Crossrail 2+3

The rectangular shape of Central London is best served by Crossrail 2+3 running diagonally east-west, intersecting once with all the other tube lines as well as with the Overground line. Spacing out stations at 2 kilometre intervals, allows most of Central London to be served directly by Crossrail, without passengers changing to reach their final destination. Similar to Crossrail 1 and Thameslink (TL), Crossrail 2+3 may fan out to serve Outer London, the airports of London and selected large towns outside London. With the possibility of doubling or tripling the capacity a generation after Crossrail 2+3 open, there may be less need for further increases to tube and train capacity throughout Inner London until the middle of the 21st century. This article in Planning for London 93/15 sets out eleven principles that may prove Crossrail 2+3 to be excellent value for money and to serve London for generations to come.

London 2050 AD
Whether London will continue to experience growth the next 15-25 years similar to the last 15-25 years is impossible to predict. What is more certain, is that boom and bust come in cycles, and that meagre years often follow richer years. No one can foresee what London will be like a generation from now, but looking back a generation, London has changed enormously since 1980 and may continue to do so for yet another generation. We may not see flying cars, personal planes or helicopters – but double decker trains or trams, electric bikes and cars, shared bike and car clubs, and automatic trams, tubes and trains may all be the norm rather than futuristic oddities – linking ten million Londoners with new garden cities, new towns and additional runways, encircling a federal UK capital.

• PIL 93/15
• Crossrail 2+3 4 page article PDF
• Coastal cycling

Lively, Bikeable & Zero Carbon Garden City

A Garden City for a Post Car Era

The above figure shows the theoretic layout of a typical 300 x 300 metres neighbourhood of the Lively, Bikeable & Zero Carbon Garden City, here a little altered to show the three districts of the city within one figure. Three mixed-used blocks are shown at top right. Two (twin) terraced housing blocks on either side of the local park in middle. Two semi-detached housing blocks at left and bottom. There is a communal garden, rooftops and a children's play space within all blocks. A flexible mixed use local educational, pre-school and civic centre is shown at bottom left, with sports courts at roof top level and in the local park. The terraced housing blocks consist of 2+2 or 3 storey houses, the former with either a garden or a roof terrace, the latter with both. All car parking is curbside parking in tree lined streets, longitudinal in main streets and perpendicular in side streets. The main streets surrounding the nine blocks have cycle lanes and roundabouts ever 300 metres.

UrbanPilot 2©16	THE LIVELY, BIKEABLE & ZERO CARBON GARDEN CITY
URBAN VISION	90,000 residents, 40,000 homes and 64 parks within approx one mile radius or 2x2 miles, 20 mins walking and 10 mins cycling distance of a central train station
NEIGHBOURHOODS	Neighbourhoods of 7-10 blocks 100x100 metres with 400-700 homes and 1000-1600 residents surrounding a local or larger park
THREE DISTRICTS	Inner urban apartments and mixed use (144-72 dw/ha), middle terraced (68 dw/ha) and outer semi-detached (30 dw/ha) concentric districts
HOUSING VARIETY	Wide selection of apartments, (twin) terraced and semi-detached houses as owner occupied, shared ownership (for both first time buyers and the elderly) and rented
LIVELY STREETS	All streets with wide tree-lined pavements and curb-side parking. 1 in 3 streets with segregated raised cycle lanes. Flexible ground floor use
CYCLING & WALKING	9 out of 10 intra-city journeys by cycling or walking. Typical journeys lengths of less than ⅔ mile to the train station for 5 of 6 residents. Smaller blocks to encourage walking
DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS	Building rights allocated annually to teams of developers and designers to construct residential, commercial and civic buildings and adjacent streets and parks
JOBS & SERVICES	Most commercial, civic and retail uses and jobs within half a mile of the train station
INNER URBAN DISTRICT	⅓ of blocks are civic or commercial, ⅓ mixed use, ⅓ apartments on upper floors. Ground floor uses include pre-school nurseries and workshops/studios
LOCAL CIVIC CENTRES	Flexible mixed use local educational, pre-school & civic centres adjacent to 1 in 3 parks
GARDEN CITY TRUST	Land and local civic centres are transferred to a garden city trust when completed
GREEN & COMMUNITY	A community garden (some with pre-school nurseries), roof top gardens and a children's play space within all blocks. ⅔ sq km of parks. 1 sq km of allotment gardens
SPORTS & HEALTH	Playing fields and sports courts in all parks and on roof tops
RURAL LAND SWAPS	House and rural land swaps offered to existing inhabitants and land owners. Using surplus government owned greenbelt and rural land
ZERO CARBON ENERGY	Electricity sourced from wind power and solar panels. Zero carbon homes. Commercial and civic buildings cooled and heated through a city wide geothermal network
E-CARS & E-BIKES	A quarter of bikes and cars are electric. A quarter of cars hybrid. A quarter of bikes and cars shared through bike and car clubs

