The Developer podcast

The spending power of disabled people, known as the purple pound, is worth £300bn: "Hello, does that not tell you something?" says Amanprit Arnold, a deaf city urban strategist passionate about creating an accessible...

How do we change policy to create gender equal cities? This story starts with a book: Feminist City by Leslie Kern. Read during lockdown, Holly Bruce, Scottish Greens councillor for Langside in Glasgow said it opened...

How do you develop a new town hall and civic hub in a community with a longstanding mistrust of its local authority? “You’ve got to listen,” says James Stockdale, Development Director at Muse. Your New Town Hall in...

As regulations on biodiversity net gain and sustainable drainage become mandatory, Carolin Göhler, president-elect of the Landscape Institute, explains why the role of the landscape architect is as vital as it is...

Local authorities are moving head with net zero and climate resilience plans, installing solar panels and heat pumps. But a recent report from Key Cities, a group of 27 UK cities, concludes that "progress is being...

We need to talk about SLOAPs, aka Sites Leftover After Planning. We've all seen them, corridors of tarmac or patches of grass with no purpose or social life. Could we put these fragmented spaces to better use as sites...

Art in public space has long been subject to hot debate. It was back in the 1970s that James Wines referred to Modernist sculptures as "turds in the plaza" and "Plop Art". The removal of sculptures associated with...

Street art has a lot to do with play, says Dr Lee Bofkin, co-founder of Global Street Art, who points to the evolving role of streets as a backdrop for content creation and personal digital expression. Global Street Art...

In this special 100th episode of The Developer Podcast, author Carolyn Steel hosts Stephen Witherford, co-founder of Witherford Watson Mann architects and Sophia Craxton, food anthropologist and manager of the community...

The construction industry is struggling to attract young people with an acute shortage of skilled workers hampering innovation and quality. Architecture and engineering need more diversity. At the same time, developers...

The regeneration playbook is to takeover industrial spaces in favour of housing and mixed-use development, displacing the garages, workshops and sheds and pushing them to the margins of the city. But an increase in...

The popularity of New York's Highline saw other cities scouring maps for disused infrastructure – and Camden was no exception. The discovery of a disused viaduct running between King's Cross and Camden Road sparked the...

Back in 2018, one of The Developer’s first podcasts was an interview with Linda Thiel, director of White Arkitekter’s London studio. The Scandinavian practice had been hired for the second phase of the regeneration of...

The Key Cities report, Culture and Place in Britain, identified access to culture as a driver of wellbeing in areas of socioeconomic deprivation. But how can we seek stable and sustainable funding for grassroots culture...

Horatio’s Garden Chelsea, designed by Harris and Bugg with McMullan Studio, has been awarded the coveted Best in Show title at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In this podcast, we sit down with Charlotte Harris and Andrew...