ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of design in an economic context of state cut backs paralleled with burgeoning urban regeneration. It also addresses a design economy that allows for less formalized consultation and more vivid public involvement, and less programme in the interest of more interpretation. Austerity urbanism is also a context of limitations in which creative forms of public activism and alternative design processes challenge dominant design and regeneration logics invested in the 'world-class city' motif. The Bankside Urban Forest report expressed a number of ideas for thinking about local regeneration as a collection of small-scale initiatives alongside a slower-paced delivery process, through which local expertise is fostered. The socio-spatial public projects evoked by the Bankside Urban Forest suggest an incremental process of making public space with the potential to generate additional spaces, activities. The chapter also brings together the state commitment to 'Austerity Britain', with the ongoing evolution of a public space project in Bankside, south London.