The Lively, Bikeable & Zero Carbon Garden City is built compact, three to five storeys high, at an average density of 65 homes or 150 residents per hectare gross, allowing residents to walk or cycle for 9 out of 10 intra-city journeys. The submission covers the three main assessment criteria of the Wolfson economic prize, vision, economic feasibility (and governance) and popularity (with existing communities).

3D cross section with inner urban apartments, civic, commercial and mixed use around two local parks with sports pitches left. Twin terraced housing around a larger park with a football field in the middle. Semi-detached housing and allotment gardens right. Two flexible mixed use local educational, pre-school and civic centres adjacent to two of the parks 2©14. 

Zero carbon living is increasingly popular and higher densities and compactness offer possibilities that can only be found in compact urban environments. Being close to all daily activities add to the attraction of zero carbon living, particularly in cities with a compact urban centre surrounded by compact low-rise housing.

The present trend is for many young families to chose to live close to city centre services and activities, and to cycle or walk to work, school, nursery, services and shops, saving considerable time and money when children are young. The Lively, Bikeable & Zero Carbon Garden City combines compactness with high quality living in economically, ecologically and socially sustainable neighbourhoods, for very many residents on a compact land area to enjoy.

• The Lively, Bikeable & Zero Carbon Garden City: 6-Page Summery (pdf)
• Ebenezer good (The Economist)
• Wolfson Prize @ Policy Exchange

World Class Urban Place Making in the Thames Estuary

The inspiration for writing the article in Planning in London 91/2014 on socio-cultural and economic innovative urban place making, is a recent Centre for London publications on the Thames Estuary, Go East. Some of Southern England’s most innovative and prosperous cities, such as Bristol, Cambridge, Exeter and Oxford, have qualities that are very much sought after, qualities that need to be addressed if the Thames Estuary is to be an urban metropolitan success story. Being close to daily activities add to the attraction of inner urban living, particularly in towns with a dense centre, excellent public and private realm and dense medium-rise quality housing.

This article sets out nine principles for world class urban place making in the Thames Estuary. The principles draw particularly on innovative and prosperous dense metropolitan areas in southern England, Scotland, Scandinavia and continental western Europe, a handful of city centres in Australia, Canada and the US, as well as the One Mile Garden City.

A post-car metropolitan urban era?
Urban living is increasingly popular and high densities and compactness offer possibilities that can only be found in dense urban environments. Being close to all daily activities add to the attraction of urban living, particularly in towns and cities with a dense centre and dense medium-rise urban housing.

Building an entire new town or a major extension to an existing town is complex, not least because people's aspirations and preferences differ and change with time, because people and users of a place change with time, and because the economy, culture, religion, ecology, technology, ethnicity, education and the health of a town all evolve and change with time. In other words, building a town is not like building an aircraft carrier, space station, nuclear submarine, four runway airport, nuclear power station or delivering an Olympic game or a football world cup.

For urban place making within the Thames Estuary to be world class, perceptions of what is urban and what is socio-culturally and economic innovative must evolve and change. Investors, developers, decision makers, consultants and academics that are holding on to twentieth century solutions should take a giant step into the twenty-first century and embrace the post-car metropolitan urban era for the Thames Estuary to be a world class urban success story.

