About

About:
Why are the places we are building so different from the places we like?

Urban Design as a distinct discipline has emerged over the last 20 years in response to the poor quality environments of the preceding decades.  Although the subject may not obviously relate to your core activities, the breadth and depth of topics that urban design encompasses could help you understand your role in creating memorable and successful places.

Urban Design: The Art of Memorable Places will explain what constitutes a great place based on insight about the development of urban design, the aspects which combine in great outcomes and the application of these to real places and planned projects. 

Key Learning Objectives:
•  Learn the origins of urban design
•  Understand core principles of successful places
•  Relate urban design performance to both existing and proposed places
•  Focus on key aspects in focused modules
•  Build an urban design vocabulary to help articulate dialogue with other stakeholders

Who Should Attend?
This training is intended for anybody who wants to understand how different aspects of the urban realm combines to create great and memorable places.  The learnings from the process will provide participants with ways of understanding existing or proposed environments, with a view to establishing their success in urban design terms.
•  Senior staff, senior management, and elected representatives in city councils, government agencies or development authorities
•  Stakeholders including developers, landowners and consultants
•  Transport planners, engineers and all disciplines concerned with transport issues
•  Architects, Urban Planners, Landscape Architects, Urban Economists, Socio-Economic Planners
•  Development Companies

Training Methodology:
This intensive 2-day masterclass will combine tutorial sessions and case studies with interactive learning exercises. All attendees will be provided with a workbook and a certificate of completion. Real world examples and experience will be used to illustrate and exemplify the points being made.


Outline

What is urban design and where did it come from?
•  Exploration of memorable places
•  Will I know a good place when I see it?
•  Understand the reasons for the emergence of urban design
•  Gain insight as to why it is important to people in a wide range of positions and walks of life

What are the ingredients of memorable places?
•  How do we describe places?
•  The Urban Design Matrix – Physical and Metaphysical characteristics of places:
   - “Scape” and Character
   - Circulation and Desirability
   - Diversity and Lifestyle
   - Public Realm and Stewardship / Security
   - Sustainability and Behaviour

Application of the urban design matrix to existing places and proposed places
•  Understanding the real strengths and weaknesses of an existing place
•  Evaluating the degree of improvement associated with change
•  Designing future outcomes that address all aspects of the urban design matrix with the aim of creating memorable places

Scape
The physical structure of the built environment includes:
•  Composition of buildings, spaces, landmarks, vistas and focal points
•  Creating the “scape” which in turn defines, enriches and gives unique character to a place
•  Development initiatives that embrace townscape principles and enhance the urban character
•  Enlivening and regenerate the built environment and enhance key townscape features

Character
How the city looks and feels and the way its neighborhoods express their character and personality are crucial to its identity. The manner in which new development relates to adjacent heritage features, buildings and structures is an important consideration. Consider:
•  Developing buildings, the network of streets and the treatment of the public realm to enhance neighborhoods and city quarters
•  Defining characteristics and “Sense of Place”

Circulation
The street and transportation network defines the urban pattern of every place. Disfunctionality within any circulation network will compromise the overall urban environment if thought is not given to:
•  Creating social spaces that encourage pedestrian movement and social interaction
•  Improving linkages and connectivity within fragmented urban environments to consolidate a rich and vibrant community environments

Desirability
Desirability can be difficult to define , but is a fundamental characteristic of successful places. It includes:
•  Influencing desirability by location, environment, visual amenity, materiality, architectural quality, aesthetics and beauty
•  Creating true desirability is timeless and integrity – “themed” environments are rarely successful in the long term
•  Integrating experiential aspects such as surprise and delight, complexity and contradiction, smell and sound to increase desirability

Diversity
Successful places embrace a “cradle to cradle” philosophy and promote diversity throughout their social, environmental and economic dimensions.
•  Creating mixed use projects are that develop and regenerate of our urban areas
•  Promotion of sophisticated and holistic approaches to mixed-use developments to ensure long-term social, economic and environmental sustainability

Lifestyle 24/7/365
As a place reflects the lives of its inhabitants, it should also acknowledge life as a 24-hour / 7-day / 365-day experience. It encompasses:
•  Accommodating a full spectrum of lifestyle expectations, including civic events and celebrations
•  Creating places that are as memorable at nighttime as they are during the day: animated by a rich tapestry of civic attractions, enriched with vibrant activity and imaginative lighting

Public Realm
The pervading theme of public areas or “common ground” between and around buildings should be one of:
•  Creating quality spaces in the design of streets, parks, reserves, squares, boulevards, vistas and public open spaces
•  Interactions between buildings and open spaces to ensure they are attractive, animated, well used, well supervised and easily maintained
•  Promoting public art and cultural expression

Stewardship and Security
Engendering a positive sense of ownership, pride, stewardship and security is fundamental in the development of a successful place and considers:
•  Design, the layout and orientation of buildings and spaces that actively promote or compromise community stewardship, security and civic pride within urban environments
•  Embracing good townscape and CPTED principles

Sustainability
Holistic approaches that embrace environmental, social, economic and cultural dimensions and include:
•  Sustainable places that facilitate change and renewal without wholesale redevelopment
•  How to meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs

Behaviour
Places are not shaped so much by planners, architects and urban designers as they are by the activities and behaviour of their citizens whether they be politicians, civil servants, business people, investors, professionals, key policy-makers, statutory organisations or community groups. Issues include:
•  Governance structures, statutory rules and regulations
•  Behavioural expectations we place on each other and their impacts on the quality of our built environments


Facilitator

In-house Training