Investigating the promise of The London Plan

The cohort investigated the implications of advanced planning frameworks for equitable, low-carbon urban transformation, culminating in a public wrap-up at the Royal Academy of Engineering and a collective “What If?” manifesto.

Learning was developed with AL_A, BDP, Buro Happold, Eckersley O’Callaghan, and Expedition Engineering, with further input from RSHP, Publica, AKT II, and the Greater London Authority. Guided by the theme “Innovating Tomorrow’s Resilience,” the Fellows articulated four shifts in practice and policy: 

• Process over product: evolve The London Plan from a static document to an adaptive manual. 
• Public realm as core infrastructure: treat blue–green systems (including the Thames) as essential infrastructure. 
• Radical reuse as first principle: begin with what already exists. 
• Metrics that matter: complement conventional indicators with measures of wellbeing, trust and social connection.

Digital publication: sharing the experience of a city in progress

The digital publication captures the Fellowship’s two-week journey that explored London from above, below and within. It presents the cohort’s collaborative “What If?” manifesto that emerged from this process. It traces the three simple questions that framed the work: Does London need another plan? If so, what’s missing? If not, how can its delivery align with the city’s needs? Behind-the-scenes site visits, project discussions and frank conversations exposed the tension between needs, ambition and delivery. 

The cohort examined new builds and adaptive reuses, walked the historic core, traced the Thames corridor, and visited the Houses of Parliament and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to engage with projects revealing the city’s overlapping goals, constraints and unrealised potential. A recurring insight echoes through the cohort’s findings: the real challenge of resilience is not technical competence, but trust, language and long-term thinking that address social, political and economic conditions. 

Digital publication

The digital publication captures the Fellowship’s two-week journey that explored London from above, below and within. It presents the cohort’s collaborative “What If?” manifesto that emerged from this process.

The Fellowship in London is part of a wider arc of ongoing conversations unfolding across cities, each exposing different dimensions of how the built environment is shaped, governed, and transformed.