Urban Design Group



URBAN UPDATE18th December 2015Main newsNew Jobs – Barton Willmore, Turley, …Driverless Urban Futures - FeatureFlooding – are there instances where we should build on floodplains? Ecological Case for High Density Compact Cities How density makes people fitterPeople projected to live longer and die sooner – confusion reigns on population forecasts!New SUDS manual published by CIRIA – definitive guidance Carless towns and cities – a global review of schemesfrom the Urban Design GroupA free service for all individuals and organisations who care about life in cities towns and villages ………planners – landscape architects – architects – conservation practitioners – engineers –surveyors – masterplanners – managers – urban designers - urbanists – health professionals - politicians – public Urban design – the design of towns and cities – streets and spaces Join │ About │ Regions │ UD Update │ Events │ STREET │ Publications │ Journal │ Practice Index │ Universities │ JobsJoin the Urban Design Group viewing this email?Especially people using Hotmail accounts Download as.docx document Urban Design Awards 20169th March 2016Practice Award - Francis Tibbalds ?1000 AwardPublic Sector AwardBook AwardStudent Award – Francis Tibbalds ?500 AwardLifetime Achievement AwardPractitioner Tickets - 50 % discount ?37.50UDG, RICS, RIBA, ICE, CIHT, RTPI and other sister professions Standard Tickets ?75 Next UDG Solent EventUpdate on Garden Cities – David Rudlin – UDG meeting Savills Southampton, 4.00pm Thursday 21st January 2016 David Rudlin from Urbed has kindly agreed to provide an update on his Wolfson Economics Prize winning work on delivering Garden Cities.? This is currently planned for the 21st January in Savills offices, 2 Charlotte Place Southampton.UDG London Events 2016Film Night – Urban Agriculture – Brooklyn Farmer Followed by Q and AWednesday 13 January @ The Gallery Space led by Philip Cave Wednesday 10 February? Latin AmericaTuesday 15 March? South WestUrban Design - From Process to PlaceRTPI supported by UDG16th March 2016 - @ Taunton OF THE WEEKDiscovery Park, Kent HYPERLINK "" Planit-IEThe site in East Kent was the home to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and the birth place of a wonder drug in the 1990s targeted principally at men. You can probably guess what that is. Sadly, one wonder discovery does not make a legacy and in 2011 Pfizer decided to cut their losses and move out. 3000 jobs disappeared – almost overnight, the site became a ghost-town, and the effect on the neighbouring town of Sandwich was pretty much the same.As is the case when you rely on one major employer, the period following their exit is akin to that of mourning. Who comes to save the day? Will anyone? What are the chances of another Pfizer waiting in the wings? Nil.Wind the clock forward twelve months and a group of investors snapped up the entire campus for a song. They spent the next year ‘repurposing’ and adapting the best buildings, demolishing those that were past their best – operations they had a pretty good track record in. But a site of this scale needs a big plan – and we have worked with Discovery Park Limited and Dover District Council to craft it.Our answer was been to introduce a host of new uses, including a significant number of new homes. The vision is to see Sandwich and Discovery Park as one ‘Total Place’ – driven by new forms of innovation that have defined it over the last century.Despite the whole site being in the flood plain, and internationally protected Water Voles pretty much everywhere, the plan is universally supported? – from the town council to DCLG, everyone wants to see Discovery Park flourish.Read more Case for High Density Compact CitiesUDG Solent Event Report Dr Mike Wells and Dr Lincoln Garland – Biodiversity by DesignThere is a huge amount of evidence that demonstrates the importance of natural environments to people’s wellbeing. Unfortunately, for most developments, ecology is regarded as something that has to be dealt with: a problem, and an inconvenience. This is the wrong approach, and could be hugely damaging to public health as we try to build at higher densities, with the likelihood that people will be forced to live in treeless environments, devoid of greenspace. The UDG Solent meeting heard from Mike Wells and Lincoln Grant, that Biodiversity should be thought of in the development process as a benefit not a barrier. They contended that there is scope to work-in biodiversity into every square inch of a design, including buildings, walls, and surfaces. There are also clear economic benefits. The book “The Economics of Biophillia – why Designing with nature makes financial sense” claims a 20-30 percent improvement in productivity in offices where biophilia has been central to the design. People, they argued, intuitively recognise the difference between environments that are rich in biodiversity