City of the Future Rebecca Thorp
New Towns built to sustain the ever-growing population of the United Kingdom. Built to strict repetitive plans of monotonous architecture. Broken up by equally spaced trees, fast growing hedges and the obligatory daffodil. Fabricated by idealisms of how life should be lived. You will shop here. You will live here. You will walk here. But character emerges through the repetition. Houses are painted and new plants are planted. Whether it is small or large the landscapes grow in culture and personality.
“Conceived and built as a totality, Milton Keynes is a piece of public art in itself, a unity of vision and consistency of realisation in the public realm, but piecemeal interventions threaten to undermine this totality and make the city bland MK is special and distinctive… Conceived in one bold step, a celebration of humans’ ability to shape their environment. This confidence is expressed in strong rectilinear planning and architecture applied at every great scale: it’s grid plan, its buildings, its street furniture and its landscape design. Holistic thinking. MK’s grid is distinctive because it is based on oblongs rather than squares… It’s rigorous geometry works at all scales, down to the co-ordinated details in the street its self: Heavy granite edging, black porte-cochères, strong structures of planted trees, square black kick rails, bold use of shrubs and plants consistent repertoire or paving…” Thomas Heatherwick
From ‘Public Art in Central Milton Keynes’ 2001
District 72 - Netherfeild
District 9 - Kiln Farm
District 66 - Furzton
District 30 - Greatholm
District 53 - Downs Barn
District 43 - Central Milton Keynes
District 60 - Monkston
District 7 - Fullers Slade
District 22 - Neath Hill
District 43 - Central Milton Keynes
District 34 - Conniburrow
District 53 - Downs Barn
District 53 - Downs Barn
District 71 - Beanhill
District 63 - Coffee Hall
District 63 - Coffee Hall
District 72 - Netherfeild
District 34 - Conniburrow
Milton Keynes is a living legend in the architectural world. It is of the Largest 32 “New Towns� built in England since 1946. It is situated in North Buckinghamshire with a population of roughly 255,700 people. It borders Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire and is placed equidistant between London, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Cambridge; this was planned deliberately in the building of Milton Keynes. The main feature of Milton Keynes is its distinctive grid pattern with districts being broken up with dual carriageways, roads, footpaths and cycles paths. The grid pattern is split into eighty-seven districts, each district being given a number and a name.