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The article presents a list of books on art. The books include "Giorgio Morandi: The Art of Silence," by Janet Abramowicz, "Building the Bank of England: Money, Architecture, Society 1694-1942," by Daniel M. Abramson, and "Real Photo Postcards: Unbelievable. Images from the Collection of Harvey Tulcensky," by Todd Alden and edited by Laetitia Wolff.

School architecture is often taken for granted both in use (where it is naturalized) and in writing on education policy (tending to feature simply as policy setting.) Built policy instead points up the active and ongoing role of the material environment in shaping education. From financing and procurement to the design of individual classrooms, the paper works across architecture, sociology and policy studies to clarify the relationship between different dimensions of physical and social space and so provide a useful theoretical ground for future work. What is special about school-building and architecture that enables them to do policy? How are they used to do it? By whom? From city planners to students, a range of actors use different space-organizing resources to attempt the instantiation of (and challenges to) policy in built form. These processes are explored first theoretically, then empirically through a new Academy school in England. The paper deepens understanding of what policy is, emphasizing its intimate if taken for granted spatial characteristics, its ongoing-ness in built form and its travel by means of circulating images of buildings and spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new theoretical approach to medieval rural settlement, built on the concept of intensity, is proposed. It is argued that analysing settlements as intensive spaces creates new opportunities to explore the emergence of difference in medieval lived experience. The approach is intended to overcome the challenges posed by approaches to medieval architecture framed by binary divisions (e.g. inside/outside). Drawing on posthuman thought, it is argued that such divisions constrain the understanding of how and why difference emerged in the past. The paper advances this approach through its application to the study of house construction and domestic economy in the medieval village of Hangleton, England. It is proposed that difference emerges as everyday practices are performed in constantly changing material environments, generating situationally grounded but varied experiences of rurality. Rather than being subject to macro-scale economic processes, this approach allows us to understand historical change as a patchwork of localised interactions which overflowed the bounds of communities or regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008-2010 a new wave of urban development has spread out across central London. Characterized by dozens of new high-rise buildings and driven by an influx of foreign capital, this current phase of development is changing the face of central London more so perhaps than at any time since the Second World War. The emergence of a 'new London skyline' of iconic skyscrapers has received significant critical attention in urban and architectural studies. To date much of the literature has focused on the evolving and highly contested politics of urban design and on the changing space needs of London as a global city. However; in the wake of the financial crisis and the considerable pressures that this has exerted on developers and investors, there has been relatively little critical focus on the increasingly unstable dynamics of accumulation and investment that have seemingly underpinned a rapid flow of capital into the new skyline. This paper argues that analysis of the new London skyline must involve much greater engagement with the conceptual frameworks and traditions of urban political economy in order to come to a fuller understanding of why so much development is taking place at a time of continuing, and in many respects increasing, economic and geopolitical instability. Drawing on the conceptual insights of the 'spatial fix' and the dynamics of surplus overaccumulation that this refers to, the paper begins to construct a more financially oriented explanation of the rapidly changing skyline. With reference to a selection of prominent examples and an account of how global capital was called on to support the development of London's skyline during the crisis, the paper argues that this can be viewed as a form of 'spatial recapitalization' - both for individual projects and for the values of financialized capitalism that appear to be driving these markets forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore a modern example of the tradition of constructing cities and sacred sites as reflections or embodiments of the sky. By creating spaces which were connected to the celestial bodies it was possible to create human communities which were linked to celestial ones, encouraging social stability and harmony. Such ideas underpinned traditions of the foundation of cities from China, through India, the Middle East and Mesoamerica. The paper focuses on Avon Tyrrell House, a substantial private residence which was designed and built in 1891-93. The architect, William Lethaby (1857-1931), was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and one of England's leading modernists. The paper will frame discussion of the building within notions of the continuity of ancient traditions of solar symbolism in architecture, the consideration of function in the archaeology of the present and immediate past, and will refer to the theory of vernacular and material religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a gap in our understanding of medical history - the architecture of medical schools - and demonstrates the ways in which architectural form can be used to better understand medical epistemology and pedagogy. It examines an instructive case study - the late-nineteenth-century medical school buildings in Manchester - and examines the concepts that were drawn together and expressed in the buildings. Through its exploration, the paper argues first, that medical schools and spaces for medical education should be given greater consideration as a significant category in the history of medical buildings. Second, that buildings such as its case study are an important source of evidence and means to understand the role of medicine in society and the ideas with which its contemporary practitioners and educators were concerned. Third, the paper argues that, to make best use of buildings as sources, we should view them as agents which have assembled divergent ideas and incorporated them into the built form. In this way, such buildings have woven into them an inventory of ideas which can be untangled using designs and physical evidence., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