and those that aren’t. For example the presence of cormorants indicates rivers that are full of fish and have a healthy ecosystem. The aspiration need not be limited to plants and bees. Careful design can provide habitats for high-order animals such as owls or bats. Dr Wells mentioned the potential there exists to create microcosmic habitats, such as recreated streams, rivers, and wetlands; but also cliffs – high-density living brings about cliff-like habitats. Systems approach neededCentral to encouraging biodiversity is the use of systems approach. It is not a question of bolting on bits of greenspace, or green wall or roof. The components need to be linked and considered as part of an overall system. The Olympic Athletes village in London provided an excellent case study which had followed the systems approach: firstly the roofs of the buildings had been carefully designed, to mimic different types of habitats, with the soil composition and structure matching those of SSSIs in the hope of attracting and sustaining a wide range of species. (An example was given from Switzerland where a nature reserve had been created on a roof). The water from the green-roofs then flowed into a chain of ponds, marshes and wetlands and a balancing lake, and then used as a supply to provide water for flushing the toilers of adjacent buildings, neatly closing the water cycle. One of the results has been the popularity of the development, with the quality of the landscape cited by new occupants as one of the main reasons for moving. The two presenters offered a decisive case for integrating biodiversity into the design process, and the prospect of creating urban environments that not only support a wide range of wildlife of all orders, but also reduce operating costs, and are genuinely engaging to human beings. The examples they offered demonstrate that it is possible to do this, The presentation included a huge bibliography of reports published within the last 5 years, Bird Friendly Urban design guidelines – 2010Designing for Biodiversity, Productivity and Profit – British Council for Offices 2011Green Design – from Theory to Practice – 2011UK Green Roof Code 2014Good Practice Guidance for Green Infrastructure and biodiversity (2012)Susdrain – National guidance on Sustainable Drainage Guidelines for Ecological Impact Assessment in the United KingdomGreen infrastructure valuation toolkit use guideNovel solutions for quieter and greener citiesThe Economic of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – Mainstreaming the economics of natureUK National Ecosystem Assessment 2011UN Biodiversity Summit Biophilic Ciites – Timothy Beatley - Biophilic Cities NetworkThanks go to Peter Frankum at Savills, for organising and hosting the event. BLOGSOf Books and Blogs Do the British Plan? Gruesome Shambles that is the English Housing System Vegetables to Megastructures of Yield: Beyond the Built Environment Director, Urban Design, TurleyBristol Director, TurleySouthern England Designer – Edinburgh - Barton WillmoreEdinburgh advertise jobs in Urban Update – please email administration@.ukDriverless urban futuresRaquel LeonardoDriverless cars and smart mobility, for reasons this article explains, will change the landscape of our cities and countryside in a significant way and we place-makers should start thinking about what these changes could mean for planning and urban design. Some sources are suggesting that owning a car could, in 20 years’ time, be a thing of the past?. Realistically, such a change would require a transformation in our relationship with the car that could take decades, but with driverless cars already being trialled?, there can be no doubt that driverless cars are destined to provide a realistic alternative to conventional cars and car ownership. Driverless cars users will be able to use an app to book a vehicle, which picks and drops them off at their chosen destination for a competitive price. This journey can be shared with other users in an efficient way, thus making the journey even cheaper?. This on-demand service could result in car ownership being reduced dramatically? as there will be no need to purchase a car and pay for expensive car insurance and services. Whilst there will always be people who will want to own their own car, there is also a growing number who care about the environment, and choose to walk, cycle and/or use public transports and don’t necessarily want to spend that much money on a car. Instead the money they save can be spent in the local area, in restaurants and farmers markets creating thriving businesses and communities. The constant sharing of information together with the efficiency of driverless vehicles could result in less congestion and much safer streets and highways – safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and children. The use of renewable energy in electric or fuel cell powered vehicles will