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, […]
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, […]
Hastings resident, Dr Graeme Davis, reflects on his recent attempts to create a new home… If Hastings Town Council had not demolished the heart of Old Town Hastings it would probably now be a World Heritage Site. Slum clearance in the 1930s allowed the Council to buy, at minimal cost, 191 old houses in the […]
Finn Carew of developer Native Land examines the barriers. It is no secret that London is facing a severe housing shortage. While the city needs an estimated 83,000 new homes per year, we are building less than half that. London’s population is growing fast. Over the last 10 years it has grown by an additional […]
Thoughts on Greening Up large sites from Berkeley Group’s CEO Rob Perrins A bird’s eye view of our towns and cities reveals the degraded state of nature within today’s urban landscapes. Street trees, greens and ponds have been lost, squeezed, damaged and fragmented. And urban communities now suffer nature’s absence in a multitude of ways. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Growing up in New York City, I took for granted the vibrancy and community that results from dense, walkable neighborhoods, beautiful mixed-use buildings, and effective public transport. As a young adult, I resented the rarity of these features in other American places and found a similarly rich urban life in London. In mid-May, eager to […]
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 […]