From the perspectives of towns, cities and countries, we look at the role of the municipal architect today to see how this centralised advisor can help to cut red tape, mould an identity and connect stakeholders for better urban-design choices. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Urbanist, Monocle's program all about the built environment.
I'm your host, Andrew Tuck.
Coming up with these initiatives, it's like raising an awareness about the importance of quality on our lives and cities and built environment.
How can a municipal architect help to shape a city?
On today's episode, we explore a variety of examples of municipal architects, from the local all the way through to the national level.
We speak with one of London's newest town architects, head to Chechia to explore the municipal architect role on a city scale and chat with the firm charged with advising the Swedish government at a national level.
That's all coming up over the next 30 minutes here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck.
We start today in London, where recently the city's mayor has announced a two year pilot scheme to improve its streets and public spaces.
The program appoints 10 specialists to a selection of towns around the UK capital to support, guide and improve their urban environments.
I was joined recently by one of these new appointments.
Jas Bala, the founder of Jas Bala Works has been appointed as town architect for Ilford Redbridge and was given the responsibility of developing a holistic view of activity in and around the town centre and ensuring individual sites are viewed through the lens of overall placemaking objectives.
I began by asking Jaz to describe the area in which he will be working as part of this new program.
Redbridge is a suburban borough to the east of London, so it's just on the border between London and Essex.
So Essex is sort of much more suburban in its character.
So we're not in sort of central London, we're much more towards the outskirts.
That said, there's been a lot of investment into transport connectivity to that part of the world, notably through Crossrail, which is now known as the Elizabeth Line.
It means you can now get from Ilford to central London in around 20 minutes, which is quite incredible really.
And you can get from Ilford to Heathrow Airport in I think about 45 minutes.
So given that level of investment into transport infrastructure, there's an obvious desire to create new homes, homes that London desperately needs and with it new jobs.
And part of my role is to make sure that we, as a collective, the borough is applying sort of joined up thinking in the way different sites are coming together to make sure that we are getting the best of development coming forward and it's delivering for Milford's residents.