• PIL91/2014
• World Class Urban Place Making Thames Estuary 3-page article PDF  
• Extended 5-page article with precedents PDF

Spatial Study of Hammersmith

An initial study from summer 2013 identified ⅓ to ½ million square metres of development opportunity in Hammersmith as a result of a road tunnel replacing the present flyunder. The study identified the biggest development opportunity in the centre of Hammersmith with 7-19 office floors, from the college in the east to Hammersmith Bridge Road in the west, particularly adjacent to the Arch and the crown court.

The study recognised that most development can be mixed-use residential and commercial, except for the lower floors that in many locations should only be commercial. Many new development have sufficient sunlight from the south or west, and most provides little shade on existing homes during the afternoon.

The study identified new or extended parks or squares in front of the Town Hall, north of St Paul's Church, south of St Peter's Church and north of the Arch, some with mid or late afternoon sun. The four highest buildings were placed on either side of the Arch. Further high buildings where placed south of St Paul's Green and by the crown court, petrol station and Lambda Academy.

Perspective from feasibility report showing proposing high rise buildings surrounding the Arch with very short tunnel, replacing the present crown court building, petrol station and council housing tower.

The tunnel could be built in various lengths from all the way from Hogarth Roundabout to Earl's Court Road (4000m) to only the middle, from college to town hall (1400m).

The Limehouse Link is 1.8 km long cut-and-cover tunnel from built 1989-1993 at a cost of £290m. West of Paris, an orbital motorway tunnel 10 km long consists of a 10.4m circular tube for low cars only with two lanes in either direction on two different levels. In Seattle, a similar 2 mile long and 17.5m diameter tunnel under the city centre opens in 2015.

LBHF have commissioned a feasibility, a geotechnical and an impact assessment report and have prepared a master plan based on the initial spatial study, all of which where published in mid-March 2014 at the LBHF website.

Grand Central Station of (West) London?

Old Oak Opportunity Area is in the north of London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, 3 km north west of Shepherd's Bush, White City, Westfield and Portobello Market, where a combined HighSpeed2, Crossrail, Great West Main Line and Overground station is planned, with services commencing in 2027.

From Old Oak International you may catch direct trains to Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the Midlands, south west England, northern England, Scotland and Wales, in addition to central London, Heathrow, Canary Wharf, inner north and inner west London.

The station is expected to have over 250,000 passengers a day and rival the largest stations of London and the most modern new stations of Europe, like Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Liege Guillemins and Vienna Hauptbahnhof.

South Entrance looking north towards underpass and platforms, with Overground station in front and future new buildings and towers on either side.

Green Cross, Canal, Scrubs and QPR
The area may accommodate up to 90,000 jobs and 19,000 new homes on approximately 2 square kilometres between the Grand Union Canal, North Acton and Wormwood Scrubs by the middle of the century. A new football stadium for Queens Park Rangers is considered in the far north of the area, close to the present Overground station.

A series of new parks and squares are proposed, forming a 'green cross' through the area, from North Acton to Kensal and Willesden Junction to the Scrubs. New developments are expected to give a new lease of life to the Canal, as a blue ribbon connection the area from east to west.

New Great Union Canal Bridge linking the station to the north and east, with station far left and tower by Willesden Junction in background, looking from east towards west, without future new buildings.

Consultation of Vision
The vision for Old Oak was out for consultation during the summer of 2013. The document is called a Vision rather than a Development Framework as neither the Hammersmith and Fulham Local Plan is updated, the transportation study nor the environmental impact assessment completed.

My involvement was partly to complete five illustrations on pages 51 and 53 of the document, four of which you see here, giving an indication of how the new station and canal bridge may be integrated with the surrounding area towards the north, east and south.

Cross section through station showing from left to right North Entrance, HighSpeed2, Crossrail, GWML, South Entrance, Overground station and Wormwood Scrubs, looking from west towards east, with some future new buildings shown. Drawing published in Evening Standard Tuesday 26 November 2013 (PDF).

Concourse under tracks and platforms looking south towards south entrance, possible Overground Station and Wormwood Scrubs.

