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Research subject
Thesis title: Re-Inventing the British New Town of the 21st Century
Primary supervisor: Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Secondary supervisor: Pushpa Arabindoo
Sponsor: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Starting date: August 2006
Projected completion date: September 2012
Through a historical appraisal of the twentieth century, this research looks at how the planning process and its key policy decisions contributed to the decline of Mark 1 New Towns in Britain. It establishes the way in which the new towns programme (1945-1967) was a coordinated planning response to facilitate building new communities in England. It then considers how we deal with the same issues within a different context, specifically; to what extent and how the New Labour's Urban Renaissance agenda (1997-2007) addressed the issues attached to the legacy of Mark 1 New Towns in Britain while developing a framework for sustainable communities?
- Biography
Helena studied architecture at the Bartlett,UCL and completed her Masters at the Royal College of Art. From 2000- 2004 she worked at Alsop Architects which is an architecture company that is characterised for its arts-based approach to design and creative solutions to public spaces. In 2004 after having worked on a variety of projects from the Rotterdam Master Plan to The PuBlic, an arts centre in West-Bromwich, she left Alsop Architects to set up A Small Studio, of which she is Director. A Small Studio is an architecture practice that prioritises interdisciplinary and research projects. To date it has collaborated with other architects, artists, photographers, policy-makers and product designers to produce a portfolio of work ranging from small projects to large urban interventions.
Helena is currently Lecturer for Diploma and MA students of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Kingston University.
- Publications and other work
- For a full review of Helena’s project, visit A Small Studio.
- Book review: Social Sustainability in Urban Areas: Communities Connectivity and the Urban Fabric, edited by Tony Manzi, Karen Lucas, Tony Lloyd Jones and Judith Allen. London, Earthscan, 2010 244pp.,