Celebrating the Golden Anniversary of the Built Environment journal

The Built Environment journal, edited by academics at The Bartlett School of Planning (BSP) for over thirty years, celebrates 50 years of publication.

Built Environment is celebrating fifty years with the publication of a golden anniversary edition of the journal (Volume 50, nos. 3-4), entitled ‘Built Environment at Fifty: Perspectives, Landmarks, and Prospects.’ 

This special double issue features some of the key papers on enduring themes published over the journal’s half-century, reprinted within the issue, together with commentaries by the editors on the extent to which the papers have stood the test of time and their relevance today.

Built Environment has been associated with Bartlett School of Planning (BSP) academics for much of this fifty-year period: when Peter Hall (then at the University of Reading) became editor in 1978, through joining the BSP in 1992, until his death in 2014. David Banister, now Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies at Oxford University, and former Professor of Transport Planning at the BSP, has been editor for over thirty years (from 1993 to present). He has since been joined by editors Prof. Stephen Marshall since 2013, and Dr Lucy Natarajan since 2019. 

The journal, published by Alexandrine Press since 1979, addresses a broad audience of built environment disciplines including architecture, landscape architecture, planning, urban design and urban studies.

Professor David Banister said, “Initially, Built Environment was focused on raising the profile of planning in the UK with news and comment from the emerging planning fraternity in the 1970s. Over the last 50 years, it has changed in two fundamental ways. The first was to adopt a specific theme for each issue, with authoritative papers being sought by guest editors from key researchers and practitioners working on that topic. The second was to extend the scope to become an international journal with contributions and editors from all parts of the world.”

Dr Lucy Natarajan said:

Social justice is at heart of the journal, and we have built up a wealth of work on inclusion over time. The depth of insights gained by bringing together studies in different regions on a single topic, is a powerful lesson.

Professor Stephen Marshall said:

It’s intriguing to look back and see how much of what was anticipated in the 1970s is playing out now. For example, Louis Hellman’s 1978 cartoon shows a choice between two futures – a ‘mega-industrial future’ and a ‘post-industrial future’ – that still resonates today.

Individual issues of the journal have been guest edited by Bartlett academics such as Lauren Andres (Towards Women-led Urbanism, with Lucy Natarajan), Michael Batty (Big Data and the City) and Michael Hebbert (the biographical special issue Professor Sir Peter Hall: Role Model).

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