United Kingdom

New "Lifetime Homes" standards in the U.K., which are designed to accommodate people at all stages of life, will lead away from ultra-small flats to larger apartments, says Builder Magazine.

Hank Dittmar of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment responds to recent accusations that Prince Charles has unduly influenced the planning process in the U.K.

With nearly 20,000 retail outlets shutting down so far this year in England, the future of towns' high streets looks shaky. But some say reviving these main streets is as simple as converting empty shops into housing units.

In a location near St. Paul's Cathedral, a new self-proclaimed "ultra-modernist" office and shopping complex is going up, despite the efforts of the Prince of Wales behind the scenes to squelch the project.

The Bixi bicycle sharing system in Montreal will be replicated in Boston and London, according to Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay.

Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman unveiled a prototype bicycle design he believes is 20 years ahead of its time. It includes an onboard computer, spokeless wheels and solar power.

Raising bees, that is. In England, a British government conservation agency is encouraging city dwellers to keep bees on their roofs, and have introduced a new hive design to make the pursuit easier.

Responding to a recent controversial review of planning processes, the Department for Communities & Local Government is allowing many types of building alterations to happen without review.

As it prepares to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, the City of London is getting closer to completion on some of its event-related infrastructure. So far, the best buildings are more nuts-and-bolts than flash, according to this piece.

Researchers in the U.K. are proposing a plan to utilize streetlamp infrastructure to install traffic monitoring devices in an effort to collect more information and aid transportation planners.

As the U.K. experiments with building environmentally-friendly "eco-towns", Peter Hetherington of The Guardian argues that they should also be greening up Britain's vast suburbs.

In a posh borough of London, empty homes are causing problems for officials, who are tasked with finding the owners of these vacant or abandoned mansions.

The UK government recently announced the sites of four new planned "eco-towns". But local opposition to the projects remains high.

In the continuing battle between architects and Prince Charles, the Prince has resigned from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings after it rejected the foreword he had written for an upcoming handbook on restoration.

This piece looks at a public art project that placed 30 pianos in public places throughout London in an effort to encourage more public interaction.

London's iconic red double-decker buses are going green.

Officials in London are changing their minds about the main stadium being built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which was intended to be a semi-temporary structure. Now they want it to be permanent.