Centring on the Olympic Fringe

Steven Tomlinson , a senior designer at the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), describes the challenges that exist post-Games in fully integrating the Olympic Park into the wider city's fabric and linking surrounding neighbourhoods with the site. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Works In/On//Around///Behind Progress

Artist Hilary Powell describes how her work in film, food and the pop-up book offers playful critiques of regeneration and place making. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Two-Speed Landscape: The Reforestation of the Thames Estuary

Tom Noonan describes how, for this award-winning project, he took up the pen and developed a hybrid drawing technique that exploited the benefits of both the analogue and the digital - characterised by the tactility of the hand and the precision of the computer. He explains that a preoccupation with representation was further ‘reflected and supported by the programme, narrative and language of the architecture’.     

Is Sustainability Just Another “Ism”?

Here Hattie Hartman , author of a significant new book London 2012: Sustainable Design: Delivering an Olympic Legacy, and Sustainability Editor of The Architects' Journal (AJ), argues sustainability's corner. Is there a danger that a new emphasis on scarcity per se fails to acknowledge the considerable inroads that have been made by design professionals and the construction industry in developing a more sustainable built environment? Should the complexity of low-carbon building regulations and intimidating certification systems alone be sufficient reason to abandon a project that is showing signs of gaining ground and effectively disseminating its knowledge base?     

Some Key Figures in London's Regeneration

A number of powerful individuals have played a significant role promoting regeneration in London. Peter Murray describes some of those who make up this important network of politicians, civil servants, planners and developers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The London Way: The Politics of London's Strategic Design

Matthew Carmona tracks the vicissitudes of London's political engagement in urban design over the last decade. He reveals the strengths, weaknesses and remarkable similarities of the approaches of the two Mayors of London, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Global Architectural Influences on London

London today has become ‘a laboratory and testing ground’ for neoliberal capitalism, attracting investment from the Middle East, Russia, India, the Far East and Australasia as well as the US. Murray Fraser describes the urban impact of economic globalisation in the capital, while exploring ways that it might potentially be countered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tracking,Tagging and Scanning the City

The proliferation of social media and software, such as building information modelling (BIM), has led to an unprecedented accumulation of data in the last few years, which can be tracked, tagged and scanned.With it, buildings and cities have been transformed into portals for information. Andrew Hudson-Smith , Director at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London (UCL), describes how the ability to use emerging urban analytic tool kits provides the possibility of a real-time view of the city and a crystal-ball-like glimpse into urban networks of the future.     

The Deep Structure of the Picturesque

The late Paul Coates was one of the first students at the Architectural Association (AA) in London to submit an international computation-based diploma, in 1969. Responsible for introducing a series of computational techniques, Coates was also the founder of the MSc in Computing and Design at the University of East London, and in 2002 the Centre for Evolutionary Computing in Architecture (CECA). In this unpublished article from 2008, which has been prepared and rewritten for publication by Christian Derix , Coates recounts his pursuit of ‘the particle physics of architecture’ - geometric rules that inform both unplanned and planned human occupation of space.     

Designing Inequality?

How much is the design profession to blame for the stark inequality of Brazilian cities and other global metropolises? Ricky Burdett , Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Director of its Cities and the Urban Age Programme, questions the ability of designers to often fully ‘grasp the social and environmental implications of the spatial decisions they take’.     

Scarcity and Abundance: Urban Agriculture in Cuba and the US

In urban agriculture, there is a direct connection between scarcity and abundance: with the threat of food shortages so often acting as an effective trigger for food-growing enterprises. Produce can also be grown with few or limited resources. André Viljoen and Katrin Bohn of Bohn&Viljoen Architects juxtapose the experience of the organopónicos, or market gardens, in Cuba, which have proliferated since the US trade blockade of the 1990s and ensuing fuel shortages, and more recent experiments in food production in North American cities that are learning from their example.     

Bridging the Threshold of Interior and Landscape: An Interview with Petra Blaisse

In a design practice dedicated to fusing insides and outsides, Petra Blaisse converses with Lois Weinthal about the atmospheric calling of interior textiles. As curtains and floor coverings furnish programmatically organised interior environments, they reflect larger spatial and historic contexts to demonstrate a confluence of micro and macro scales. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emerging Technologies and Drawings: The Futures of Images in Architectural Design

Mark Garcia , Senior Lecturer in History and Theory in the Department of Architecture, University of Greenwich, explores the technologically mediated future of drawings in architecture ‘without hands’. He highlights how multiple technological innovations are putting us on the brink of an exploding spectrum of possibilities for the image, and looks at three distinct areas of potential: new media and materials; emerging and future technologies; and theory embodied in fiction and art.     

The Persistence of the Pastoral

Architect, animator and educator Nic Clear challenges the contemporary notion of the pastoral to go beyond the simplistic binary opposites of the untainted rural idyll and the industrialised city. He explores how the narratives of the pastoral have provided a mainstay for science fiction and how this can be used to re-imagine nature itself with the aid of advanced biotechnologies to create new architectures for the 21st century.