Let New Yorkers pick the new Penn Station: Put all the different plans on display so the public can see them

Posted Posted in Guest Blog

This article by John Massengale is reprinted with permission from New York Daily News. The powers-that-be at Pennsylvania Station have new ideas about the future of the important gateway to New York. But look at what they do rather than what they say. When you go down the escalator between the NJTransit hub and the Long Island […]

A fork in the road for Bath

Posted Posted in Guest Blog

Britain’s architectural landscape offers much to celebrate, but it is in a fragile state and, even if the prognosis may be improving, its future health cannot be taken for granted. We face a choice as to which way we move forward with the new development our growing population needs. On the one hand there is […]

Do ants have a pattern language?

Posted Posted in Guest Blog

Alexander Boys Smith applies the theory of Christopher Alexander’s pattern language to the architecture of Leafcutter Ants. In 1977 the architect and theorist Christopher Alexander published his seminal work, A Pattern Language. It set out 253 “patterns”, physical ways in which humanity tends to solve the perennial problem of how to live alongside others in […]

Mansards in Tower Hamlets: an East End case study on the challenges and opportunities in densifying neighbourhoods

Posted Posted in Case Studies, Guest Blog

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 […]