Main news
New jobs Sustrans Bristol
20mph trial for main roads in London
Urban Design Awards 2015 – Winners and Finalists
How to run a country – 10 top tips that apply to towns and cities too!
Placecheck web-app – could you use it?
Mohenjodaro – 4000 year old city
Robotics – could it change cities?
Urban Innovation Centre established / from the Urban Design Group
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Join the Urban Design Group
http://www.udg.org.uk/join
Forthcoming UDG Events
Garden Cities (note change in title)
18 Mar 2015 -6:20pm-8:20pm
http://www.udg.org.uk/events/dealing-density
UDG Solent – Waterfront Development
19th Mar 2015 – 4.00-6.00pm – Southampton – Savills
Organised by Peter Frankum
http://www.udg.org.uk/events/udg-solent-waterfront-development
UDG Hamburg Visit - including Hafen & IBA
9 Apr 2015 - 12:00am-12 Apr 2015 - 12:00pm
Fully Booked
http://www.udg.org.uk/events/udg-hamburg-visit-including-hafen-iba
Urban Design & Health
22 Apr 2015 -6:20pm-8:10pm
http://www.udg.org.uk/events/urban-design-health
Density
11 May -6:20pm-8:10pm
UDG AGM – Garden Cities Part II
10 June -6:20pm-8:10pm
Join the StreetNW mailing list on
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Other events
Enhancing Wellbeing: inclusive, community collaborative approaches to placemaking’
Friday 15thMay from 10-4pm at the Dalhousie Building (LT1, Ground Floor), University of Dundee.
Academy of Urbanism
Learning from Rotterdam – AoU European City of the Year
16-18 April 2015,Rotterdam
Visit The Academy of Urbanism’s European City of the Year to learn from its exceptional autonomy, leadership, urban quality and positivity.
http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/events/learning-from-rotterdam/
BOBMK Events
http://bobmk.org.uk/our-programme/
MADE
Councillors Design Roadshow
http://www.made.org.uk/news/view/councillors_roadshow
Movement for Liveable London
Playing out: - The role of street closures in providing space for play
17th March 6.30 The Gallery Cowcross Street London
Rethinking Cities
· Sounding out Peder Balke, The National Gallery, London· 28 MarchSaturday 2pm-4pm
Read moreorBook here
·
· Walk the Dial – The City
· Walkshop to improve your photo takingtechnique withBrian Galloway photography
· 9 April Thursday 6.30pm-9.30pm
· Read more orBook here
·
· Reclaiming the city –Los Carpinteroscommissioned by Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London
· 25 AprilSaturday 2pm-4.15pm
· Read moreBook here
Urban Design London
Events coming up – extensive programme some free, some charged/£175+VAT (Free for subscribers)http://www.urbandesignlondon.com/?page_id=3251
Network Meeting and Leader’s Briefing
17thMarch
Good Street Design – Getting Street Details Right
26thMarch
Site Visit – Colville –27thMarch
UrbanNous
UrbanNous Catalogue now available on-line
Go to the home page and move your cursor to where it says “Hover here to bring ideas to life”
Highlights include Christopher Alexander, George Ferguson, Hans Monderman and scores of others.
www.urbannous.org.uk
The design of streets as public space
Phil Jones. Transport Planning Consultancy
http://www.urbannous.org.uk/manual-for-streets.htm
The Massive Small Compendium
Kelvin Campbell. Visiting Professor CASA, UCL Bartlett
http://www.urbannous.org.uk/smart-urbanism-massive-small.htm
Routledge offers 20 percent discount on books + free shipping
The discount code for the Routledge Website www.routledge.com is URBD15 and can be used to get 20% discount on those titles that were on display at the Urban Design Awards, as well as free shipping. It’s valid until the 8th April.
Jobs
Sustrans – Urban Designer – South West
http://www.udg.org.uk/jobs/south-west/urban-designer-sustrans-south-west /
Placecheck for Smartphones
Would you like to trial the App?
Following the trial Placecheck in Nottingham North, we would like to invite a small number of councils, practices or communities to trial the web app. If you have a project or a community consultation exercise in the offing, and would like to test the web app, please get in touch with . Chris Sharpe of Holistic City Software will set you up with a tailored web link, with the map centring on the location of your choice. It is entirely free, and its quite possible you will get other volunteers into the bargain.
