< Previous | Contents | Next >

Designing Places

Forgotten places

The physical form of a development can enhance or detract from the qualities of a place, and support or undermine the intended uses. In every part of a city, town or village where there is scope for change - and that is almost everywhere - there will be a wealth of opportunities for achieving good design.

Too often, though, the opportunities are wasted. Sometimes the necessary framework of planning and design policy and guidance is missing. Sometimes the designer may not be up to the job. Too many buildings and spaces are designed by someone with no design training.

Often opportunities are wasted because no one had any expectation that here was a place where any qualities might be achieved. It was written off as just a mass market housing development, an industrial estate, a leisure park, a corner of suburbia, a supermarket's delivery yard, a gyratory road round the shopping centre, or the scrubby bit of land where the town peters out. Significant parts of our cities, towns and villages consist of just those sorts of forgotten places.

Dalry, Edinburgh

< Previous | Contents | Next >