📍Portland Bill Lighthouse!

🏞️This red and white lighthouse can be found on the edge of Dorset’s Isle of Portland along the striking rocky cliffs.

🌊Whether looking on from afar or climbing up the structure for panoramic views, there’s something so special about these types of structures. Built in 1906, like many other lighthouses across the country this site marks important maritime heritage.

⚠️Not only did it warn of danger through sound and light flashes, the unique signature patterns also helped people identify which specific lighthouse it was and consequently navigate where they were. Advances in technology and the automation of these systems back in 1996 meant the role of the lighthouse keeper was no longer needed; however, the legacy lives on through the building and local storytelling.

💭Do you know of any nearby lighthouses? If so, how have they been preserved or repurposed?

📊Planning Statistics!

🎤It was a pleasure to speak at the Platinum Summit on planning trends, particularly looking at decisions across the country on housing.

📑Every three months the government releases statistics about the number of planning applications made and permissions granted in England. From live tables and summary pages to an interactive dashboard, there are multiple ways to explore what’s happening in urban development at broad and more local levels.

🏗️Access to public resources like this is so important for a number of reasons. The data can give a sense of building priorities in particular areas and show how this compares to other districts. It can also help us see what development may happen over the next few years, as well as whether the planning process itself tends to be supportive or not.

💡Have you checked out the gov national planning statistics webpage before?

🏙️Adaptive London!

🏗️This exhibition at the @nlalondon is an inspiring showcase of exemplar sites. The focus is around the reuse of existing buildings, championing creative and sustainable development solutions.

📍The NLA shares that ‘these projects are shown alongside deep engagement with a wide range of industry stakeholders, highlighting the main factors driving successful adaptation while also addressing the challenges of reuse and retrofit, aiming to inform the industry at large.’

💡Sharing case studies like this is so important to help promote greater repurposing of our current building stock. Despite the industry emphasis around new development, unlocking the potential of our existing sites is critical for reaching social, economic and environmental goals.

💭Where is your favourite adapted building?

🎤Navigating the Planning Process!

🏘️Thank you to @thehmoawards for inviting me to judge the ‘Creating a Sustainable Future’ Award for the third year in a row, and also to present on ‘Navigating the Planning Process’.

🏅A big congratulations to winners @oxliving, highly commended @taylorsmithproperty and all who put their projects forward for the ‘Creating a Sustainable Future’ Award. Recognising the value and contribution of housing to wider social, economic and environmental challenges could not be more critical – so it’s been an honour to judge this category.

👏🏽I also want to celebrate @vannvogstad and the @cohohmosoftware team not only for yet another fantastic event, but their consistent and proactive approach in bringing together this community. Bettering the quality and compliance of HMOs across the country starts with empowering the people behind the projects.

💭Will you be attending the next one?

🪴Glasgow Botanic Gardens!

🔬Dating as far back as the 1800s, Glasgow Botanic Gardens have been supporting conservation, science and education for over 200 years.

🌱Despite being located in one of Scotland’s major cities, this pocket of Glasgow hosts a vast and impressive range of biodiversity. Wandering through the glasshouses, the different species transport you around the world through smell, temperature, colour and their individual quirks.

🌲Free to explore, the conservatories can be a great place to escape. Whether you’re looking to learn more about plants or just find a quiet space to walk and relax, there’s something uniquely special about these settings. Supporting and protecting Botanic Gardens like this is no small task (especially over hundreds of years!), making the work of groups like @friendsofglasgowbotanicgardens so important.

💭Where is your nearest Botanic Gardens?

🥳Happy Burgh-Day Glasgow!

🎂Glasgow is currently celebrating its 850th anniversary of becoming a ‘burgh’.

📍The importance of this is summarised on the #Glasgow850 website, explaining: “In medieval Scotland, towns that were made burghs had special privileges. This included the right to trade, hold markets, and govern themselves to some extent. It was a significant recognition from the King, as it helped boost a town’s economy and attract more people, traders, and businesses.”

🗓️The website also shares that the ambition for #Glasgow850 is “to join and support partners to create a yearlong inclusive, citywide, programme of events and activities that reflect on how the city has transformed, particularly over the last fifty years and how we can inspire accelerated change, for a better, sustainable, future, over the next fifty years.”

