ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on urban design interventions where architecture, in its wider sense, was a key agent in the initiation, conception of the project. Emerging socially-engaged practices, and not just built outputs, are reconfiguring the role of architecture in an age of uncertainty. The chapter charts the significant re-casting of interim landscapes as landscapes of potential, beyond their frequent associations with marginality and abandonment. It compares their representation in the professional and academic architectural and property press with the tension between vision and implementation experienced in real examples. While reimagining interim landscapes has certainly contributed to, and advanced, the discourse on temporary urbanism, its impact on practice may not be as straightforward. The latter is dependent on the diverging interests, but also potential synergies and convergences of the many actors involved in the production of interim landscapes. Interim landscapes in London are currently linked to the 'black holes' left by developments that stalled due to the late-2000s Global Financial Crisis.
