Thomas McGrath
De Montfort University, Leicester School of Architecture, Graduate Student
- -edit
Urban peripheries are important in their own right. In an age of increasing population growth and ever-changing patterns of urban habitation and participation, we need to consider afresh how to design them well, engaging with the best... more
Urban peripheries are important in their own right. In an age of increasing population growth and ever-changing patterns of urban habitation and participation, we need to consider afresh how to design them well, engaging with the best available methodologies and architectural ethics.
To find good design, you have to design something for itself and not design it, at least principally, to serve some other purpose or purposes. Periphery often takes second place to the needs of a centre, and design of it can become subsumed by agendas and matters that don’t directly relate to it.
Both the Barcelona (1992) and London (2012) Olympics were staged and facilitated on periphery sites in each city. Because these distil many of the issues faced by urban peripheries in general, I will evaluate them as case studies. Barcelona (1992) was for a time considered, almost without criticism, to have written a new blue print not just for design of Olympic parks but even for urban regeneration more generally. It supposedly became the model, the ‘Barcelona Model’, by which an international moment such as the Olympics could bring long-lasting benefits to the host city. London (2012) sought to learn and borrow from the Barcelona model but, as will be argued, the global-centric and city-centered focus of each of these Olympics has come at the cost of the periphery sites themselves by overlooking their inherent values, incumbent cultures and their local needs and concerns.
This dissertation will assert the value of peripheries in their own right and that their design should be brought to the forefront of urban practice rather than be allowed to remain reduced to an inconvenient by-product or a subsidiary afterthought of some idea or scheme of supposedly greater importance.
To find good design, you have to design something for itself and not design it, at least principally, to serve some other purpose or purposes. Periphery often takes second place to the needs of a centre, and design of it can become subsumed by agendas and matters that don’t directly relate to it.
Both the Barcelona (1992) and London (2012) Olympics were staged and facilitated on periphery sites in each city. Because these distil many of the issues faced by urban peripheries in general, I will evaluate them as case studies. Barcelona (1992) was for a time considered, almost without criticism, to have written a new blue print not just for design of Olympic parks but even for urban regeneration more generally. It supposedly became the model, the ‘Barcelona Model’, by which an international moment such as the Olympics could bring long-lasting benefits to the host city. London (2012) sought to learn and borrow from the Barcelona model but, as will be argued, the global-centric and city-centered focus of each of these Olympics has come at the cost of the periphery sites themselves by overlooking their inherent values, incumbent cultures and their local needs and concerns.
This dissertation will assert the value of peripheries in their own right and that their design should be brought to the forefront of urban practice rather than be allowed to remain reduced to an inconvenient by-product or a subsidiary afterthought of some idea or scheme of supposedly greater importance.
Research Interests:
Urban peripheries are important in their own right. In an age of increasing population growth and ever-changing patterns of urban habitation and participation, we need to consider afresh how to design them well, engaging with the best... more
Urban peripheries are important in their own right. In an age of increasing population growth and ever-changing patterns of urban habitation and participation, we need to consider afresh how to design them well, engaging with the best available methodologies and architectural ethics.
To find good design, you have to design something for itself and not design it, at least principally, to serve some other purpose or purposes. Periphery often takes second place to the needs of a centre, and design of it can become subsumed by agendas and matters that don’t directly relate to it.
Both the Barcelona (1992) and London (2012) Olympics were staged and facilitated on periphery sites in each city. Because these distil many of the issues faced by urban peripheries in general, I will evaluate them as case studies. Barcelona (1992) was for a time considered, almost without criticism, to have written a new blue print not just for design of Olympic parks but even for urban regeneration more generally. It supposedly became the model, the ‘Barcelona Model’, by which an international moment such as the Olympics could bring long-lasting benefits to the host city. London (2012) sought to learn and borrow from the Barcelona model but, as will be argued, the global-centric and city-centered focus of each of these Olympics has come at the cost of the periphery sites themselves by overlooking their inherent values, incumbent cultures and their local needs and concerns.
This dissertation will assert the value of peripheries in their own right and that their design should be brought to the forefront of urban practice rather than be allowed to remain reduced to an inconvenient by-product or a subsidiary afterthought of some idea or scheme of supposedly greater importance.
To find good design, you have to design something for itself and not design it, at least principally, to serve some other purpose or purposes. Periphery often takes second place to the needs of a centre, and design of it can become subsumed by agendas and matters that don’t directly relate to it.
Both the Barcelona (1992) and London (2012) Olympics were staged and facilitated on periphery sites in each city. Because these distil many of the issues faced by urban peripheries in general, I will evaluate them as case studies. Barcelona (1992) was for a time considered, almost without criticism, to have written a new blue print not just for design of Olympic parks but even for urban regeneration more generally. It supposedly became the model, the ‘Barcelona Model’, by which an international moment such as the Olympics could bring long-lasting benefits to the host city. London (2012) sought to learn and borrow from the Barcelona model but, as will be argued, the global-centric and city-centered focus of each of these Olympics has come at the cost of the periphery sites themselves by overlooking their inherent values, incumbent cultures and their local needs and concerns.
This dissertation will assert the value of peripheries in their own right and that their design should be brought to the forefront of urban practice rather than be allowed to remain reduced to an inconvenient by-product or a subsidiary afterthought of some idea or scheme of supposedly greater importance.