'Dear Mayor of London,'
- Published: 02 May 2008 10:45
- Last Updated: 02 May 2008 14:43
- Reader Responses
Londoners have been voting to choose their mayor for the next four years. Here, some of architecture's key players pen an open letter setting out their wishes for the city – from urban branding and public space strategies to air conditioning on the Tube.
Ivan Harbour, director at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
I'd like you to take a really good look at how an effective city-wide strategy for street design can be implemented. Where are the 21st-century equivalents of the iconic postboxes, telephone boxes and Routemaster buses, all of which gave such a strong visual identity to London in the 20th century? Please can you address the randomness of everything from signage and lampposts to kerbstones and bus stops, which only helps to reinforce the idea of a city trapped in more than 30 separate design vacuums?
Also, how about considering an ingenious way of penalising car-bourne commuters who blight the inner city at rush hour, and give the funds to those areas which are suffering? You could also consider redesigning the entire London road network to give cyclists priority. I'm confident that two wheels could become the preferred mode of transport for commuters.
Oh yes, and when are you going to implement our 1994 scheme for the South Bank Centre…?
Will Alsop, founder of SMC Alsop
I believe in the policy of increasing the built density of central London; but as an addendum to that you, as the new Mayor, must continue a programme of improving the public spaces across the capital and making them more interesting.
I would also like to suggest the following proposal: in order to improve our public spaces they should all be worked up
by artists. No landscape architects should ever get hold of any of these commissions, because they have completely institutionalised the idea of public space.
Ken Livingstone has spent a lot of money on improving Trafalgar Square and I'm not sure it's any better than it was before.
Landscape architects should learn what lives and what dies – you walk around the city and ask them to identify a tree and they can't tell you. Green is good.
Diane Haigh, director of design review and architecture at CABE
London has enjoyed an architectural renaissance over recent years and hopefully you will continue this aspiration for a dynamic contemporary city. For people who enjoy looking upwards, it should continue to be an ever-more exciting place. Rafael Viñoly's 20 Fenchurch Street, for example, will combine striking offices with a potentially extraordinary public space at the top.
But people in Barking, Ealing and Acton deserve to enjoy the products of a commitment to architectural excellence, just as they do in Fenchurch Street. And this doesn't just mean a new library – it means real neighbourhoods and housing planned for long-term community growth.
London's housing need has never been more pronounced and developers need to raise their game radically. They need to start delivering more wonderful places to live. This needs the people with the power to decide – planners and councillors – to promote design quality.
John Callcutt, author of the Callcutt Review of Housebuilding Delivery
My hope is for a miracle; that you, as the new or re-elected mayor, will understand that social justice, infrastructure investment and municipal services, if properly coordinated and consistently applied, can bring about prime market-led regeneration in the capital.
The challenge is to create value in rundown inner-city areas through eradicating the root causes of low demand. The objective should be to make living in inner London an attractive prospect for a much wider social spectrum. If you succeed with this, you might be pleasantly surprised to discover just how much land values increase to help pay for it all.
We need a Mayor who will use his powers to bring together all the threads of local and central government; thrash out new partnership agreements with developers; construct long-term financing agreements and tear up the planning rule book.
This will need leadership, ability, courage and, above all, a top team.
Andrew Hanson, chairman of RIBA London and a candidate for the RIBA presidency
Here are a few pointers to provide enough civilised homes in the right places for our changing population; to reduce the energy consumption of our citizens; and to enable them to get around the city efficiently:
• Get planners' fingers out of energy use and appropriate technology – this is dealt with under building control.
• Encourage planners and planning committees to avoid their natural prejudices and seek intelligent advice from design review panels.
• Stop planners micro-managing uses, forcing 'mixed use' on tiny projects, this should only be relevant for substantial schemes.
• Be more flexible over affordable housing ratios.
• Encourage a sensible approach to sustainability, with less legislation and more tax incentives to reward good performance.
• Oh, and finally, let me and my fellow motorcyclists use all bus lanes, park in all resident bays and get rid of speed bumps – and get rid of all those bleedin' bendy buses.
Rowan Moore, director of the Architecture Foundation
Please deliver a socially and environmentally beautiful city as set out in the London Plan, which was promised by Ken Livingstone but which still hasn't happened.
Trying to achieve 100 new public spaces may not be the best way of doing that. We need overall quality of the public realm in London. Make sure boring but important things happen – like putting a road back properly when utility companies dig it up. This is more important than a handful of funky public spaces.
A hell of a lot of housing is really bad and there hasn't been much debate about it. Of course there's a need for housing, but this stuff is going to be around forever – and the planning system should be used more effectively to get better quality.
There also needs to be a more considered approach to tall buildings. The CABE and English Heritage guidance hasn't been enforced and neither has the view management framework. Little consideration is given to the effect of these buildings.
Dan Ringelstein is director of urban design and planning at SOM
You should take inspiration from other international examples, like Chicago and Paris, where urban environments have improved tremendously over recent years.
In Chicago, Mayor Richard M Daley took over the school system, city streets and public spaces and made the city a more appealing place for people to live as well as work. It is his personal involvement that is leading directly to the creation of a better city environment for families and businesses alike.
In Paris, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë has taken over the Seine riverfront on weekends to create 'Paris Plage', which has successfully re-engaged people with the waterfront. His introduction of the Velib public bike-hire system has promoted a more healthy lifestyle and more sustainable means of getting around.
In London, the Mayor's approach should continue to push both the private and public sectors to deliver world-class development with high-quality designs.
Chris Wilkinson, director of Wilkinson Eyre
The remit for the Mayor should be to improve the quality of the living and working environment. London offers so much opportunity but still feels chaotic, fractious and tough to live in – more like a combat survival course than my Arcadian dream.
We are the design capital of the world but this is not evident in the general standard of architecture, street furniture and landscaping.
We have to invest in the infrastructure to make the systems work. Perhaps we could plan a system of landscaped walking routes which could connect important areas of the city away from the traffic? These could be shared with personal mobility aids such as Segways and electric scooters.
May I also make a plea for more bridges across the river to address the north/south divide? Apart from the fine Millennium Bridge and the Hungerford footbridges, we haven't built any new bridges for centuries despite massive developments on both banks.
Elliot Lipton, managing director of developer First Base
No matter who is named the next Mayor of London in this week's election, there needs to be a long-term partnership approach with the private sector. Quality design with consistent standards across genuinely mixed-tenure communities should be at the heart of your vision for London. Affordability will inevitably continue to be a dominant factor, and any new strategy should encourage the creation of ways to unlock public-sector land to increase the supply of housing in the capital.
And of course sustainability must remain at the top of the agenda, but not just in the form of environmental initiatives. As well as delivering more environmentally friendly developments, the Mayor of London should also focus on enabling sustainable communities through such initiatives as the provision of affordable workspace for local businesses, creating employment opportunities, and promoting the availability of purposeful amenity space.
Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects
We need action, not just vague political gestures – London can't afford a Mayor who can't deliver. The capital can preserve its status as a global financial centre and stay competitive by creating and maintaining the widest possible variety of jobs, and also by encouraging an integrated and genuinely multicultural society.
London has to be a city of innovation and ideas – and a pleasant and enjoyable place to live and work. Public transport has a critical role to play in this: I'd like to see air conditioning on the tube, more, smaller, buses on the streets, and an increase in congestion charging.
I'd like to see a renewed emphasis on creating high-density, affordable urban developments that draw people back to living in the city.The creation of proper cycle lanes across the capital is a must. We also need to instigate a properly integrated, comprehensive recycling and waste-collection system across the city.
