topic - urban-design-group.org.uk

NEWS AND EVENTS
Call for Home Zone Designers
Are you involved in the design of a
new-build home zone for a developer or
public sector group?
A group of designers and
campaigners is currently setting up a
website with the support of the IHIE
(Institute of Highway Incorporated
Engineers) to show good practice and new
design ideas for new build home zones,
and would be interested in your work.
Following the production of Mike
Biddulph’s HomeZones - A Planning
and Design Handbook (JRF 2001) and
the IHIE Home Zone Design Guidelines
(2002), many designers and clients
identified a need for a showcase of best
practice new build home zones, and
so want to hear about proposals and
ideas that have helped to overcome
typical problems and concerns raised
in designing home zones. The group
meets bi-monthly with the next
meeting in November, but contributions
and material can also be submitted
electronically. Please contact louise.
thomas@scottwilson.com if you would
like to get involved.
Louise Thomas
UCE Launches new Urban Design Masters Course
The School of Architecture and Landscape
Architecture at the University of Central
England in Birmingham has launched
a new masters programme in urban
design. It is unique in the West Midlands
and draws upon the area’s dynamic and
award-winning regeneration schemes
for its programme. The course has been
designed to tackle cultural heterogeneity
and the complexity of our cities, as well
as the diverse urban fabric of our cities,
towns, suburbs, villages and urban
fringe. The core issues are sustainable
development, heritage management,
multi-cultural urbanism, and urban
regeneration and governance. The course
also provides opportunities for student
placements, visiting professionals to
work with students and a one week study
visit to a European city.
The course structure allows for one
year full-time study, two years part-time
study, or modules taken as short courses
as part of a continuing professional
development (CPD) credit scheme, to
give a certificate, diploma or masters
degree in urban design.
For further information contact
noha.nasser@uce.ac.uk.
Noha Nasser, Course Director, Birmingham
School of Architecture and Landscape,
University of Central England
Forthcoming Publications: Urban Design Futures
The past ten years in this country has
seen the rise of urban design. From
a peripheral activity of questionable
relevance to the quality of the
environment that was being delivered
by government, local authorities and
the private sector, it has taken a central
position in the new agendas for urban
regeneration and renaissance. New
legislation and guidance is reinforcing
this importance. The Urban Task Force
with its emphasis on an integrated
approach to development, and its
aspiration for an urban renaissance has
helped consolidate this central role.
Urban capacity studies, exploration into
sustainable urban quality, guidance from
government bodies reshaping the design
agenda have started to provide new
urban design tools to enable public and
private sectors to improve the quality
of the built environment. The advent of
CABE has reinforced this. The different
regions of the country are preparing new
strategies for architecture and the built
environment. Urban design has moved
from marginality to mainstream. The
principles espoused by urban designers
over the past 20 to 30 years are now
accepted as key to a better urban
environment. For many urban designers
much of that time has been spent
proselytising, promoting the benefits of
urban design.
Now that the urban design messages
are being accepted, an intellectual gap
has emerged. Many of the ideas and
principles that have become the coda of
urban design are beginning to take on a
patina of age. Key urban design models,
such as ‘responsive environments’,
have stood the test of time. Its core
values have been accepted. But as we
move towards greater sustainability,
different ideas are emerging that are
challenging some of the accepted urban
design norms. Much of this is occurring
outside the UK in countries such as
Holland, Denmark, and the USA. Urban
design is at a watershed. The time has
come to review progress and to explore
these and other emerging ideas. Should
urban design reflect the future rather
than recreate the past? What are the
new driving forces that will shape urban
living and hence urban design in the
future? Are these global issues? Will they
reflect issues of gender and plurality?
A new book to be published by Routledge
in 2005 will be based around a number
of themes. These will include:
• uncertainty, addressing surrounding
the blurring of edges, and transience
• movement, designing for movement
through cities
• experience, a retailing approach to the
urban environment
• control, the embedding of urban
design as a legislative tool
• sustainability and townscape.
The purpose of this book is to explore
new concepts, to set out the intellectual
frameworks behind these ideas through
a series of ‘think-pieces’ and perhaps
to point the way towards a series of
urban design paradigms for the 21st
century. A range of contributors, some
of whom will be practitioners, others
new ‘conceptualisers’ and academics
will explore each of these themes. They
include Adriaan Gueze, Lucien Kroll,
Thom Mayne, Ken Worpole, Ken Yeang,
John Punter, Tim Stonor, Jan Gehl.
Jon Rowland and Malcolm Moor
Editors and contributors
8 | Urban Design | Autumn 2004 | Issue 92