Evening Standard Tuesday 26 November 2013 (PDF)

Planning for affluence and abundant wealth. Or not?

My latest engagement in London has brought me from Hammersmith in West London in spring to Victoria in the heart of Central London this autumn, both very affluent areas, the former more residential than the latter. Working on spatial planning in Inner London very much reflects the economic prosperity of southern  England, where private affluence and wealth is abundant.

During the summer I passed through a majority of the towns and cities along the south coast by bike during three weekends, from Margate in Kent to Penzance in Cornwall, with Sidwell Street in Exeter an unexpected surprise. 

Plan for the future, not the present 

Having been through more than half the streets of Central London (zone 1: 50 km2) and most towns along the south coast, this gave me a new perspective on spatial planning, urban design, public realm, transport and urban policy. With vast amount of private and public money invested in towns and cities, too much is maybe going to waste. Either because the short term solution is not a long term answer. Or because planners and decision makers fail to recognise that past problems and future challenges are not equal. Or that they fail to plan for an economy that fluctuates in cycles, with prosperity followed by austerity and vice versa. Planning for a stable economy too often misses opportunities, either because prosperity is returning or prosperity is veining, but plans are reactive rather than proactive.

Give distinct identity to a place 

What makes Exeter's Sidwell Street such a delight is partly its built heritage, with many quality buildings in a wide variety of styles, from different periods and different decades of the 20th century. In other words, neither uniform, stunning or dreary, 18th, 19th or 20th century architecture. But the public realm of the street has received a stunning contemporary makeover, bringing together the various styles and materials of the buildings. I saw it at night, after light rain, when large numbers of first year students where going from venue to venue during first week of term. There were also buses going in either directions on a rather narrow carriageway, with the pavements on either sides being wider and having low curbs. 

Some problems are better left unresolved 

Certain challenges and issues are sometimes better left unresolved as they may go away in time. One is cars, congestion and car parking, an obsession of post-WWII planning. Another is demolishing or merging small dwellings to cater for larger inner city households. But people are able to adapt to their physical surroundings or move elsewhere. And maybe this is what spatial planning should allow for more frequently, rather than incite very expensive physical remodelling of cities to cater for challenges and issues that may pass a generation into the future. That leaves the problem of knowing what issues to deal with and what challenges to leave unresolved. But only a higher power knows the answer to that. 

People move on, and urban life too 

Observing city life in London, one is struck by the share complexity of how separate communities go about their daily life, but not necessarily ever being in contact with one another. The communities can be either social, ethnic, cultural, demographic, economic, age etc or a multitude of some of these, and sometimes live entirely parallel lives from cradle to grave, within the same or adjacent areas. 

Similarly, planning for urban life has never been easy, as a lot of post-war planning has proved. People change, circumstances change and society change. Not least is that very evident in London and along the south coast, where former lively communities have vanished, or new communities have established. Not least new ethnic communities have sprung up, challenging the established order. But this multitude of communities is maybe less evident in the physical fabric of most of London and along most of the south coast. 

Mini-Manhattans need to be the centre of things

Croydon, the regional centre of South East London has been a disaster in making for over half a century and it is hard to see how current and future plans can ever deliver the necessary change. Planning and delivering a high rise town centre is maybe as difficult as planning and delivering a multi-level town centre. And high rise living is maybe more appropriate in the centre of a very large and very accessible area, not in the outer suburbs of large cities. Similarly, high rise living and high rise offices may only work with extreme quality in the public realm. But that is only possible where finance is abundant. And in London there are maybe too many competing town centres for that to ever happen in Croydon. Maybe it would have been better for Croydon to plan a four to eight storey town centre, with normal streets, pavements and curb side parking, challenging enough in the outer suburbs of London.

My house in South London, halfway between Brixton, Peckham, Dulwich and Camberwell, on a small hill with views northwards of London from Richmond in the west to Canary Wharf in the east, during a (past) winter day. 

