Why we need a longer view of London’s high streets

Building on a Bartlett legacy 

Trained initially as an architect, Laura is a Professor and the Director of the Space Syntax Lab at The Bartlett School of Architecture. Reflecting the broad scope of her investigations, she’s also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Historical Society.

“People often mistake me for a planner, because the work I’m involved in is very relevant to planning, policy and public health.”

Her diverse outputs sit at the intersection of multiple disciplines. As well as a prodigious catalogue of journal articles, academic books and papers, Laura regularly publishes a fascinating blog full of entertaining details and reflections on the urban histories she explores.

Appropriately for a historian, much of her work as Director of the Space Syntax Lab builds on theories and approaches devised almost half a century ago at UCL. Pioneered by Professor Bill Hillier (on whose work Laura has recently co-edited a book), space syntax methodologies provided architecture with an entirely new scientific basis.

Through mathematical analysis, space syntax helps architects and planners understand how cities work. A key variable is the number of connections between the different locations within the network. The more directly accessible a place is, the more likely it is to be a central location that people travel through and use.

Stepping back to
see the stories of London's suburbs

Laura’s work shows how these highly connected locations are often established over centuries, with a greater continuity of land use than you might expect. 

Suburbs like Chipping Barnet or Islington are urban centres in their own right that have long played a historically important role in relation to London. Barnet was established in the 12^th century as a market town on the Great North Road that leads northward out of London, and its continuing success as a vibrant and prosperous suburb is partly due to these same factors.

There are also lots more recent, equally compelling stories that space syntax can tell us. Mapping the connections between places lets us understand the changing history of the high street and allows us to identify the era in which a high street developed – almost like counting the rings on a tree trunk.

During four distinct epochs, ranged between roughly 1840 and the post-war period of the 1950s, we can trace the influence of major changes such as the coming of the railways or suburban housing estates and new towns.

With the last of these epochs characterised by high streets that are less likely to be connected to the wider networks, we start to see how urban planning strategies and decisions can profoundly impact the life of the city, and successive generations of people who live in it.

Supporting a flexible, resilient high street

Positive changes that invigorate our high streets and public spaces can often stem from small interventions, too.

Laura emphasises the importance of adaptability.

“It’s really, really hard to reorientate a street. It's one of the reasons they persist. Buildings are also quite rigid – but if they’re constructed sensibly, they can be adapted.

“19^th century terraced houses, or even 20^th century suburban houses, lend themselves well to adaptability. You’ll find dwellings converted to shops below, offices above, and then converted back again to family houses as things change.

“The relationship between streets remains the same, but land uses themselves can change really fast.

“A local authority with foresight, enabled by central government, can allow for a great deal of flexibility. It’s important to think very carefully when converting to residential, however.

“That’s an inherently different way of using that bit of the street. Suddenly, you’re closing off what would otherwise be an open, vital aspect of the public realm.”