9th July 2026
July news: The Music is Black Festival is back; Rana Begum and Webb Yates’ 13-metre fence, and Yes Make’s 4,000-story house
Making cities inclusive, wood finishes sustainable, tiles beautiful, and reading accessible with Disability Urbanism, LOXKIN, Granby Workshop and Yes Make
Disability Urbanism
Placemakers embedding accessibility into the cityscape
Placemakers embedding accessibility into the cityscape
One of the most compelling and impactful voices in modern placemaking, Amanprit Arnold founded Disability Urbanism to make disability inclusion integral to the creation of cities and spaces. Amanprit takes a visionary approach to urban strategy, positioning accessibility as fundamental to effective 21st-century design.
Building upon her experience founding DeafCity Hub, chairing SignHealth and co-chairing the GLA Disability Network, Amanprit and her consultancy partner with the biggest players in the built environment to ensure that inclusive thinking shapes every urban-design project, resulting in innovative, equitable spaces that are truly open to all.
Co-founder Jamie Zenner Downs-Atkins. Photo credit: Adj Brown. Image courtesy of LOXKIN.
LOXKIN
Sustainable hemp-based finishes unlocking the wonder of wood
Sustainable hemp-based finishes unlocking the wonder of wood
Your timber might be as sustainably sourced and beautifully crafted as it gets, but what about the stuff you’re putting on it? Aiming to widen the conversation about circular design, regenerative farming and material health, the LOXKIN shines a spotlight not just on wood as a material, but on how we treat it and how it impacts our daily lives.
Founded by regenerative agriculture specialist Nathaniel Loxley and wood craftsman Jamie Zenner Downs-Atkins, LOXKIN is a social enterprise rethinking how wood is cared for through natural materials, circular design and regenerative agriculture. It produces plant-based VOC-free alternatives to petrochemical-based wood-finish products, which can often make repair, refinishing and material recovery more difficult. Its range of British-grown, hemp-based oils and waxes help protect and preserve timber, highlighting the beauty of the surface while allowing the wood to be easily reused at end-of-life. Perhaps most impressively, 50% of profits go towards farmer partnerships, community workshops and education.
What a finish
Founded by regenerative agriculture specialist Nathaniel Loxley and wood craftsman Jamie Zenner Downs-Atkins, LOXKIN is a social enterprise rethinking how wood is cared for through natural materials, circular design and regenerative agriculture. It produces plant-based VOC-free alternatives to petrochemical-based wood-finish products, which can often make repair, refinishing and material recovery more difficult. Its range of British-grown, hemp-based oils and waxes help protect and preserve timber, highlighting the beauty of the surface while allowing the wood to be easily reused at end-of-life. Perhaps most impressively, 50% of profits go towards farmer partnerships, community workshops and education.
What a finish
The Music is Black Festival from East Bank at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Image copyright: Rahil Ahmad.
East Bank
The Music is Black – is back!
The Music is Black – is back!
After a triumphant inaugural event in June, The Music is Black Festival by East Bank returns to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the second of its four free live music weekends. This Saturday and Sunday, 11–12 July, ‘Power & Respect’ represents a pivotal moment to document, celebrate and amplify the role of Black women and non-binary voices shaping sound and cultural movement.
Stepping into the curatorial shoes are artists including Jamz Supernova, Yazmin Lacey x TYSON and BORN N BREAD, who have put together an inventive and unmissable line-up of live performances. Highlight events include the talk 'Female Pioneers of Reggae' curated by the award-winning reggae artist Lorna Gee (aka Sutara Gayle) and The Dance Floor is Black at Sadler's Wells East with BORN N BREAD, Jade Hackett, L’attise Rhoden and Glade Marie.
Power to the people!
Stepping into the curatorial shoes are artists including Jamz Supernova, Yazmin Lacey x TYSON and BORN N BREAD, who have put together an inventive and unmissable line-up of live performances. Highlight events include the talk 'Female Pioneers of Reggae' curated by the award-winning reggae artist Lorna Gee (aka Sutara Gayle) and The Dance Floor is Black at Sadler's Wells East with BORN N BREAD, Jade Hackett, L’attise Rhoden and Glade Marie.
Power to the people!
Inside the Marlborough Story House designed by Yes Make. Image courtesy of Harper Collins.
Yes Make
Salvaged stories: HarperCollins opens recycled reading space in London Bridge
Salvaged stories: HarperCollins opens recycled reading space in London Bridge
This week, marking the National Year of Reading 2026, regenerative designers of Yes Make and the publishers of HarperCollins have come together to open the Marlborough Story House, a reading space for young people in London Bridge built from recycled pieces of some of London’s most prestigious cultural institutions.
In keeping with their practice of working with as many re-used materials as possible, Yes Make’s design for the Story House utilises salvaged timber and acrylic from the likes of the Wellcome Collection, the Design Museum and Barbican Centre, as well as offices in Fitzrovia and Victoria, and 19th-century mahogany reclaimed from Smithfield Market. Set within Marlborough Sports Garden off Borough High Street, the Story House will provide children with free access to around 4,000 books for them to take home and keep.