The Place Alliance - Big Meet 3
24 February 2015
Reflections of an observer
Tobias Davidson - Architect
In Britain we don’t seem that bothered by the quality of our environment – unless, of course, that environment is in our back yard, in which case we positively don’t want it there; in London, the promise of a new station within a stone’s throw of our yard - front or back as long as we own it - probably gives cause for self-congratulation rather than swelling pride in the collective endeavour of the city.
It is perhaps for this reason that, in recent years, professions concerned with the built environment have had to rely on a stubborn belief in the public significance of their mission in the absence of any tangible endorsement by the public itself. On paper architects and urbanists may be the servants of capital but in their hearts they are guardians of the city.
Need it always be thus? The Place Alliance doesn’t think so. Formed on the back of the Farrell Review of 2014, the Alliance’s mission is no less than the wholesale renewal of public engagement in the built environment, the kind of transformation which food culture has enjoyed in this country over the last twenty years.
The Alliance hopes to achieve this through the development of an open source network of individuals and organisations, both from within and outside the built environment professions, whose critical mass will help elevate the significance of place within our public discourse. For Professor Matthew Carmona of the UCL, the Alliance’s champion, the Place Alliance is not an organisation offering a service but the focus of a movement, the guardian of an ethos around which diverse initiatives might find a collective sense of purpose. His hope is that, by keeping a light touch and avoiding representation of narrow issues and constituencies, it will retain a broad missionary zeal.
I am one of 120 or so individuals foregathered at the UCL for the third of the Alliance’s ‘Big Meets’. This kicked off with an address by the minister who commissioned the Farrell Review, Ed Vaizey, and follows with presentations by Matthew Carmona and Lucy Natarajan on progress of the initiatives set in motion at the previous Big Meet in September; after lunch, Max Farrell of Farrell and Partners gave an update on the progress of the various recommendations set out in the Farrell Review; the day closed with the rolling out of a new initiative called Talk Place, a tool kit with which proselytisers can engage others in the concept of place.
The scope of the recommendations in the Farrell Review is significant, and ranges from the provision of resources for the integration of the built environment in school education to strategies for introducing proactive planning to local government. The Place Alliance, insofar as it aims to provide a network for this collective endeavour, deserves support; and indeed within the room there is universal approval for its objective of raising awareness of place as a significant factor in our collective well-being; but there is also scepticism that it can gain any real political traction using a conceptual framework which sidesteps so resolutely the political dimension of its subject matter.
The Place Alliance’s five F’s, the qualities thought best to describe successful places (friendly, fair, flourishing, fun and free) simultaneously posit and presuppose a condition of collective conviviality in our use of public space; nowhere in their evolving mission statement does one have a sense that all human territory, both within and without the home, is contested and that, in the executing of any change to our environment, it is the legal, financial and political stakes which set the tone and context for the formal interventions. No civilized person would quibble with the movement’s aspirations that public space should be freely accessible to all and enlivened by convivial activity but there will be many who see the Alliance’s apparent reluctance to frame the challenge of achieving quality for our public spaces within a wider discourse on the politics of the public realm as naïve at best and disingenuous at worst.
It remains to be seen whether the Place Alliance can genuinely raise the profile of the built environment within mainstream public debate or whether it will prove to be another well-intentioned body which quietly sinks without trace. It’s hard to believe that the elusive nature of place as a concept, and the somewhat anodyne discourse in which its virtues are promoted, will be able to support sustained cultural work; on the other hand the Alliance’s resolute promotion of inclusion and niceness may allow it to flourish under the radar while other more contentious battles rage.
Songs written for American Cities
A comprehensive list to provide an urbane musical setting for parties.
http://www.citymayors.com/culture/songs_american_cities.html / Urban Design Awards 2015
The Urban Design Group’s National Urban Design Awards 2015 were presented on 11 March 2015 at the VSC in central London. The event was introduced Katy Neaves, Chair of the Urban Design Group and hosted by Amanda Reynolds. Awardswere presented in six categories by Janet Tibbalds on the behalf of the Francis Tibbalds Trust: Practice, Public Sector, Developer, Student, Book and Lifetime Achievement.
