London is one of the great world cities when it comes to sport.

While the Lionesses were excelling in their football journey on the other side of the world, the UK capital was putting the finishing touches to an extraordinary summer when it hosted not just the Wimbledon Championships but two stirring men’s cricket test matches, NFL, Major League Baseball, the Boat Race, Formula E, athletics and a whole host of top-tier football, hockey and rugby matches in packed-out, world-class stadia.

And it was at one of those world-class venues, Lord’s, that NLQ interviewed three of the directors of WilkinsonEyre about their plans to design two more stands at the peerless architectural ensemble, but also to reflect on life after loss — one of their key players, Chris Wilkinson, two years ago.

Which isn’t to say sport in the capital is what happens on the pitch alone, of course. The revitalisation of Wembley, 100 years on from the stadium’s original manifestation, is testament to that. At Wembley Park, Quintain has created a place around the ‘anchor’ venue that functions as efficiently on match days as it does when sport or music come to town. Quintain boss James Saunders leads our walk about the BtR-rich estate this issue. Another team on the up is Heyne Tillett Steel, whose winning brand of engineering is profiled by Louise Rodgers.

We travel to Knightsbridge to see how Fletcher Priest has reimagined a very high-profile quarter of the city, juggling the needs of heritage, conservation, new build, retail, residential and tube lines with aplomb. And we move to Whitechapel to review team AHMM’s transformation of an old hospital into the new home for Tower Hamlets Borough Council.

There is plenty more besides: Yolande Barnes asks if it’s time for ‘hypermixity’, ushering in an intense form of mixed use. Tom Goodall, the new boss of Related Argent — no stranger itself to balancing uses across a large site at King’s Cross, for example, answers our questions in Coffee Break. And we journey further afield to Finland to talk to Turku mayor Minna Arve about her bid to build on the city’s Capital of Culture in 2011 with a new vision for health and wellbeing at its core.

In an age where serious issues such as housing and homelessness, the cost-of-living crisis and global warming fill our news outlets, sport offers a release and an unpredictable boost to the soul. But it also brings a viable economic boost and draw to investment, with developments which can help the regeneration push to bind communities together and offer a sense of urban cohesion. Game on.

Enjoy the issue!

David Taylor
Editor