💭What city or town milestones could be celebrated to bring together your local communities?

🎤Arup X RTPI!

💡A massive thank you to everyone who joined our event last night on ‘Intersectionality in Planning: Designing Equitable Spaces’. It was a full house!

➡️In organising this event ahead of Pride, it was critical for us as the @rtpiplanners to use this session as an opportunity to spotlight the individual. Each person is the sum of many parts, with different experiences shaping how we interact with and design our built environments.

🏗️I want to thank the @arupuk team for co-hosting and all their contributions in this space, with a particular shoutout to Paras Shah and Mei-Yee Man Oram who continue to inspire and lead in their work. Our speakers Chris Watkins, Jenny McLaughlin and Machel Bogues also beyond delivered. Thank you for all that you are doing across your industries to champion intersectional thinking, research for meaningful action and having ‘the difficult conversations’.

🔓To quote Jenny, “design has the power to include or exclude”. I truly believe that by sharing learnings, tools and case studies we can drive the changes we’re aspiring to as an industry.

⛪️St Joseph`s Church in Highgate!

📍Built on a hilltop, this Roman Catholic church is a prominent building, both locally and from farther away across the London skyline.

🕰️Completed as far back as the 1800s, the site is a designated heritage asset. This makes it a historic architectural gem as well as a functional place of worship, weaving old and new lives together in this unique corner of North London.

🌱Walking beyond the building itself, the grounds also host a food garden. This is not uncommon for churches, where connection to soil and the stewardship of land are practices that have helped nurture wider spirituality for generations. This can be about encouraging fellowship, respecting and caring for the Earth, and even supporting food growth to share locally.

💭Are there places near you that help you connect to history, nature and spirituality, escaping day to day life?

🌫️Fanal Forest!

📍Fanal Forest is part of the indigenous Laurisilva, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site described as “the largest surviving area of laurel forest”.

🌳The UNESCO page goes on to emphasise the critical value of the site, noting “the forests of the property and their associated biological and ecological process are largely undisturbed, and play a predominant role in the island´s hydrological balance.”

🪵The thick mist is a stark contrast to the island’s stereotypical sunny skies, setting the storybook scene for what feels like an enchanted forest. Twisting, moss-covered ancient trees pose across the landscape with authority and wisdom, thriving within their environment. Across the areas of primary laurisilva remaining on Madeira, @unesco highlights this “includes some massive old trees, possibly over 800 years old, which have been growing since before the island was settled.”

💭As pressures to urbanise increase, how can we prevent chipping away at special natural sites? What does ‘special’ mean for you?

🦎Madeira Lizards!

💻The beach has always been my favourite office, though I wasn’t quite expecting so many colleagues to join me on the rocky Madeira coastline this week…

🔍In fact, the visibly high populations of Madeira lizards inspired a publication in 2023 by the British Herpetological Society (BHS) entitled “The Madeira lizard Teira dugesii may have the greatest population density of any terrestrial vertebrate”. The conclusions of their survey highlighted:

📈“Although achieving comparable estimates of population density across species is challenging, we here report that the Madeira lizard has a very high population density, indeed one of the highest amongst terrestrial vertebrate species in terms of number of individuals… We suspect this is a consequence of unusually low predation pressure on Madeira lizards from the paucity of predators on Madeira, and encourage more detailed studies into the natural history of this species.”

💡As we endeavour to protect biodiversity, how can we support, improve and share important ecological surveying globally?

🏡Retrofit Community!

🎤Thank you to the @retrofitworks team for inviting me along to this celebratory event, launching their new silver membership at @sustainableventures.

💡This exciting initiative celebrates collaboration and community across the industry, emphasising how important adapting our existing building stock is. The day was incredibly inspiring, talking through the membership offering as well as how we can improve skills, quality control, financing, recruitment and more to practically work towards government decarbonisation targets.

📍The launch event brought together passionate professionals dedicated to a greener future, showcasing RetrofitWorks’ commitment to empowering local supply chains and delivering real change. My favourite message from the day was “stronger together”, spotlighting the power in collective action and shared learning for sustainability.

