronavirus 151

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In a country that reveres the old and a city famed for its skills in making do, Rome’s I Ragazzi del Cinema America have shown that the young can organise a grassroots movement that effects real change Marina Engel looks at how the boys and girls of the Cinema America have managed to bring new life to old buildings in the past decade, as well as reinvigorate and bring communities together

During lockdown, we have taken comfort in the enduring beauty of Rome’s hauntingly empty streets, grass conquering the unused cobblestones of its historic piazzas and ducks appropriating its fountains. But as the city slowly emerges from lockdown, Romans are beginning to take stock of the devastation it has wreaked on their economy, with potential damages estimated at between €11bn and €14bn. Even before COVID-19, the city was facing bankruptcy and its mayor proved ineffectual in fighting the endemic corruption.

Rome’s long and turbulent history has created a resilient population, famed for their skills in ‘arrangiarsi’ (to make do) combined with a fatalistic humour, and they are well versed in working things out for themselves.

Hopefully, these qualities will help them again in these desperate times.

Certainly, there is a tradition of grassroots collective action, which is now, for the first time, in the hands of a younger generation.

In 2011, a group of Roman teenagers began listing the numerous abandoned buildings in the city, more than 40 of which were cinemas closed in the past decade. Many are attributable to notable architects, now forgotten by most Romans.

Located in Trastevere, Rome’s maverick central neighbourhood, the Cinema America was one such structure. Designed

by Angelo di Castro in 1956, with mosaics by the sculptor Pietro Cascella and his wife Annamaria Cesarini Sforza, it was considered a small jewel of the 1950s’ ‘dolce vita’ era. A private company bought it in 2002, but the new owners left it abandoned and allowed it to decay while they awaited authorisation from the city’s authorities to demolish it to create a luxury apartment block with an accompanying car park.

When permission was granted in 2012, ‘I Ragazzi del Cinema America’ (the boys and girls of the Cinema America), as they were later called, decided to occupy the building to protest against property speculation and the continuing gentrifying of fast-rising ‘showcase neighbourhoods’. Local residents provided the ragazzi with strong support and helped them to raise funds, and they were able to restore the basics of the cinema, as well as provide a much-needed space for students to study in and a venue in which the local community could meet. They projected cinema classics every day for free, attracting an audience from across the city. Backed by some of Italy’s leading cinema directors, including Nanni Moretti and Paolo Sorrentino, the ragazzi convinced the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities to list the building as being of historic interest, restricting its use to that of a cinema and so preventing its demolition.

The property’s owners evicted the ragazzi in 2014, but the momentum continued with the launch of ‘Il Cinema in Piazza’ (cinema in the piazza) in the nearby San Cosimato piazza in the summer of 2015. Animated by a children’s playground and market during the day, the piazza was overrun by tourists and Rome’s youth passing by to bars in the vicinity at night. With the help of the local council and the residents’ association, the ragazzi secured a giant screen, residents brought chairs and cushions, and at sunset, the local community – children and grandparents alike – re-appropriated the piazza as a cinema venue and meeting place.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people (including curious tourists) have congregated at San Cosimato during the languid nights of the Roman summer to weep and laugh together at contemporary masterpieces. Entrance is free and ‘Piccolo America’ (Little America), as the non-profit association is now called, pays to license the films shown. Public, institutional and private sponsorship have multiplied, as has support from a wealth of international directors and actors, who have come to introduce their films to the public.

In the era of Netflix and an expanding shut-in economy, Piccolo America has introduced the big screen to a segment of the general public who had never entered a cinema before. Many residents believe the organisation has restored the soul to a neighbourhood that was losing its identity to tourists, fashionable restaurants and Airbnb.

More recently, Piccolo America has turned its attention to the immense socioeconomic divide between the city’s centre and its suburbs, where they live. Colli Aniene, Sapienza and Tor Cervara are three neighbouring, former working-class suburbs.

Although easily reached in a not-too-long drive from the centre of Rome, negotiating getting there using public transport is arduous to say the least. Communities became even more isolated during the rainy

“Piccolo America has introduced the big screen to a segment of the general public who had never entered a cinema before. Many residents believe the organisation has restored the soul to a neighbourhood that was losing its identity”

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‘Il Cinema in Piazza’ in San Cosimato piazza shows movies to hundreds of thousands of people for free. Photo: Andrea Littera

Residents bring their own chairs, cushions and blankets to screenings. Photo: Andrea Littera the developer il cinema in piazza 153

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seasons, when floods would swamp the roads connecting them to each other around the Casale della Cervelletta, an abandoned medieval farmhouse and tower most Romans had never heard of.

With the help of volunteers and residents’ associations, Piccolo America reclaimed the roads, enabling permanent accessibility.

It obtained sponsorship from local energy supplier Acea to provide lighting and consequently security at night. A cinema arena was then built by the Casale and a petition from local residents led to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano (the National Trust for Italy) voting the Casale one of Lazio’s most unforgettable historical sites in 2019.

In the summer of 2018, Il Cinema in Piazza opened simultaneously at the Casale della Cervelletta, Trastevere and the Porto Turistico di Roma – an area by Ostia’s lido on the sea that the government confiscated from the mafia in 2016. Juxtaposing auteured cinema and popular films, the events attracted more than 150,000 people, uniting them in front of a cinema screen – often for their first time – while inspiring them to venture to neighbourhoods they had never previously visited.

The association has revived what George Monbiot describes as a “sense of belonging” in the community, which is necessary for it to thrive. It has demonstrated how effective grassroot action can transform diverse neighbourhoods.

However, Rome’s extreme right considers these parts of the Roman suburbs to be its home territory. The association’s success in bringing together these communities resulted last year in neo-fascist groups attacking people wearing Piccolo America burgundy T-shirts.

In 2016, Piccolo America won a public tender to manage and rent another abandoned cinema and architectural monument: Cinema Troisi, designed in 1933 during the Fascist regime by Luigi Moretti, one the stars of Italian rationalist architecture. But, beset by a myriad of bureaucratic problems, it was not until 2018

Piccolo America’s T-shirts singled it out for attacks from the far right. Photo: xxx

“The opening of Cinema Troisi will not only herald a victory in their battle to conserve architectural monuments against forms of property speculation and reopen a cinema at a time when many are closing, it will also restore a public space to its citizens” that it was able to sign a contract with Rome’s city council.

Armoured with a budget of nearly €1.5m provided mainly by MIBAC, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and supplemented by public and corporate sponsorship, Roman architects Claudia Tombini and Raffaella Moscaggiuri are in charge of the building’s extensive refurbishment and aim to restore the Cinema Troisi as far as possible to its original design.

The building will boast a 13-metre screen in cinema seating around 300 people, as well as a bar and a large outdoor terrace for visitors and residents. Most importantly for Valerio Carocci, the association’s dynamic 28-yearold president, it will accommodate a muchneeded library/study room that is open 24x7.

Despite an uncertain future postCOVID-19, Carocci is optimistic about inaugurating the Cinema Troisi later this year. The building site has just re-opened and the architects are working on a sophisticated system of ventilation, while the seating plan will be arranged at the last minute, once the situation is clearer.

In a culture that celebrates the elderly, where people are ‘young’ well into their 40s and even some of the most intrepid British architects think twice before entangling themselves in the labyrinths of its bureaucracy, the achievement of these ‘ragazzi’ is all the more astounding.

The opening of Cinema Troisi will not only herald a victory in the battle to conserve architectural monuments against forms of property speculation and reopen a cinema at a time when many are closing, it will also restore a public space to its citizens – a space in which the local community can participate, thus regenerating some part of the identity and the dignity of neighbourhoods that were in peril of losing them.

Marina Engel is architecture consultant at the British School at Rome and a freelance curator

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Public, institutional and private sponsorship have multiplied, as has support from international directors and actors. Photo: Andrea Littera

Il Cinema in Piazza now takes place in the Casale della Cervelletta, Trastevere and the Porto Turistico di Roma. the developer il cinema in piazza 155

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Preview: Festival of Place 2020, 13 November, Tobacco Dock, east London

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The semi-outdoor Tobacco Dock is the venue again this year for the Festival of Place, which is now on 13 November 2020 the developer festival of place 157

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The ambition behind the Festival of Place is to bring developers, professionals, planners, researchers and academics together in a relaxed atmosphere to unpick what makes places that thrive, where people want to live, work, play and learn.

The Developer launched the event last year, and 450 people attended, many remarking on the uniqueness of the event, with its gender-balanced and diverse speaker line-up of international experts and fascinating academics, plus six stages of dynamic talks and placehacker workshops, where attendees rolled up their sleeves and worked together to brainstorm solutions to a shared challenge, while making new contacts, learning and having fun.

The eclectic roster of speakers was matched by a gender-balanced audience and fascinating mix of professionals, including charities and community groups which received tickets for free. The result was a rare openness and culture of frankness and honesty rarely seen at other property events.

Ticket prices have recently been reduced by a third to encourage participation, under the belief that anyone who wants to attend the festival should be able to take part.

Recently, the festival has been hosting free taster events via Zoom, where speakers have been giving 30-minute talks as part of a Festival of Place Bytesize series. If you’ve missed these, the talks are made available to watch on The Developer website at www.thedeveloper.live.

This year, instead of July, the Festival of Place is happening on 13 November, so the vibe will be more winter market than summer fete. The festival is grateful for the continued support of its partners, Design Council, Vestre, Places for People, Portsmouth City Council, Quintain, Civic Engineers and the London Communications Agency.

