Speakers: The Glass-House, The
Building Exploratory and The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment
Chaired
by: Lee
Mallett
Tickets: £5 / £3 for students &
concessions, inc. a glass of wine
Booking: www.eventelephant.com/CommunityEngagement21June
 
Engage in some lively
debate about different approaches to ensuring design quality, and the
importance of listening and responding to the community voice.
High quality design begins with a clear vision and good brief, and
designing for the public realm and community facilities must draw on local
knowledge and aspirations to get that vision and brief right.
The Glass-House will explore what both the designer and the community
need to know and expect of each other to get the best design possible.
Sophia
de Sousa, Chief Executive of The Glass-House, comments: "Localism
and changes to planning legislation will present new opportunities for
communities to shape their neighbourhoods, but how can we ensure that design
quality is not left out of the equation? This talk will be a great opportunity
to explore the impact that communities can have on design quality and vice
versa."
   
The Prince's Foundation pioneered the
‘Enquiry by Design’ process to bring community engagement and urban design into
the same forum.  At the heart of
the organisation's work is a belief that neighbourhoods will accept new
development that they understand and which reflects recognisable characteristics
of the place.
James Hulme, Director of Policy for The Prince’s Foundation, says:
"local people's appetite for collaborative planning, and for development
generally, will be stimulated if consultation is seen as a transparent process
with demonstrable influence on the final design of schemes."
Nicole Crockett,
Chief Executive of The Building Exploratory, will present their approach to working with communities to
celebrating place and the role that knowledge and creativity plays in engaging
people with change. She will discuss the recently completed Kilburn Grange
Adventure Playground.
Lee Mallett, who is
chairing this debate, comments: “I’m all for community engagement. The biggest risk in the
market is whether you’ll get planning permission or not and that is as it
should be in a democracy. But you can’t expect people to vote for development
if you don’t engage them in your ideas. Bring it on! The big problem is there
are so many bad designers and councillors/planners who don’t know that there are
better designers out there.”
This is the second in a
series of Architecture Centre Network talks exploring community engagement in
the built environment.
Further information: www.architecturecentre.net