➡️To learn more about the new membership and upcoming opportunities, check out @retrofitworks!

📍Old Towns!

🗝️An ‘Old Town’ commonly refers to a historic district within a town or city.

🌆They are often found within the hearts of many European cities, reflecting centuries of culture, politics, and daily life as the roots of the urban area. These districts, like Bratislava’s Old Town, can provide a charming story-book contrast with wider modern urban development, for example through preserved historic street layouts, walls, architecture and more.

📑These areas are important for heritage, tourism, and local identity, which is why they are generally conserved by special designations and planning policy. However, such rules can also make it difficult to ensure their enjoyment is accessible for all (e.g. retrofitting elevators, widening narrow streets, etc.).

💭Is there an ‘Old Town’ where you live? How well has it been preserved or changed over the years?

📍Bratislava’s Statues!

📸Whether it’s “Cumil” the “man at work”, or Napoleon’s soldier leaning on a bench, these characters sprinkled actors the Old Town have become some of the most photographed spots in Bratislava.

🥾Uniquely life-like as they appear to be engaging with their surroundings, it’s hard not to pause and smile when you see them. From an urban planning perspective, this interaction can foster a sense of place and encourage pedestrian activity, contributing to a vibrant public realm.

🎨In many ways, these statues blur the line between art and environment, creating landmarks that support wayfinding and even create opportunities to talk to new people who have also decided to stop. This shows how thoughtfully placed public art can enhance livability and emotional connection through urban design.

💭Are there any unique statues in your city that help bring it to life?

🇸🇰Bratislava’s tree tagging system!

🌳Trees across some of Slovakia’s capital city are tagged with a unique ID linked to a digital database, accessible via an online map.

📲Officers, residents and visitors can scan the QR codes on the trees in the Old Town to explore information about them, e.g. the species. This is an example of integrating technology with nature, incredibly helpful for ongoing ecological management.

💡Whether you’re strolling in the park or rushing through the city, these simple tags make it possible to learn so much about urban greening in a matter of seconds. Much like a scavenger hunt, this simple and interactive system can make nature engagement surprisingly fun!

💭How does your city encourage you to learn more about your local green spaces?

☀️L’Eclairage Naturel!

🧠La lumière naturelle joue un rôle fondamental dans le bien-être.

🏠Une maison bien éclairée peut semble plus vaste et accueillante. La lumière naturelle peut améliorer également la concentration et la productivité, en particulier dans les espaces de travail (un bel exemple au WeWork, 198 Avenue de France!).

💡De plus, optimiser l’orientation des fenêtres peut améliorer l’efficacité énergétique, influençant la lumière naturelle, la chaleur et la ventilation. Elle permet de réduire la consommation d’énergie en diminuant la dépendance à l’éclairage artificiel.

🏙️Comment pouvons-nous optimiser l’éclairage naturel en milieu urbain dense?

🌊Les Fleuves en Ville!

🏙️Les fleuves et rivières urbaines peuvent véritablement inspirer la joie et encourager l’activité.

🎶Ils offrent un cadre paisible où les habitants peuvent se détendre, faire du sport ou s’adonner à des loisirs en plein air. Courir au bord de l’eau, faire du vélo ou même danser en écoutant de la musique créent une atmosphère vivante et dynamique.

🧠Ces espaces naturels permettent aux citadins de se ressourcer et de se reconnecter avec la nature. Les vues magnifiques, le bruit apaisant de l’eau et l’air frais favorisent un bien-être mental et physique, stimulant ainsi un mode de vie plus sain et heureux pour tous.

💭Est-ce que ta ville a des rivières urbaines?

🚲Location de Vélos!

📍À Paris, les options de location de vélos en libre-service, comme Lime ou Vélib’, sont devenues très accessibles et répandues.

📲On peut facilement trouver un vélo électrique ou classique grâce à une application mobile, souvent à quelques pas seulement. Cela représente un atout majeur: moins de voitures, moins de bruit, et une ville plus respirable.

