CONTENTS DIARY OF EVENTS - The Urban Design Group

YOUNG URBAN DESIGNERS
Photo: Essex Design Initiative
Big Issues
8 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
The notion of how we attract creative
and talented young people to urban
design was brilliantly covered by Hugo
Frieszo’s article in UD 93. It was full of
ideas that should be taken forward for
making the quality of the environment
a central concern in people’s minds.
Reaching out to young people would
seem an absolutely central task. We need
to go into schools and talk to children
about making decisions about where
they live. And we need to fire up interest
and passion in higher educational
establishments to get creative young
people attracted to the professions.
During my first degree I helped my
tutor start a poster campaign to raise
the profile of planning and urban design
amongst students. The campaign was
called Big Issues, and it eventually
World Habitat Awards - Entries Invited
The World Habitat Awards were initiated
in 1985 and seek to identify housing
projects around the world which can
be adapted for use elsewhere. The
competition is open to all, and can
relate to any form of innovation in
housing provision - large or small and in
any context, in management, design or
funding.
Prize money of £10,000 will be
presented to two winners at the Global
Celebration of World Habitat Day (in
Nairobi, Kenya 2004).
To enter, send a concise summary
of the project for Stage I, and online
applications can be made on the BSHF
website at www.bshf.org. Alternatively
you can submit your entry by post to:
turned into a series of glossy brochures.
But I don’t think it really reached out to
anyone outside the university - it really
wasn’t intended to. But Jon Cooper could
see that there was a yawning chasm of
misconception between the image of the
degree course, and what planning is all
about… ’so, what, you like, design roads
and stuff?’
I believe that to get young people
to sign up to urban design it has to
be cool. I am secretly convinced that
planning is poised to be the most
fashionable profession on earth.
I have already heard the giggles
and snorts, but one thing is clear; its
all happening in the city; apartments,
scooters, café bars, live/work loft space.
The urban renaissance has opened the
door for a generation of café dwelling,
scooter riding, European city breaking
young people to live the urban lifestyle
without needing to be a high flyer at
Merrill Lynch. Has no one ever heard
of regeneration chic? And it isn’t all
happening just in Shoreditch, Glasgow
Harbour and east Manchester. This
writer’s current experience has shown
that ‘City Living’ is where its at in the
fine old market town of Yeovil.
While visiting our ongoing project at
Newhall recently, I was first startled, then
amused, then rather proud to see that
one of the glossy marketing brochures
being handed out in the show home read
Abode – New Urban Design. In the end,
it was sobering because it occurred to
me that urban designers should really be
claiming these successes, and using them
to attract talented young people to join
us in our work.
In some ways, things are cranking
up. Take as a point of reference Will
Alsop’s current exhibition at Urbis
in Manchester. Some may find this
kind of vision for the northern cities
frankly bonkers. Some who read this
publication I know find it really rather
troubling; and certainly, I couldn’t say
with any sincerity that it has instilled a
tremendous public confidence in what
planners and architects are ‘up to now’,
which isn’t really helping. But in a way
Alsop is doing - perhaps by default
- what needs to be done. The point is
here, and it is a genuine one; Supercity
made it onto Radio One.
Stop right there! Now then, I am
not suggesting that the leading aim for
STREET is to don urban design baseball
caps and push for a spot on Colin & Edith
(although I rather like the idea). Surely
though, no one can fail to have at least
a passing interest in a vision of seismic
change. Alsop’s careful attention to
graphic quality and playful imagery are
intended to seduce the eye, and that’s the
kind of thing that will attract interested
and interesting young people to urban
design. Get them thinking about were
they could be living; get them thinking
about what they could be creating.
Sustainability comes in term two.
I am reminded of a comment made
by Mike Hayes, the current president of
the RTPI, that the training route into
planning might be renamed ‘a degree
in Changing the World’. A convivial stab
at stirring up the assembled throng it
may have been; one, which fell rather on
deaf ears. But Mike’s point was entirely
sincere - the possibilities for creative
endeavour are pretty unique.
The challenge is thus; to claim our
successes and shout loud about them;
there are enough out there to claim now,
and the development sector is already
giving it a go. …See that funky new
bit of town? We did that. You could do
that. As Hugo Frieszo has said, it will
take three things; will, commitment
and a bit of financial and professional
encouragement. Can we get going now
please?
Alex Cochrane
World Habitat Awards 2005, Building and
Social Housing Foundation, Memorial
Square, Coalville, Leicestershire LE67 3TU
United Kingdom. Tel 01530 510444 Fax
01530 510332 Email wha@bshf.org.
All Stage I submissions should reach the
Foundation by 1 June 2005.