Urban Design Spring 2022 Journal

Running through this issue of Urban Design is the golden thread of civic pride, local decision-making and placemaking. It is increasingly important to ask and check who the creators of places really are. Is it the consultants appointed by developers or local planning authorities, and who may not have a good understanding of how a place ticks and works best for local people? Can we point to many development schemes where the local community has welcomed change because the proposals were such a good fit between the need for new development and the place’s existing physical and social character? Furthermore, who shapes places once they have been built? Is it the residents and members of the local community, such as civic societies and local volunteers, or are the main influences budgetary and regulatory? We have learned from experiences during the pandemic that (almost) all of us are far more capable of collaboration and of acting with integrity for the good of the community than previously thought, when the pace of life and the pursuit of economic growth were far more pressing concerns. In this issue three articles explore this theme of pride, placemaking and the importance of context in very different ways. MSc student Jessica Alvarez Cueva examines the difficulties in forging a relationship and sense of belonging between a city developed for a colonial-style economy based on the extraction of resources in Peru (i.e. oil, mass farming and animal products), and the local Amazonian people who were rooted to the land (p.12). Drawing parallels with Aboriginal-Australian design approaches, where indigenous recognition is already a given, she shows that designers need to recognise the inherent conflict between a colonial or top-down approach to places, building typologies and the public realm, and the relationship that local people have to their environment. The issue’s topic, Design and Landscape, explores the relationship between urban design and landscape. Helen Hoyle in particular discusses the different ways that design professionals, the public, but also migrants, can perceive the same landscape (p.28). For example, it has taken time for people to assimilate and accept unmown grass verges left to grow wild and flower chaotically, with popular perceptions moving from a sense of urban neglect and poor management, to understanding it as a positive step protecting nature and biodiversity. Beauty and perceptions of nature depend on personal expectations, on where an individual starts from, socially and economically, and even on gender. There is much to learn from this issue’s topic as green infrastructure is not just landscape designers’ territory. Coincidentally, in one of the books reviewed in the issue, Transect Urbanism (p.49), Andres Duany and Brian Falk present transects as a way of identifying and responding to different place characteristics, which is inherent in how urban designers see the structure of places. The authors describe the ecology-based origins of the transect: taking a fixed path through nature and observing how its elements vary according to setting. This is about well-informed placemaking based on context, setting and what happens where, the opposite of unstructured sprawl driven by growth. As the pace of life picks up, it is easy to forget that urban design is about making interventions on behalf of local people, and so knowing who they are and what they value is a good start. As we celebrate John Billingham’s achievements (p4) – developing the journal and many other UDG initiatives and as a mentor to me and Sebastian Loew – his editorial influence will continue to be felt for many years yet.

source :

https://www.udg.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/UD162_magazine_0.pdf