View all video submissions on this Youtube Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK8o99d3gKeAgG-5JW921lNfkYiHmNu0w
PRACTICE AWARD
Selected by vote of Urban Design Group membership
Receiving the £1000 Francis Tibbalds Award
Winner:
Trent Basin, Nottingham,URBED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVA5XXDl4-E
Finalists
South Acton Masterplan,HTA Design LLP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOB3ndNNw6g
St Clement's Hospital, Bow,John Thompson & Partners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccoyKv8I4xA
Ocean Estate Regeneration, Tower Hamlets,Levitt Bernstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLBy8JEySfg
PUBLIC SECTOR AWARD
Winner:
Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust,Birmingham City Council
Finalists:
King’s Crescent Community Orchard - Pocket Park,London Borough of Hackney
Southwater Development - Regeneration of Town Centre,Telford and Wrekin Council
http://youtu.be/eF2GCU698eQ
DEVELOPER AWARD
Winner
Barratt Homes Southern Region
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMJV1FKfL4U
Bentley Priory (Phase 1), Stanmore
Trumpington Meadows, Cambridge
Montague Park (Phase 1), Wokingham
Special Commendation Finalists
Davidsons Homes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FGt2tz4YvM
Millbrook, Melbourne, Derbyshire
St James’ Gate, Anstey, Leicestershire
Scraptoft Hall, Leicestershire
STUDENT AWARD
Winner
Re-imagining Swansea High Street – The Green Lanes,Clara Kohler, Cardiff University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esE7-zgrRJU
Finalists
Breaking Down Barriers – Birmingham Central Mosque,Karina Wahyuni Utami, Cardiff University
Nottingham Mediapark,Adriyan Kusum, University of Nottingham
Regeneration of Urban Neighbourhood,Siti Anis; Sen Chen; Osman Khalifa, Strathclyde University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7Hi5iiTDI
BOOK AWARD
Winner
Smart Cities: Big data, civic hackers, and the quest for a new utopia, Anthony M. Townsend, W. W. Norton & Company
Runner Up
How to study public life, Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre, Island Press,
Finalists
Food City, CJ Lim, Routledge
Sustainable Urban Metabolism, Paulo Ferrão and John E. Fernandez, The MIT Press
The Nature Of Urban Design: A New York perspective on resilience, Alexandros Washburn, Island Press
The City as a Tangled Bank: Urban Design vs Urban Evolution, Terry Farrell, John Wiley and Sons
Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns, Victor Dover and John Massengale, John Wiley and Sons, lnc
Designing Urban Transformation, Aseem Inam, Routledge
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
The Lifetime Achievement Award for 2015 was presented to Sir Terry Farrell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYTN4xip03A
Congratulations are extended to all the winners and the finalists, as well as a huge thank you to all who attended and took part in the event.
The event was generously sponsored by the publisher Routledge, Urban Initiatives Studio, and Bespoke.
For further information and photos taken by Jeremy Hernalesteen – see the UDG website
http://www.udg.org.uk/content/national-urban-design-awards-2015-results
London to trial 20mph limits on main roads to save lives
Transport for London has announced that 8 sections of main road in London are to be protected by 20mph limits in an attempt to provide better safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers facing a fine of £100 and three points on their licence if they break the limit. The importance of this trial cannot be understated.
On a separate note, Professor Michael Maher, statistician,and emeritus professor at UCL is one year into a 3 year DfT research project on 20mph limits.
News Reports.....
BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31852290
The London Standard commentary was fairly pro- there is obviously a strong cycling community who appreciate the importance of the limits.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/20mph-limit-on-major-london-routes-in-radical-plan-to-save-lives-10102995.html
The commentary in the Daily Mail was generally opposed with frequent references made to traffic grinding to a halt, “where will it all end”, and the “man with the red flag” a reference to the Locomotive Act 1865.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2992052/More-20mph-speed-limits-country-s-busiest-roads-bid-slash-accident-deaths-2020.html
Cycling Week a factual account..
