Urban designscapes and the production of aesthetic consent

Studies on the identity formation of urban centres and the use of aesthetic markers within that regeneration process largely fall into two camps that reflect their respective academic provenance. On the one hand, this effect is assessed by reference to urban planning and architectural processes. Here, the interest is firmly in the design hardware of buildings, streets and public spaces and how they are used to differentiate and communicate. On the other, this is reviewed by reference to the marketing strategies of place branding. Here the emotional software of brand identity programmes, as carried through literature, websites, the copywriting of slogans and other largely two-dimensional platforms comes into view. Within the remit of 'culture-led regeneration', the article considers a more extended version of the role of design in this process. Designers are implicated among networks of urban élites that decide strategies. But their involvement takes the process of design-led regeneration beyond buildings or leaflets to a loosely coherent, hegemonic network of signifiers to produce 'designscapes'. The article takes a critical approach to three designscapes: Barcelona, Manchester and Hull. In doing so, it evaluates contrasting approaches while keeping in view the interactions of design élites and their public, the flows between individual and collective consumption and their roles in forming an urban habitus.