In the new normal, we’ll be making good use of Tobacco Dock as a semi-outdoor venue to bring people together safely to discuss the future of making places, with amazing speakers including Gil Penalosa, founder of 8 80 Cities, researcher Tim Gill, Globechain’s May Al-Karooni, Yolande Barnes, chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute, Italian architect Stefano Boeri and more (see right), delving into how cities must adapt in a postpandemic world.

From offices to shopping, homeworking to homeschooling, how we live, work, play and learn has undergone dramatic changes, both temporary and lasting.

Not everything about how make our cities is going to change, but it is urgent to come together as an industry to shape a narrative and fresh ambition for the future. After that,

we’ll finish the day with a celebration of great places at The Pineapples awards party, in association with the Design Council.

Further info 13 November 2020 at Tobacco Dock, east London. For ticket information, visit www.festivalofplace.co.uk *Check out our new reduced ticket prices

Confirmed speakers Pam Alexander, non-executive director, London Legacy Corporation May Al-Karooni, CEO and founder, Globechain Kelly Alvarez Doran, senior principal, MASS Jonny Anstead, founding director, Town Nicole Badstuber, academic researcher in urban transport and infrastructure, University of Cambridge Yolande Barnes, chair, Bartlett Real Estate Institute Stefano Boeri, architect, Stefano Boeri Architetti Patricia Brown, director, Central Araceli Camargo, director of lab, Centric Lab Ed Dixon, head of ESG - real assets, Aviva Investors Hala El Akl Questa, director, PLP Ben Evans CBE, executive director, London Design Biennale Alex Fefegha, head creative technologist, Comuzi Lab Rachel Fisher, deputy director of regeneration and investment, MHCLG Tim Gill, independent researcher on childhood play, Rethinking Childhood Malcolm Hamilton, creative director, Mufti Games Tom Hawley, managing director, THE Consultancy Roger Madelin CBE, joint head of Canada Water, British Land Natascha McIntyre Hall, assistant director strategic developments, Portsmouth City Council Danny Michael Ball, blind neuroscientist, UCL Dr Jo Morrison, director of digital innovation and research, Calvium Alexandra Notay, build-to-rent fund director, PfP Capital, and co-chair, Creative Land Trust Gil Penalosa, founder, 8 80 Cities James Raynor, CEO, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland Shain Shapiro, CEO, Sound Diplomacy Lisa Stepanovic, CEO and founder, Social Ark CIC Chris Thompson, founder, Citu Jan Christian Vestre, CEO, Vestre Danna Walker, founder director, Built By Us Steve Webb, director, Webb Yates Catherine Webster, executive director – strategy and investment, Quintain, and co-chair of Creative Land Trust Sophie White, director of infrastructure grant, Homes England Sarah Wigglesworth, founding director, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects Louise Wyman, strategic development director, Manchester City Council

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The relaxed atmosphere of the Festival of Place and its mix of developers, investors, academics and scientists. Photo: John Sturrock

Placehacks at the Festival of Place encourage attendees to learn while collaborating on a shared challenge. Photo: John Sturrock the developer festival of place 159

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The Pineapples awards for place will be presented at the Festival of Place in association with the Design Council Mixed-use projects from across the UK and the world will be presented live on stage in their quest for a golden pineapple for place Launched by The Developer in 2019 and run in partnership with Design Council, The Pineapples awards for place are unique in celebrating excellence in mixed-use developments in the UK and future projects internationally.

The awards are looking to recognise mixed-use developments or clusters of developments that create a neighbourhood, large or small. It may be a wholly new place or a redevelopment. Categories include best Future Place, best International Future Place, Place in Progress, Contribution to Place and Completed Place.

The local authority, developer or anyone on the project team can enter the awards, as long as they have permission from the landowner for the judging visit, if not a place open to the public.

Judges visit shortlisted projects (with the exception of the Future Place category, for work that’s not yet built) and are instructed to look for places that thrive; projects that make a positive contribution to urban life, from shared spaces that foster community, to developments worth living in, to street furniture and play equipment that draws in life, to retail experiences that make shopping special again, to places that encourage visitors to dwell.

Finally, all shortlisted projects must present their work live on stage at the Festival of Place on 13 November at Tobacco Dock, London, in front of the judging panel and as part of the Festival line-up, which means attendees can benefit from learning about all the projects in an amazing live stream of case studies.

The judges will ask questions before retiring to deliberate on winners to be announced at the closing party, where The Pineapples trophies are presented.

Why pineapples? Because the fruit is a common symbol of welcome in UK architecture, which is what we think great places should be: welcoming. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to win a golden pineapple?

Judges Sophie Thompson, director, LDA Design Sarah Jones-Morris, director, Landsmith Associates Sam White, director, Knight Architects Murray Levinson, partner, Squire & Partners Mike Saunders, CEO and co-founder, Commonplace Justin Nicholls, founding partner, Fathom Architects Julian Tollast, head of masterplanning, Quintain Jonny McKenna, director - Dublin, Metropolitan Workshop Frances Gannon, partner, MAKE Architects Federica Buricco, associate, CRTKL Emily Gee, London planning director, Historic England Catherine Dewar, regional director North West, Historic England Ben Adams, founding director, Ben Adams Architects Andrew Taylor, director, Patel Taylor Aisling Ramshaw, head of sales and marketing (Kirkstall Forge & Temple) CEG Tom Perry, head of cities programme, Design Council List of all projects entered The judges will be shortlisting a selection of these projects, which will be presented live on stage at the Festival of Place

Islington Square, London KAMPUS, Manchester King’s Cross, London Leeds Dock, Leeds Mahindra World City, Jaipur, India Mayfield, Manchester Worthwhile Mayfield, Manchester North Cator Park, London Northbank Business Low Emission Neighbourhood, London Oktyabrsky Island, Kaliningrad, Russia Poplar Works, London Queen’s Yard, London Royal Wharf Pier, London Rural Works, Cumbria Soapworks, Bristol Spinningfields, Manchester The Bird Box, Bromsgrove The Catalyst Cube, Caracas, Venezuela The Drumsheds, London The Glass Works, Barnsley Tipner West, Portsmouth Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen Waterbeach New Town East, Cambridgeshire Westgate Rooftop Gardens, Oxford White City supporting children with special educational needs, London Winstanley & York Road, London

Aberfeldy High Street, London Alconbury Weald, Cambridgeshire Bankside Yards, London Beam Park, Rainham Brent Cross South, London Brooklands Square, Milton Keynes Carfax, Winchester Climate Innovation District, Leeds Duke of York Restaurant, London Fulham Reach, London Future Energy Campus, Japan Gateshead Town Centre Concept, Tyne and Wear Green Skywalk, Worcester Greenford Quay, Greenford Hounslow High Street Quarter, London

Gateshead Town Centre Concept

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You might think an empty brownfield site makes for a straightforward planning application but Beam Park proves there’s no longer such thing as an easy site

There also appears to be plenty of room to build on, until you look underground.

Christine Murray visits the ÂŁ1bn project and reports on the Ford-free future of Dagenham as it swaps manufacturing for highdensity housing

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The former Ford works stood vacant for a long time, but there was local resistance to development. Photo: Sonny Dhamu the developer beam park 163

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An impression of the future Beam Park houses and park It is the hottest day of the year, and I’m in site-gear touring a vast 720-acre development site in Dagenham. There is not much here yet, but the enormous canteen is a clue to a future 450-strong construction workforce. The £1bn Beam Park will include 3,000 new homes, a new train station, medical centre, two primary schools and more.

“Beam Park is where manufacturing used to be,” says Rob Wilkinson, managing director of Partnerships East London at Countryside, which is developing the site in partnership with L&Q. “Henry Ford came along the railway line and decided to set up shop in Dagenham.”

But Dagenham is changing – and fast: “While Ford is still in the area, they’ve decanted from a number of their sites… which are going to be developed.”

The industrial legacy remains, however, in the scale of the surrounding infrastructure that skirts the site. Everything is supersized here, from the four-lane A1306 to the soaring Marsh Way flyover.

You would think a post-industrial site makes for an easy planning run – the site is long vacant, used as the rehearsal space for the 2012 Olympics’ opening ceremony, and there is little more than illegal fly-tipping and a salt store for gritting the roads.

But the scheme was initially refused by

Havering and approved by Barking and Dagenham – the two boroughs that edge the scheme.

“It was about heights and density,” says Evonne Clarke, head of joint venture and development – east region at L&Q. “They wanted to limit it to around eight storeys, but the site can hold more than that. And we’re delivering two new schools and a medical centre, and you do need residents to use all those.”

The scheme was revised to be 50% affordable housing – one of only three schemes to hit mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s target.

An important challenge driving density at Beam Park is finding land fit to build on: overground, there appears to be plenty of room, but what is underground is limiting.

The former Ford works in Dagenham

Constraints include the River Beam, which flows through the site, and a big underground gas pipe and gas pressure reduction station. As a result, 44% of the land area will be green space, including a park at the heart of the development.

“The flyover, the gas pipe and the gas reduction site, and other infrastructure like the district heating network – there’s not much you can build on,” says Clarke.

Manufacturing is not the cleanest process, either. “There are hotspots of contamination, which we’ve had to deal with,” says Wilkinson. “We’ve capped these, so it’s not going to affect anybody, and in the green areas, there’ll be the correct amount of soil added there.”

He adds that in the past, “it’s been fairly common (but not with us) to allow areas to flood, such as car-parking areas. That’s not something we should do – I don’t see why anyone should accept that”.

“What we need to do to make this place successful is to make it attractive for people.

