In Episode 26/ 3 of A is for Architecture, Loretta Lees and Elanor Warwick speak about their book, Defensible Space on the Move: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice, published with Wiley in 2022. We discuss a few of its themes, including the emergence of the concept in America with Oscar Newman and others, its transference to Britain and its articulation and deployment by geographers, architects and policymakers, not least Alice Coleman, in the later twentieth century.

The book tells ‘the history of defensible space from the 1970s work of Oscar Newman on New York City public housing projects to Alice Coleman’s work in English boroughs and estates [using] oral histories and in-depth interviews with key figures alongside extensive archival research to examine the movement/mobility/mobilization of defensible space across the Atlantic as well as across, in and through academic, professional and governmental circles in the UK.’

Loretta is Professor & Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University, and is also on X. Elanor is Head of Strategic Policy and Research at Clarion Housing Group, and is on LinkedIn and X. 

Available on all good podcast platforms.

Thanks for listening.

+ 

Music credits: Bruno Gillick