Professor Peter Larkham
Peter Larkham is Professor of Planning at the University’s College of the Built Environment. He teaches planning-related issues such as conservation and urban design on the College’s BSc and MSc courses and leads its Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice.
Peter studied for his PhD in Urban Geography at the University of Birmingham, where he then worked on projects that were funded by the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy, before joining Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University) in 1991.
He has published over 90 refereed journal papers and 50 book chapters, presented numerous papers at conferences across the globe, and edited and written several books. The most recent is Placemaking: people, properties, planning, written with colleagues in the Faculty and published in 2024.
Peter is also the College’s coordinator of Research Degrees. He has vast experience as a supervisor and examiner of research degrees, having supervised 26, examined 41 and chaired 43 Vivas.
Current Activity
Peter is currently working on the post-war replanning of British towns, especially those that were badly bomb damaged. Over 250 ‘reconstruction plans’ were produced in a very short period, affecting the layout and functioning of many towns even 70 years later. He has recently studied aspects of heritage in the reconstruction plans, and the heritage of reconstructed areas and buildings as they now become considered for redevelopment. He is now working on the replanning of London.
To access Peter’s public lecture on replanning London, given at Gresham College, click here.
He is also working with the UK Council for Graduate Education’s working group on the quality and reputation of the UK doctorate.
Peter is also an active member of the International Planning History Society and the International Seminar on Urban Form.
Areas of Expertise
- Urban planning
- History
- Conservation
- Design
- Practices of PhD supervision
Qualifications
- PhD
- BA (Hons)
Memberships
- Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Member of the Urban Design Group
Teaching
Peter currently teaches on the following courses:
- PG Certificate in Research Practice
- BSc Property Development & Planning
- BSc Building Surveying
- BSc Architectural Technology
- MA Planning Built Environments
Research
Peter is currently working on the post-war replanning of British towns, especially those that were badly bomb damaged. Over 250 ‘reconstruction plans’ were produced in a very short period, affecting the layout and functioning of many towns even 80 years later. He has recently studied aspects of heritage in the reconstruction plans, and the heritage of reconstructed areas and buildings as they now become considered for redevelopment.
You can access Peter’s public lecture on replanning London, given at Gresham College, by visiting the Gresham College webpage.
He has worked on urban agriculture and guerrilla gardening, and how ideas of ‘urban greening’ could be better incorporated into the design of housing developments, publishing papers with Professor Mike Hardman (University of Salford) and David Adams (University of Birmingham). He is also interested in the link between landscape design and regional-scale planning, including the suggested West Midlands National Park, working with Kathryn Moore, Anastasia Nikologianni and Alex Albans.
He is Editor for the international journal Urban Morphology and Editorial Board member for Planning Perspectives, Urban Design International and the Journal of Urban Design, and is an active member in the international organisations that support them: the International Planning History Society and the International Seminar on Urban Form.
Postgraduate Supervision
Peter currently supervises 7 PhD students.
Publications
Larkham, P.J. (2024) ‘The relationship between urban form and land use regulation in China: the case of Nanjing’, Urban Morphology vol. 28 no. 1 pp. 3-26 (with C. Gao, H. Lu and W.Ding)
Larkham, P.J. (2024) ‘Learning from experiences of post catastrophe reconstruction’, in Kryzhanovsky, B. (ed.) Architecture after war CANactions, Kyiv
Larkham, P.J. (2024) ‘UK cities need greener new builds – and more of them’, The Conversation 4 June (with D. Adams and M. Hardman) https://theconversation.com/uk-cities-needgreener-new-builds-and-more-of-them-227746
Larkham, P.J. (2024) ‘Working across boundaries in urban morphology’, in Oliveira, V. (ed.) Urban morphology and the International Seminar on Urban Form Springer, Cham
Larkham, P.J. (2024) ‘Radical change, or just more of the same? Thoughts on COVID and urban change’, in Camiz, A. (ed.) Pandemics and the changing urban environment: learning from history, planning our future DRUM Press, Istanbul
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘Revisioning and rebuilding Britain’s war damaged cities’, Urban Planning vol. 8 no. 1 pp. 169-181 (with D. Adams) https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v8i1.6102
