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I am afraid Ms Gaventa has mis-understood the gist of what I said at the lecture at Kew Gardens, perhaps because she did not attend and the quotes have been taken out of context. We are not on opposite sides of the discussion, as her response might suggest. As I have been and continue to be most involved and interested in public realm projects, and know well of CABE’s devotion to “place-making”. The point I was trying to make is that there is a lack of attention paid NOT to the beautiful gardens and parks and major public spaces of London, but to all the less signature, more ubiquitous public spaces that ARE, in fact, left-over and in-between pieces of urban landscape. These types of spaces are typically not reviewed by CABE. These observations were taken from merely walking the street where I live. Aside from the horribly run-down conditions around Old Street Roundabout, most apparent is the lack of care and attention and poor use-allocation of the “green-space” around council-housing. THIS was the focus of my critique- not the more high-profile spaces CABE is, fortunately, involved with. However, the degraded open spaces of this typology of housing affects both the people who live in and adjacent to these developments. Council-house wasted space, and its ill effects, is one of the most serious issues that affect the quality of urban life in London. Given the commitment to Public Housing the Mayor has made, it would be of tremendous use if the design community brought more critical thinking to both the Corbusian model of buildings standing alone in the green landscape, and the way we typically see the landscape as decoration. Both attitudes have greatly influenced this particularly unsuccessful model of city-building. We need to be much more critical of the LESS important spaces and how open space is really used in an urban environment. Huge expanses of open green lawn that produces a field of ambiguity have proven to be toxic spaces. This was the gist of my lecture at Kew Gardens. Martha Schwartz