Design Skills Symposium 2014 Day 1 Newsletter Sharpen Your Pencils!
Design Skill Symposium 2014 is launched by Derek MacKay, Minister for Local Government and Planning
The Minister was delighted by the attendance at
and how it responds to local conditions, allowing
the symposium, evidence of the commitment to
citizens to fully contribute in developing places.
build skills to create better places. He noted the importance of working creatively, learning and refining techniques for and from the real world, the opportunities to network and to be inspired by international examples, including Melbourne which consistently ranks highly in the list of liveable cities and where design has been a catalyst in delivering this. He touched on the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne and how Scotland was keen to learn lessons from the Glasgow Games. He highlighted the great anticipation for the Games and the transformational change already
He underlined that the Design Skills Symposium makes a valuable contribution to supporting those involved in planning and welcomed the establishment of the Local Authority Urban Design Forum by A+DS. He encouraged the delegates to sharpen their pencils and get stuck in to the challenges over the next two days and hoped that the confidence gained through participating in the DSS will transfer to communities across the country.
Jim MacDonald, Chief Executive, A+DS
delivered – world class sports amenities, green
Jim welcomed delegates to the fourth Design
infrastructure, better connections to the River
Skills Symposium with a reminder of the
Clyde and a social legacy through investments,
challenge for participants: to think differently
for example in a care home. The regeneration
about how we do places. Over the next two
has been invaluable in delivering employment
days the Symposium will look at how we use
opportunities and has also made smart use of
the assets that we already have, how to create
assets that we already had in place.
healthy, active neighbourhoods and how to
The Minister reminded us that Creating Places, launched in 2013, sets out how design can deliver value and should be at the heart of planning decisions. He outlined the Scottish Government’s support of the Charette process
increase community empowerment. Together these are key to effective placemaking and to the delivery of wider Scottish Government outcomes which recognise the need for place-based solutions and partnership to deliver change.
An international perspective: Geoffrey London The first day’s keynote speaker, Geoffrey
to residential, and streets were re-populated.
London (Government Architect for Victoria,
Public realm improvements demonstrated
Australia) spoke about how a design-led
commitment, pride and civic quality. Super
approach is catalysing positive change in
blocks were divided in keeping with local
Melbourne, and how the Commonwealth
character and identity, and restaurants and
Games has left a strong placemaking legacy.
bars opened in lanes which became lively and
In championing design quality there is a
active.
challenge to reflect on what good design is and
It was questioned whether the latest residential
how it can be promoted. A range of advocacy
boom may have gone too far, as interest
initiatives were described that included: gaining
focuses more on yield and return rather than
senior support, identifying realistic budgets,
owner occupation; and it has been necessary to
and demanding good design through briefing
develop a design code to improve and maintain
processes. Design needs to be considered from
apartment design standards.
the outset, and implications of procurement methods must be understood.
Melbourne has benefitted from becoming an events city with lively, active public spaces.
Competitions can help encourage new and
The Commonwealth Games not only helped to
emerging practices and several projects
provide (and extend) facilities but also engaged
were illustrated such as refurbishment of the
the community through volunteering, cultural
rail station, reactivation of the main square,
events and providing free public transport which
and design of roads to provide a rich urban
encouraged longer term use. Tourism and trade
experience rather than a mere technical
investments have also leverage benefits.
exercise.
In tackling the issue of how to quantify the
By the late 1800s Melbourne was ‘solid, fine
benefits of good design Geoffrey concluded that
and built for eternity’; however, by 1988 the
we need to communicate and learn from each
inner city had ‘died’ and people no longer lived
other and there is value in demonstrating case
in the centre’s streets and lanes. Geoffrey
studies.
described how the ‘Postcode 3000’ initiative (on exhibit at the Lighthouse) turned the city around and was “an outcome of purposeful decision making with design at its core”. Initiatives such as relaxed regulations encouraged conversions
All the presentations from Day 1 are available here http://issuu.com/adsdesignskills2014
Glasgow: Setting the scene
Martin McKay, Clyde Gateway
Gerry Grams, Glasgow City Council
Martin provided an overview of the work
Gerry’s presentation focussed on the ways in
of Clyde Gateway, an organisation set up
which Glasgow City Council is maximising the
to develop and regenerate a large area of
legacy of the Commonwealth Games for the
Glasgow’s East End. This area of over 2,000
benefit of Glasgow. Dalmarnock, in the East
acres has a number of challenges, primarily the
End, was chosen as the site for the athlete’s
high concentration of derelict sites, and very
village, due to its close proximity to the centre of
high levels of contamination – the question
Glasgow and the potential for regeneration of an
was how to talk about design within these
area of high deprivation.
constraints.
