Europe faces a singular challenge today: it must design itself. The European Union arose and is developing without reference to any previous model on our continent. Neither Charlemagne’s empire nor Napoleon’s attempt at continental unification qualifies as a model to be emulated.

Fish Island Village in Tower Hamlets in east London, by Haworth Tompkins, is a meaty example of the genre. Al-Jawad Pike’s two-storey Chowdhury Walk, in neighbouring Hackney, is a more intimate example of the same thinking.

Europe faces a singular challenge today: it must design itself. The European Union arose and is developing without reference to any previous model on our continent. Neither Charlemagne’s empire nor Napoleon’s attempt at continental unification qualifies as a model to be emulated.