The 1939 airport terminal at Birmingham was one of the final acts of interwar aviation architecture and one of the most distinctive. To allow passengers to board or disembark from aircraft, a pair of wings was attached to the side of the building to facilitate so-called 'dry boarding'. This paper will describe the international context for this interesting feature, one which would not be repeated after the Second World War. Interestingly, such obvious referencing to flight in the architecture of airports during the interwar years proves to be surprisingly rare, though examples in other types of building will be discussed. The Birmingham terminal comes at the end of the development of a network of British airports in the 1920s and 1930s, and this programme will also be examined to explain this interesting building's place in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To show every minute portion of a building by drawing is next to impossible, and would be more laborious than useful, and therefore description in writing is resorted to, by which much labour is saved, and the intentions of the architect more readily conveyed to the mind of the operative.This paper investigates the changes in architectural practice following the introduction of contracting in gross for the execution of building work in early nineteenth-century England. This particular new form referred to two different agreements, either contracting for a whole undertaking by a single builder who agreed to erect the whole of an edifice at a predetermined price and time, or contracting for the work of a specific trade only.The changes in contracting the building work are understood as changes in building practice, whose material product would be the building. In a similar manner the building contracts are considered as the material products of the architectural practice, including not only the working drawings, but also the legal obligations and building specifications. This paper investigates the contract documents that were to be produced in the architectural office in order to build on site as evidence for a response of architectural practice to the changes in building practice. It traces this process in the adaptation of the writings of the legal documents to contracting in gross by comparing the specifications of John Soane's building contract for Tendring Hall of 1784 with the instructions and model specifications of the early nineteenth-century handbooks and practical guides. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the connections between the school building programme in England and the raising of the school leaving age (ROSLA) from 14 to 15 in 1947 and then to 16 in 1972. These two major developments were intended to help to ensure the realisation of ‘secondary education for all’ in the postwar period. The combination led in practice to severe strains in the education system as a whole, with lasting consequences for educational planning and central control. ROSLA was a key issue for the school building programme in terms of both finance and design. School building was also a significant constraint for ROSLA, which was marred by temporary expedients in building accommodation both in the 1940s with ‘HORSA huts’ and in the 1970s with ‘ROSLA blocks’, as well as by the cheap construction of new schools that soon became unfit for purpose. Together, school building needs and ROSLA helped to stimulate pressures towards centralisation of planning that were ultimately to undermine postwar partnerships in education, from the establishment of the Ministry of Education’s Architects and Building (A&B) Branch in 1948, through the Crowther Report of 1959 and the Newsom Report of 1963, to the assertion of central state control by the 1970s. The pressures arising from such investment and growth in education again became a key issue in the early twenty-first century with the Labour Government’s support for raising the participation age to 18 combined with an ambitious ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. The historical and contemporary significance of these developments has tended to be neglected but is pivotal to an understanding of medium-term educational change in its broader policy and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon architecture and environmental engineering students' approaches to health and wellbeing issues in design studio project briefs. The design studio project is a key aspect of the students' fourth year programme in a dual accredited (RIBA/ARB and CIBSE) BEng course in the SW of England. Whilst the overarching site and brief are set by the studio leader, each student develops their own project agenda drawing on extensive urban and site analysis as well as precedent research. Particular detailed aspects of the brief are then further analysed and researched as part of an engineering report study. The research draws on first author's earlier work on effects of non-prescriptive briefs on transdisciplinary studio working in architecture and engineering programmes. Drawing on visual ethnography methods, the preliminary observations drawn out of the study begin to consider key intrinsic/extrinsic motivations and assumptions students draw on to develop a health and wellbeing agenda in their projects and the way these motivations further inform analysis in the engineering reports. The implications of the research are twofold. First, the preliminary analysis enables new insights into assumptions graduating architecture and engineering students draw on to develop a health and wellbeing motivated agenda. Second the study has benefits for design studio education brief setting approaches in particular, increasingly drawn upon in engineering and multidisciplinary built environment