💶Les vélos en libre-service permettent aussi de mieux connecter les quartiers entre eux, même ceux moins bien desservis par les transports publics. En rendant ces services disponibles partout, la ville offre une alternative écologique et économique à la voiture (sans avoir besoin d`acheter un vélo!).

💡La disponibilité de vélos en location vous pousse-t-elle à utiliser plus souvent le vélo en ville?

🏙️Lever les yeux!

👀À Bruxelles, lever les yeux permet de découvrir bien plus que ce que l’on voit au niveau de la rue.

📍Même si la ville est souvent animée et rapide, prendre le temps d’observer ce qui se trouve en hauteur révèle une richesse artistique impressionnante. Par exemple, on pouvait remarquer les toitures dorées sur la Grand-Place; ou ‘In the Cloud’, une œuvre d’art en aluminium sur le toit de l’Espace Jacqmotte. Bruxelles est aussi une capitale de la bande dessinée et du street art – comme les fresques de Tintin!

🎨Ces créations transforment la ville en musée à ciel ouvert, à condition de savoir regarder au-dessus de soi…

💭Où regardes-tu quand tu te promènes en ville?

🏗️La Construction d’un Bâtiment Multifonctionnel!

🇧🇪Protéger les bâtiments historiques dans le centre-ville de Bruxelles, tout en les modernisant, est essentiel pour préserver l`identité culturelle de la ville et répondre aux besoins contemporains.

🕰️Le projet "The Dome" à Bruxelles illustre cette approche en réhabilitant l`emblématique "Grands Magasins de la Bourse". D’après le site web de @vddprojectdevelopment, ce bâtiment a été construit en 1872 comme le premier ‘grand magasin’ sur le sol belge à ses débuts! Aujourd’hui, ce concept de développement mixte combine les espaces commerciaux, bureaux et résidentiels, intégrant des éléments historiques avec des aménagements modernes.

💭Quels bâtiments historiques de votre centre-ville changent en ce moment, et comment?

🚗Car Dependency Report!

💷The RTPI Early Career Research Grant in 2023 led to research by Charles Goode, examining young adults` shifting views on car dependency and its impact on housing and planning.

📊The study found that young adults are increasingly less reliant on cars, which is influencing their housing preferences. Key findings include the need for updated parking standards and responsiveness to societal changes in housing development. The project emphasises the importance of considering these shifts in planning policy, particularly in areas with major housing growth.

🚌Importantly, the outcomes call for improved collaboration between developers, government, and transport agencies to enhance public transport alongside new housing. You can read more reflections from the report on the RTPI website!

💡The 2025 round of RTPI ECR Grants will open for applications in the summer. What research ideas do you have that could help shape planning policy in the future?

🗞️New Blog Post!

🌱Community gardens play a key role in creating sustainable cities, with @urbanistonamission exploring this topic in a new blog post.

🏆Mahsa breaks down how “community gardens help address several social, environmental, and economic challenges faced by cities”. She shares: “having worked closely with the group, I am so pleased that the project is a finalist for the Civic Honours Award in the category of Group Contributions to Building a Stronger, Safer, Kinder Neighbourhood with @hfcouncil!”

📍Reading through the benefits, it’s clear why community gardens should be supported and protected. However, Mahsa reminds us that “challenges around water scarcity, climate adaptation, funding and more can block this, which is why spotlighting and encouraging groups like The Green Project Shepherd’s Bush is so important.”

➡️You can find the @urbanistonsmission article at @thegreenprojectsb’s website!

📑The Planning and Infrastructure Bill!

🗞️Published on the 11th March, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill has passed its second reading earlier this week.

🏗️This legislation is designed to support the government’s Plan for Change milestones, which includes building “1.5 million safe and decent homes in England”, “fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament” and the “delivery of the government’s Clean Power 2030 target”.

5 key objectives for the Bill have been outlined:

– 🗓️Delivering a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure
– 🌱Introducing a more strategic approach to nature recovery
– 📊Improving certainty and decision-making in the planning system
– 📍Unlocking land and securing public value for large scale investment
– 💡Introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning

💭Have you been following the Bill’s progress and are you optimistic about the potential results?

🏗️Brent Cross Town Development!

