New London Quarterly Issue 28

Welcome to your new-look NLQ.

We’ve hit the refresh button on the design to try to bring the layouts up to date and give a cleaner, crisper, more contemporary feel. We hope you enjoy it.

Outside in the real world, meanwhile, the last four months rank up amongst the most significant in recent years for London, with a new mayor and prime minister having to grapple not just with steep rises in population and consequent housing pressure, but the whole European question too. Whether or not Brexit means Brexit (whatever that means, analyzed this issue in a special emergency Sounding Board meeting) the UK capital’s long history of proving resilient is facing new pressures or, as some would see it, glimpsing opportunities.

One of those grappling with housing and the city’s response is the New Londoner of the Year, Berkeley’s Tony Pidgley, profiled this issue. And another forging a new identity for the area he loves, Barking and Dagenham’s Darren Rodwell, is also applying his similarly no-nonsense approach to bringing wholesale change to what he sees as the engine of change and growth for the capital. While Rodwell is keen to press home the area’s history of equality and diversity, GVA’s Gerry Hughes is trying to do so internally as his company gears up for a new future across Europe.

This busy quarter also saw the NLA’s awards, whose overall winner Peter Barber reflects on his public consciousness and oeuvre in our awards spotlight piece. The NLA’s annual lecturers, meanwhile, Turner Prize winners Assemble, looked to small-scale workplaces in a way which neatly tees up the NLA’s forthcoming programme on the changing face of the workplace. Sarah Lucas looks at the series with a preview piece this issue, while we gauge the views of leading players on how and where work will take place in the future. Perhaps this will in more buildings like the White Collar Factory, Derwent London’s ‘back to the future’ vision of openable windows and more enjoyable workspaces, featured in the building review this time. Or maybe the world of more transport oriented development – epitomized in the work of Top of their Game practice Weston Williamson – will be more the norm as we approach Crossrail 2, HS2 and beyond. What is certain, however, is that a more politically eventful quarter couldn’t be around the corner than the last. Or could it, Mr Trump?

Enjoy the issue – and our new look!

David Taylor, Editor