Speaking on the final day of the Glasgow United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) conference on city living, Professor Brian Evans, Glasgow’s City Urbanist, has announced the setting up of the Place Commission.
The Commission will be an ongoing collaborative conversation with Glasgow’s communities, developers, designers and other partners to consider how the built environment can best respond to and serve the new ways in which we live, work and travel – to create a better quality of place for the people of the city.
Over the course of the next year, the Place Commission will meet to discuss how this can happen, with three main themes framing the discussions – the Everyday City (how we experience the city as residents, workers, business people, or visitors); the Metropolitan City (recognising the interdependence between Glasgow and the rest of the Clyde Valley); and the International City (considering Glasgow’s place on the international stage).
“This is a great opportunity to hold a big conversation about Glasgow, its region, communities and places. Working within the context of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Scottish Government’s ‘Place Principle’, we will be looking to evidence how integrated action in respect of demographic, climate and technological change can, when designed around people, improve the quality of peoples’ lives and their places.” Prof Brian Evans
Alongside Professor Evans on the Place Commission will be experts from a variety of related fields, each with an interest in the topics to be considered. These independent commissioners are: Ann Allen (Chair, Architecture and Design Scotland); Jude Barbour, Director/Architect at Collective Architecture; Dr Linda de Caestecker, Director of Public Health, NHSGGC; Charles Campion, Partner, JTP and author of 20/20 Visions; Kevin Kane, Executive Director, Glasgow Economic Leadership; Professor Carol Tannahill, Director, Glasgow Centre for Population Health; Rachel Tennant, Chair of Landscape Institute Scotland, and Dr Brian Veitch, Consulting Engineer and Former Director, ARUP.
Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said:
“Glasgow is a city still very much in transition, one which is barely recognisable from the post-industrial Glasgow of just a couple of decades ago.
“I’m delighted that a panel of such esteemed independent experts can help support our city’s development as a people-focused city which is s a great place to live, work and visit.”
The recommendations of the Place Commission will be made in Autumn 2020 and will be reported here.
The original article can be read here.