Our Approach

The Max Lock Centre is committed to the principle of Planning by People.

Background

The Max Lock Centre is a multi-disciplinary research, knowledge transfer and consultancy organisation in the Department of Urban Development and Regeneration, School of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of Westminster, London. It holds the Max Lock and John Turner Archives from which it draws its inspiration. The flexibility of the Centre with its long inheritance of grassroots development planning is firmly associated with the practical academic research tradition of the former London Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster.

From the mid 1930s the Max Lock philosophy sought to articulate the needs of a community in focused and participatory investment programmes to achieve affordable and environmentally sustainable solutions. The Centre has been developing and renewing this tradition.

It offers research, policy advice, technical consultancy and training in international development.

It focuses on participatory governance, including multi-stakeholder partnerships and planning, design and management for development at neighbourhood, city and regional levels.

It adopts a Sustainable Livelihoods Approach to poverty reduction and local development through its research publications and consultancy activities and through local offshoots such as the Max Lock Centre Delhi in India and Max Lock Consultancy Nigeria.

It engages in projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as in the UK and Europe.