Read all about it
In keeping with their practice of working with as many re-used materials as possible, Yes Make’s design for the Story House utilises salvaged timber and acrylic from the likes of the Wellcome Collection, the Design Museum and Barbican Centre, as well as offices in Fitzrovia and Victoria, and 19th-century mahogany reclaimed from Smithfield Market. Set within Marlborough Sports Garden off Borough High Street, the Story House will provide children with free access to around 4,000 books for them to take home and keep.
Read all about it
The regenerated Norton Folgate streetscape. Image by Jack Hobhouse.
East
BREAKING: Regeneration of Norton Folgate bags a RIBA National
BREAKING: Regeneration of Norton Folgate bags a RIBA National
Transforming a group of East London sites that have lain derelict for a decade into three vibrant urban blocks, East’s Norton Folgate has – today! – been recognised with a prestigious RIBA National Award.
Delivered in conjunction with Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Stanton Williams, Morris + Co and DSDHA, the project creates six new buildings while retaining the historic fabric of the site, and establishes an improved streetscape as part of the Elder Street Conservation Area between Shoreditch and Liverpool Street Station.
The architects took a building-by-building approach, which enabled them to sensitively restore, refurbish and extend the blocks, retaining façades and embracing retrofit and circular principles. East led on the public-realm dimension, tying the site together with a trio of new yard spaces that reflect and amplify the character of the surrounding buildings.
Public space is the place
Delivered in conjunction with Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Stanton Williams, Morris + Co and DSDHA, the project creates six new buildings while retaining the historic fabric of the site, and establishes an improved streetscape as part of the Elder Street Conservation Area between Shoreditch and Liverpool Street Station.
The architects took a building-by-building approach, which enabled them to sensitively restore, refurbish and extend the blocks, retaining façades and embracing retrofit and circular principles. East led on the public-realm dimension, tying the site together with a trio of new yard spaces that reflect and amplify the character of the surrounding buildings.
Public space is the place
The glazing process means that each tile bears the imprint of the maker’s hand on its surface. Image courtesy of Granby Workshop.
Granby Workshop
(NOT) BREAKING: high-performance hand-glazed tiles made with recycled glass
(NOT) BREAKING: high-performance hand-glazed tiles made with recycled glass
Working in collaboration with the material-research studio Matter at hand, Granby Workshop has just launched a new range of hand-glazed tiles made from ‘devitrified’ waste glass.
By taking advantage of the formation of crystals triggered by impurities within recycled glass, they have been able to develop a robust high-performance tile using a low-temperature firing technique that requires a fraction of the energy demanded by normal ceramics.
Glazed by hand in Granby’s Workshop’s Liverpool studio, the tiles are suitable for indoor and outdoor use and available in five colours: green, yellow, terracotta, aqua and off-white.
Keep cool
By taking advantage of the formation of crystals triggered by impurities within recycled glass, they have been able to develop a robust high-performance tile using a low-temperature firing technique that requires a fraction of the energy demanded by normal ceramics.
Glazed by hand in Granby’s Workshop’s Liverpool studio, the tiles are suitable for indoor and outdoor use and available in five colours: green, yellow, terracotta, aqua and off-white.
Keep cool
The Playrise modular play structure system. Illustration courtesy of OMMX.
Playrise
A playground for Gaza
A playground for Gaza
Devoted to restoring play to the children who need it most, the UK-based charity Playrise has partnered with Palestinian non-profit the Gaza Children’s Village to launch a joint fundraising campaign to create purpose-built playgrounds for children in Gaza. The campaign aims to raise £25,000 to fund the first of six planned playgrounds, covering the material, transport and labour costs required to construct a much-needed Playrise-designed play structure in Gaza.
In active conflict and disaster zones, children are entirely deprived of the necessary safe spaces to gather and play – which is essential to their development. The lack of infrastructure severely impacts their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Gaza’s children are in desperate need of a secure environment where they can restore a sense of community through play.
Help build them one
In active conflict and disaster zones, children are entirely deprived of the necessary safe spaces to gather and play – which is essential to their development. The lack of infrastructure severely impacts their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Gaza’s children are in desperate need of a secure environment where they can restore a sense of community through play.
Help build them one
No.1616 Fence outside Space House in Central London. Photo by Andy Stagg.
Webb Yates x Rana Begum
LFA installation explores borders of practice and place
LFA installation explores borders of practice and place
On 18 June, for the London Festival of Architecture, artist Rana Begum and engineering practice Webb Yates sent a giant crimson mesh zigzagging its way 13 metres up the front of Space House in central London.
Inspired by functional infrastructure such as pylons and radio masts, and built from powder-coated industrial-metal mesh, the sculptural installation No.1616 Fence used its visually transparent but physically obstructive material to explore notions of borders and boundaries, inviting passers by to engage with the surrounding buildings while stopping them in their tracks with a bold burst of warning red.
Don’t fence me in
Inspired by functional infrastructure such as pylons and radio masts, and built from powder-coated industrial-metal mesh, the sculptural installation No.1616 Fence used its visually transparent but physically obstructive material to explore notions of borders and boundaries, inviting passers by to engage with the surrounding buildings while stopping them in their tracks with a bold burst of warning red.
Don’t fence me in
+44 (0)7791 568890
Unit 73B Regent Studios
8 Andrews Road
London
E8 4QN
8 Andrews Road
London
E8 4QN