The athlete’s village requires a vast amount of
Partnerships were established with various
accommodation for the Games, but this is an
organisations, as well as conversations and
opportunity for Glasgow to create affordable
collaborations with community groups and other
housing, and a new way of living as a result
interested parties. Collectively their aim was
of the investment in the Games. The Council
to deliver a long term regeneration initiative
created a masterplan, which could deliver on
to deliver on sustainability, economy and
the demands of the Games, but could also be
community (or People, Place and Economy).
adaptable and flexible enough to change and
A design statement was produced – ‘Character
develop over time.
and Values’ – which set out clearly what they
Key elements of the masterplan include
were trying to achieve. The overarching
opening up the river as an asset, ensuring
ambition was to build upon the proud history,
a model scheme which has landscape at its
heritage and local characteristics of different
heart, creating better circulation and routes, a
neighbourhoods, as well as putting in place
variety of tenure, design which adheres to a
the necessary infrastructure and connectivity
simple vernacular, is high-quality and flexible.
needed to establish areas such as the East End
700 homes were built in 700 days with a lot of
as a place to visit, live and work.
important learning for Scotland. This is a complex plan, which has a specific short term purpose, but long term ambition. An additional key success has been the way in which the Council has adopted better team working and collaboration, to achieve better outcomes for Glasgow.
Workshops and Site Visits...
Community Empowerment
Building Value
Béla Kézy
Lawrence Barth
Béla began his presentation highlighting that
Lawrence showed examples of projects where
50% of the global population now live in cities, with even higher percentages in Europe (74%) and Scotland itself (81.4%). As a result, cities have become places of great concentration: talent, services and housing, but also of greenhouse gas emissions, segregation and social exclusion. This, he argued, makes cities
different links of a ‘value chain’ collaborate to increase their value together and become drivers for change. He argued that there can sometimes be too much focus on public realm and the space between buildings, instead of creating the clusters of activity that then will form the critical mass that creates the need for
a good place to start if you want to focus on the
these public spaces.
wider problems. Béla emphasised that, globally,
In regeneration or event led projects, the
cities share surprisingly similar challenges, so why try and reinvent the wheel? Great cities steal ideas and URBACT offers a framework to share these ideas on urban development. Béla finished his talk emphasising the importance of participation and co-creation; talking about the real relevant issues and working together from the very beginning. He ended with a quote: “The city is like an open source software, nobody owns it, everybody can use it, and everybody can improve it”
drivers for change are the things that bring people or businesses together. As in the case of the Cleveland Baseball Stadium where 50,000 people move in an out of the city centre 75 times in a year, where employing an architecture that connects to its surroundings gives great benefit to cafés, bars and small businesses. Whether when creating a new business park in Singapore or redeveloping docklands in Hamburg, clustering of all life’s activities and buildings can give rise to the critical mass that necessitates public space, from inside the buildings and out.
Creative Use of Vacant Land Dermot Foley Dermot Foley introduced the EU Transitioning towards Urban Resilience and Sustainability [TURaS] research group - encompassing a network of European cities and forming an interlink between research, design and teaching. He outlined his role in developing research mechanisms to unlock the potential for vacant, abandoned or contaminated land focusing on two questions; How can we use these site to contribute to resilience in cities? And how can we create healthy and sustainable neighbourhoods without relying on masterplans? To date TURaS have developed in an integrated planning model, a three-phase framework that will become a product of participatory planning. Outlining the findings to date Dermot noted that many common problems coming from research and practice can be categorized into the following: perception, scope, strategy, technique and communication leading him to believe that the ideal scenario for resilience planning is one of experimentation within a systematic framework, that is a flotilla rather than an all encompassing spaceship. This means that small-scale, diversity, difference, unknown outcomes and the ability to fail are very important factors.
We’ve set up a Flickr set for all the images captured at the Design Skills Symposium: if you would like to add to the set please contact Sam Patterson from A+DS to upload them. Check out the images on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73633090@N04/
More pictures from Day 1...
Developed and delivered by Architecture + Design Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, Clyde Gateway and Improvement Service and supported by others including Scottish Canals and VELOCITY.