There are swales, so visible flood mitigation, as well as invisible flood mitigation, under the ground.”

Site preparation works involve ‘surcharging’ – a process lasting nine to 12 months that accelerates the settlement of the ground, squeezing water out of the peat, “to give us a stable base on which we can build”.

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The Beam Park site masterplan “We’ve done a lot of due diligence on this – it’s been an industrial site for 100 years.

There will be things on record and things not on record. Our engineers spent time with Ford. We went to their head office and were looking through the microfiches of what was on the site previously,” says Wilkinson.

“It’s just making sure you gather as much information as possible.”

Interestingly, for a site so closely

“We’ve done a lot of due diligence on this – it’s been an industrial site for 100 years. There will be things on record and things not on record. Our engineers spent time with Ford.

We went to their head office and were looking through the microfiches of what was on the site previously. It’s just making sure you gather as much information as possible”

associated with the car, the team is looking to the future of transport, with parking spots for only one in three residents on a site that is 80% flats and 20% houses.

As for the local communities, Wilkinson and Clarke believe the new station and schools are big wins.

“The new Beam Park Railway Station is expected to be up and running in early 2022. That creates a fantastic new facility not only for people moving into this area, but the existing residents across the road,” says Wilkinson. “And on the Marsh Way flyover, we’ll be building a lift down from there, so people on the Segro Estate will also have access to the station.”

Clarke adds: “Once it’s actually done, with the screening and making the underpass a nice, attractive area to walk underneath… we’re hoping that it will actually all work well. We’re quite confident that it will.”

Find out more Listen to the full story on The Developer Podcast at www.thedeveloper.live/podcasts/ made-in-dagenham-the-ford-less-future-of1bn-beam-park

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Net-zero developers are not waiting for a government mandate to make radical changes to the way they build places

Catherine Early reports on housebuilding disruptor developers vying to be the hero of net zero and the “Tesla of house builders�

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Project Etopia’s Corby homes use a modular system, with panels made in a factory and delivered to site for assembly, reducing waste and construction time on site, which reduces carbon emissions the developer zero-carbon developers 167

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Project Etopia’s Corby site, where homes emit -0.7 tonnes of CO₂ a year, compared with six tonnes from conventional homes 168

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Citu is using factory-built modular timber-frame construction and Passive House-equivalent standards to reduce embodied and in-use carbon Earlier this year, Savills made the bold prediction in its 2020 investment trend report that the road to zero carbon would be a disruptor for the residential housebuilding sector.

This followed the signing into law of an upgraded climate change target for the UK to reach net-zero carbon by 2050, and a government consultation on strengthening the energy performance of homes through the Future Homes Standard.

“We think it’s a disruptive force, particularly when you tie it in with other pressures on house builders, such as the desire for a greater range of tenures and more affordable housing,” says Emily Williams, associate director of residential at Savills.

She believes it will prompt developers to think differently and adopt new ways of working, for example, by incentivising modern methods of construction, which is typically less wasteful and tends to produce homes that are more energy efficient.

The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has also seen a shift in attitudes from the sector, parts of which have been reluctant to take up the environmental agenda.

“Developers, including major house builders, have really woken up to the fact that the environment, and specifically the climate, are not going away as key issues.

We’ve certainly seen a re-engagement

from mainstream house builders in recent months,” says John Alker, director of policy and places at UKGBC. Despite the optimism, the government’s proposals for its Future Homes Standard, which comes into effect in 2025, are still not clear enough to give house builders sufficient push on investment, Alker believes. These views are backed by government advisory body the Committee on Climate Change, which has written to housing secretary Robert Jenrick, urging him to strengthen the proposals.

“The property and construction sector has historically been slow to embrace innovation, with very low investment into R&D [research and development]. It’s an industry that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the net-zero carbon era,” Alker says.

However, a few progressive developers are not waiting for the government’s lead.

Innovative business models, combined with a rock-solid desire to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack, are driving innovation and pushing the agenda.

Octevo Housing Solutions is working with Liverpool Community Homes towards three goals – contributing to the net-zero target, tackling the shortage of social housing, and reducing fuel poverty.

Its latest development, comprising 37 homes in Huyton and Northwood on the

outskirts of Liverpool, will provide long-term affordable homes for rent. Each features the latest insulation, lighting and water efficiency measures to reduce the homes’ energy consumption. The remaining energy demand will be met as far as possible by ground and air source heat pumps, and solar panels.

The company’s earlier developments received a ‘B’ rating on their Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). But after it launched an offer with peer-to-peer funding platform Abundance, which specialises in investments for sustainable businesses and projects, it realised that it could raise its attractiveness to investors if it pushed for an ‘A’ rating, according to Simon Chapman, director at Octevo.

Octevo estimates these combined measures will slash each home’s energy demand by 80-93% compared with the UK’s average home. “All the technology we incorporate is geared to taking us into an ‘A’ rating, which is a significant increase on standard building regulations,” he says.

Octevo works directly with the component manufacturers, energy assessors and technical teams to keep it at the forefront of innovation, Chapman says. But he acknowledges that it could be challenging to close the gap on the final 7% between its latest EPC rating and being 100% zero carbon, without completely sealing homes.

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Octevo takes on the predevelopment, planning and construction costs and risks from local authorities and registered social landlords in return for long-term leases to secure long-term revenues. The longterm cash flow from rents, combined with the funding provided through Abundance investors, enables it to spread the up-front costs of its low-carbon measures over a longer period of time.

This business model could be followed by other social housing developers, but it would not stack up for private house builders, which need to see a margin of return within a certain amount of time, he says.

“We’ve done it, not just to get investors, but also to give us a broader market.

The consumer is becoming much more environmentally aware, so it’s good if you’re able to promote something as having greener credentials than the development over the road,” he says.

Then there’s developer Project Etopia: an EPC assessment last year gave its Etopia Corby homes an energy rating of 104/100, and found that it emitted -0.7 tonnes of CO₂ a year, compared with six tonnes a year from conventional homes.

“Essentially we are energy positive – meaning the homes generate more energy than they consume – and the first developer to achieve this at scale,” says Rosanna Lawn, global brand director at Project Etopia.

The development comprises 31 houses and 16 apartments, and is being constructed in phases. The first resident moved in this year in January. It is part of the government’s Building for 2050 project, which is reviewing different ways of delivering low-cost, low-carbon homes, and monitors their performance in-use to improve understanding of how to make low-carbon home construction mainstream.

Project Etopia uses a modular system, with panels made in a factory and delivered to site for assembly, reducing construction time and lowering costs. The panels have a thermal efficiency U-value of 0.13, an improvement on the 0.16 U-value for a typical well-insulated wall in a new build brick property.

The homes are equipped with a variety of energy generation technologies including heat pumps, and a combined heat supply system that uses solar energy and heat pumps, where hybrid solar panels generate heat that can then be stored and used by the ground source heat pump for hot water and heating. The energy earth bank/GeoStore system stores heat energy, while batteries store electricity, meaning the residents enjoy little or no energy bills.

Smart home equipment such as sensors

“You need to combine different technologies, such as energy storage, solar panels, wall panels and smart systems. People need to rethink property.

It’s no longer about being a house builder, it’s all of these different things that come together to create a net-zero home” and lights can be combined to monitor and manage energy use in the home. If excess energy is produced, it can be diverted to an independent electricity grid to which it is connected, so nothing goes to waste.

Lawn says: “To create the homes of the future, you need to combine different technologies, such as energy storage, solar panels, the wall panels and smart systems.

There’s also travel infrastructure, so we’re installing electric vehicle charging points.”

Project Etopia’s system is being designed to be contracted out to other developers or local authorities, Lawn says. Building offsite helps keep costs down, but manufacturing smart home technology and other components in-house and with partners rather than third parties helps drives efficiencies too, she says.

“Fundamentally people need to rethink property. It’s no longer about being a house builder, it’s all of these different things that come together to create a net-zero home. We’re aiming to be the Tesla of house builders,” she says.

A 350-home development in Nottingham is trialling a new business model under which it effectively acts as a decentralised energy grid – where energy is generated locally, stored locally and used locally. The aim is to cut carbon from energy generation, while cutting bills for residents.

Part of the Nottingham Waterside regeneration scheme, Project SCENe at Trent Basin is being developed by a consortium of business and academia, including developer Blueprint, the University of Nottingham, Siemens, consultancy AT Kearney and energy technology start-up SmartKlub in partnership with Nottingham City Council.

The development features solar PV on rooftops and a solar farm comprising 700 panels, which are connected to a 2MWh Tesla battery – Europe’s largest community battery at the time of installation last year.

The energy generated by the solar PV is sold to the grid to correct imbalances in supply and demand on the wider network.

An Energy Service Company has been set up to manage this, and the income generated is either used to help pay off the development’s capital costs, or will be used to reduce residents’ bills, once the infrastructure is directly connected to individual homes later this year.

The development is due to add more features such as renewable heat and is hoping to create a model that other developers can follow in other parts of the country. The research element of the project, known as Project SCENe (Sustainable Community Energy Networks), was seed funded by the Energy Research Accelerator – a collaboration of research institutions and industry – and government body Innovate UK. Nick Ebbs, chief executive of Blueprint, says that once the system is fully set up, the partners will be able to assess if the model is commercially replicable for other developments. Considering current regulations and costs of infrastructure, in particular battery storage, it is not quite there yet, he believes.

“If we are still having to buy batteries at what we paid a year ago, the numbers look pretty creaky in terms of what an investor would expect as a return on capital. That doesn’t mean that we can’t get to a replicable model – it might be that we need to be bigger, or that we reconfigure the battery.

