London Plan Public Library ︱ About LPPL

Documents mean different things in different public spheres, so we have to concern ourselves as readers with questions about who they were meant for and where we find them. Being concerned with how, why, where, and for who documents are circulated is crucial to their interpretation.

Nick Thurston, Documentary Practices

Project Description

The London Plan Public Library (LPPL) is a publishing project that forms part of the visual research undertaken by Chi Nguyen completing doctoral studies at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, which looks into the communication design of the London Plan as a way to ask broader questions about publics and the role of public documents in shaping the planning of cities. It is a design output to be read alongside the thesis, The HyperTextual and the HyperAttentive: the Publics of the London Plan (OR a Communication Design Examination of the London Plan as a Public Document; OR OR How to Read the London Plan Without Reading It).

Project Aim

The aim of LPPL is to document the documents related to the draft new London Plan published by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Greater London Authority in December 2017 which led to the formal publication of the final London Plan on 2 March 2021. It gathers documents published between 2017–2020 during the Draft Consultation that were: produced by the Mayor’s office (Mayor Documents); reviewed for soundness by the third party Planning Inspector during the Examination in Public (EIP Panel Documents); and submitted by respondents (Respondent Documents). This archive reproduces the EIP Library originally posted on the london.gov.uk website, in a new visual format, in order to make an accessible public record. It explores the relationships between documents—and maps relevant paths and connections, but also highlights documentary gaps and missing or broken links.

Why Library?

Libraries collect and provide access to published materials, made widely available. Archives store and preserve public records or historical materials of perceived value for future reading, viewing, study or reference. LPPL works simultaneously as a library (a place to collect and widely access published materials from the 2017 LP consultation) and as an archive (a place to preserve the documents as an historical public record for future readers). It is called a library to borrow from the language used by the GLA, which collects London Plan documents under the umbrella term of EIP Library. Planning documents are generally hard to navigate, but they are especially difficult to find during time-limited consultations and after they complete. The LPPL’s goal is to make the process of document hunting and text searching—necessary practices to participate in planning processes—a less painful experience.

Research Writings

Introduction

Methodology

Part—One — Context & Concept

Chapter 1: Public Planning

Chapter 2: Public Imagination

Chapter 3: Public Participation

Part—Two — Communication

Chapter 4: Public Relations & Publicity

Chapter 5: Publication

Part—Three — Circulation

Chapter 6: Public Record

Chapter 7: Public_HTML

Chapter 8: Public Library

Conclusion

Appendix

Faced with an unprecedented amount of available texts, the problem is not to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists.

Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, she posits that the first tool was the basket rather than the spear. This reshapes our history of technology as one of gathering and sharing rather than dominating. In a time where we are bombarded with information, there’s a thoughtfulness to gathering that might prompt us to slow down and ask what we are collecting and for whom.

Mindy Seu, LVL3 Interview