Everything is permitted

Herb Lester is doing sterling work in the recreation of 60s London. As well as their new ‘Wish You Were There‘ guide, a kind of time-traveller’s atlas (‘our guide to London, 1960-66. It includes 130 of the best clubs, shops, boutiques, coffee bars and other diversions of the swinging city during this exciting period, ranging from the near mythical Scene club in Ham Yard to largely forgotten menswear chain, Smart Weston, each with a street address and a brief description’), their site also hosts scans of articles like London, the most exciting city (II and III).

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The map is a sort of a guide to the landscape of Blow-Up (1966). See this great unreleased Yardbirds scene, as well as the comprehensive Blow Up Then and Now site (a great British companion to the Bullitt then and now series). We especially like the bit where Hemmings turns his Bentley left down Joiner Street, underneath the concourse of London Bridge station. Once a road, it’s now a pedestrian entrance to the station and underground, and comes out at the foot of the Shard on the south side of the tracks. A few more then and now sets.

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The UK’s permitted development laws are arcane and widely exploited. SUB-PLAN, ‘a guide to permitted development’ is a quasi-serious look at the architectural and social implications of building up to the legal limits without applying for planning permission. The project was overseen by David Knight, together with Finn Wiliams, Europa, with Ulf Hackauf, Jonathan Turney and Anders Stockman, and is described as ‘both a practical guide for the householder and an exploration of the limits of legislation‘. Also by Knight (with Williams and Hackauf), Permitted Poundbury, which applies the same principles of non-architectural expansion to the quasi-sacred Dorset new town. All these explorations and more will eventually manifest in a site called Building Rights.

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London and its Environs 1905, a Baedeker guide / linocuts by Hilke MacIntyre, especially I, II, III, IV / Design Blogs, a top 50 / Lego Set 10179-1: The Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon. With over 5,000 pieces, the instruction manual is 311 pages long. Download it in all its 135 mb glory (pdf). See also, This is the blueprint to the Millennium Falcon.