“I’m very convinced that the future of the grid needs to be decentralised, with localised assets and storage capacity. We just need to play around a little with the technology, the scale and the business model in order to get to the optimum solution. In many ways, that’s what makes the project so exciting and so important,” he says.

Ebbs also believes that the typically slow rate of innovation in the property industry may be on the cusp of change. “In terms of the disruption that Savills has predicted, there’s almost a sense that if we don’t solve climate change, everything else is irrelevant.

“That thinking is beginning to permeate many sectors, which means that innovation will be forced on the property industry, whether we like it or not. The business-asusual model will not be allowed to continue.”

Catherine Early is a freelance journalist and editor who has specialised in environmental issues for more than 15 years. She writes for publications such as the Ecologist, Resurgence, the Economist World Ocean Initiative, China Dialogue, Utility Week and The Guardian the developer zero-carbon developers 171

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Eight women in a deprived seaside town repurposed an old paper mill into a community-focused biotech business and changed everything

Lucy Anna Scott investigates how the Onion Collective came together to tackle a chronic unemployment problem and the climate emergency

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The Onion Collective used an unwanted industrial site to bring new investment to their coastal home town of Watchet in west Somerset.

Photo: John Kemp

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Regeneration will initially provide new communal facilities on the East Quay

The masterplan for the former paper mill was designed by JB Planning Associates A deserted industrial landscape in Watchet, west Somerset, isn’t the most obvious commercial opportunity. But developer Tameer had a different view of these 38 acres of concrete, where seagulls and coastal winds whip wild around dilapidated buildings.

The site lies just 12 miles south of the Hinkley C nuclear plant. The £20bn project, which can be seen from Watchet’s harbour, will eventually employ thousands, in an area that is rich in natural beauty but poor in housing supply.

However, neither Watchet nor Tameer are waiting on the property demand that Hinkley will generate, because under the corrugated roof of the only inhabitable structure on the site, seedlings of a far more sustainable future are growing.

Outline plans for Tameer’s mixed-use scheme are currently being amended, but the site, which will be five minutes’ walk from the town centre, has its first tenant already in situ: Biohm, an innovative, award-winning biotech business that is the first of its kind in the world.

Founded by Ehab Sayed, Biohm manufactures natural building materials for the construction industry using agricultural waste and insulation made from the root systems of mushrooms. Globally, a handful of companies are working with materials based on mycelia – the roots of fungi. However, Biohm is the only one turning them into building insulation.

The enterprise has built a biomanufacturing demonstration facility on site, which it occupies on a flexible meanwhile lease. But it hopes to gradually scale up

enough to occupy a state-of-the-art facility for up to 175 staff.

It’s no accident that Biohm chose to locate its first facility outside London in Watchet, a fair distance from the M5 corridor. Eight community-interested women born and bred in Watchet and known as the Onion Collective realised that no one else was going to tackle a chronic unemployment problem in a town that is among the most deprived in the UK. Tameer’s site has been the focus of the collective’s efforts since the Wansbrough Paper Mill closed in 2015, making almost 200 people jobless. The demise of the mill, which had operated for 265 years, represented what Onion director Sally Lowndes describes as “a devastating” loss of identity.

“Many of the houses and public buildings in Watchet were built by Wansbrough,” she explains. “But it was also an exemplar employer, providing opportunities, nurturing skills and supporting the town.”

Lowndes ambition is to emulate those virtues. “This is the best version of business and we are taking inspiration from that.

Modern business takes money from a place and does not give it back.”

In Onion’s early days, the group played with ideas ranging from tech-enabled elderly care to supplying components for Hinkley.

Then came the eureka moment: to make Watchet a global player in the biophilic materials revolution.

“This is conceived of as a direct response to the critical economic situation and the climate emergency,” says Lowndes.

The group played with ideas ranging from techenabled elderly care to supplying components for Hinkley. Then came the eureka moment: to make Watchet a global player in the biophilic materials revolution. “So many strategies we looked at were the same – the only difference was the title of the place. We couldn’t see how these ideas responded to the actual place or considered how to link the local with the global”

“We want Watchet to be a pioneer of an economic model that values people and the environment as much as profit.”

Onion’s directors, whose collective CV features community facilities management, TV production, conservation work and government research, spotted a glaring omission across the piles of economic strategy documents they scoured, and in their conversations with thinktanks and academics.

“So many strategies we looked at were the same – the only difference was the title of the place. We couldn’t see how these ideas responded to the actual place or considered how to link the local with the global using future technologies,” recalls director Georgie Grant.

Grant says bio-based technology “captures the zeitgeist” and that Tameer has been very open, supportive and flexible. “They are a young company and interested in new ways of working. They want to enrich places with environmentally focused business.”

Onion realised there were growers in Watchet who could provide raw materials and that the collective could give them a market – particularly once they had established contact with Biohm. They emailed the company out of the blue, after Sayed had just been nominated for the UN Young Champion of the Earth award.

“There was an instant connection between us and Ehab,” says Lowndes. “Ehab is kind and thoughtful. He loves that we want to make a place that gives people purpose.

Biohm aims to create healthy buildings and places and we want social justice. It was clear that together we could do something extraordinary.”

Biohm manufactures its sustainable insulation using locally sourced organic materials, such as grass cuttings or cardboard.

It shreds these in the old mill and puts the results in moulds to feed mycelia. These eat as the fungi grow, eventually filling the moulds to create solid blocks that look like cheese.

“The end product is an insulation sheet – a completely natural, non-toxic and highperforming material that makes buildings healthier,” says Lowndes.

Paul Atton, associate director of JB Planning Associates, which is advising Tameer, describes Biohm and Onion’s strategy as “exciting”. “The hope is that their operations will attract other similar companies to come in and create further employment opportunities,” he says.

Tameer is open to working with such innovators on flexible leases to help generate momentum for a biotech hub. “The developer is flexible and open to ideas; it is a team effort to make the site a success.”

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The site’s first tenant, Biohm, founded by Ehab Sayed (second from right), manufactures insulation from the root system of mushrooms Biohm will need up to 17 staff in its first year, quickly scaling up to produce 3,000m2 of insulation by the end of 2020 – enough for 20 homes. Onion estimates this will make between £3m and £5m annually, with some of that money retained in Watchet. “This is about sustainable growth,” says Lowndes, who has begun talking about the concept to schools, hoping to give children a sense of ownership over this potentially globally significant industry.

This could happen sooner than anticipated. Funding from Waitrose is helping Biohm to rapidly advance its R&D into whether plastics could feed the mycelia – the team at its site in Shepherd’s Bush, London, has found the mycelia consuming nearby synthetic sponges.

This is not the only proof that Onion, which operates from a cabin on the harbour, is a serious outfit.

The collective has secured funding and planning consent to build East Quay, a £7.3m cultural centre that will open next spring and employ 37 people – a project that has succeeded where other developers have failed.

The masterplan created by JB Planning Associates, has been designed for up to 400 homes; 10 live/work incubator units and a new employment space for business and R&D; a residential care village, or up to 160

sheltered apartments and a 60-bedroom retirement home; plus an aparthotel, leisure facilities and a public car park. Public realm includes green space, riverside walks and cycle and pedestrian routes that connect the site to the town centre.

The brownfield site, which sits in a valley surrounded by trees, will provide new habitats, as well as a civic building that will host exhibits of the former mill and provide a community meeting space.

“We want to create a community rather than a housing estate,” says Atton.

An amended masterplan is being submitted and developer Tameer hopes outline planning will be granted by the end of this year.

Onion has worked to corral the town’s vibrant sense of community into a coherent voice.

An 18-month-long feasibility study into how to create a “new time, place and community-appropriate industry” involved regular public meetings that were scheduled around the working day and where children were welcome, so parents could attend.

The meetings drew healthy audiences and their questionnaires yielded hundreds of replies. An engaged and independent community panel steered the ideas for reinvigorating the mill site. “There’s a real feeling that the community can

make a difference,” says Grant.

This groundwork meant that last spring, when Tameer opened the doors for a twoday public consultation, 425 people flooded in. “People wanted something to be done. It was a positive event because of that and they had ideas that we put into the melting pot,” says Atton.

By then, of course, the town had established what it did – and, crucially, did not – want: an economy for Watchet that cares about people, jobs and a healthy built environment, developed with and for the people.

It is a familiar ambition for anyone with an interest in making places and spaces meaningful, but Watchet appears to be bringing its dreams to fruition through dedicated, committed engagement that bridges the local with the global. As a Roald Dahl quote on the walls of Onion’s harbourside cabin says: “If you are interested in something... go at it full speed. Embrace it with both arms.”

Lucy Anna Scott is the co-creator of indie magazine Lost in London, which celebrates nature in the city, and the co-author of Lost in London: Adventures in the City’s Wild Outdoors. She has written for the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, the Mail on Sunday, the Metro and the National the developer the onion collective 175

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Glasgow is a city of extremes. It has the lowest life expectancy in the UK, contains pockets of severe deprivation and is home to the most polluted street in Scotland. But it also, in sharp contrast, has overheated housing markets, the highest weekly income per resident among UK core cities, and has increased workforce productivity by 30% over the past decade With intense pockets of deprivation cheek-by-jowl with overheated housing markets, Kevin Rush, director of regional growth at Glasgow City Region, is striving to close the gap with the City Deal, writes Christine Murray

“Glasgow is the classic tale of two cities,” says Kevin Rush, director of regional growth for Glasgow City Region, who works in delivering projects as part of the £1.13bn City Deal, now six years into its roll-out. Over the next five years, £700m will be spent on infrastructure to unlock improvements across the city.

