{"id":7129,"date":"2011-07-25T09:47:32","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T09:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=7129"},"modified":"2011-07-25T09:47:32","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T09:47:32","slug":"is-this-the-stupidest-urban-landscape-design-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/is-this-the-stupidest-urban-landscape-design-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Forum Magnum the stupidest urban landscape design in London?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What should be done to improve the urban landscape design of this space?<\/p><\/div>I pass Forum Magnum Square quite often and took this photo to show it at a busy period: 5.30 pm on the afternoon of Sunday 26th June 2011. Forum Magnum Square is 100m from one of Europe’s largest tourist attractions. My180\u00b0 photo was taken from the white cross in the centre of this map<\/a>. London’s parks and open spaces were jammed with people. It was, for London, a hot day (27\u00b0) and people were seeking shade everywhere. I guess anyone can say why the space is empty. But what should be done? A biodiversity meadow? A beer garden? A tourist market? A food court? Another building? A fishing pond? A fernery? A monument to victims of torture? I think they should hold 2-stage competitions for the re-design of places like this: Stage 1<\/em> – to find an imaginative use; Stage 2<\/em> – design the space to accommodate the new use. In New York City they use incentive zoning to create POPS = Privately Owned Public Space<\/a>. Great idea. Forum Magnum is Latin for Great Forum. A forum was a public square or marketplace in an ancient Roman city, also used for assemblies, public business and siting temples. Forum Magnum enjoys none of these functions. It is a great stupidity but is not great in any other way. Can anyone suggest an urban space in such great location which surpasses Forum Magnum square in stupidity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I pass Forum Magnum Square quite often and took this photo to show it at a busy period: 5.30 pm on the afternoon of Sunday 26th June 2011. Forum Magnum Square is 100m from one of Europe’s largest tourist attractions. My180\u00b0 photo was taken from the white cross in the centre of this map. London’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}