pedagogy. Practical application : This paper enables new initial insights into ways designers (architects and building services engineers) approach health and wellbeing issues at early stages of design, drawing on a higher education empirical setting. It is particularly relevant to professionals as well as educators in the built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge Management (KM) is a relatively new terminology within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, although certain aspects have always been practised within the industry. This paper conducts an exploratory study of how mergers and acquisitions affect knowledge management initiatives. The paper introduces the CLEVER conceptual framework that was developed at Loughborough University, UK. The conceptual framework is used to formulate the key aspects organizations should consider when implementing knowledge management initiatives. The paper presents case studies of AEC organizations that have recently undergone mergers and acquisitions. The case studies demonstrate what these companies are doing in terms of knowledge management, especially to collate and deploy the bodies of knowledge held in the hitherto separate organizations, to enhance their competitive advantage. The paper concludes by providing guidelines for companies to consider in developing knowledge management initiatives to cope with structural changes at an operational level. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern for space in new homes in England grew during the mid-2000s, largely as a result of unfavourable floor space comparisons with housing being built elsewhere in Europe. English homes were getting smaller, but space standards in other countries appeared to be preventing the cramming of too many rooms onto shrinking floor plates. Therefore, government in England faced calls to prescribe national space standards as a way of guaranteeing a basic level of domestic functionality and liveability. Strict standards elsewhere were assumed to result in better housing products, albeit in the context of different planning and finance regimes. This paper uses interviews with regulators, architects and house-builders in Turin, Italy, to challenge this assumption and to argue that an appropriate, context-sensitive, balance between flexible regulation and innovations in design (frequently activated by site or space constraints) is often the more effective route to achieving greater functionality and liveability in new housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fun Palace, a collaborative enterprise initiated by the radical theatre producer Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price in early 1960s London articulated a response to the 'increased leisure' available to postwar British society. A critical model for cultural production in which civics met pleasure, the Fun Palace project aimed to construct situations for playful exchange conducted through self-directed actions as a way to activate audiences. Pleasure for all – a 'breakthrough to total enjoyment', in opposition to what was seen as existing commodified leisure practices – became understood as a critical agenda pitched against the elitist and interventionist Labour government's 1965 White Paper, A Policy for the Arts: The First Steps. Enforcing class-based distinctions between the high arts and popular entertainment, state arts policy failed to address the key role played by the media in the rise of the leisure society. In analysing British communications in the 1960s, the cultural critic Raymond Williams argued that, rather than opposing fine art with popular entertainment, social growth could only be achieved through the circulation of public and independent media, opportunities for which were at the time limited within the corporate structure of British broadcasting and press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of APUNTES - Journal of Cultural Heritage Studies is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper offers a close examination of John Tallis's London Street Views, a series of eighty-eight street directories featuring maps and engraved topographical views of major London thoroughfares published between 1838 and 1840. One in a popular genre of London guidebooks and street directories published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London Street Views depicts a growing and industrializing city and reflects a desire among Tallis and his contemporaries to capture London and make it somehow comprehensible. In understanding London Street Views within the cultural production of urban spaces, this paper explores the significance of urban streetscapes as highly contested sites of identity formation in early Victorian London, investigates the role that Tallis - bookseller, publisher, and Londoner - played in imagining and representing the city, and positions London Street Views within a particular urban space defined by advertising and other printed media in the early Victorian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends current debates about diaspora cities to the suburbs, arguing that new forms of diasporic religious architecture in suburban and edge-city locations are indicative of complex geographies of migration, settlement, mobility, transnational networks and diasporic material cultures. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the building of a new Jain Temple built in Potters' Bar, on the edge of London, by the Oshwal Community of Jains, we argue that the temple reflects the distinctive hybridities of new suburban faith spaces. The paper also illustrates some of the conflicts between diasporic faith groups and other suburbanites which are shaped by contested narratives of distinctively suburban landscapes and society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers London, an imperial capital, in an era of decolonization. Through a focus on the Commonwealth Institute, opened in 1962, and the Commonwealth Arts Festival, held in 1965, it discusses the place of narratives of the 'modern' Commonwealth in the city. Architecture, display and performance come together to highlight the ways in which postwar narratives of the Commonwealth were produced, experienced and received in London. The paper underlines the optimistic discourses of multiracial