Photos by Jim Stephenson/clickclickjim
The RSA and University of Brighton present
Making better places
Wednesday 3 October 2012
5pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
Faculty of Arts
University of Brighton
Grand Parade
Brighton BN2 0JY
Cost £10
Students free.
Book here: http://bit.ly/J9BW7s
How do we create places of excellence – beyond the mediocre? And how do we take collaborative responsibility and ownership of our spaces? How do we get sustainability right?
A series of thought provoking presentations followed by a live debate discussing how we can make our places better.
Speakers include:
Duncan Baker-Brown
Director, BBM Sustainable
The Lie about Sustainable Cities
Can our large cities really ever exist in a symbiotic way with the natural world? I will consider interesting ideas via small, medium and large case studies that I believe demonstrate genuine sustainable design qualities. Some of the projects may not have set out to be green at all, but through ingenious design solutions get there anyway. Good design is sustainable design. One can’t avoid this, although we are not very good at it yet.
Andrew Church
Professor in Human Geography, University of Brighton
Dave Wolff
Director of Community University Partnership Programme
Making better places – what role for community?
David and Andrew will take a brief sweep through recent approaches to community participation, focussing on how communities might be involved in the ‘co-production’ of place and on lessons illustrated by green space development. They will argue that thoughtful and long term involvement of communities in design and place-making is part and parcel of striving for excellence.
Jim Mayor
Brighton & Hove City Council
What makes a successful street?
A discussion around the relative extent to which ‘highway design’ (and so 9 times out of 10 design intervention) and wider (generally already existing) context (building use, unit size, frontage quality etc) influences perception, and so use, of streets. The evidence seems to suggest that traditional, utilitarian approaches to street design create perceived and physical barriers that repel people, whilst careful design can enable streets to fulfill their inherent potential as the city’s most numerous, and so arguably most important, public places.
Richard Wolfströme
Place-making and wayfinding
Bringing meaning to place through collaboration
Connecting people and places; giving them a sense of ownership thorough meaning, function and potential will make our environments better places to work and play. Places that are loved and enjoyed are places that thrive. Understanding a place’s potential goes hand in hand with finding the right way to communicate it. What’s the right form of communication for a particular place and its ambitions? An open, welcoming discourse helps people to feel part of a community. If we get that right, we can make a better place.
Paul Zara
Director, Conran + Partners
Good is the Enemy of the Great
Settling for acceptable or “good enough” results will prevent us from achieving greatness. Allowing our second best effort, so that we can just get the job done by the end of the day, will always leave us short of our true potential. Architecture differs from art; a bad artwork can be hidden away or destroyed, a building is going to be around a long time and is on public display. A mediocre building scars our city and makes life a little worse, whereas a great building raises the spirits and adds to the architectural legacy of Brighton and Hove. Where do these mediocre buildings come from? Surely no architect wants to produce a bad building? What is happening in our city – where are the good new buildings and what are the opportunities for the future? I will be looking at the good modern architecture of the city, how it comes about and what it tells us about the value of good design.
The RSA and University of Brighton present
Making better places
Wednesday 3 October 2012
5pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
Faculty of Arts
University of Brighton
Grand Parade
Brighton BN2 0JY
Cost £10
Students free.
Book here: http://bit.ly/J9BW7s