The Temporary City

Book excerpt: Peter Bishop and Lesley Williams explore the growing interest among practitioners at the cutting edge of architecture, urban design and regeneration, in temporary, interim, 'pop-up' or 'meanwhile' uses for land and buildings in our urban areas. They explore the origins and the social, economic and technological drivers behind this phenomenon, and its place within modern planning theory and practice. Using sixty-eight diverse case studies from Europe and North America, it challenges our preoccupation with long-term strategies and masterplans and questions our ability to achieve these in the face of increasing resource constraints and political and economic uncertainty.