be more efficient and widespread, reducing carbon emissions and noise in our cities. With the need for on-street parking completely gone? (a shared vehicle either relocates itself to a station or proceeds to collect another passenger), new shops and offices will face and interact directly with the street which will enable the active, lively streets urban designers aspire to create but often fail due to policy requirements. Moreover, if places are designed and planed in a holistic way, together with an expected reduction of now very efficient off-street car parking of 80%?, this could also increase land-use efficiency across all types of developments, redevelopment of existing land and reduce pressures on the greenbelt. Impact on rural areasIn rural locations far away from a train station, where there is sufficient demand, driverless-cars could provide convenient mobility. Residents won’t have to worry about expensive daily parking charges and parking availability at the station. Moreover commuting by car will no longer be a waste of time. Drivers don’t need their hands on the wheel, instead that time can be used to work, watch a movie, sleep and even exercise! However people will also be able to live further away from their place of work which in turn would place more demand for housing, infrastructure and services in the countryside, raising serious issues for sustainability. Good planning is needed to anticipate and deal with the consequences. Impact on urban areasDespite the fact that some people will always prefer to live in the countryside, living in cities will become much more appealing. With cars no longer dominating our urban landscapes, silent and safe streets will be reclaimed as true public spaces with the added space used to provide with green and blue infrastructure, play space, orchards, cycle ways, etc. It will be much safer to cycle and to walk and roads will become decluttered, calmer and healthier environments, making active travel much more appealing, especially for short distances. The potential for driverless cars to change our life, our cities and our environment is significant especially at high levels of market penetration?. Whilst there is little doubt that this technology could significantly increase network capacity there is also a large risk that if left unmanaged it could actually make congestion a lot worse - increasing capacity has shown in many cases to be an ineffective means of reducing congestion. Furthermore, in addition to making travelling very attractive as we’ve already discussed above, driverless vehicles will open up the possibility of travelling to people who wouldn’t normally be able to operate a vehicle. Add in ownership models and this situation it could become unmanageable. It is at this early stage that we should research the different possible scenarios, act with leadership and take the necessary steps to ensure this technology actually delivers better towns and cities. The type of service used (shared versus solo journeys) together with a high-capacity public transport system will determine the benefits. Behaviour change, which is already underway (uber pool is a good example) needs to be further encouraged. In addition we will need to continually invest and develop the public transport infrastructure across the country. We should also create well connected places which prioritise walking and cycling to an extent the UK has yet to implement. This could mean shifting the emphasis many developers and local authorities still place upon securing generous parking levels and road widths in new developments towards the provision of flexible parking areas which can be easily retrofitted into other uses, the creation of good public transport links and well-connected places with excellent walking and cycle routes/facilities. Finally we should develop a vision and be optimistic that if implemented and managed correctly, driverless cars could create healthier, happier and greener towns and cities. ?Bridges, Rutt 2015, Driverless Car Revolution: Buy Mobility, Not Metal [Kindle Edition]?BBC 2015, Toyota promises driverless cars on roads by 2020 () accessed on 10.11.2015?OECD 2015, International Transport Forum at the OECD - Urban Mobility System Upgrade: How shared self-driving cars could change city traffic.? CUTR on 17.12.2015Will car free towns ever become a reality? A review of schemes around the world. and WebinarsAcademy of Urbanism InstituteRethinking the Urban Landscape Exhibition Leeds, Sheffield – see website for dates your own - Wolverhampton Arts & HeritageCompetition deadline 8th JanCity Builder Academy July 2016 Midlands Urban Design ForumNext events 2016YorkshireRegional Urbanism in the Era of Globalisation3-5 Feb – University of Huddersfield Liverpool Neighbourhood Planning Network Event19th January of WalkingDash or Dawdle – Clerkenwell PubsAny day until the 10 January 2016 Urban Design London Events coming up – extensive programme some free, some charged/ ?175+VAT?