Labour has often repeated its ambitions to build a generation of New Towns to deliver 1.5 million new homes. What might have escaped most people’s attention, however, was what these towns might actually be and look like. After all, there is a big difference between successful historic extensions to cities, such as Edinburgh’s New Town […]
Nicholas Boys Smith asks how can Britain reinvigorate its ‘little platoons’ and restitch its social fabric, in a talk he gave to Onward at the Unherd Club in central London In advance of Create Streets’s major Restitch summit into how we reweave our social fabric, I was recently asked by the think tank Onward to […]
James Armitage talks about the proposals for Sandycote, a development of 44 new houses arranged around a village green. The project was undertaken in conjunction with Create Streets, for the developer Latis Group. The scheme has recently received planning permission and attracted much praise from the East Devon Planning Committee. Sandycote – the green We […]
The Phoenix, a low-car ‘gentle density’ development in East Sussex, presents a radical alternative to most development, but remains rooted in place, writes Human Nature’s Anthony Pearce At the pen of the visiting writer, places are often reduced to their most immediate and famous elements, creating imaginary neatness and homogeneity. In the case of Lewes, […]
We were recently approached by ADAM Architecture to launch a nationwide survey on street safety. The design of our streets & squares really influences where we choose to walk, cycle or spend time making them busy or empty. The #SafeStreets survey aims to identify streets and places where people do & don’t feel safe across […]
Leon Furkert of the Dresden Historical Society tells the story of Dresden’s renaissance At our recent Restitch conference in Coventry, Leon Furkert from the Dresden Historical Society, spoke movingly about ‘how the city was given its heart back’, about the citizen-led and locally popular rebuilding of Dresden’s Frauenkirche and old towns. An ‘optional extra’ during […]
On 7-8 March 2024, Create Streets co-hosted our second Restitch summit in Coventry. This was for the foreword to the summit which greeted delegates from our founding chair, Nicholas Boys Smith alongside Adam Hawksbee, deputy director of Onward, and Josh Simons, director of Labour Together. Social fabric matters. The places we inhabit, the people we […]
Sheila Hawkins writes about the marvellous home-making work of the Broadwindsor Group Parish Community Land Trust with some additional thoughts from Alison Ward of Middlemarch Community Led Housing and Nicholas Boys Smith. At the beginning of September 2023 families with smiling faces began moving into to their brand new homes at Northcombe Lea in Drimpton, […]
Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor discuss the genesis and ongoing success of their traditional design course at Kingston University as it passes its thirteenth birthday. In 2011 we established the first traditional design studio in a RIBA accredited mainstream educational institution for over 80 years. At Kingston University we have pioneered a course of traditional […]
Create Streets’ senior architectural designer, Robert Kwolek suggests how we might add warmth to our streets in winter through lighting. Christmas lights add a welcome cheer to our streets and buildings when the days get darker and shorter as winter closes in. The warm glow on our streets and buildings provides a welcome contrast to […]