“Quite clearly the biggest driver of low life expectancy is poverty,” says Rush.

“Development can make a big impact, if you improve people’s living circumstances, their connectivity to where jobs are, and give them meaningful work.”

The government’s original mandate for the City Deal was to demonstrate a gross value added [GVA] return, but Rush says the conversation has since gradually shifted to how the benefit can be most widely felt.

“The easiest way to demonstrate a GVA return would have been to address the market failure in the city centre and build shiny office blocks for the private sector. But we took a much longer-term view that we should invest in creating the conditions for long-term economic growth,” says Rush.

“We’ve started to get more nuanced about inclusive growth,” says Rush. “The government is now saying, ‘OK, we still want to see economic benefit, but we also want to see participation from different groups, we want to see improvements to public realm, and we want to see things that make a difference to people’s lives.’”

So the city prioritised land remediation and improving connectivity across the city centre: “We’re really starting to see the benefit of that,” he says.

“Sighthill is a prime example – a brand new community 10 minutes from the city centre, previously a site of enormous deprivation cut off from the city centre by a motorway,” he continues.

The £250m Sighthill mixed-use project is the largest of the city’s eight Transformational Regeneration Areas, located on 50 hectares in north Glasgow. The project features new schools, sports facilities, a road bridge, 826 homes for private sale, 198 for mid-market rent and 141 units of social rented housing, plus the pedestrian bridge connecting the neighbourhood to the city centre over the M8 motorway. The work is funded by the council, Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) and the Scottish government with the City Deal.

“That land had been contaminated since the French Revolution,” says Rush. “As a result of that, no one would develop there.”

“We took a view that the City Deal would go underground, creating the right conditions for development, and then private sector investment would follow. That, to me, is the way in which our City Deal works.”

But the social housing units being returned to Sighthill are a fraction of the thousands that were there before, and the history of Sighthill is storied. The land was home to 10 tower blocks, seven maisonettes and tenements. Most were demolished in 2008-09 by GHA. A campaign by residents to save the remaining five high-rise towers, which contained 1,140 homes, resulted in two towers being earmarked for refurbishment, but after a failed bid for the 2018 Youth Olympics, its Athletes’ Village became part of the Sighthill masterplan, which saw all remaining towers demolished in 2016.

Speaking to the Evening Times in 2009, Elaine Ellis, then-secretary of the tenants’ association, said the demolition would see neighbours of 40 years torn apart. Ellis said: “We have been told by GHA officials that our buildings are structurally sound.

That’s why we’d like our homes re-clad and modernised... why has Sighthill been singled out for neglect? Three surveys have come back in favour of retention of and investment in the Pinkston flats. But in the past five years there’s been no investment. It appears that we are just being run down until we are sickened.”

As is common in the rhetoric surrounding estate demolition, tower-block living is portrayed as unsavoury, while tenants speak fondly of the security and views. Resident Agnes McDermott, then aged 74, told the Evening Times: “We want GHA to tell us what is happening with Pinkston. Most people love these flats and don’t want to leave or see them demolished. There are people in their 60s, 70s and 80s living here that feel safe because it has a concierge service and we’ve got our friends and neighbours living close by.”

In a 2017 study on the impact of the clearance of Sighthill residents, some of whom have returned, one family said, “We didn’t want to move. We had to move,

“We’ve started to get more nuanced about inclusive growth. The government is now saying, ‘OK, we still want to see economic benefit, but we also want to see participation, improvements to public space, and we want things that make a difference to people’s lives’”

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Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow’s main shopping district. The city plans to improve connectivity across the city centre. Photo: Murdo MacLeod the developer glasgow 177

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obviously, [be]cause they were demolishing the flats. If they didn’t demolish our flats we would stay there as long as we can. Basically, the flats were safe, they were nice to stay at, they were near buses and everything.”

Rush admits Glasgow is on a learning curve when it comes to community engagement: “There was criticism about the way in which projects were selected. It was done away from communities… doing the deal… and people felt excluded from that. What’s important now is that we don’t replicate that mistake.” Going forward, Rush says he wants people to feel listened to.

At the time of our conversation, the coronavirus pandemic was not on the radar.

But there was no shortage of other challenges facing Glasgow to discuss: Brexit, Scottish independence, climate change and flood risk linked to increased rainfall, air pollution and traffic congestion, an ambitious net-zero target of 2030, and the (now postponed) UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), then scheduled for Glasgow in November.

As for net-zero construction, Rush says inevitably they are looking to carbon offsetting to meet what seems like a near impossible target. Rush says conversations are at an early stage regarding tree-planting and rewilding – perhaps on one of the several golf courses owned by the city – as part of offsetting. And, Rush says, they are looking at modern methods of construction, but he is mindful of the financial implications of these decisions, the cost of which could impact infrastructure investment plans.

A new pedestrian bridge over the M8 connecting Sighthill to the city centre

“The River Clyde is perhaps the greatest untouched resource in Western Europe. It goes right from Inverclyde all the way across to South Lanarkshire. We could use it as a source of energy with development opportunities all along it to bring it to life, for vibrancy” Glasgow is also busy reimagining the way the city centre operates. The Avenues project, which remodels streets, prioritising pedestrians and cyclists, and greening the city centre, is being rolled out gradually, but has already been successful in attracting company headquarters, Rush says.

And Glasgow is angling for major investment in the construction of a Glasgow Metro subway train serving the city centre.

“To remove vehicles from the streets, the best way is to give people a viable alternative,” says Rush. A low emission zone for all vehicles comes into play in 2022.

When it comes to imagining the future city, Rush believes the River Clyde is the most obvious place to focus on.

“The river is perhaps the greatest untouched resource in Western Europe,” says Rush. “It goes right from Inverclyde all the way across to South Lanarkshire. We could use it as a source of energy, we could use it with development opportunities all along it to bring it to life, for vibrancy.”

The challenge with regards to opening Glasgow up to the river is flood risk. “There’s a piece of work taking place right now, looking at a tidal weir or a barrage, similar to the Glasgow Smart Canal but on a larger scale, that allows you to control the water flow.

“How do you ensure that it’s a prime location because it’s not going to flood? It’s a city where it rains quite a lot, so we need to be quite mindful of that,” he says.

Kevin Rush is director of regional economic growth at Glasgow City Council Find out more Listen to the interview with Kevin Rush at thedeveloper.live/podcasts/glasgow-a-tale-oftwo-cities

There are 1,000 homes planned for Sighthill

For more on the Glasgow City Region City Deal, visit www.glasgowcityregion.co.uk

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The city of Glasgow has increased workforce productivity by 30% over the past decade. Photo: Murdo MacLeod

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For too long, landscape architects have been providing the garnish on the main meal, only to be value-engineered out at the last moment. We need a revolution. We need landscape-led masterplans Landscape architecture is more than plant pots and pergolas. Its holistic approach could drive radical change if it came first, not last, writes Will Sandy COVID-19 has forced us to acknowledge the challenges facing the future of our public spaces. We know now that it is not the buildings themselves, but the spaces between them, and the people using and enjoying these spaces, that demonstrate if a city is healthy and flourishing.

We have seen that unhealthy streets make for unhealthy people. The death toll from inequity and inequality has reflected the impact of air pollution and a choking climate.

The way we plan and design our built environment is disconnected: outside and inside are on the whole treated as separate entities. But the COVID-19 lockdown has helped the public to re-evaluate their relationship with their local environment and nature. Across social media, I have witnessed collective thinking and a palpable appetite for change. Private spaces, public spaces and even privately owned public spaces now play vital roles in our daily lives.

Let’s just say post-lockdown you wouldn’t buy a nice house in a crap neighbourhood – not if you had the choice.

We need to act on this change and look at the built environment with a fresh perspective. Now is the time to disrupt the status quo – to reform and rectify old ways and achieve real impact. There is space for more: to make the hostile hospitable, real estate resilient, and streets inclusive and accessible for all. In this new world, landscape architecture can deliver muchneeded climate and environmental solutions, embedding green and blue infrastructure, natural capital, and environmental systems.

That’s why it is time for landscape architects to take the lead. For too long, we

have been constrained by an attachment to the picturesque. Landscaping is the green garnish to the main meal, brought into the project too late. As much as it pains me to say this, as soon as you put the word ‘landscape’ in front of the word ‘architect’, gravitas and understanding are lost. Independently the words have clarity, but together, they illustrate the press and public’s lack of understanding in the profession’s role.

What happened? Just eight years ago, the success of London’s Olympic Park changed the perception of landscape architecture. With landscape firmly at its heart, from the landscape-led masterplan to its design, development, engineering and on-site implementation, the Olympic Park became globally significant, inspiring future projects, promoting learning and enabling innovative design approaches. It opened the door, presenting a unique regeneration opportunity. All of this was accomplished in just six years, with an immovable deadline.

The success of the design, from the Games through to its legacy, was primarily due to the landscaping of the park itself: holding the vision, carrying the design subtleties throughout the process, enabled buildings, stadiums and infrastructure to interface cohesively, catalysing future developments.

The Olympics also presented a great example of inter-studio collaboration and coordination. No firm could ever have delivered something at that scale and complexity by itself. No single studio knows everything.

But eight years on, have we forgotten about our success and what we’ve gained?

“We often see tenders and competitions for highstreet revitalisations or public realm improvements that demand an architectled team. How do we get landscape architects in the room? Why have we not been heard? Perhaps we have lingered too long on the periphery – we’ve accepted our place in the development process and lost the conviction to stand up for the design elements that we know are crucial”

The Olympic Park may no longer be new and exciting, but emphasis should be placed on its impact and the benefits and the resilience of the spaces created.

