Kelvin Campbell, one of the world’s leading urban designers and founding partner of UK practice Urban Initiatives, says the problem has been caused by trying to replace the role of the public sector with the private sector.
“The public sector has expected the private sector to deliver projects that are too big, too intertwined and often too-self centred”,he says. The result is typically large, soul-less developments that suck that life out of surrounding areas and yet often struggle to prosper themselves – a classic example being Elephant and Castle in London.
Campbell calls for the re-establishment of a more fine-grained approach to defining and regulating new development, based on a street-plot-block-building relationship. While a ‘big picture’ is still needed, he believes this is better achieved through a series of ‘extra small’ interventions rather than an ‘extra large’ masterplan.
He cites the Scotswood housing development in Newcastle and the Aylesbury estate in south London as recent examples of plans that focus on the design and delivery of small, flexible plots. However, such plots only come about through subdivision – which Campbell says is a ‘lost art’ that needs to be rediscovered.
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