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Here's one that's very interesting:
It's a very unusual decision but one I welcome; perhaps there'll be at least a short stretch of canal that won't be towered over by large blocks of flats like the horrible 'Gainsborough Studios' development just across New North Road along Poole Street.
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Not in London, but I thought this was a very interesting article about the Speke Estate in Liverpool:
https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/speke_a_personal_perspective/
I saw it linked from here:
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This is technically a stealth advert for an estate agent, so ignore if you don't like that. I think it's quite worthwhile, though, as these things go (they're fairly regular features in the Standard and most large estate agents do them, I think). Anyway, this consists of computer graphic mock-ups of designs that didn't come to be superimposed on today's London:
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This is a real shame. Heythrop College has closed and the Jesuits have sold its campus, which will now be a private enclave.
Heythrop's campus was a real oasis in the centre of London.
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This is moderately entertaining:
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A good article about rubbish 'planning' (more general than just about London, but obviously very relevant):
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/11/why-are-we-so-bad-at-planning-cities
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I can't remember in which thread we were posting about this, but it's just about crunch time for the Shopping Village in Tottenham:
(I don't hold out much hope.)
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The Heythrop application (see above ^^^^^) has been refused by the Mayor of London (as deputised for by Jules Pipe, former Mayor of Hackney), apparently largely because of a lack of affordable housing:
It'll be interesting what they come up with next. Could be years.
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A big move for Smithfield Market is on the cards:
This will probably increase the miles travelled by Central London businesses.
I imagine the old market will be transformed into a Covent Garden-style tourist attraction, but of course developers have long had their eyes on the site. I don't know what the current planning guidance is in the event of such a move.
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The Museum of London is due to move to West Smithfield, not Smithfield (separate sites--West Smithfield has long been empty). While large construction projects at Smithfield would obviously affect the setting of the museum to the west of it, I don't think it will affect the plans to move to WS. I haven't been following it, though.
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An update on the previous story:
And I somehow completely managed to miss this, which was in the previous article, too:
Under the new proposal Billingsgate Market and New Spitalfields Market would also move to the Barking Reach site.
That explains it more. While there is certainly development potential at Smithfield, probably on the Covent Garden model, the land on which Billingsgate currently sits must be worth a bomb now--it was obviously moved there when the Isle of Dogs and Poplar were a bit down on their luck. I'm sure the New Spitalfields Market site (off Ruckholt Road) is also likely to be very profitable (although it would, of course, be much preferable to 'de-develop' it and add it to Hackney Marshes/the Olympic Park, but that's definitely not going to happen).
Anyway, all this would generate a huge increase in van traffic between Barking and Central London, not to mention that having such very centralised markets far outside the centre didn't make much sense in the first place and was a product of hypermobility optimism ...
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This is interesting, too--I'm not a fan of the 'affordable' designation, for obvious reasons, but these developers clearly expect the proposed hotel to be extremely profitable for them to offer this bung.
Inevitably, as with all such proposals, the 'architecture' is utterly horrible.
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I certainly wouldn't be sad to see the IMAX go, but obviously not, as Lambeth has apparently and idiotically specified in its local plan, to be replaced by a tall building, but to build a proper crossroads at the southern end of Waterloo Bridge and finally get rid of the roundabout.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/09/brutalist-bfi-imax-birds-eye-demolition
The idea of perpetuating roundabouts or similar arrangements is probably one of the most depressing around. There's some evidence that a tall building of some sort might eventually be constructed in the appalling Old Street/City Road scheme currently being constructed (not, strictly speaking, a 'roundabout' any more, but still sending people on a ridiculous roundabout way if they want to go between Old Street west and City Road north, or vice versa). Islington at present doesn't want a tall building there, but just still having that completely misconceived space there is a threat. All of it will have to be torn up again in the foreseeable future, anyway. It's that bad.
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I certainly wouldn't be sad to see the IMAX go, but obviously not, as Lambeth has apparently and idiotically specified in its local plan, to be replaced by a tall building, but to build a proper crossroads at the southern end of Waterloo Bridge and finally get rid of the roundabout.
Sentence needs editing for clarity
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This is London, my friend.
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I'm afraid I don't think it deserves any form of protection. It should go and a public square should be constructed with a crossroads. The IMAX and the roundabout are a huge barrier to everything there, including the South Bank.
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The roundabout was there long before the imax. While in general I agree that roundabouts should be got rid of, this one is unusual enough in its context and character that perhaps it could be kept. A museum piece in a future London of improved streetscape.
It should also be possible to understand why a building might have merit as a separate point to your opinion about what should be done to that junction. Personally I don't "like" it so much as appreciate it. It's quite a special building of its time and place. Brian Avery was always quite sore about the giant advertising - it was supposed to be a space for art. Perhaps that was naive.
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The roundabout was there long before the imax.
Well, of course. But long before the roundabout there was a simple crossroads.
https://maps.nls.uk/view/102345964
I'm afraid I think the IMAX building is just in the wrong place. I think architecturally it is very indistinct, but whatever my or anyone else's opinion of that may be, it is not a good idea to build buildings in the middle of junctions, whether they were roundabouts previously or not. It's a 20th century affectation, and quite absurd, that traffic should go roundabout in a city. The junction needs to be made simple and clear and decisions should be made about how to configure public space and where to draw in the building line closer to the junction again.
At the slightly similar junction at Westminster Bridge, unfortunately the existing building, a car park of all things, was kept and turned into a posh hotel, causing just about the most nonsensical street arrangement anywhere in London apart from Vauxhall Cross or Brent Cross or horrors like that.
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Thank
GodSadiq for that:Today a spokesman for Mr Khan said: “The Mayor has a number of serious concerns with this application and having studied it in detail has refused permission for a scheme that he believes would result in very limited public benefit.
“In particular, he believes that the design is of insufficient quality for such a prominent location, and that the tower would result in harm to London’s skyline and impact views of the nearby Tower of London World Heritage Site.
"The proposals would also result in an unwelcoming, poorly-designed public space at street level.”
Still, I suppose the practice concerned got itself a lot of publicity ...
Let's see if there's any Secretary of State action.
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Roundabout removal proposed.
https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/waterloo-roundabout
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About
Town planning in London, planning proposals and applications, and planning decisions
Posted by
@Oliver Schick
I don't think we have a thread yet for more general discussion of town planning issues. These often have an impact on public spaces, the subject of this discussion, but buildings of course include public buildings. Even more generally, little influences towns and cities as much as where people live and where they have to go to do what they want to do, and the impact of this on the public spaces in between.
The vast majority of streets are public spaces, generally owned by accountable public authorities, and the buildings along them have a big influence on how a street 'feels'. (For the increasing phenomenon of privatised 'public' spaces, see this thread: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/292623/) For instance, if the street is a narrow canyon between very tall façades, it will get less light; if all the buildings along a street are office buildings, it will feel deserted and without 'eyes on the street' outside of working hours.
Planning decisions are constantly made and constantly implemented. Most are bread-and-butter boring, but there are interesting ones every week.