Landscape architects have known the value of external spaces for some time. We all recognise the positives in our subconscious relationship with nature and open space.

The best cities are remembered as much for their iconic streets, squares and urban green spaces as they are for their iconic buildings.

Yet, in the standard project process, the landscape architecture is often the first thing to get value engineered out. Sure, buildings are also cut back, but they are rarely excised completely.

We often see tenders and competitions for high-street revitalisations, public realm improvements or neighbourhood masterplans that demand an architecture-led team – the safe and siloed approach.

How do we get landscape architects in the room? Why have we not been heard?

Perhaps we have lingered too long on the periphery – we have accepted our place in the development process and lost the conviction to stand up for the design elements that we know are crucial.

This is not a slight against architects.

We are ultimately in this together. But the developer and the whole project team needs to see the value of the landscape, public open spaces and, in effect, anything that isn’t a building. This is happening, but it is happening slowly.

We need to open it up, and allow the team to define the lead and the response, and to create collaborative opportunities. And if the opportunities aren’t there, we must selfinitiate, kick-start collaborations and drive change ourselves.

Being radical – that’s scary. Reclamation?

A revolution? These words may sound threatening to some. Sure, we can stick to plant pots and pergolas, but what if? What if landscape architects had a critical eye? What if we had conviction?

To the industry, I ask: where are the fresh thinkers, the playful provocateurs, the forward-looking policymakers and the public realm protagonists?

With lessons learned during lockdown and wider climatic challenges ahead, now is the time for collaboration and creating meaningful change. Ultimately, it is about striking a balance, so let’s lose the egos and have some fun, doing what we’re here – and love – to do.

Will Sandy is the founding director of the Will Sandy Design Studio and the creative director of The Edible Bus Stop

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Plant-based architecture: London’s Olympic Park showed the world the power of landscape-led masterplanning and design. Photo: Getty the developer landscape architects 181

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Our social networks are changing, thanks to both the digital revolution and COVID-19, blurring the boundaries between place-based and virtual communities Na’amah Hagiladi argues that now is a golden opportunity to restore the declining high street and enable new types of communities to emerge Like many, I was caught unprepared by COVID-19. I moved house recently and had not yet properly connected with my neighbours, so social connections in the vicinity of my home are currently limited.

The physical community of work colleagues I saw every day became virtual and my local community has become the physical network that I can only access from a distance.

The separation of occupational and domestic social networks dates back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. Emile Durkheim was the first to address it in 1893 in De la division du Travail Social (The Division of Labour in Society), and later scholars such as Mark Granovetter viewed society as built on social connections rather than roles. Granovetter showed in 1973 in The Strength of Weak Ties that a combination of strong and weak ties plays an important role in our lives. He mapped the role of weak ties in helping people to access jobs or business opportunities, and found that a mixture of ties strengthens the resilience of a community as a whole.

In the mid-1990s, digital transformation enabled virtual communities to emerge based on shared interests, and the emergence of social networks in the late-’00s altered our relationships further by blurring the boundaries between place-based and virtual communities. Virtual networks can support our self-resilience, but maintaining active and lively public networks, through spaces such as the high street, is vital for supporting community networks and enabling us to connect the virtual and the physical networks each of us creates.

COVID-19 has exposed the impact on people of the loss of social interaction and accelerated the use of technology to bridge distances. At the same time, there has been

a marked rise in community engagement through the activities of volunteers and voluntary groups, and a marked increase in people wanting to know and help their neighbours. Shops are taking steps to accommodate social distancing, and are eager to open up again, serve their communities and start their economic recovery. Among this activity, there is an opportunity for a revision of the perception of high streets – from functional retail-focused spaces to places where people form social and economic bonds.

Research by the Centre for Cities found that a successfully performing high street is one with fewer vacant spaces. Analysis of land-use and the quality of jobs showed successful high streets have an average of 62% of office activity – which exports knowledge and attracts higher numbers of skilled employees. In weaker streets, office activity accounts for just 23% of land use.

The amount of office space in high streets may well decrease as many of us shift to working from home, leading to what are perceived as weaker streets. However, the resulting vacant office space will lend itself to flexible, creative uses, and there is an opportunity for communities to redefine the social and cultural ambition for these streets.

The Public Services Act (Social Value Act) came into force in 2013 to transform procurement processes in the public sector. It requires commissioners to address the wider social, economic and environmental benefits of projects to the public. It acknowledges activities including creating new jobs, training the local community, working with local SMEs, employing people with specific needs, and supporting the physical regeneration of places in the context of climate change.

A review of the act in 2015 highlighted the need for better definitions of how the social value activities are applied and measured.

A network of organisations has also set up the National Social Value Task Force to develop further tools and provide advice on best practice to support communities with procurement. This January, the government also announced a change in direction for capital investment – from the prospective economic benefits a project will deliver to the effects it will have on community well-being.

So how can the Social Value Act support the post-COVID-19 high street? As a starting point, there are already Public Health England guidelines in place, as well as the latest research published by mayor of London Sadiq Khan as part of his ‘Good Growth

by Design’ programme, which provides principles and case studies in London. The vision these two portray is of green and

“This represents a rare opportunity to change the course of declining high streets and develop a longterm model of operation in which a mixture of activities applying to different groups would be created and celebrated.

These activities, ranging from culture to creative and digital skills training, will also support the transformation of work itself as automation replaces manual jobs” pedestrian-friendly environments, supportive of the climate change vision and economic constraints.

However, the transformation of social connection as a result of the coronavirus represents a rare opportunity to change the course of the declining high street and develop a long-term model of operation in which a mixture of activities applying to different groups would be created and celebrated. These activities, ranging from culture to creative and digital skills training, will also support the transformation of work itself, as automation replaces more manual jobs. New social connections will form and success will be monitored by the well-being indicators agreed by all stakeholders.

Central to this are local authorities, which will need to work collaboratively with local communities and other councils, leaving behind siloed work patterns. Shared platforms and data-sharing can enable socially distancing networks to be connected, and placemaking can be shaped physically and digitally, laying the foundations for new types of communities to emerge and shape their high streets.

Na’amah Hagiladi is a holistic urbanist and architect focusing on urban sociology mixed with data (big, small and rich)

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For those who lack any private outdoor space, one of the most unexpected side effects of the coronavirus lockdown will be the impact on sleep from a lack of exposure to natural daylight Neuroscientist Danny Michael Ball highlights another reason why COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting the poorest in society and explores the possible implications for long-term health and future planning policy in high-density urban areas The COVID-19 lockdown can be extremely frustrating. Being stuck indoors for long periods of time has disrupted normal schedules, including work, exercise and possibly more importantly our sleep. We sleep for more than a third of our lives, yet even those who go to the gym or eat the right foods to stay healthy rarely give their sleep the same consideration.

Yet managing sleep during the lockdown will have as far-reaching benefits to our health as diet and exercise, especially since sleep affects one’s ability to control these behaviours. Disrupted sleep is being widely reported, and this may be partly because our exposure to natural light has been reduced because of the long periods of time we are staying inside.

Light is important for sleep because it is light that sets the timing of the master clock in our brains. Specifically, the intensity of the ambient blue found in natural light is captured by a special class of cells in the eye that directly relay information about light and darkness to the brain, so its master clock can keep accurate time. This enables the clock to follow a 24-hour cycle – or circadian rhythm – tied to day and night.

When working properly, it gives us a robust sleep-wake cycle and results in our being able to reap the associated health benefits of sufficient sleep – we are alert and prepared for active challenges during the day.

Humans are particularly sensitive to small changes in circadian rhythms and it is clear the cost to our health of disruptions is extremely high. The short-term effects of disrupted sleep can be seen when we put the clocks forward by an hour in March, with people commonly losing the same amount of sleep. The following day, we experience a significant increase in blood pressure, which causes heart attacks, and there is also an increase in the number of fatal road accidents because of drowsiness.

The long-term health problems caused by disruption to our circadian rhythms may be more severe, with irregular sleep linked to diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, as well as poor mental health, cognitive decline, depression and anxiety.

The remarkable circumstances caused by COVID-19 have resulted in many losing their jobs or working from home for the first time, disrupting their schedules and sleep patterns.

One of the most effective ways to regulate sleep is exposure to natural light at specific times of the day. Exposure to daylight early in the morning, soon after waking, has a strong effect in setting the master clock – spending 30 minutes outside at the same time each morning without sunglasses will help to regulate the time that you sleep.

This raises an obvious issue faced by much of the country while social distancing – many of us do not have personal outdoor space and rely on public areas such as parks for exercise and time outside in natural light. This is most typical in the densely populated inner cities,

“Health issues stemming from sleep disturbance caused by restricted access to natural light is likely to be most prevalent in those already facing the negative factors associated with navigating COVID-19 in poverty. This is why keeping parks and similar outdoor spaces open is so important during the lockdown. Irregular sleep has been linked to diabetes, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease”

Lockdown has disrupted normal schedules, including our sleep patterns. Photo: Getty where people are tightly packed into housing and may not have gardens.

Indeed, the government has long acknowledged in guidelines for planning residential dwellings the impact of access to adequate natural light on well-being. This ‘right to light’ is most important in intensely urbanised areas, especially those that have a high proportion of social housing with many living in poverty. Being forced to stay at home without access to outdoor space, particularly in the inner cities, could be one of the ways that COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting the poorest in society.

