Bringing the human touch into our cities | Letters  (Quelle: The Guardian)

Austen Lynch and Annie Coombs respond to Carlos Ratti’s call for the revamp of public spacesCarlo Ratti’s welcome call for the humanising of urban public spaces (We used AI to analyse three cities. It’s true: we now walk more quickly and socialise less, 18 August) chimes well with Thomas Heatherwick’s latest series of Building Soul on Radio 4, where his prime concern is to encourage joy in our built environment.May I make the case for a too often overlooked space in the heart of Preston? Winckley Square is composed of largely Georgian townhouses that define an undulating park. Continue reading…

Nature, respect and work all help to reduce prisoners’ reoffending | Letters  (Quelle: The Guardian)

Gillian Hamilton salutes the care that participants in the LandWorks project receive, plus letters from Juliana Dart and Heather Penny-LarterYour article about the prisoner rehabilitation project LandWorks, excellent though it was, arguably placed too much emphasis on nature as the chief factor accounting for the project’s undoubted success (‘A natural antidepressant’: how working with the land is helping ex-prisoners, 16 August).I have been a keen supporter of the project since it was set up 12 years ago. The remarkably low reoffending rate (5%) seems to me to be due largely to participants being treated with respect, together with the wraparound care they receive while working at LandWorks. This ranges, as the article explains, from help with accommodation to finding work. Continue reading…