Housing dominates this issue of arq. In his description of four recent projects designed for United Kingdom sites by his Netherlands practice, Hans van der Heiden considers housing as an element at the city scale (pp. 12–31). While in arq's first ‘revisit’ article, Fiona McLachlan reviews the performance in use of a large 1960s Edinburgh housing scheme (pp. 33–50). Common to the schemes in both articles is the use of the perimeter block or enclave as a housing form.