cultural community articulated at the institute and festival, and the ways in which these emerged alongside, and in relation to, other more exclusionary stories of immigration and miscegenation in the capital. It concludes by noting the sidelining of these Commonwealth spaces and discourses in the city today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Heygate estate at London's Elephant and Castle is a highly visible relic of Southwark Council's vigorous housing construction programme in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Now almost empty and facing demolition, it is to be replaced by a private development. The estate is a late example of the modernist style in British social housing: a style that is widely perceived to have failed and to have engendered numerous social problems. This paper draws an analogy between the radical impulse in modernist architecture and the aesthetics of sound art. One method of catching a momentary echo of the suggestion of alternative worlds hidden in the fabric of such buildings, it is argued, is through an investigation of the acoustic environment. The paper closes with a description of a sound art project undertaken by the author in and around the Heygate estate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of educational institutions and buildings in one slice of a big city over a long timescale. The city is London and the slice Battersea, an inner suburb of mixed character and volatile fortunes. The narrative explores the shifts and interactions between state and voluntary provision, local community needs and architectural fashion. Though the specifics of the story are naturally unique to the district, it is likely to be representative of the record of other British metropolitan areas during the same years. The paper is constructed in such a way as to draw out these potentially common strands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The “Design Research Laboratory (DRL)-10 space pavilion” has been built in the early 2008 on Bedford Square, London, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the DRL Department at the Architectural Association Architecture School. The pavilion has been a great success and it has attracted huge interest in the architectural scene as well as in the general public. The pavilion consists of 850 individually cut fiber reinforced panels and over 2,000 joints. Its complex geometry was controlled by architects Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang using a highly parametrized digital model. This paper is written from the point of view of the structural engineer, challenged not only by the complex geometry but also by the rather uncommon application of fiber reinforced concrete as a construction material. Physical tests on the proprietary fiber-C elements by Austrian firm Rieder as well as tests on their joints are described. Further, the paper gives information on the structural model and insight to a number of structural options that have been investigated during the design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rise housing, long seen as a postwar disaster, has an interwar prehistory characterised by debate between the advocates and critics of multistorey flats for social housing. In London, the controversy divided the political Left (initially firmly opposed to 'barracks for the working classes') and Right (willing to contemplate multistorey solutions), while others argued from a stated position of political neutrality for advanced modern solutions to urban living. This debate forms the background to a paper that examines a number of experimental slum clearance and redevelopment schemes, all featuring high-rise blocks served by lifts. All were promoted by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. John Scurr House (built 1936–1937), Riverside Mansions (1925–1928) and the Limehouse Fields project (1925 but never built) are examined in this paper, together with the local politics that shaped events in one East End borough, and the evolution of architectural and planning ideas that, after World War II, were to shape so much of London's housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the building that presently houses the Imperial War Museum, investigating the transformation of the archetypal ‘mad space’ of the Bethlem Royal Hospital into what has been described as the ‘biggest boy’s bedroom in London’. Following recent concerns in human geography with Imperial cities, it highlights the differing ways in which this transformation embodies a number of themes of degeneration and regeneration in early twentieth-century Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to investigate the origins and legacy of a significant 1960s modernist public housing estate in the North East of England. This estate at Kenton Bar remains virtually intact, and as such represents a unique example in Newcastle upon Tyne. Its architects, Ryder and Yates, had personal contact with Le Corbusier, Georges Braque, Berthold Lubetkin, Ove Arup and Clive Entwistle; and the influence and mentorship of these individuals is clearly evident in the design. Being selected to join the small team at Peterlee New Town in 1948, provided the opportunity for Ryder and Yates to work together for the first time. The experience enriched their architectural vocabulary and modernist values; and ultimately led to the establishment of their business partnership in 1953. By the time of Kenton Bar, it was by far the largest project that their architectural practice had undertaken. The office was greatly appreciative of Eric Lyons and Span Developments, and their work appears as a distinct precedent in the layout. With a pyramid in its central square, and an assortment of innovative design installations, the estate resonated strongly and immediately with residents.Today, even the pyramid that was removed some years ago, lives on in the collective memory of residents, past and present. Recently, weblogs have been established; and collages and models produced by artists, as well as adults and children from the Estate, in the style of the original design presentations. Fifty years after it was conceived, the interest of local artists and galleries, the tenants’ association, former residents, and pupils of the primary school specifically designed to