Sustainable
Housing 
With Gordon Brown promising the build of three
million new homes by 2020, the UK is set on an unprecedented growth
of new settlements. Some of these have been proposed already and
some are currently under construction.
These include major new developments within existing cities, such as
Stratford City in London and New Islington in Manchester, as well as
the proposed zero carbon eco-towns and the four designated Growth
Areas and Growth Points. The government is seeking to create new and
sustainable communities through building new infrastructure, linking
to existing urban centres, providing new jobs and strengthening the
local economy of each area. But these new settlements raise as yet
unanswered questions: How can new communities be created from
scratch? What is the role of architecture and planning in shaping
new settlements? And how will this current building programme differ
from the ups and downs of Stevenage, Corby and Milton Keynes?
Organised in collaboration with Urban Drift Productions Ltd., New
New Town is a day-long symposium with an associated guest lecture
which seeks to draw lessons for the future from the experiences of
the past and the present.
The consequences of the hugely ambitious British New Towns
programme, launched by the New Towns Act of 1946, will be examined
by speakers who including Derek Walker, Chief Architect of Milton
Keynes. Alongside these domestic developments, exemplars from
continental Europe and beyond will be discussed, from the low-rise
high density housing of Borneo Sporenburg, Amsterdam to the 500,000
inhabitant Administrative City in Korea. Other speakers at the
symposium include Sir Peter Hall, Professor at The Bartlett, former
government adviser on urban planning and regeneration and founding
thinker behind the industrial enterprise zone concept; Nick Johnson
of Urban Splash; and Joe Kerr, of the Royal College of Art and
co-editor of London: From Punk to Blair, as Chair. They will address
such issues as: How can you plan for the unplanned? How can
community be created? Is the future suburban? How can the experience
of past and current projects contribute to building exciting,
successful, inclusive and sustainable new settlements?
In the preceding guest lecture, on the evening of Wednesday, 20
February 2008, Lars Lerup, leading writer on planning and Emeritus
Professor at Rice University, Texas, USA, will set out his radical
views on the ways in which patterns of city life are changing, and
their effects on planning. Tickets for the symposium include
entrance to the talk, though prior registration is required.
Email:
oliver@architecturefoundation.org.uk
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Editor's Note: The Architecture Foundation
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The Architecture Foundation - What the past can teach the future
Arundel Jones Associates Ltd News Categories : Sustainable Housing Zero Carbon Homes |