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/new-20mph-speed-limit-for-london-roads-in-bid-to-save-lives-162101
Urban Design around the World
Global
2030: How 4 smart cities are gearing up for the futurehttp://mashable.com/2015/03/05/future-cities/
Connecting Children to World Issues Through Wellness
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2015/03/connecting_children_to_world_issues_through_wellness.html
Australia
National Trust says sale of Millers Point will devastate Australia’s heritagehttp://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/city-east/national-trust-says-sale-of-millers-point-will-devastate-australias-heritage/story-fngr8h22-1227249422380
Canada
Pedestrian advocacy group launching in Halifax, first meeting this weekhttp://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2015-03-09/article-4070152/Pedestrian-advocacy-group-launching-in-Halifax,-first-meeting-this-week/1
How a project to honour the victims of communism became a ‘brutalist’ $5.5 million symbol of politicalbullying
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/09/how-a-project-to-honour-the-victims-of-communism-became-a-brutalist-5-5-million-symbol-of-political-bullying/
Malta
Reconstruction of Castille Place robs the public to pay the peoplehttp://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150308/opinion/Rob-public-to-pay-the-people.558915
Singapore
A survey by the Urban Design and Development Center shows that people in Bangkok take to the streets more often than thoughthttp://www.bangkokpost.com/lifestyle/social-and-lifestyle/488562/going-walkabout
UK
Graham Allen says MPs should be too busy for second jobshttp://www.hucknalldispatch.co.uk/what-s-on/out-about/guest-columnist-graham-allen-says-mps-should-be-too-busy-for-second-jobs-1-7143966
Graham Allen has been instrumental in getting the Placecheck WebApp mobilised.
Controversial Kidbrooke towers approved after four-hour meeting
http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/11837339.Controversial_Kidbrooke_towers_approved_after_four_hour_meeting/
New Urban Innovation Centre “to Make Great Urban Ideas Become a Reality”
https://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/
The Urban Innovation Centre will house the Cities Lab, a decision-making theatre, and exhibition space. It will also be home to a number of resident innovators and collaborators. An annual events calendar will attract an internationally renowned program of speakers.
Environmental Audit Committee proposal to restrict school construction in polluted areas rejected by Government
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-plan-to-cut-air-pollution-near-schools-rejected-by-government-10077726.html
Starter homes initiative – everything you need to know
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/mar/02/starter-homes-initiative-discounted-properties-first-time-buyers
USA
They left their art in San Francisco: the city’s public displayshttp://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/place/article/How-and-why-public-art-enriches-our-urban-6112888.php#photo-7602784
Drexel Snapshot: Abandoned Power Plant Becomes a Classroom for UrbanDesign
http://newsblog.drexel.edu/2015/03/03/drexel-snapshot-abandoned-power-plant-becomes-a-classroom-for-urban-design/
Natural Environment
Light pollution shown to affect plant growth and food websAmber monochromatic light from low pressure sodium light was shown to suppress flowering in some plant species; this in turn affects aphid populations.
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_440900_en.html
Movement
Why Britain has a default 30mph urban speed limitA growing body of people believe that the 30mph limit today is no longer appropriate, credible or acceptable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31904471
Built Environment
Nine steps to survive 'most explosive era of infrastructure expansion in human history'http://phys.org/news/2015-03-surviving-explosive-era-infrastructure-expansion.html
Pop philosophy group lists six characteristics of beautiful cities
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/25957/what-makes-a-city-attractive-heres-how-to-know-for-sure/
How are women changing our cities?
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/05/how-women-changing-cities-urbanistas-architecture-design
Eagle eye view of the Burj Khalifa and Dubai – who needs a drone...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31888024
84 metre building proposed in Vienna to be built of wood
http://gtf-info.com/news/new-timber-opportunities-and-green-building/1874-vienna-s-hoho-dwarfs-existing-timber-buildings
Concept for “shadowless” tall buildings that redirect light to street level
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/architects-plan-to-stop-skyscrapers-from-blocking-out-sunlight-10108751.html
The claims need to be considered in the cold light of the law in physics of the conservation of energy
Mohenjodaro – features in BBC Radio 4 From our own correspondent
A visit to this astonishing 4000 year old city in Pakistan, and a reflection as to why it is not celebrated or protected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjlq
Modeling Answers Age-old Question about Ancient Rome
Model records the expansion of Rome under the Emperor Augustus.
Marble paved public spaces were added throughout the city under his reign.
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2015/03/modeling-answers-age-old-question-about-ancient-rome /
Latest Research, Policy and Practice