Rob Cowan is a director of the training provider and consultant Urban Design Skills. He is the author of The Dictionary of Urbanism and editor of Context, the journal of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
His other publications include The Connected City, The Cities Design Forgot, Urban Design Guidance, The Placecheck User's Guide and Designing Places, and he is the joint author of By Design and Re:urbanism. He is an illustrator and his weekly cartoon has appeared in Planning for the past 20 years.