landscape public policy
Recent books
No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen: back to the land in wartime Britain
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by Ken Worpole
On Lady Day, 25 March 1943, a group of radical pacifists took possession of a 300-acre farm in Frating, Essex, creating a self-sufficient community of up to 50 adults and children and a sanctuary for refugees and prisoners-of-war. In No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen, writer & social historian Ken Worpole recreates the life of Frating Hall Farm through the recorded memories of the children who grew up there, together with archive documents, letters, photographs, recalling the passionate ideals of the back-to-the-land movement in wartime and post-war England. The book is beautifully designed and contains many evocative photographs, maps and testimonies, combined to recreate the ‘lost history’ of one of the most remarkable idealistic rural communities of its kind in the 20th century.
Published by Little Toller Books, 2021, reprinted 2022. £15
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Modern Hospice Design: the architecture of palliative care
Routledge, May 2009Modern Hospice Design examines different building types which serve the needs of the sick and the dying, from monasteries, alms-houses, and grim geriatric wards, to beautifully-crafted communal homes set in wildflower meadows.
It deals with every aspect of the design process, from finding a site to choosing an architect, and from developing detailed floor plans, to creating a plan for the garden. It is based on case studies from across Europe, and includes floor plans and other specific design details.
The book is illustrated with colour photographs.
Buy it here: Modern Hospice Design: the architecture of palliative care at www.routledge.com
New Jerusalem: the good city and the good society
by Ken Worpole
This book-length essay traces the journey from the religious and political energies in late 19th century social movements, from utopian ideals of town planning – most famously Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City – through both small and large-scale social experiments in the planning of model communities up to the present day.
The Swedenborg Society, October 2015. £6.95
First edition sold out - second edition back in print
Order New Jerusalem from www.swedenborg.org.uk
Contemporary Library Architecture: a planning and design guide
by Ken WorpolePublished by Routledge, May 2013
The past decade has seen a proliferation of big library projects in Europe and North America.
This comprehensive guide to the civic philosophy behind the new library movement contains over 150 colour photographs of new library buildings, with many plans and drawings, as well as detailed case studies of new libraries under construction, from start to finish.
216 pages, large format, 150 photographs & plans, paperback. £44.99
The book is exceptional in its ability to inform about the political, social and literary landscapes of the time, as well as the geological landscape in East Anglia, but also how these often complex and conflicting histories are presented so compassionately....One has the impression after finishing this intelligent and compelling book that Worpole has himself contributed to the fascinating Frating Hall Farm community. It is a great achievement.
He is a wonderfully well-informed and sensitive advocate who has been engaged with this subject for twenty years, listing thirty-two hospices and other palliative care centres visited between 2005 and 2022. This book should be a standard design guide for all architects, local authority planners and others.
I’ve been forced to confront a deeper sense of spirituality in a beautiful new book published by the Swedenborg Society called New Jerusalem by the hugely influential architectural critic Ken Worpole.
Buy Contempory Library Architecture at www.taylorandfrancis.com
Ken Worpole brings a welcome authoritative insight into the contemporary cityscape and the changing role of libraries. The book is essential reading…well presented and richly illustrated with photographs and plans. The author’s enthusiasm for his subject is clear – he loves libraries and wants his readers to love them too.