Tom Bage is a Bow resident. The inclusion of a paragraph on mansard roofs in the new NPPF is welcome news for the millions of people living in pre-1918 properties who would like a little more space or a greener home. I live in Bow, where different groups of residents have spent nearly a decade […]
Councils nationwide have signed up to climate emergency charters. So far so good. Yet all too often we find that sustainability targets and ambitions to support active travel are undermined by a narrow traffic-oriented approach to design. Many designers are used to working in a world where streets are for vehicular movement and nothing else, […]
Have you ever heard of Toulouse as a city centre whose improved street design is revolutionising local prosperity, benefiting from and in turn further catalysing the region’s booming economy? Probably not. It is not normally lauded as a case study. But the quality of Toulouse’s street design is staggering. The results are stunning. Walking round […]
Earlier this week, I had the chance to join a guided tour of Cambridge’s first cohousing project. It has been developed on a greenfield in Orchard Park, an urban expansion in the north of Cambridge, since early 2000s. Originally named as K1, after its masterplan parcel name, it is now known as Marmalade lane. The […]