Health issues stemming from sleep disturbance caused by restricted access to natural light are likely to be most prevalent in those already facing the negative factors associated with navigating COVID-19 in poverty. This is why keeping parks and similar outdoor spaces open is so important during the lockdown.

If forced lockdowns are likely to be a regular part of our lives because of uncertain exit strategies and possible multiple waves of coronavirus, paying attention to the regulation of sleep could mitigate the potentially far-reaching costs to long-term public health that will result.

Danny Michael Ball is a blind neuroscientist working at University College London to investigate how the brain changes after sight loss, including its effects on sleep, space, time, plasticity and learning

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If there is a silver lining to the retail apocalypse and the coronavirus crisis, it will be refreshed and reinvigorated high streets The lockdown has brought new opportunities for retail revitalisation, writes Max Farrell, Toby Denham, Aymara Lamche-Brennan and Chris Pask of LDN Collective. The challenge is what to do next

The retail sector was under enormous pressure before the pandemic, with footfall in town centres declining by as much as 20% over the past 10 years and 25% of high street shops closing nationally, according to BBC’s Panorama. In 2019, a report by analyst Retail Economics predicted that internet shopping will account for 53% of retail sales by 2028.

Now, COVID-19 is having a crippling impact on retailers and businesses, large and small. What it has done is accelerate the demise of already stressed businesses. At the same time, we are witnessing people ‘nipping out’ to their local high street as online retailers struggle to meet demand. If there is a silver lining to this crisis, it will be refreshed and reinvigorated high streets and a renewed interest in all things local.

The real challenge is what to do next.

Town centres have never been static – they have adapted over time to an ever-changing world. From railways and cars to out-oftown shopping centres and mega supermarkets, the overarching trend has been towards homogenisation, which has led to the creation of ‘zombie zones’ and identikit places.

Yet, as with any crisis, reinvention comes through adversity. With the right curatorial approach, our high streets could become an intrinsic and well-loved part of our towns once again.

High streets and town centres can no longer rely solely upon shopping to attract people. Purchasing of volume or universal products will be consigned to the virtual realm. Responding to this change presents a great opportunity for reinvention and to overcome the blight of big brands and ‘sameas-ism’. The move away from large footprint stores due to changing shopping patterns provides an opportunity for other uses to flourish and reinhabit our towns.

New trends in the way we use our high streets have been emerging for some time, with a shift towards town centres as destinations. The temporary stop during lockdown to the drain of thousands of people commuting is likely to become a more permanent reality even once the virus is overcome. Commuting into city centres may be reduced to just two or three days of the week. Larger firms will therefore be looking for more adaptable and flexible space, to meet the needs of an increasingly remote workforce.

Perversely, this is good news for town centres and high streets. It enables residents to engage in a way they previously may not have. A new wave of ‘stay at homers’ will not want to be confined to their home office or kitchen table. Part-time home workers will crave human contact, valuing physical and

mental well-being and the need to strike a healthy balance between home and work life – something the local high street can provide.

In Paris, the mayor has made the ‘15-minute city’ central to her re-election campaign. She says each community should be self-sufficient, offering shops, parks, sports facilities, cafes, schools, health centres and workplaces a walk or bike ride away from people’s homes. The Garden City movement pioneered a similar approach in Britain in the 19th century, and this has had a renaissance with projects like NW Bicester and Tresham Garden Village.

Bottom-up and community-led transformation is also making a comeback, emerging as a positive model of regeneration that keeps gentrification at bay. In many coastal towns, artists and creatives have led this trend. Kernels of entrepreneurship, often taking over disused buildings to create hubs for ideas, critical thinking and collective action, characterise a rebellious streak that brings with it successful, locally specific regeneration.

Resilient communities such as Morecambe’s have become visionary. Deal in Kent did the same years ago and is referred to locally as ‘Soho-on-Sea’. Former full-time commuters are likely to shed their smart attire, abandon the tiresome commute and swell these creative, entrepreneurial destinations.

Stockton-on-Tees is a typical example of a town with a declining centre, having lost more than 100 shops and stores in the past five years, including M&S and Debenhams.

Its council has earned itself a reputation for taking a proactive approach to rethinking the town, how it should look and what it should offer. In consultation with the local community, it is investing in changing the profile of the high street.

Richard McGuckin, the council’s economic development officer, describes it as a ‘large outdoor room’ with places for sculptures,

High streets can no longer rely solely upon shopping to attract people.

Purchasing of volume or universal products will be consigned to the virtual realm. Responding to this change presents a great opportunity for reinvention and to overcome the blight of ‘same-as-ism’

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An employee of Fortnum & Mason wearing a face mask and face shield stands outside the famous department store in Piccadilly, London, in preparation for the re-opening of its food hall. Photo: Getty the developer transforming the high street 185

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music, performers and sporting events throughout the year. This is encouraging residents to engage with their town centre in a new and exciting way.

The internet is generally viewed as the enemy of the high street, but it can be used to future-proof them by connecting with local and wider audiences, advertising events and opportunities, and giving us repeated reasons to make the journey. Apps and social media are connecting us in ways we could not have imagined 10 years ago. These should be harnessed.

Consumerism as we knew it has been suspended and with less consumption comes more creativity. It is a time for repurposing, sewing, painting, fixing and all those worldly pleasures for which we previously had little time – or didn’t make time.

‘The pause’ has forced us to re-evaluate what matters, what is important to us and why. It is highlighting interdependence as the key to our survival, reclaiming the collective community – a ground lost to individualism and corporatisation.

In this time of scarcity and social distancing, we are also rediscovering the ability to cultivate and make our own food.

Local garden centres are in high demand, with many sold out. People are relearning lost skills in domestic food production, recalling a time when our grandparents thrived and survived through self-sustenance.

Perhaps we will develop a greater awareness of nature and the seasons and an acceptance that strawberries shouldn’t be available in the middle of winter. The local could once again be more dependable than the global.

There is an opportunity for councils to encourage community food production and continue these efforts that have emerged during the period of lockdown. Regenerative agriculture, rewilding and community resilience would benefit from this approach – planting edibles such as fruit and nut trees for everyone to pick from and enjoy while supporting local growers.

‘Edible towns’ can be part of a sustainable and resilient approach, where nutrition and public health are factored into the design of a place.

In our experience, the most successful high streets are not ‘one-liners’. They have a rich palette of places and events that reflect and enhance the way we live.

Without regard to the physical connections of routes and spaces, segregation will predominate. By creating routes that connect to events off the high street, green spaces, places of activity, places for rest, markets, pop-ups, maker places, independents and charity shops, it is possible

Consumerism as we knew it has been suspended and with less consumption comes more creativity. It is a time for repurposing, sewing, painting, fixing and all those worldly pleasures for which we previously had little time – or didn’t make time. ‘The pause’ has forced us to re-evaluate what matters, what is important to us and why. It is highlighting interdependence as the key to our survival, reclaiming the collective community – a ground lost to individualism and corporatisation to create networks that will keep attracting us back to the high street for surprising experiences and human interaction.

Distinctive and unique high streets communicate a strong message that ‘this place is made and re-made by those who inhabit it’. It is about much more than business. It is a rich layering of inhabitation by those who live, work, shop, visit and play there: the people-watchers, the artists and the collective networks that support them.

Frome is an old market town in Somerset with a town council that does things differently. ‘The Frome Independent’ is an award-winning destination street market that reclaims the high street once a month to showcase craftspeople, designers, makers, food producers and vintage traders from across the South West. It attracts people from near and far.

Similarly, Marylebone High Street in London has flourished thanks to Howard de Walden’s careful curation of retail and leisure, making it a vibrant and attractive place for residents and visitors.

These solutions are driven by the specificities of place, the uniqueness of local offerings and a strategic, long-term plan.

Homogeneity makes places replicas of one another with ubiquitous betting shops and coffee chains. A soulful high street subverts this, protecting and promoting distinctive

places instead of creating ‘clone towns’. It thrives off a unique mix of local makers, producers and creatives, disrupting and occasionally supplanting the larger chains.

Diverse communities are open-minded, welcoming and humble, celebrating cultural differences and strengthening shared humanity. They encourage people from disparate walks of life to find common ground and share their experiences. Diversity, in all its forms, must be a central tenet of the high street offering: a place where cooking ingredients from around the world can be bought, local bookshops promote authors with different stories to tell, hair salons cater for all hair types, and alternative medicines can be found.

The rebirth of our town centres should bring different generations closer together, which would improve the well-being of all. Community assets can be places for meaningful engagement and interactions between the ages, promoting empathy, understanding, storytelling and the sharing of experiences of living through different times, with drastically different forms of communication and access to knowledge.

The healing from the current pandemic is bringing together diverse and disparate communities, who offer mutual recognition and support to each other for the gargantuan task at hand. There has been widespread recognition that it is the NHS workers, delivery drivers, carers and teachers who are leading the fightback against COVID-19, with the whole country coming out to applaud them on their doorsteps and balconies every Thursday. Let’s hope it is the beginning of a re-evaluation of the roles of key workers in our everyday lives.

We know that the environment is benefitting from ‘the pause’ in life as we knew it. Experts at Stanford University predict the reductions in the number of flights, industrial activity and movement will result in fewer pollution-related deaths, strengthened ecosystems and direct benefits to air quality – an improvement that has been confirmed by recent NASA satellite imagery. These are significant and positive outcomes that should be nurtured and embraced.

We are understanding more about the effects of good and bad design on social mobility, educational opportunity, health, well-being and social cohesion. Social, economic and physical infrastructure all play their part in supporting thriving communities, along with public transport, broadband and a range of community amenities.