(Free for UDL subscribers)Cultural Interventions14th January 2016 (Full Day)PiP – Design, Quality and Technical Consents Workshop20th January Challenging Practice: Street Design26th January South East / Kent Design Calendar City II Eastgate, Springhead Park FebruaryDesigning our Highways 10 FebruaryLatest Lectures on UrbanNous New ?Improving the quality of new housing: Negotiating improvements in delivery and designAmy Burbidge is Design Action Manager at North Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit.? the quality of new housing: New issues for affordable housing.Andy von Bradsky is former Chairman of PRP, Chair of the RIBA Housing Group, Board Member of the Housing Forum and recent chair of the Government appointed Challenge Panel for the Housing Standards Review that advised on UK standards for housing of all tenures. better future for high streets and town centres.Julian Dobson, Urban Pollinators and cities: Function in formJulian Hart, Lancefield Consulting the business model:?? Sharing land uplift and unlocking long term value.Yolande Barnes, Director of the World Research team at Savills in the City – How Design Shapes the Urban ClimateSanda Lenzholzer urban designers, architects, planners, and highway engineers should have a knowledge of this subject. UrbanNous Catalogue available on-line Highlights include Christopher Alexander, George Ferguson, Hans Monderman and scores of others. .ukUrban Nous is produced and operated by Fergus Carnegie for the benefit of practitioners worldwide.Architecture and Design Scotland workshops on the use of traditional materials coming up. No one should attempt architecture or urban design in Scotland without a knowledge of Ballachulish slate! IHBC. Capital. Cities. UK City of Culture 2021 / European Capital of Culture 202311 February 2016 - Manchester?Centre for CitiesCities Outlook 2016 Launch25 January 2016?| 12.30pm?| CIty Hall, London Events of Transport and InnovationFebruary 2016@ Milton KeynesPTRCTransport Practitioners Meeting 2016 – Nottingham29-30 June 2016 | NottinghamCall for papers open. Design around the World AustraliaTop Six Actions to Keep Our Cities Liveable Works: A Flood Wall With Artistry and Environmentalism Walks’ book exposes different facets of the city and Japan in agreement over construction of Shinkansen train network can we have somewhere to sit down in the city? 's Grand Experiment With Architecture That Mutates Over Time Consultation affordable housingIncreasing the density of development around commuter hubsSupporting sustainable new settlements, development on brownfield land and small sites, and Ensuring housing is delivered on land allocated in local plans Supporting delivery of starter homes. – including Unviable and underused commercial and employment land Standard Launched in Scotland new garden towns are set to provide up to 50,000 new homes thanks to over ?1m of Government funding. – yes that’s ?22 per house! England – New Advice on Tall Buildings tortured heap of towers': the London skyline of tomorrow - Graphics and fly-throughs explaining London’s (for want of a better term) tall building’s policy ’s how we can learn to fall in love with shocking buildings regeneration scheme given approval"Blow up revolting art": The disappearing public artworks Historic England wants the public to help find the future of Yorkshire: up-to-date local plans key to managing tall building impacts Downtown Revitalization, Equity Can Equal Authenticity's third annual design award program celebrates some of the most exciting and innovative American architecture to be completed in 2015. street grid imposed on New York in 1811 flattened hills—and literally levelled the social playing field. roads for cars or kids?? A tale from Enfield and a mini-Holland bid…Could London’s Oxford Street be pedestrianised? Social Attitudes Towards Transport Survey 2014 - publishedIn 2014, 64% of respondents agreed that it is too dangerous for them to cycle on the road, the highest level recorded since the question was introduced in 2011For journeys of less than two miles travelled by car, 41% of respondents said they could just as easily cycle, walk (39%), and take the bus (32%).Half of respondents considered exhaust fumes in towns and cities to be a serious problem88 percent thought drivers should drive within the speed limit62% of respondents indicated that they were concerned about damage to the countryside from road building’s first tram train unveiled in Sheffield - BR Type 399 class tram permitted to run on railway tracks shared with conventional trains. of degree in the way men and women navigateMen seem to rely more on a sense of north and south , women rely more on local detail, according to this research. paper asserts that men are “better at navigation”, but this may be more about what men and women are