City/future in the making: masterplanning London’s Olympic legacy as anticipatory assemblage

Davis, Juliet ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2056-5792 and Groves, Christopher ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5873-1119 2019. City/future in the making: masterplanning London’s Olympic legacy as anticipatory assemblage. Futures 109 , pp. 13-23. 10.1016/j.futures.2019.04.002

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Abstract

To understand how the legacy of urban regeneration promised by events like the London 2012 Olympics is constructed, the masterplanning process is analysed as an assemblage of heterogeneous elements that construct futures as knowable and actionable objects in the present. Building on recent applications of actor-network theory to planning studies, the value of the concept of ‘anticipatory assemblage’ is demonstrated. The example of London 2012 masterplanning underlines how masterplanning as an anticipatory activity is performed through networks which are formed through the circulation of expectations and visions as networked ‘intermediaries’. Through these intermediaries, ordered processes are set in motion, and requirements for subsequent activities established. Further, it is shown how this use of concepts of anticipatory assemblages can help understand the political significance of masterplanning in the present, which depends on how organised forms of anticipation re-order social and material relationships in the present, including some actors as participants within anticipatory assemblages and excluding others.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Architecture
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0016-3287
Funders:	Arts and Humanities Research Council
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 April 2019
Date of Acceptance:	1 April 2019
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2023 22:37
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/121656

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