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.

Ian Harvey, Executive Director at Civic Voice, has announced that the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Civic Societies is establishing a ‘Community Planning Forum’ – an independent cross-party group to look at what a ‘meaningful voice for communities in the planning system should look like’. The forum will call on developers to share their approach to community engagement, and ask local authorities about innovative schemes in their area.

“We need early and more meaningful participation in the planning system.” Ian Harvey, Civic Voice

The APPG will promote a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to changing the behaviour of local authorities and developers and will look for evidence and examples to demonstrate that it ‘pays’ for developers to engage earlier with communities. Civic Voice believe that front-loading public participation can lead to higher quality developments.

Against this background, the new Community Planning Forum will bring together community representatives, campaigners, developers, planners and politicians to discuss how to address public concerns about new development, promote better practice by planners and developers and foster more constructive relations overall. The first, invitation only meeting, will be held in September.

Civic Voice will act as the Secretariat to this group. For more information please contact info@civicvoice.org.uk.

Below Image: Civic Voice Publication “Collaborative Planning for All” which can be downloaded here.

The Congress for New Urbanism hosted their annual conference, CNU 27.Louisville, June 12-15, 2019, in Kentucky.

On Thursday, June 13, National Charrette Institute’s (NCI) director Holly Madill participated in a panel session on “Working Toward Yes: Dealing with Divided Communities”. Participants were able to learn from the real-world experiences of three practitioners, and one community representative who participated in a particularly difficult public design process. Bill Lennertz, president of Collaborative Design and Innovation LLC and NCI trainer, moderated the session. Other panelists included:

• Jennifer Hurley, AICP, CNU-A, PP, president and CEO of Hurley-Franks & Associates;
• Stacie Nicole Smith, senior mediator for the Consensus Building Institute; and
• George Proakis, executive director of Strategic Planning & Development for Somerville, Massachusetts.

This session provided commonsense solutions to three vexing and common problems:

1. How to reach groups that are typically not served,
2. how to avoid meeting fatigue, and
3. dealing with disruptive participants.

From the NCI perspective, these can be addressed by careful preparation of the charrette process to engage stakeholders, and making sure the charrette framework and individual engagements within it are designed to meet the intended outcomes. Using the creative design process can also make engagements interesting and meaningful.

NCI June NEWS

For more please click here

On Saturday 10 June 2019 JTP Partner Charles Campion will be speaking at the AiA ‘19 Conference in Las Vegas at a session entitled “Community Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion in International Practice”.

Charles, author of 20/20 Visions: Collaborative Planning & Placemaking (RIBA Publishing), will share the platform with chair Alison Laas AIA, Associate at Payette, Boston and Patricia Natke, FAIA, President & Design Principal at UrbanWorks, Chicago.

Architects across the globe are passionate about leveraging the design process to find creative and innovative participation strategies for diversity and inclusion in our communities. The panel includes leaders from different firms who are developing approaches and policies to better engage communities in designing a more inclusive built environment.

Charles Campion says, “Communities add critical economic, social and environmental value to planning and placemaking processes and the United States is where co-design Charrette processes were first conceived over 50 years ago. The AIA’s first R/UDAT (Regional Urban Design Assistance Team) was held in 1967 and the programme is still thriving today. I am excited to be presenting international case studies from 20/20 Visions and exchanging best practice in community planning with colleagues from across North America.”

Objectives of the session

1. Exploring innovative strategies for community engagement from US-based and international projects that increase diversity and participation in the design process and equitable outcomes for the built environment.
2. Learning about engagement programs, like R/UDAT, that promote community participation by typically under-represented parties, and interdisciplinary design teams, to drive inclusive and successful project outcomes.
3. Discovering how designers based in the US and abroad have approached international projects and successfully engaged with communities from cultures, nationalities, and contexts that are different from those of the design team.
4. Understanding the challenges communities face in increasing equity, diversity and inclusion, and how the built environment can be leveraged to increase opportunities for all community members.