be at the heart of the estate may not be unprecedented but it is certainly rare. Ryder and Yates have created a living monument to twentieth-century ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernism flourished on the European Continent during the interwar period. Its impact in Britain, although for a short period, was mainly after the Second World War, most notably in London. Key buildings developed over the period 1956-64 are Bracken House, the Shell Centre and the Economist Building, the latter two including a high-rise block as part of the development. Despite the fact that modernism exiled the use of masonry from architecture because it was considered to be a conveyor of historical styles, these iconic buildings use it to clad the structure. This paper attempts to investigate why this is the case by delving into who was the client, the design brief and the design philosophy of the architect responsible for each of these case studies. Besides these factors, another important parameter which played a key role was the awareness of cultural environs at the time which was significantly stirred by planning regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a theoretical and historical study which explores aspects of gendered space through the early nineteenth century urban ramble. It is argued that the activity of rambling represents a dominant mode of urban masculinity concerned with the physical and conceptual pursuit of pleasure, specifically sexual pleasure. The male rambler constructs his masculinity socially and spatially, through gendered codes of vision and movement. The author's concern as a feminist architectural historian is to develop methodologies which describe, explain and critique how space is gendered and gender spatialized. The notion of gendered space, of concern to architects, geographers, anthropologists, historians and cultural critics alike, has, despite differences in methodological approach, tended to focus on critiquing the paradigm of the separate spheres, 'deconstructing' this binary, showing its ideological underpinnings in patriarchy and capitalism. The author's work in architectural history has been informed by these strategies, but suggests new ways for thinking about the gendering of space as physical and conceptual urban movements of display, consumption and exchange. The ramble featured in a number of key texts published in the 1820s, including Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821), represents London as a gendered place of pleasure and enjoyment. This paper follows the route of the rambler, focusing on a number of spaces in the upper class and masculine district around St. James's - the Royal Opera House, Crockford's Gambling House, and several streets in the vicinity - the Haymarket, Pall Mall, Regent Street, Bond Street and St. James's Street. The ramble provides us with a conceptual map of urban space, one which rethinks the city as a series of gendered spaces of flow rather than a series of discrete architectural elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art historians usually find little evidence for the nature of communication between patrons and architects in the Middle Ages. Scholarly opinion has often placed the burden of new design with masons, but over the course of the later twentieth century this claim has been revised and nuanced. This paper uses the evidence of wills and contracts in order to answer two questions: what techniques did medieval patrons use to describe their wishes to their masons; and how prescriptive were their requirements? Its conclusions suggest that patrons, even of local or parochial projects, could make highly specific and creative demands for new works, based on critical and perceptive judgements of recently constructed buildings in their local area. It recreates the discursive and disputatious design process adopted in several parishes as they planned, contracted and executed new church buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper focuses on an example of the fragile balance between theory and practice within the space-place debate. Thus, the introduction outlines several theoretical constructs, which offer a broad view of the complex phenomenon of the space-place study. The article then concentrates on the experiment proposed by the Serpentine Gallery, in London, which is unique in this context. Consequently, this part of Kensington Gardens has transformed itself, little by little, into a genuine architectural laboratory, which analyses and exhibits the attitude towards the space-place relationship, as it is understood by the different starchitects who have built here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autscape is an autistic-led conference, organised annually in varying locations around England. Governed by a strict set of rules and regulations, Autscape is a social and spatial setup explicitly devised to accommodate the tendencies, sensitivities, and preferences of people on the autism spectrum. It is a design, in other words—as organisers and participants alike often profess—for an altogether autistic space. The uniqueness of the event, and consequently its value to anthropological theory, lies in the shared imagination of the setting by those who inhabit it as one in which neurotypical masks, otherwise worn daily in keeping with hegemonic society's expectation of conformity, can finally be removed. I introduce the concept of un-festival as a means of depicting this event, similar to festival in its goals of defiance and inversion, but different from—and in important ways, opposite to—festival in its style and architecture, in the dispositions it encourages and mobilises, and in its potential implications. The un-festival offers a powerful comment on this moment in history, whereby masks are no longer seen as an item that affords freedom, but as one that stifles it. While Autscape participants remain doubtful as to the actual effect of this event on neurotypical society, they do nevertheless express a desire that this project will have some longstanding effects. That once a space has been designed for autistic people that considers their specific needs and tendencies, autism may then finally cease to be interpreted through a neuro-normative prism and freed to be understood in autistic people's