Cities,Suburbs, Local Places andOpen Spaces cities, suburbs, local places, open spaces Creating Places for People Creating Places for People Annual Review 2008 cities, suburbs, local places, open spaces Creating Places for People Annual Review 2008 3 Cities, Suburbs, Local Places, Open Spaces Tony McGuirk, Peter Drummond and Shyam Khandekar discuss the subject with Lee Mallett Lee Mallett (LM) New Town skills? A lot of the things that get better economies architecture and urban There’s been a shift from a debate about were set in place then are so pertinent to design can be used as a commodity. The architecture in the 1980s to more of a focus today’s society. professions, despite their mistakes, retain the on regeneration and urban design. drive of the wider issues. Energy, sustainability, PD global warming, they’ve become our wider Peter Drummond (PD) We’ve spent the last 30 years repairing some issues. They stimulate people, they stimulate Over the last 25 years the role of the urban of the damage which was the opportunity professionals. We started to gather the issues designer, the masterplanner has started to for some of the big schemes in the 1980s. after the recession of the early/mid 90s, flourish. Suburban development was left largely There was a dramatic change in attitude in the but then as we pulled out of recession we Tony McGuirk, Chairman to housebuilders. There is the sense now that early 1990s. We started to reappraise what also started to see architecture become a places are more important and part of the we needed to do in our towns and cities. We commodity once more. I think this pause we’re designer’s life. started to think that creating places of value is going to have now will help to rectify that shift. not the same as creating a million sq ft of mall When architecture is used as a commodity Shyam Khandekhar (SK) shopping. The 90s recession provided time for there will always be a reaction. Our founder Architecture in most societies includes urban reflection. But it has taken 15 years for those George Grenfell Baines and movements like design. In societies which necessitated people reflections to manifest themselves. Team 10 believed that the 60s commodification working together, like the Netherlands, urban of housing was not the way to go, creating design evolved as a much stronger discipline. LM mass-industrialised products. It is about how Do you think there’s been a line of reaction you make architecture based on relationships Peter Drummond, CEO Tony McGuirk (TM) against the developments that took place in and well-being. You can compare that to American society the 60s and 70s? It took us a long time to get where urban development sprawled in an places working again. SK individualistic way. As we look for ways to deal The pressure we have is globalisation. If with global issues perhaps we should look to TM something has been successful somewhere the Dutch model. In the 60s cities were left It is adversity that gets the professions who then it is transferred all over the world, and not helped to recover from the second are involved as well as the public thinking particularly with building and building design world war so you had lots of brownfield land. about the wider issues. Adversity created types. That is something as designers we have Instead we had new towns which were a very the New Towns movement. Modernism to fight. The real role of the urban designer is organised development of suburbs. Now we was about getting people out of insanitary to create a place that is specific to context. Shyam Khandekar have eco-towns, but what’s happened to our conditions. But what happens is when we Developers are also realising that this is something which creates value. Creating Places for People – Annual Review 2008 LM LM SK “ If you want authenticity Sir Michael Lyons’ report drew the conclusion In the 80s the community architecture We carried out a similar project in an historic that the central role of local government movement was seen as the way to re-engage town in the Netherlands – Coevorden was a of place you have to should be that of placemaking. with localism. But it was seen as stripping out little remote, medieval place, and its economy a wider intellectual content. wasn’t doing very well. We engaged with lots think regionally”. TM of local participants. We suggested around 20 We tend to bypass the regions because TM interventions which were unanimously agreed of globalisation. If you want authenticity It did get denigrated. A lot of people in by all groups. We took some of the different of place you have to think regionally. architecture at the time wanted to do high- layers of history of the town and reinterpreted technology buildings. There was a big divorce them, so some of the old lines have come SK – because the Prince of Wales got in the back, and we’ve recreated three harbour Regionality is also the dynamo of a rich society. middle of it. He allied more with the community bastions in a modern design – so people can We went to look at the Peak District – a great architects. He did many of them a disservice sit there and watch the boats and the water. landscape. The same stone was used for the by doing that because the fight then became Because the ideas were agreed by all the bridges, the buildings and the landscape had against many of the things he represented. interest groups, the politicians also agreed the same colour. It looked so good because the ideas unanimously. none of it was made from stone from China LM or metal from America. It was a shame it got so polarised because LM “ The future can also be you can feel the need for a much more There is an interesting relationship between TM constructive relationship. urban design and local politics isn’t there? Is about recreating some The thing which shaped the use of those local interest an unexploited force for change materials is the local climate. If architecture SK in Britain? of the good things from is going to relate more to how people live The trick is that things have to evolve in a the past”. then we need to start with the fundamentals, certain way so that it is understandable to SK understanding the people, and how they see everyone else who’s living there. Cities have a In the Netherlands people have an enormous themselves living in that place. character which is always related to something suspicion of the local authority. As an which created the settlement in the first place. external consultant it is often easier for us LM to operate because people have no value But developers often feel they can’t afford TM judgement about us. In Coevorden, there politically to engage too much with local You can rediscover those things. In Aarhus in was a tremendous mistrust of new buildings. people. You have to assume the local north Denmark they’ve opened up a river in the 70s, 80s and 90s buildings had destroyed authority is doing that through the centre of the city that was culverted 50 years the feel of place. To get a new town hall built democratic planning process. ago and created a new area that is as it was a process of education. We invited three was many years ago, around the river with architects, one traditional, one more modern, TM shopping, a promenade. The future can also one a little different from the others. They There is a bureaucratisation of that essential be about recreating some of the good things attracted a really big audience and people part of the process. If designers and people from the past. realised you can build new architecture do relate they will tend to get a sense of place which enriches an historic place. out of it. Our schools of architecture don’t push that – designing for people. They push high- end architecture. Cities Suburbs Local Places Open Spaces 5 LM playthings for the children. Over here we don’t TM If you do engage people properly then it is approach housing like that – asking what does People like Jan Gehl have brought this to the “ Housing has always been possible to “de-risk” the planning process. the family need to live? fore again. He’s always taught “go and look But do you think we’re still in a period of what people do”. We have to be careful we’ve about how people live in resistance to new architecture and planning? LM not neutralised our minds to that sensibility of A lack of engagement is obscuring what we what makes place. We need to rekindle that their homes”. PD should be producing both in terms of places observation. We need it in design education. I think that has changed, especially where and buildings. It was interesting to go back to Hampden people were involved in the process. On Gurney school after seven years and find out Liverpool One we held meetings every month TM what was working and what wasn’t working on site. Anyone could go. The other architects What goes into them? By comparison to so well. When we first designed it they had on the scheme were involved. There was research in education buildings, research classes 50% undersubscribed. They now have a real sense of participation – even with a in living buildings or places is minimal.