expecting to achieve. Some theories suggest that men and women have evolved to fulfil hunter and gatherer roles, in which case there would be every reason to follow these strategies. A compass based navigational strategy would not be very helpful for gathering, where instead a very detailed knowledge of the local environment is the key. How would you translate this information into designing a network of streets that would ease navigation? Your car is spying on you. article, and indeed the so-called security expert quoted, fails to mention that anyone who has their mobile phone switched on and registered on the network can be located to within 400 metres or so in urban areas (if this were not possible your calls could not be directed to your phone) . Anyone who uses their smart phone’s sat nav can be located to within around 10 metres. Some apps involve sharing gps data, including apps that enable the phone to act as a torch. If there has been no moral panic over this, why should there be over sharing that data on the speed and location of a car? Women caught after hit and run when her car calls police average family in Britain now lives 77 minutes apartBritain is that a third of families (33%) live too far away to keep up with daily care needs, such as dressing, cooking or shopping. The average family now lives 77 minutes apart making it harder to drop in and help out. Juggling work (28%) and childcare (9%) also adds pressure, and one in five (21%) feel guilty about not being able to do more to assist. consequence is that the state is having to pick up the bill for adult social care, and to a degree child social care. WEBTAG – updates announced on the valuation of transport noise impact, modal transfer from road to rail, Air Quality Valuation and Greenhouse Gases workbooks Research, Policy and PracticeClimate change 1.5 C global target agreed… is no action, just promises. Town bans solar panels over fears they may “suck up” the sun’s energy warming: Thousands flee Pacific islands on front line of climate change Desmond causes the Malham Cove Waterfall to flow for the first time in hundreds of years record breaking meteorological apparently occurring year after year, the arguments made by climate change denialists look increasingly tenuous. Is there an answer to increased flood risk340mm of rain falling in a 24 hour period is a UK record. Most UK rainfall records occur in the summer and autumn when slow-moving, localised thunderstorms drop a great deal of rain over a small area in a very short period of time leading to localised pluvial flooding.. The recent Cumbria record rainfall however was due to a large Atlantic weather system forced upwards by mountains, leading to large volumes of water being deposited over a relatively large area, and the flooding of main rivers. What could have been done to reduce the flooding? In the Lake District, the lakes themselves act as enormous retention ponds – natural sustainable drainage features, and yet flooding still occurred. Other catchment scale measures that have been considered in similar areas include interrupting floodplains to retain more water upstream by building field walls, planting hedges or woodland strips; restoring upland wetlands (over the past 200 years there has been extensive work to improve drainage of upland areas to improve grass yield, at the expense of increasing the risk of downstream flooding; changing agricultural practice to prevent soil compaction – thought to be responsible for increases in run off rates in the order of tens of percent in some catchments; and restoring rivers by removing artificial straightening and restoring natural profiles including riffles and meanders, Would such measures have had much effect? Ordinarily one would say yes. The question is whether climate change is taking the planet into unknown territory. There will be renewed calls to raise river embankments; but these will tend to move away from the well landscaped, towards brute concrete, that comes at the expense of ruining river-side urban environments. River deepening or dredging is advocated by some, but the problem here is that a river bed is something continuous from source to sea, trying to lower a section will result in it filling with gravel and sediment from up-stream. There will also be renewed calls to prohibit development on floodplains. Yet there are reasons why we should develop on flood plains. The land is flat, easing cycling and walking. Water-side environments are naturally attractive. And there will be instances where developing on a flood plain enables a town to develop in a circle around its centre, maximising the number of people who can walk. What must not be done, and has so often happened in the past, is to ignore the fact that these are floodplain and that flooding will occur repeatedly: infrastructure including electricity supplies must be protected, and buildings and