London makes places for exercise and play
London is redesigning the city to support the fight against obesity and ill health by encouraging its citizens to take exercise, play sport, play games or simply explore.
Only 21% of London’s children play in the street, compared with 71% of adults who remember playing in the street as a child.
Play is too often consigned to playgrounds, rigid spaces where play tends to be both restricted and contained.
London is working to provide high-quality, accessible, inclusive play opportunities for every child, not simply in playgrounds but in forgotten corners and open spaces.
Caption
dallaspierce+quintero’s proposal for a ‘playscape’ in a post-war housing estate in Poplar, east London, represents a manifesto for urban play in the streets of London and beyond.
The project incorporates a multitude of materials and everyday objects, celebrating their potential to trigger imaginative play.
Viewed from particular angles different elements of reality and fantasy combine to produce momentary illusions that hint at other worlds, encouraging a wide range of play.
London is a city of shopping neighbourhoods
London is countering the trend towards out-of-town shopping centres by building on, and improving, its established retail districts and investing in its existing and emerging town centres.
Investment in local retail facilities and the proliferation of neighbourhood markets is improving social and environmental sustainability by encouraging people to shop on foot, buy local produce, and support local trade.
Caption
Installation by Studio Myerscough illustrating London's regional town centres and local markets.
London competes on a world stage
London is known throughout the world for its outstanding contribution to rock and pop with London-based musicians, including The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Queen, having achieved international record sales of 200 million or more.
Over the last 50 years, London-based bands have been at the forefront of 1960s rock and pop, 1970s glam rock and the electro jazz funk/New Romantic style of the 1980s.
In the 1990s, London was at the heart of the Britpop movement that saw a return to the guitar-based pop of the 1960s and 1970s coupled with lyrics referencing uniquely British issues and concerns.
In the new millennium, female singer-songwriters such as Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen have drawn on musical genres from the last four decades to create contemporary ballads detailing everyday London life, while reality TV shows such as The X Factor have discovered or created a new class of instant stars.
Caption
Jukebox suitcase of 50 years of London songs designed and made by Mark Garside.