News
01.12.2004
Southwark Council Wins Award for Elephant and Castle Regeneration Scheme
Southwark Council received a prestigious London-wide planning award for the Elephant and Castle regeneration last night, presented by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone for the 'best public sector planning organisation'.
Ken Livingstone said the judges were impressed by the ‘’excellent team effort focusing on co-ordination of the council departments, external stakeholders and the local community’’. He added that the scheme ‘’has the added achievement of radically shifting developer aspirations away from a shopping centre whilst coping with challenges to focus on a comprehensive regeneration scheme with strong local community involvement’’.
Space Syntax played a major role in this regeneration scheme by conducting baseline research into movement patterns in the area, as well as providing strategic design advice for the Elephant and Castle Masterplan.
30.11.2004
Space Syntax Wins Commission to Develop an Urban Design Brief for Mitcham Town Centre
Space Syntax has won the commission to develop an urban design brief to guide the regeneration of Mitcham Urban Village Centre, London Borough of Merton. The council aims to develop an exemplary sustainable regeneration framework, and through this work pro-actively set a high standard for future development of the area. Mitcham Fair Green – the main open space at the heart of Mitcham - has recently been included in the Mayor's ‘100 Public Spaces Programme’.
Space Syntax is working together with Capita Symonds and CBRE, and won the commission in competition with CIVIX, Sheila Flynn and Stephen Taylor Architects.
05.11.2004
RIBA London & English Heritage Awards
The Trafalgar Square "World Squares for All" refurbishment project undertaken by a team including Space Syntax and Foster & Partners has won the RIBA London and English Heritage Award for Building in a Historic Context.
Project description
09.09.2004
Guardian Unlimited, Going with the Flow
It was built to be a modern, efficient, healthy and, all in all, pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing." That's how Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, in their book Good Omens, describe Milton Keynes, a town for which neither heaven nor hell is prepared to take credit...
But the science-based work of Hillier, and his spinoff company Space Syntax, takes a different point of view. If we are going to design good cities, says Hillier, we need first to observe them scientifically to deduce their fundamental rules. He believes good urban planning means relinquishing some control. Cities are organic: they grow, evolve and adapt. "I wouldn't design a new city," Hillier says. "I'd grow one."
Full story
16.04.2004
Building Design, A Building the Thames Needs?
Space Syntax analysis generated a set of curvilinear flows that carved out the shape of the plan. And it works. The openness and accessibility of the scheme at river level is perhaps the most successful aspect of the scheme, giving a spatial generosity not often found in private developments. The curves also cleverly allow maximum river frontage, and therefore residential value.
p.12
08.04.2004
New Urban Futures, The White Elephant of London No Longer?
Anyone who attempted to drive, walk or cycle through south London’s notorious Elephant and Castle will now it as a windswept, hostile, run-down, concrete jungle – with a behemoth pink shopping complex in the middle. But its days as such could be numbered…
p.6
02.03.2004
Regeneration & Renewal, What do we think of the Elephant and Castle Masterplan?
Comment by Tom Franklin: Southwark Council is to be warmly congratulated on its vision for the Elephant and Castle area. In its framework it talks about the new town centre becoming the 'southern gateway to central London' - that is an exciting concept that I think the public will be able to get a real handle on. As one should expect of the middle of Europe's biggest city, Southwark is encouraging round-the-clock pedestrian use of the streets and aims to rid the area of the horrendous traffic that has come to characterise it over the years. If this masterplan is implemented properly, there's no reason why the Elephant shouldn't become the next Trafalgar Square. Why not think that big? This is a national flagship scheme after all, and one that could set the mould for developing public spaces.
Full story