Public Realm Strategy for Victoria
The subject of my engagement at Westminster was preparing a public realm strategy for Victoria Opportunity Area, an area stretching from Parliament Square to Victoria Coach Station, including Victoria Street and Victoria Station. It included 3D illustrations of streets, parks, squares, trees and buildings, half a dozen thematic concept diagrams, a dozen diagrams of existing situation and detailed policies and analysis for nine prioritised areas.

The Victoria area is primarily the area on either side of Victoria Street, a rather narrow street with tall post-war buildings, some of them already replaced once since the WWII. Victoria Street runs a kilometre from Parliament Square in the north east to Victoria Station in the south west. The area is bound by Buckingham Palace and St James Park to the north, Millbank to the east and Pimlico to the south, both bordering the Thames, and Belgravia, Sloane Square and Kings Road to the West. The area consists mostly of private and government offices, bordering mostly private residential areas to the south and west.

Learning from London's rich built heritage

A seven storey office building next to a three storey church with a 41 storey office tower behind. Is seven storeys too tall adjacent to otherwise smaller listed buildings in London in 2013?

A ninety years old, nine storey residential building opposite one of London's busiest main line stations. Is nine storeys too tall adjacent to tube stations in London in 2013?

A eighty years old, seven storey office building with strong vertical elements. Can 21st century facades have strong vertical elements, without copying the past?   

Strong colours on an otherwise ordinary mix-used brick building in central London. Can strong colours add interest to modern glass, brick, stone, steel and concrete buildings? 

A eighty years old, ten storey residential building along a high street in suburban west London. Is ten storeys too tall in suburban London in 2013?  

A seventy years old, thirteen storey office building in west London. Is thirteen storeys too tall for 21st century London?

A nine storey corner office building in central London. Is three additional storeys on selected corner buildings too tall for inner London? 

Four storey residential buildings, with double mansard roofs in west London. Can retrofitting double mansard roofs on commercial and residential buildings add to the housing supply of 21st century London? 

Some glazed-in balconies on the upper floors of a new eight storey residential building. Can retrofitting glazed-in balconies add floor space and increase the sustainability of public and private post-war housing in London?

An unsymmetrical facade element in an already richly detailed facade. Can small facade variations add to the richness of 21st century buildings in London?

A rather terrifying 1970s Whitehall office building with maybe some interesting (if somewhat difficult to notice) facade qualities. However, just repeating the same facade element over and over again and the lack of trees along the pavement adds little to the public realm of the area.    

Large four storet houses along the Thames in west London. Is four storey residential buildings too tall for 21st century suburban London?

A seventy years old, seven storey residential building on top of a tube station in west London. How a horizontally orientated facade can work, if vertically elements are also strongly present. 

A four storey commercial building in a 2-3 storey residential street in south London. Is such a deviation of building heights unthinkable in 21st century suburban London? 

A rather simple but stunning station entrance, where curves, light and height is used to great effect in west London, without (necessarily) increasing the footprint of the building.

.

Who forgot to order more of these benches? The present contemporary wooden benches are nice, but hey, hardly memorable.

Who replaced this stunning blue and red arrow with the present very dull black and yellow 'Way out' sign?

Or this blue sign with white capital letters and white arrow?

Or as it could be with white arrow pointing left, right, up or down?

Waiting for the train home in the evening in mid July at platform 1 at the new Blackfriars Thameslink station, looking east towards Tate Modern, the Shard, Tower Brige and the Cheesegrater, the newest awkward looking office tower in the City, only a 10 mins train journey southwards to Denmark Hill station (past Elephant & Castle and close to Camberwell, Peckham, Brixton and Dulwich).

Waiting for the train home in the evening in mid July at the overbridge at Wandsworth Road Overground station looking north towards Battersea, only a 10 mins train journey eastwards to Denmark Hill station (past Clapham North, Brixton and Loughborough Junction).

Golden Living the Californian Way

After having visited all but one of the metropolitan areas of California, it is hard to picture the long term future of urban development, urban planning and urban living the Californian way.

