China’s environmental transformation

“The environment” has long exercised the minds of the Chinese government. It was one of the first developing nations to introduce sustainable development on a national and regional policy level and it rewrote its Constitution way back in 1982 – five years before the Brundtland Report – pledging to “protect the environment”.

Blade Runner’s Retro Futures

by Dr. H J McCracken

We are now only two years from the dateline of the original Blade Runner. Ray Bradbury’s melancholic future of Martian settlement and abandonment, The Martian Chronicles, has since long passed, and along with it of course, 1984.

The middle-class home

Compared to the many stories recorded about the British aristocracy or the Dickensian working class in London, there is still very little known about the capital’s middle classes and their domestic lives.

Design Museum Design

This might become an entirely new type of institution unrivalled in its capacity to educate the wider public on the importance of thoughtful and innovative design.

A Chinese Utopia?

Review  by Pierre Shaw  [ Oct 2016] Shenzhen is the city of miraculous conception, born from nothing and yet emerging now as one of the planet’s most ferociously rapid urban developing city. From humble border town beginnings just 35 years ago, Shenzhen has thrown itself onto the world stage projecting its population from 300,000 to 12 – 15 million (no-one seems to know the exact figures). It is yet another step in China’s march...

Mad, bad and dangerous

The media reports that more than a quarter of architecture students in the UK have reported mental health issues. This reply points the finger at where the real lunacy lies. In May 2016, the National Union of Students (NUS) issued a report that concerns about debt are affecting the mental health of 36 per cent of students. A 2015 report by Universities UK titled “Student mental well-being in Higher Education” says that “every year one...

Brexit

Brexit is is not a triumphalist moment but one for constructing a better future, one in which we have the autonomy to make decisions outside the technocratic framework of the EU. For those who are fearful, it is understandable – and there is inevitably going to be business difficulties in the months ahead. But let’s not forget that things were far from rosy before the referendum. For those who have experienced home-grown recessions or...

Church on the Beach

This is church as beach hut: a Crusoe-esque retreat for Beijing’s bourgeoisie to sample safely the long-forbidden religious experience.

Home is where the Art is

‘Re:Home’ is Cressida Brown’s revisit and revision to her 2006 play, ‘Home’. This new version is set and performed in-situ at Waltham Forest’s infamous, and now demolished, Beaumont Estate high rise tower blocks.

Libraries are for reading not knitting

The trust claims that libraries could make a ‘major’ contribution to public wellbeing.