ABSTRACT
No attempt has been made to disguise the belief that current design strategy does not usually contribute to dynamic townscape. The process itself undermines creativity. This must not be confused with creativity in respect of individual buildings, of which there is a fair amount of evidence. Creative townscape, that is, environment which stimulates the mind by extending its schema of urban events, generating images and motivating exploration, is not simply a matter of imaginative architecture. It is something much more subtle and complex, involving deployment of spaces, contours, solids and voids, the building-up of a host of stimulating tensions. This is a creative challenge much greater than that which usually stems from a single building, and therefore a design strategy is needed which can open up the excitatory possibilities of a wide urban spectrum. Design is discovery, and in this context the architect/ urban designer is responsible for discovering the maximum visual possibilities latent in a given situation.