Urban Sprawl the LA Way

The Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area with 18 million inhabitants spread over five counties covering over 100,000 km2 (total area) is maybe not an urban area with the highest qualify of life in the US or the western world. Its waste geographical size is maybe its worst quality, with people, workplaces and social infrastructure spread tens or hundred miles apart, making daily journeys for the majority of people challenging. The chaotic zoning with factories and distribution centres within the core of the urban area is also somewhat an oddity. Unnecessarily large residential building plots make local journeys unnecessarily long, for both the young, adults and the old.

Turning downtown Los Angeles into a prosperous high density mixed use urban area may or may not be possible. After a quarter century of redeveloping downtown, there is still a long way to go. The western half is mostly prosperous with new office, hotels and cultural buildings and a handful of residential buildings. The eastern, southern and northern parts of downtown are however partly derelict, partly car parks, in between 5 to 50 storey buildings. The idea of bringing Manhattan or downtown Chicago to LA is maybe flawed, as LA probably requires an unique solution to its downtown future.

Park furniture Downtown LA Style departing a little from the usual wood, black or green... but then again this is LA after all.

Whether more people would enjoy dense urban living in the downtown of LA if more public parks and squares were delivered is up to anyone's guess, but when over a third of households in LA are single households, maybe a new approach is needed. If only a third of the single households where to live in denser communities, that is 1.5 million people in 1.5 million apartments in the Greater LA Area. But then again, maybe apartment living is not the Southern California way of living.

SF Style Semi-Dense Urban Living
The Greater San Francisco Bay Area with 8 million inhabitants is different from Los Angeles in that it has a denser urban core of 0.8 million inhabitants on 600 km2, even though the suburbs spread out into 12 counties covering about 20,000 km2 (total area). Because of the higher densities in the urban core (in addition to some urban nodes), providing public transport (and public facilities) are less of a challenge, as many journeys centre on the urban cores.

However, whether the Bay Area proves that it is possible to build semi-dense suburbs over a large area and at the same time retain a larger urban core is a little hard to conclude, as at one point, the semi-dense suburbs may overtake the core in status and significance.

Bike stands San Diego Style comes in bright colours and in hundreds of different designs, here a more obvious one, in the shape of ... bikes.

Urban Living Returning to Downtown San Diego
Where LA has partly failed, San Diego has to a larger extent succeeded by bringing quality housing back to its downtown, combined with new private and public parks and squares. San Diego is also fortunate in that downtown is small and that California is booming. And in San Diego, a segregated tram system spreads from downtown into the suburbs, along (soon) three radiant lines and along a suburban loop.

Public Transit, Cycling and Increasing Densities
Extending the underground metro into the suburbs of Los Angeles was maybe a little foolish. The San Francisco and San Diego solution with segregated trams or the Chicago solution with an overground inner city metro would maybe have been a better solution. Most of Los Angeles is after all not very dense, and far less dense than the inner city of Chicago, Berlin or Paris, all three with partly overground inner city metro systems. Similarly, vast distances do not promote cycling as an alternative mode of transport in low dense metropolitan areas.

However, as LA has already invested in a 100+ station metro system, increasing densities around these stations is maybe long overdue. If only 25 apartments are built at each station on average a year, that will result in a million apartments over a 40 year period, or a tenth of the total housing requirements of California during the same period.

Urban Living San Diego Style, with narrow 'front garden' and entrance directly from main street into ground floor apartment.  

Competitiveness and Urban Size the Californian Way
Clearly economic competitiveness is as important as quality of life in a metropolitan area, and it is of little doubt that California is competitive. The competitiveness of particularly the Bay Area is partly historic, based on technology and electronics initially for military use. And according to industrial cluster theory, the more qualified professionals and the more companies within the same industry, the more innovative and competitive an urban area may become.

However, it may be that urban sprawl in LA is beyond the point where competitiveness is increasing. There are after all only a handful metropolitan areas as large as LA and SF in the western world; Tokyo, New York, Osaka, Greater London, Ile-de-France, Chicago and Rhein-Rühr among them. But there are many more large and medium size cities in the western world that are world competitive within a single or a few industries, and their sizes are nothing like the two larger metropolitan areas of California. However, as long as the US tends to be more competitive than Europe, who am I to tell.