🏘️As part of the opening for Brent Cross West Station, @mayorofldn shared: “The station will serve as a gateway to a Brent Cross Town, a brand-new neighbourhood delivering new homes, creating jobs, and aiming to be net zero by 2030.” 

🤹🏽‍♀️The Projects Platform at @uniwestminster have organised a talk to explore how urban regeneration can be equitable, navigating the challenges of gentrification. This will be led by Professor Jim Coleman, Head of Economic Advisory at @wspukandi and professor of
professional practice in the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster.

🎤On Monday 24th March, he plans to “provide insights into how spatial and real estate plans can be shaped to address multiple priorities, as well as reflecting on emerging approaches to creating and measuring social value through development.”

💭Why not reach out to @livestudio_ds20 if you would like to attend?

➡️RTPI London Committee!

🏗️I’m so pleased to be on the RTPI London Committee (RAC) across 2025/2026.

🎤The group supports the Corporate Strategy and advises the Regional Management Board; as well as organising events, newsletters, media coverage, awards and other activities for the RTPI. From shaping our CPD offering to acting as the London Lead for the EDI sub-committee, I’m so excited to be a part of this journey for the organisation.

💡This comes at a poignant type for the world of planning, with our new @rtpiplanners president Helen Fadipe setting the tone by establishing three core themes: “collaboration, investment and inclusivity”. Helen also emphasises the importance of education, mentoring and support for planners, championing accessible pathways to the tools needed across the profession.

💭What opportunities could help you learn more about town planning, or even inspire your work as a planner?

🏙️City of London!

📍The City of London’s “Square Mile” is the historic heart and financial hub of the capital.

🌊This means hosting some of London’s most recognisable buildings and the River Thames, which is an iconic landmark in its own right. However, the balance between natural and built environments here results in heightened climate vulnerability, e.g. to flood risk and overheating.

📑In response, the City of London commissioned a study into potential adaptive pathways, noting that: “Shaping climate resilient environments, where people and businesses can thrive for generations to come, is considered central to the Climate Action Strategy”. The aim of the strategy is “to act swiftly in recognition of the human, environmental and economic imperatives for accelerating climate adaptation and resilience action.”

💭What are the priorities in your local council’s Climate Strategy?

🎤Planning and Energy Updates!

➡️It was great to be invited back to the national conference, presenting on all things planning for @platinumpropertypartners_

🏗️From the government’s push for housing delivery, changes to the application process, revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework and much more – my sessions were all about how to work with the system.

💡Covering more than just “an exciting time for planning”, of course we had to touch on the government’s Warm Homes Plan and consultation around EPC methodology. I was joined by the fantastic Rick Dalton and Malcolm Crabbe, opening up an interactive discussion around how landlords can prepare.

💭How are you keeping up with the government’s plans for planning?

🌇Sky Garden!

📍Located in 20 Fenchurch Street (also known as the ‘Walkie Talkie’), Sky Garden is the highest public garden in London.

🌴This unique space celebrates what is possible through architecture, design, landscaping and engineering. With 360-degree views across London, you can experience the entire capital at the same time as a range of Mediterranean and South African biodiversity.

🌱From bringing the materials up this high to maintaining the micro-climate, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to keep projects like this alive. In fact, taking on the maintenance in 2021, @idverdeuk shared: “Speak to the team on the ground and they will tell you that the biggest temperature challenge came as an indirect result of the Covid pandemic.”

🌡️“The lack of visitors to the site and the reduced activity from the offices and restaurants in the building meant that the temperature of the garden itself fell significantly. The team had to adapt to this to try and save plants from dying, while carefully monitoring for the slightest temperature change which could fatally impact recuperating plants.”

💭What aspect of the maintenance would you be most curious about?

⛰️Lycabettus Hill!

🏙️As the highest point in central Athens, this hill offers panoramic views of the entire city. Not only are the views absolutely breath-taking from above, the Hill itself is beautiful in its own right as you walk around from below.

📍Looking up at the Hill, at first all I could see was a blurry building. Once I’d actually spent some time up there, it transformed from an enigmatic, distant landmark into a real place. Now, even from far away, I recognise the Church of St. George (the white building perched at the peak) and remember how it smells inside. I think about the cat scaling the cafe, and how the next set of tourists are probably looking down at me thinking ‘they look like tiny ants!’.