own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Renaissance gates of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge are by local tradition attributed to Theodore Haveus. Mark Girouard noted the possible involvement of the royal architect Humfrey Lovell in their design. This short paper tidies up the documentary evidence which supports this idea. The gates were based on the study of Serlio by the London-based architect and artists employed by John Caius at his refounded college, but were put into effect both by Lovell and, after him, Haveus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architecture can form the structure for internal or external gathering places, however, geographer Doreen Massey defines places, not by their physical characteristics, but as the points of interconnecting flows of people, goods, communications, memories, and imagination, positing that all places are meeting places. At the heart of the city centre, Nottingham's Old Market Square is where the local inhabitants go to work and play; protest, mourn and celebrate. It is a place of formal and informal encounters, where friends and acquaintances meet, by chance or design; where strangers might exchange a glance or a few words; where people watch other people. Originally a shared market place for Saxon and Norman settlements, the earliest maps of the city show that the footprint of the square has remained the same for many hundreds of years, though its design and edge have gone through numerous transformations. The latest remodelling was undertaken by internationally renowned landscape architecture practice Gustafson Porter: unveiled in 2007, it has won a raft of awards including the inaugural RIBA CABE Public Space Award. Drawing on work undertaken with architecture students to explore individual experiences of the square, the paper will outline some of the flows, past and present, as well as the physical elements, which contribute to the square's success as a place of encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1724 Antiquarian William Stukeley stated that Bath, England, was a "The small compass of the city has made the inhabitants crowd up the streets to an unseemly and inconvenient narrowness… a disgrace to the architects they have there." Within forty year of this statement Bath had become a 'Jewel in the Georgian crown' and is now a World Heritage site. Architect John Wood the Elder had a vision for the city of Bath that contained elegant streets, squares and crescents. These were not just individual buildings but they were an integrated plan that reformed a city from a place where people came to 'take the waters' of the hot springs for their health into a desirable city of elegant residences where the fashionable elite spent the social season. Wood was a prolific writer and published several books in his lifetime. In these books he considers architecture and history. He wrote a history of Bath, which was more folklore than history, that was openly challenged at the time. His history moved the historic focus of Bath away from the Romans and it emphasised the importance of the native Britons. This paper examines how Wood used architecture to memorialise the past, not through style, but through measurements and elements. He had a unique way of 'writing' history into his architectural plans and in this way he reinvented the past into a new and distinct architecture that remains aw-inspiring to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1969 book The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, architectural critic and historian Reyner Banham drew from a decade of his own writings about 'environments fit for human activities', heralding the possibilities of a technologically-driven, man-made climate that would eliminate the need for 'massive' buildings by rendering their physical delimitation of habitable space obsolete. In theorising this 'other' architecture, however, Banham appeared to be challenging his own simultaneous praise for the 'imageability' of buildings by the New Brutalist and Archigram groups in London. In particular, Banham's celebration of Archigram's formal visions for the technological future conflicted with his concurrent arguments that architecture could shed its traditional concern with formal aesthetics. This paper explores the existence of such theoretical positions in Banham's work during the 1960s and discusses reasons for his willingness to adopt multiple, seemingly contradictory viewpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London’s skyline is changing significantly with a new generation of iconic buildings, of which the Swiss-Re Tower is the most well known. Despite the fact that many of these buildings are located in the City (London’s financial heart), little attention has been paid to the relationship between the transformation of London’s skyline and the recent institutional reconfiguration of the Corporation of London, the authority that runs the City. Focusing empirically on the City’s iconic architecture, and foregrounding a period of institutional crisis for the Corporation (1970–1990), the paper: first, departs from the standard analysis of iconic buildings as signifiers of economic success, and sketches a framework for examining the role of iconic architecture during moments of crisis and, second, offers a new approach to understanding the City’s iconic commissions: not as signifiers of London’s international economic power, but as symptoms of changes in the institutions and élites that promote the City’s new urbanity. The article details how the internationalisation of London’s economy after the 1970s challenged the Corporation’s insular character. The Corporation’s resistance to the ‘invasion’ of foreign companies, people and architectural styles in the City in the midst of a rapid expansion of London’s economy and growing inter-urban competition, led to open threats from the government for the abolition of the Corporation. Responding to these threats, the Corporation reinvented itself with an institutional reform and re-branded its identity in the early 2000s as an outward-looking institution, open to London’s new transnational élites. The 2002 Unitary Development Plan that introduced a new architectural language in the City corresponds to the same need to construct a new imaginary