THE EVOLUTION OF TOWNSCAPE: ACCOMMODATING GROWTH, ASSESSING SIGNIFICANCE AND COMMUNICATING CHANGE

There’s a greater emphasis on townscape in the planning system than ever before. While it isn’t a statutory requirement in the same way as heritage, the 2026 National Planning Policy Framework and its design policies focus on context and integration, highlighting townscape’s increasingly significant role. This is particularly relevant as cities grow and development becomes more complex. 

As Historic Environment and Townscape specialists, we understand townscape as everything around us in an urban environment, from skylines and streetscapes to the spaces between buildings and the landscape features that help define a place. Over the past 20 years, our team has seen the discipline evolve alongside changing planning priorities, new technologies and growing expectations around design quality. 

Yet townscape didn’t emerge only in the last two decades. The discipline has developed over centuries, shaped by the development of perspective in art, the ideas of theorists such as Camillo Sitte and Patrick Geddes, and later the work of Gordon Cullen and Kevin Lynch. As our team marks its 20th anniversary, what relevance does that history hold today? For developers, some of the answers lie in how townscape can help accommodate growth, assess future significance and communicate change.

Early townscape advice helps accommodate growth 

Today’s developmental pressures are unique to history, yet clients and collaborators may require an awareness of the past to inform present-day decision-making. Cities in the UK continue to grow in terms of population, and there’s an increased density in city centres. For example, London’s population fell from 8.6 million in 1939 to 6.7 million in 1988 before growing rapidly again. In 2015, it surpassed its previous peak and now stands at around 9.1 million people. Similar patterns can be seen across other UK cities, particularly in their centres. Manchester’s city centre population has grown from around 500 residents in 1980 to almost 80,000 today, while Liverpool and Birmingham have both seen their city centre populations increase to around 40,000 residents. Much of this growth has been driven by regeneration, the reuse of former industrial land and large-scale residential development. 

The result is that growth is increasingly concentrated in locations where clients and designers must respond to a range of competing demands. Promotion of schemes that densify city centre locations has long been recognised as sustainable. However, that land can suffer from numerous environmental sensitivities, with clients and designers having to navigate multiple demands, such as daylight, wind, views of heritage assets and how much open space a plot of land can provide.  

Used early, townscape advice can help identify potential planning risks, test different development options and inform design decisions before they become costly to revise. This can help project teams accommodate significant growth while building a stronger case for development.  

For the redevelopment of the GSK campus in Brentford, the HEaT team worked early on with the masterplan architects to ensure the scheme responded to local, intermediate and long-distance sensitivities. The proposals, led by Haworth Tompkins in collaboration with Studio Egret West, Metropolitan Workshop LLP and dRMM, will redefine the iconic site, long recognised as the western gateway into London. The scheme adopted a reuse‑first strategy, retaining much of the existing basement and substructure while delivering an estimated 50% reduction in embodied carbon, which drove the layout of the masterplan. 

17 new buildings will deliver over 2,300 homes, 22% of which will be affordable, in an inclusive and accessible landscape, with more than 60% of the site dedicated to public realm and new connections to the adjacent Boston Manor Park and the River Brent. More than 330,000 sq ft of flexible commercial, retail and community uses will be provided, and the scheme will generate 1,980 permanent jobs. Together, these elements help create a vibrant new neighbourhood that supports Hounslow Council’s wider vision for the ‘Golden Mile’. 

Montagu Evans’ Historic Environment and Townscape team provided expert advice on heritage, townscape and visual impact, which were critical considerations from the start of the design process, given the site’s proximity to a number of highly sensitive heritage assets, including Kew Gardens World Heritage Site and the Grade I listed Syon Conservatory within Syon Park RPG. This sensitivity is clearly reflected in the architectural approach, including the high-quality design of the retained tower and associated rooftop conservatory. 

The value of professional judgement in assessing significance 

In the UK, buildings less than 30 years old aren’t normally considered to be of special architectural or historic interest, as they have yet to stand the test of time. Other countries treat buildings and heritage similarly. In Italy, for example, the window for evaluation opens at 50 years and on the presumption that its author is dead. In America, the AIA have a Twenty-Five Year Award for buildings between the ages of 25 and 35 which have set a ‘precedent and continue to set standards of excellence for their architectural design and significance. Eligibility is limited to buildings designed by architects licensed in the US.  

Several comparable buildings are present in the UK. Many of these were intensely controversial at the time of construction and are considered to have stood the test of time, including Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates’ Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery and SOM’s Exchange House at Broadgate. These buildings still divide opinion today, with Selldorf’s alterations to the Grade I listed Sainsbury Wing garnering much press attention. Some still lament the loss of the Mappin and Webb Building at Bank Junction for James Stirling’s One Poultry (1994-8), now Grade II*. Others widely laud it as one of the finest examples of post-modernism.  

As heritage specialists, we understand that sentiments on buildings differ and that judgements on townscape are subjective. Many of the high–profile schemes we’ve worked on divide opinion at the planning stage. That makes appreciating and interrogating buildings through the design process a critical part of our day-to-day. In fact, several members of our team sit on external design review panels or act as expert witnesses in inquiries to support proposed designs. Our work on the Holocaust Memorial illustrates this. The memorial, designed by Adjaye Associates with Ron Arad Architects, sits within a landscape by Gustafson Porter and Bowman in Victoria Tower Gardens, a Grade II registered park and garden. Part of the inquiry focused on whether the proposals before the inspector could be regarded as a listed building of the future. 

What’s in a view? 

Planning is fundamentally democratic, and many major decisions are made by elected committees of laypeople, which makes communicating complex ideas and spaces crucial to the success of a scheme. Visual communication has long played a central role in achieving this. Architects routinely employ drawings, models and diagrams to explain design intent and spatial relationships. In the field of townscape and visual assessment, practitioners similarly rely on tools such as verified views, photomontages and other visualisations to demonstrate how a proposed development may appear within its context and how people are likely to experience and use a space. These techniques help translate technical analysis into formats that can be readily understood by non-specialist audiences. 

The verified view achieves that by turning the unbuilt into three-dimensional space. Although enabled by state-of-the-art technology, the verified view draws on principles that would have been familiar to Renaissance architects such as Fillipo Brunelleschi, widely credited with articulating perspective. Jacob van Ruisdael might have been able to compare his paintings of working landscapes with urban skylines used in the verified views featured in planning applications today. This artistic background and appreciation of the picturesque led to the first ‘protected view’ in 1902 through the Richmond, Petersham and Ham Open Spaces Act at Richmond Hill. In time, this informed later policy, including the London View Management Framework, which continues to influence major development across London through its approach to viewing corridors, panoramas and river prospects.  

As technology continues to evolve, so too do the methods available for communicating change. Digital modelling, real-time visualisation and virtual reality environments increasingly allow proposals to be explored in an immersive and interactive manner. Rather than relying solely on static images, these technologies enable users to experience and interrogate different design iterations. In turn, this can deepen understanding of the likely effects of development and support more informed engagement with the planning process.  

Looking ahead 

Today, as development becomes more complex, townscape helps identify planning risk, build stakeholder support and strengthen the case for growth. The next step may be a move towards stronger evidence about how people experience places and respond to their evolution. Emerging research in behavioural science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience is exploring this. That doesn’t mean professional judgement will lose its value. The future may lie in combining it with better evidence about how people experience places. 

As our Historic Environment and Townscape team marks its 20th anniversary, we look ahead to how emerging evidence and technologies might shape the future of townscape while continuing to build on principles that have evolved over centuries.