💭Beyond what we may see from a distance or online, perspective and a personal relationship with the ‘unknown’ can completely reframe how we view things. Have you experienced this before?

📍Olympic Stadium!

🏅The Panathenaic Stadium was the first to host the modern Olympics, kicking-off in Athens back in 1896.

⏳It was built on the site of the previous ancient stadium, constructed in 330BC for the Panathenaic Games. That makes this arena a blend of old and new, celebrating the legacy of sporting across centuries. Even if you’re not an athlete, there’s something pretty epic about standing on the racetracks today.

🏗️The stadium’s historical significance remains honoured through the design and materials. It’s renovation in the 19th century led to the nickname ‘Kallimarmaro’, which means beautiful marble. That’s because it’s the only stadium in the world to be completely made of marble, with the visual impact visible from viewpoints across the city.

💭In a world where sporting venues can be rapidly built and just as quickly abandoned after the games, what lessons can we learn from Kallimarmaro?

🏛️The Acropolis and Parthenon!

🇬🇷Home to world-famous structures like the Parthenon, the Acropolis is a citadel looking over Athens.

📍This World Heritage Site is considered “the most striking and complete ancient Greek monumental complex still existing in our times”, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

➡️The UNESCO record also states “On this hill were born Democracy, Philosophy, Theatre, Freedom of Expression and Speech, which provide to this day the intellectual and spiritual foundation for the contemporary world and its values. The Acropolis’ monuments, having survived for almost twenty-five centuries through wars, explosions, bombardments, fires, earthquakes, sackings, interventions and alterations, have adapted to different uses and the civilizations, myths and religions that flourished in Greece through time.”

💭What are we building today that could stand the test of time and inspire this level of praise thousands of years from now?

🌹Happy Valentine’s!

🇬🇷Sending love from Athens, a capital rich in history (and maybe some spirit of Aphrodite, Ancient Greek Goddess of Love!).

🌙Wondering a city at nighttime can be incredibly romantic. A bright moon, twinkling lights and classical architecture can really set the scene. More than this, the ability to ‘get lost’ amongst it all through meandering streets, lifts/stairwells that take you high and low, and carefully staggered buildings that reveal a special landscape all add to the Valentine’s magic.

📍It’s so important for town planners to remember that our public realm, i.e. the places between places, play such an essential role. The unconfined right to explore can ignite our imagination and help us get to know a city – maybe even start falling in love with it.

💭Where’s your most romantic city and why?

🌱Oxford Botanic Gardens!

📍Founded in the 1600s, the Oxford Botanic Garden is considered the oldest in the UK. These garden types are important because they host documented plants for scientific research, allowing us to study them across centuries.

📣The group’s mission is to “use our living collections to communicate to the widest possible audience how our future depends on plants.”

📖Walking around the beautiful grounds, one of the creative ways they do this is through the ‘literary garden’ signage. Drawing on the rich history of Oxford, different plants include notes about how they are linked to books: “from The Odyssey to The Overstory, from Alice in Wonderland to Alice Oswald, stories and poems spring from the earth as naturally as trees and flowers. Oxford has offered especially fertile ground for authors.” This includes the descendent of a pine tree that may have inspired the tree people in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings!

💭We know that biodiversity is key for thriving ecosystems, but how has nature inspired your creativity over the years?

🌲Mirror Houses!

📍Nestled amongst tranquil woodland in Kirtlington, these unique cabins received planning permission with the surrounding Conservation Area and nearby heritage buildings in mind.

➡️A key factor for their approval was the design, considered to be sympathetic to the context by the officer because:

– 🏗️Each cabin would adhere to ‘leave no trace’ principles, being constructed off the ground with no foundations
– 🌲The timber and mirror materials means that they are less visible when reflected within the trees, appearing as a continuation of woodland
– 🏕️The cabins are of a modest size and the roof heights are below the height of the canopies of existing trees

💭Nature tourism can help us foster a deeper relationship with wildlife and biodiversity, if the surroundings are respected. What creative designs have you seen?