identity for a re-branded Corporation. Towering over the City’s traditional signifiers, the City’s new buildings constitute an ode to the Corporation’s new identity and a visual coup d’état against its time-old heritage-oriented planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools in England have been required to adopt and adapt an ongoing series of policy initiatives: some however are offered on an ‘opt-in’ basis. This paper examines one such ‘offer,’ that of Creative Partnerships, a programme which provides schools in designated deprived areas the opportunity to work with creative practitioners in order to change both classroom practice and whole schools. We report here on the snapshot phase of a national study, using a corpus of multi-method qualitative data from 40 schools. We suggest that headteachers saw different opportunities in the CP offer but what actually happened in the school related to three interwoven strands: the situatedness of the school, the headteacher’s stance towards change, and the architecture of change management. Our analysis, which highlights the ways in which many of the schools were unable to ‘spread and embed’ the pedagogical changes supported through CP, suggests that the majority of heads could benefit from involvement in explicit discussion about ‘unofficial’—and more democratic—approaches to leading and managing change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence for the widespread use of unbaked earth as a building material in the East Midlands. In Leicestershire the construction of earth walling, or mud as it is generally referred to in this area, is documented from at least the fourteenth century. The documentary sources suggest that a greater variety of earth-building techniques once existed than is represented by surviving structures, which are mainly of monolithic mud construction. Fieldwork has identified one of these variant traditions for which the term 'mud and frame' has been coined. This is a coherent vernacular tradition with well-defined structural characteristics. It is likely to be one of a number of subtly different traditions in the region in which elements of earth and timber building techniques are combined. This paper outlines the structural characteristics of mud and frame buildings in south Leicestershire and draws some provisional conclusions regarding the origin, dating and status of this building type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mutilated remains of the choir furniture in this remote parish church disclose the evidence of a 14th-century double-credal decorative scheme. It is a unique British survival of this iconography in the medium. This paper analyses the monument in terms of patronage, style and dating, and recounts its remarkable afterlife. In attempting to place it within an English medieval credal context, it is apparent that, in any medium, such schemes are a rarity. As a result, possibly with one important exception, relating to the chapel glass at Hampton Court, Herefordshire, the subject has neither lent itself to the publication of a wide-ranging archaeological monograph, nor to an adequate discussion of the central importance of the creed and its visual expression in catholic Christian theology. As well as bringing to light the history and archaeology of the Astley programme, it was necessary to make amends by conducting a survey of medieval credal schemes in all media surviving in Europe, including the late-medieval Savoyard group of choir-stalls, with their carved-wood figures of prophets and apostles on the seat backs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a system for participatory appraisal and idea generation by a school's users to enable interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and architects, producing school designs appropriate to the needs of the school at the time and into the future. Our uses of this system in two contrasting educational settings in England and in Uruguay are described. We show how the visual-spatial activities supported the educators to consider education in spatial terms, build a shared understanding and produce representations that could be used to convey ideas to architects and designers. Given that participation and cross-disciplinary collaboration in school design is known to be challenging, but vital, we consider the features of our approach that enabled its success and make it viable on each and every occasion of school design or redesign. Further, addressing the critiques of attempted international transfer of architectural designs, educational policies, practices and buildings, we argue that our system avoids these problems through seeking to transfer not a project but the means to enable participation in a project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Environmentally sustainable construction is now recognised as a significant element of the broader sustainable development agenda and planners are being called upon to play a role in delivering more sustainable patterns of construction and development. This puts particular demands on the knowledge resources of planners since knowledge is implicated in the power relations between planners and developers. This paper examines the interrelationship between knowledge of environmentally sustainable construction and practice in planning departments. Drawing on a survey of and interviews with planners in London, it discusses the construction of knowledge within the dynamics of planning organisations and the potential for learning to promote a more sustainable built environment. Wenger's concept of communities of practice frames the analysis, alongside consideration of the translation of knowledge into bureaucratic and usable forms and the role of knowledge brokers in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis on the partially built architecture designed by Andrea Palladio. It is said that Palladio is one of the most famous architects in the history of architecture in England. It is cited that several drawings that he created can be found in London's Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) archives, and at the Palladio CISA Center of Vicenza. It is discussed that Palladio's drawings are made with pencil and China ink on large sheets of paper, which have the geometric drawing of the structure.