We are learning about and sharing guidance on how to design popular, inviting and inclusive places and getting better at

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People employ social distancing as they queue outside a cafe in York on 28 May. Photo: Getty communicating this to a wider audience.

For example, Create Streets has synthesised its research, Of Streets and Squares, into a plain English, eight-step guide How to Design Popular Places. The Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission is another example of the growing body of work influencing government policy.

These examples illustrate a pull in the same direction: improved spaces and places that really work for the people who use them. We are turning our backs on the soulless mistakes of dull places

We are understanding more about the effects of good and bad design on social mobility, educational opportunity, health, well-being and social cohesion. Social, economic and physical infrastructure all play their part in supporting thriving communities, along with a range of amenities

devoid of character and inspiration.

The direction in which we are headed shows that we are learning lessons, not just papering over the cracks or rigidly sticking to received wisdom and dogmatic design principles.

Many town centres are strangled by ring roads and awkward, clumsy road layouts.

‘The doughnut phenomenon’ has seen fields of car-dependent homes on the outskirts of town become parasites to existing services.

Low-density housing outside the centre prioritises motorists and attracts retail parks with windswept car parks.

Dual carriageways and ring roads come complete with pedestrian barriers, limited pedestrian crossings, and heavy ‘clutter’ or signage. They are not only difficult to cross but create physical and mental barriers that affect the accessibility and desire to use the high street.

We cannot remove all vehicles from town centres but we can address the priority of the pedestrian, reopen lost routes and introduce ‘at grade’ crossings to reconnect the town centre and high street with its hinterland.

Encouraging active travel with walking and cycling routes will help ride the postCOVID-19 wave confidently and build on the legacy of people jogging and cycling more regularly.

Mobilising side streets and having a

creative approach to access can transform our high streets and town centres into inhabited, lively places once again.

Max Farrell, Toby Denham, Aymara LamcheBrennan and Chris Pask are members of the LDN Collective, a group of built environment experts with knowledge, experience and contacts covering politics, property and placemaking

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Smart windows powered by liquid crystal technology score best for wellbeing and productivity, new research reveals Dynamic windows that use advanced liquid crystal glass technology to achieve solar shading offer the most positive impact on wellbeing and productivity in the office environment, new research reveals.

The study, by deep green engineering practice Elementa Consulting, compared two smart window technologies on the market which alter the optical and thermal properties of external glazing to control solar glare and heat. Research focused on the impact of smart facade design on human experience.

Using best practice lighting simulation tools to undertake a series of visualisations and analysis, Elementa investigated how two types of established electrochromic glass compared with the recently developed Eyrise glazing, which uses its proprietary Licrivision liquid crystal technology. Elementa looked at performance in three areas: colour, speed and circadian wellbeing.

When tested for colour rendering, Eyrise windows maintained a neutral grey tone across the entire tint spectrum, while electrochromic glass displayed a blue colouration, which can impact perceived colour and brightness of illuminated objects in the indoor environment.

The transition time of controlling glare was examined to ascertain if a comfortable working environment, supporting productivity, was maintained. Research showed that occupants were able to modify

shading states of liquid crystal windows instantaneously. Electrochromic products needed at least 15 minutes to restore visual comfort levels, meaning people are at risk of high levels of glare and may seek alternative ways, such as blinds or curtains, to protect themselves from sunlight.

“According to the latest National Human Activity Pattern Survey, people are spending 87% of their time indoors, so welfare should take priority when embarking on smart facade building design,” said Alkyoni Papasifaki, Environmental Design Engineer at Elementa Consulting. “Our investigation shows that Eyrise dynamic liquid crystal windows outperform other smart glazing in supporting health and wellbeing. The technology enables windows to maintain a neutral colour across the tinting range and

Did you know?

Workplaces with good levels of natural light benefit from productivity gains of up to 40% We spend 80% to 90% of our time indoors, for more information visit www.researchgate.net/ publication/283459751_ The_importance_of_light_ to_health_and_well-being eyrise® Dynamic Liquid Crystal Windows can provide shading or privacy screening instantaneously, at the moment you need it

“Glazing that uses electrochromic technology, producing a blue colouration to the glass when tinted, induces an environment that disrupts occupants’ body clocks by suppressing melatonin levels. By maintaining a neutral environment across the tint spectrum, Eyrise windows support natural circadian rhythms throughout the day” Orkla opted for smart liquid crystal windows at its new Oslo headquarters to allow staff to enjoy visual and thermal comfort without the need for excessive air conditioning and blinds.

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Productivity remains consistent in the workplace as liquid crystal glass technology adapts instantaneously to changes in solar glare instantaneously deliver high levels of visual comfort on demand.”

Elementa’s study also examined the impact of dynamic window technologies on occupants’ health, focusing on the alignment with their natural body clock which is triggered by dedicated receptors on the retina and responsible for the sleep-wake rhythm.

All three glazing products tested met minimum requirements of light exposure and intensity during their bright and dark states. However, glazing that uses electrochromic technology, producing a blue colouration to the glass when tinted, induces an environment that disrupts occupants’ body clocks in the afternoon by suppressing melatonin levels and raising alertness.

In contrast, by maintaining a neutral environment across the tint spectrum, Eyrise windows support occupants’ natural circadian rhythms throughout the day.

“In modern architecture, sustainability and aesthetic needs are fuelling demand for smart innovations,” said Celine Glipa, Managing Director at Eyrise. “Eyrise supports both, bringing creative visions to life and transforming the workplace into a comfortable environment where people can

be at their most productive.”

This independent research by Elementa Consulting is the first in-depth study on the wellbeing impact of smart facade technology.

Find out more Read the report at www.eyrise.com/out-ofthe-blue

© 2020 Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and/ or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Merck and eyrise are trademarks of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Detailed information on trademarks is available

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In the photobooth

Marco Ferrari usually curates this section of the magazine with selfies taken on location in places across the UK in old-style photobooths. During lockdown, he turned his box camera on himself, and with Arianna Maiello, worked to capture in cyanotype how COVID-19 changed the little things

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Tell me about your place of lockdown Arianna: My husband Marco and I live in a 28 square metre studio apartment, but as my mum said once, “You live nella casa delle meraviglie – in a magical house.” Every day, we transform our space literally, moving around furniture, into a pasta-making shop, a sourdough academy, a photography studio, a developing and printing lab, an art hub, a yoga studio, and a barber’s shop.

Marco: Everything we do means moving furniture around. To develop and print photos, I take over the bathroom and the shower. It always looks like a game of Tetris in our house.

Why did you take these pictures? Arianna: Photography is part of our life and it was natural to use it to document our life during lockdown and to express ourselves. We take pictures every time we have enough light in the flat and no matter what, every Sunday, we dress up and take pictures of ourselves. Marco: The kit I used for these photos is bulky and heavy and the process of setting up and taking a photo is very slow.

For these reasons, before the pandemic, it was hard for me to go out with it and take photos. I always thought, “I wish I had more time for it.” the developer in the photobooth 191

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Why did you photograph your stockpile? Arianna: People went crazy. We thought it was important to describe life in a time of coronavirus.

Marco: In mid-March the news was full of photos of empty shelves. I think it was a way to come clean about it, a way of saying: “I did it too, I was part of the problem.”

What did you stockpile? Arianna: At the beginning of the pandemic, I was busy with my job and didn’t stockpile anything. Maybe I didn’t want to believe the situation was so serious. Later, I did stockpile olive oil and flour: as an Italian, I cannot live without bread, fresh pasta or pizza. Marco: I bought pasta and some great sparkling wine. The more time passed, the more I saw this frenzy building up. I knew it was irrational behaviour, but I bought toilet paper, rice, peeled tomatoes and disinfectant wipes. Then I thought, “What am I going to do during this time at home?” So I bought quite a lot of photo chemicals.

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What was most precious to you during the lockdown? Arianna: Time is precious in London, so during the lockdown, the most important thing for me was time to think and reconnect with myself, time to stay with my husband, time to look outside the window, time to cook, time to read, time to rest physically and mentally, time to tidy the flat, time to just live. We are human beings not human doings. Marco: To be with my wife whom I love and trust. We were isolated, but I was never alone.

Is there anything from your lockdown rituals that you want to keep? Arianna: I would like to keep two things from this lockdown: the introspective part with meditation, daily yoga practice, and writing and drawing as a healing process; and the baking – making sourdough bread at home. Marco: I want to keep taking photos and now I won’t complain if the kit is heavy or the weather’s not good enough. I’ve had time to think of new projects and I’ll try to keep productivity up. I also finished a photography zine, started writing with a dip pen, and recently fixed an old Olivetti typewriter that was jammed (I thought of writing this text with it, but it was a bit impractical). Someone told me I’ve never been so productive. the developer in the photobooth 193

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Do you see your neighbourhood differently because of COVID-19? Arianna: I love that everybody is now using the private garden and path around the property to have a picnic or just to have some fresh air, enjoy the sun, take a walk, read a book or see another human being, even two metres apart. I hope this keeps going. Marco: The lack of an outdoor space, even a balcony, was what I felt was missing during these weeks.

We went out just for groceries, so we didn’t see much of the neighbourhood.

How would you like the new normal to be? Arianna: I really don’t know what normal will be after this self-isolation, but we have learned how to live with less: less food or at least less choice of food, less clothes and less will to buy material things. I hope to keep living like that.

Marco: I hope the new normal will bring more capable politicians in charge and a more just society. I will personally try to keep living with less, wasting less, and enjoy the little things more.

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