key highways kept well above maximum flood levels. The capacity of the floodplain to store water must also be protected to avoid transferring flood risk downstream. People who attended the Urban Design Fest event were given a view of a form of development that could cope with extreme rainfall. It is available to view….Building a floodable city… Water-Land-Scape: A Scenario- Dao-Ming CHANGFeatured at the Urban DesignFest London SUDS Manual published by CIRIA Free to download This 800 page free to download guidance represents the state of the art in Sustainable Drainage Systems. It contains of scores of examples and design ideas that can be used to A IntroductionB Philosophy and Approach C Applying the approach - - the design processD Technical Detail – detailed descriptions of different types of SuDs componentsE Supporting guidance the guidance does leave is the job of putting everything together. There is guidance for every aspect of the urban environment (apart from utilities where the guidance and legislation is deficient). The need for drainage in urban areas is often dictated by the demand for car parking; the demand for car parking is dictated by development density, the provision of public transport, cycling and walking infrastructure, and the presence of shops and community facilities that can be reached without the use of a car. It is not immediately obvious that local shops reduce urban run-off…But they do. Storm Desmond: How a toxic brew of cuts to flood defences and empty rhetoric made Cumbria's floods worseProfessor Ashley of Sheffield University bow to anger over floods – two reviews set up. A major review of Britain’s plans for coping with “worst case” floods; and a separate “National Flood Resilience Review”, Health, SocietyPoorer children nearly 3 times as likely to be obese - study by University College London and London School of Economics At age 5, poor children were almost twice as likely to be obese compared with their better off peersBy the age of 11 the gap has widened, nearly tripling to 7.9% of the poorest fifth are obese; for the best-off, the figure is 2.9%.Risk factors maternal smoking during pregnancy and a mother's BMI Risk reducing factorsdoing sport more than three times a week played an important role, as did an earlier bedtime and regular fruit consumption Overall, the study found that markers of 'unhealthy' lifestyle here could mean as much as a 20% additional risk of obesity for a child men found to pass on thousands of modified genes to their children – New Scientist report 'biggest health threat to women' and should be treated as 'national threat' - like terrorism and cyber attacks – UK Chief Medical Officer 2064, cohort life expectancy at birth for females in England is projected to reach 100 years, 99 in the UK, Wales, and Northern Ireland and 98 in Scotland. are obtained simply by extending an existing trend into the future. They assume that the factors that are causing the increase will continue, and that no other factors will intervene. Experts warn of a fall in life expectancy should rates inactive lifestyles and poor diet continue to gain an ever increasing hold over the population. So on the one hand the ONS is projecting an increase in life expectancy, whilst the UK Government’s chief medical officer is warning of an impending obesity driven health crisis. Planning requires reasonably robust population forecasts. It is not clear whether what is on offer at the moment is fit for purpose. Politics Philosophy EconomicsCouncil leaders urged to become ‘champions’ of self and custom build housingCouncil Leaders have been urged to become 'champions' of self and custom build housing at a high-level summit held at Downing Street.New research undertaken by the National Custom & Self Build Association (NaCSBA) has found that supportive council leaders can help to boost initiatives that enable more people, including those on low incomes, to build their own homes. Etc…. expensive streets in Britain v cities: how satellite towns compare with their big city neighbours report…- apparently can’t be downloaded from….. is a quite confusing exercise. There is no clear definition of satellite town. West Bridgford is identified as a satellite town of Nottingham, when it is actually a suburb. Havant is described as a satellite of Portsmouth, whereas it functions as one of a cluster of towns along the M27 corridor. This e-mail newsletter is sent to members of the Urban Design Group and to friends and colleagues who share a common interest in improving life in cities, towns and villages.? It may not represent the views of the UDG. If you would like to receive a copy direct please email administration@.ukIf you don’t want to receive it, please reply to this email, or phone the Urban Design Group on 020 7250 0892.Urban Design Group70 Cowcross StreetLondon EC1M 6EJ ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download