Pugin's well-documented criticisms of the Tudor style of architecture have caused academics to doubt that he designed the plethora of chimneys at the west front of Albury, Park. Given his strong architectural principles, how could he have compromised them so far as to give Albury a 'completely unconvincing Tudor dress'? Based on research of the archives at Almwick Castle, this paper resolves the attribution by investigating the commission, and the goes on to reconcile Pugin's personal theories of style, religion, function and ornamentation with his design of Albury and the demands of a flamboyant, status-conscious client. When we attribute of deny work to artists, the rules should be interpreted in the context of their time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avebury is one of the largest Neolithic monuments in the British Isles. Enormous earthworks define a vast enclosure on the Wessex chalkland, and within its boundaries are settings of standing stones which reach into the sky. The sheer size of this place is difficult to comprehend on the ground, and to enter the enclosure is to move into a space that contrasts entirely with the surrounding landscape. On one level, Avebury is a monument of chalk and stone. On another, these materials served to define spaces and create experiences which are less often the subject of archaeological analysis. This paper will consider how an appreciation of aesthetics might begin to dissolve these differing approaches to the material evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two competition designs have provided frameworks for ideas for the establishment of new communities. The projects provided the opportunity for the design team to consider core architecture (urban and architectural space) and its relationship with extended architectures (detailed design and construction). The building designs have been required to meet performance standards considerably in excess of recent UK norms. This paper describes the design approach and demonstrates how research (university and practice based) has contributed to the two submissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England's national parks, the design of new dwellings represents a significant and contested part of landscape planning, inseparable from park conservation ideologies and policies. Within public discourse, new housing proposals can be praised for enhancing the landscape or decried for destroying it, while the decisions of planning authorities legitimise or marginalise different points-of-view. Set in Dartmoor National Park, this paper explores the competing aesthetic interpretations of landscape and the rural as represented within the design and planning of two separate residential sites that were redeveloped between 1998 and 2008. Discourse analysis of interviews (with architects, planners and clients), policies, and written accounts (planning applications and associated correspondence) investigates the positions of various stakeholders in response to these housing projects and to their protected rural landscape settings. Results reveal how notions of landscape context and aesthetics vary across different stakeholder groups, with design quality, sympathetic scale and landscape enhancement proving to be key areas of contention. Differing interpretations of national park planning policy, the problematic nature of communicating and judging qualitative aspects of ‘contemporary’ architecture, and the ongoing emphasis on visual aspects of landscape aesthetics mean that incorporating new housing design within national park landscapes remains challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is presented of Pilkington Brothers' Headquarters in St Helens, England, which was designed by the architectural firm Fry, Drew and Partners from 1955 through 1965. An overview of the architects E. Maxwell Fry and Jane B. Drew's involvement in the Pilkington Brothers' Headquarters's modern architectural design is provided.

The article discusses the chronology of the Modern Movement of architecture in England from 1924 leading up to the founding of the Modern Architectural Research (MARS) Group in 1933. The author focuses on the work of architects in the Design and Industries Association (DIA) including Wells Coates. Specific topics include the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), architectural writer Christopher Hussey's formation of the Vers Group (or 63 Club) inspired by architect Le Corbusier, the Twentieth Century Group (TCG) of architects including Jack Pritchard, the Unit One group, and architect Raymond McGrath's salon Finella.

Wollaton Hall is one of the most important houses of its period, and the Prospect Room, which rises above it, is unique. The floor construction to the Prospect Room is especially significant because it is formed as a `Chinese lattice' structure, with no main beams clear spanning across the width; instead each are tenoned into adjoining beams running at right angles, which themselves are then tenoned into further beams, thus reducing the lengths of the timbers. This paper looks briefly at the history of the building and the floor, and then at the context for the repairs and the design development, which took place between November 2003 and May 2005, and the construction process which brought the floor back into full use for the first time since the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discuses the value of authorized reenactment and the delineation of the volume of violence in England through spatial art practice and architecture. Particular focus is given to the film "The Battle of Ongreave," by Jeremy Deller directed by Mike Figgis which is considered a significant event when police chased thousands of demonstrators up a field to the north of the Orgreave coking plant. It says that architect Bernard Tschumi argues that there is no architecture without violence.