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘The post-war reconstruction planning of London’, Planning Perspectives vol. 38 no. 6 pp. 1143-1165 (with D. Adams) https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2023.2200400
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘Edible garden cities: rethinking boundaries and integrating hedges into scalable urban food systems’, Land vol 12 paper 1915 special issue ‘Planning sustainable cities through nature-based solutions’ (with D. Adams and M. Hardman) https://doi.org/10.3390/land12101915
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘Reimagining landscape: landscape-led governance to support future transformation and change’, in Bishop, K. (ed.) Routledge handbook of urban landscape research Routledge, Abingdon (with M.C. Alonso de Medina and K. Moore). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003109563-5
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘Creating character and identity in the rebuilt city: investigating post-war Britain’, in Kamalipour, H., Aelbrecht, P. and Peimani, N. (eds) Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Research Methods Routledge, New York. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003168621-30
Larkham, P.J. (2023) ‘Planning the smart city with young people: addressing teenagers’ perceptions, values and visions of smartness’, Urban Planning vol. 8 no. 2 pp. 57-69 (with S. Shtebunaev and S. Gullino) https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v8i2.6411
Larkham, P.J. (2022) ‘The urban future: relating garden city ideas to the climate emergency’, Land vol. 11, paper 147 (with A. Nikologianni) https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020147
Larkham, P.J. (2022) ‘Contesting urban monuments: future directions for the controversial monumental landscapes of civic grandeur’, International Journal of Heritage Studies vol. 28 no. 8 pp. 891-906 (with D. Adams) https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2022.2092764
Larkham, P.J. (2022) ‘Relics of war: damaged structures and their replacement or management in modern landscapes’, Sustainability vol. 14 paper 13513 (with D. Adams) https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013513
Larkham, P.J. (2022) ‘History and heritage: the reconstruction of blitzed cities’, in Welch Guerra, M., Abarkan, A., Castrillo Romón, M. and Pekár, M. (eds) European planning history in the 20th century: a continent of urban planning, Routledge, New York, pp. 139-152 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003271666-15
Larkham, P.J. (2022) ‘Assessing a quarter-century of Urban Morphology’, Urban Morphology vol. 26 no. 2 pp. 173-188
Larkham, P.J. (2021) ‘Evaluating historic preservation zoning using a landscape approach’, Land Use Policy (online) (with Q. He and J. Wu) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105737
Larkham, P.J. (2021) ‘Built environment and landscape design as tools for climate resilient cities and regions’, ATINER, Athens Journal of Architecture vol. 7 no. 3 pp. 335-354 (with A. Nikologianni and K. Moore) DOI: https://doi.org/10.30958/aja.7-3-1
Larkham, P.J. (2021) ‘Conservation and (sub)urban form: reviewing policy in Stratford upon Avon, 2004-2019’, in Oliveira, V. (ed.) From morphological research to planning, urban design and architectural practice, Springer, Cham (with N. Morton)
Larkham, P.J. (2020) ‘Governance of conservation area boundaries: agents and agencies in decision making’, Planning Practice and Research vol. 35 no. 5 pp. 526-554(with L. Deng) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2020.1794663
Larkham, P.J. (2020) ‘Rethinking placemaking: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities to improve the built environment in historical districts’, Urban Design International (with X. Li, I.H. Hijazi and A. Lusk) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-02000137-3
Larkham, P.J. (2020) ‘Bombed churches, war memorials and the changing English urban landscape’, Change over Time vol. 9 no. 1 pp. 48-71
Larkham, P.J. (2020) ‘British reconstruction planning after the Second World War: the rise of planning and the issue of “non-planning”’, Architektura & Urbanizmus issue 1-2 (2020) pp. 16-27
Larkham, P.J. (2020) ‘Encounters with a future past: navigating the shifting urban atmospheres of place’, Journal of Urban Design vol. 25 no. 3 pp. 308-327 (with D. Adams, M. Smith and J. Abidin) https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2019.1592668
Larkham, P.J. (2019) ‘Persistence, inertia, adaptation and life cycle: applying urban morphological ideas to conceptualise sustainable city-centre change’, ICONARP International Journal of Architecture and Planning vol. 7 no. 2 (special issue on urban morphology) pp. 73-94 (with D. Adams) https://doi.org/10.15320/ICONARP.2019.78
Media Work
Peter has advised, and briefly appeared in interviews on several TV documentaries on reconstructing cities after the Second World War.