A Model Building for declining industrial cities that aims to revitalise communities?

What Future? Is the debate on urban cities being hosted by the Ove Arup Foundation and the Guardian on the 3rd November in London.

As well as discussing the usual debates around sustainable food, expansion of cities and spatial inclusion the debate will also aim to discuss and identify issues to be addressed by leaders, practitioners and teachers and mentors of the future such as:

• limited and pressurised resources
• Competition for space and rights to it
• Should we focus on changing our current cities or changing ourselves?
• Can we define the relationship between the real and virtual environment? and how will it affect the meaning and practice of ‘community development’ and its meaning?
• What will it take to be a planner, urban designer and architect and are we equipping future practitioners with the correct skills?
• Should we become ‘agents for the community’ or ‘social determinants’?

I cant wait to see what the outcome of the discussions will be.

From this……

To this…..

The new regeneration project by the developer Renewal is only just gone through the first stage of planning, but it seems terribly exciting. For a south London this is on par with the Olympic games in London.

Working with Sport England, TFL, Lewisham Council and other local community organisations like New Cross Gate Trust and Winslade Estate residents, the people behind the project believe that this could be ‘as big as the Doclands’, but there are major challenges which are thrown up besides the usual issues of recession and low level of local skills. There is a large housing estate right next to the development called Winslade or known locally as Lovelinch. At present it is managed by the council who have no intention of giving it a much injected renewal programme of new windows and doors to make it look as smart as Tustin Estate across the road in South. How will the residents feel as the potential ‘poor relation’ of the family housing proposed which although will be ‘designed to fit in’ as Renewal say, will still be streets ahead in terms of sustainability and aesthetics.

In addition, we may see a new Dale farm saga emerge as pressure to remove a small but established travellers site in Bermondsey in the light that ‘the gentrifiers wont want to live near them’ drama. Although the site is within south it does sit feet away from the Millwall Den, which will be at the heart of the development and is an ease drop from South Bermondsey station the nearest over ground station with direct links from London Bridge.

I will provide updates on planning and the designs as they emerge.

An interesting article, which looks at the shape of planning and urbanism today and some of the challenges which we will face tomorrow. In sum, the following challenges were identified:

• The public will reclaim the private.

In some ways this is already happening with private shopping centres incorporating leisure activities so that people feel like they could be on the high street in public spaces.

• Our perception of ‘good or suitable’ places to live will change

Again in some ways this is already happening , Manchester and Birmingham are great examples of where city centre living has become more desirable. In addition there is still the tendency to want to live in an inner-city up and coming with all the grit and sense of chick, remember what we used to think of Brixton, Shoreditch, New Cross, Forest Hill, Peckham??? Its funny how more people are wanting to live there these days.

However in future, this maybe challenged more, with ‘private’ spaces becoming prime locations (no not squatting!) but interesting building like Pinewood Studios where proposals for re-dovelopment have been submitted. We have already seen schools, churches and hospitals as well as prisons converted in this way so why not?

• High Rise living

High rises are controversial but in the future, there maybe little choice. Besides they are already making a come back with support for a 53 storey residential building in croydon getting approval from academics, architects and sustainable designers.In the future, we could see challenging designs which enable direct street access (without the need for a lift) to the 10th or 30th floor…

• Third world regeneration projects by urban regeneration companies like Urban Splash

With growing populations at a time when they are becoming world class economic leaders and thus attracting a new work forces, slums in Brazil and India may welcome western urban regeneration companies input and we in the west could be moving to a rejuvinated mumbai slum for work.

• Greening of space

To some degree this is already happening, take the southbank centre, growing food in parks projects and roof top gardening (as planned by Renewal in their design for the new London Sports Village in South London). But could this become more militant, with work place garden or allotment terraces? car park conversions or more high rise roof gardens as intended by the developers Renewal?

• More interesting Architecture

Obvious? Well take a look at recent winners and runners up in the RIBA awards, I think the look of a building and its relationship to its surroundings will become a greater concern. Although this article does not mention it, I think the design of urban transport and layouts will also change in future. I did an article on some of the bicycle design competition in the USA and they certainly aim to challenge how we will use bicycles in the future.

• Fear of Suburbia

With inner London experiencing riots, why did it all kick of in Croydon- its a suburb! Well perhaps its loosing its suburban village identity with all the big chains? or perhaps opportunities are as limited as the inner-city areas? how about transport- any issues there? have housing officers finally got it right with mixing communities? Gentrification of the inner-cities pushed those on lower incomes out? Perhaps the answer is all of the above?

But whatever the correct the answer we are seeing some of our suburbs become increasingly ‘challenged’ places.

St. Patricks School Library and Music Room - Building Information

Client of the Year award + Stephen Lawrence Prize winner 2011

BOTTLE SCHOOLS

The project by Hug it Forward is innovative way of building. I have seen innovative stuff like this here in the UK via the ‘grand design’ type projects. It would be great if there was much more of this. I think if there was more of this, particularly in future housebuilding or community building would definitely demonstrate the UK’s innovativeness and willingness to tackle climate change and environmental landfill sites. However other considerations would need to be consider such as their impact on the people using them in terms of climate and durability of such a build.

At a time like this where there is very little money floating around, I think that this would be a great idea to develop and execute in more developing countries, particularly by cash strapped charities. From my experience in India, where building extra classrooms etc, this was not a technique which was even considered, despite the fact that most of the material (rubbish) was right there and free.

Anyway to read more see:

http://hugitforward.org/

What a shame that this is not being put back into good use or that it is not being opened to the public. 

Many would cry for the like of National Trust and the Prince’s Trust and others to take do this, but I think that perhaps it should be left alone and that the owner should be more reasonable and perhaps open it to the public for a few days of the year…..

I wonder if ill ever work on a project like this…hope so.