23 May 2012 - 24 May 2012, 00:00 -

Public Space: What is the Future with Limited Funding?

 

A Greater London Branch SEMINAR

From 1.30 pm (Seminar 2.00 – 5.00 pm)

Venue: Imperial College Lecture Theatre 201 or 207/208 combined; Centre for Transport Studies;Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Skempton Building, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ

As public space and better streets are increasingly the focus of the public and designers, we ask the question “what is the future of remaking of the public space with limited funding and budgets?” Public spaces and better streets have complex spatial, environmental and social dynamics, yet in attempting to reduce car dominance and enhance public realm traffic engineers and urban designers are moving away from highly engineered, tightly regulated and expensively controlled streets that separate different classes of users.

 

 

Speakers: Mahmood Siddiqi, George Weeks (TfL.),Stuart Reid (MVA),

                    Luke Barber (Suffolk CC), Ben Addy (SUSTRANS)

 

Mahmood Siddiqi

Mahmood is the Bi-Borough Director for Transportation and Highways for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. He was responsible for delivering the Exhibition Road project and has been instrumntal in developing the streetscape policies for the Royal Borough.

Luke Barber is a Senior Road Safety Engineer working for Suffolk County Council.

His early professional life was spent in process design and engineering sales in the oil industry. In 2004 he decided on a change of career direction and joined the Highways team at Suffolk County Council. He also added a BSc in Technology Management and a Foundation Degree in Civil Engineering to his CV during this period. At Suffolk County Council Luke has led a team of designers implementing road safety and improvement schemes throughout the county.

Of these schemes, the Hamilton Road Shared Space project has been the most interesting and rewarding to date. He managed the project from inception, through design and construction to the completion of the final scheme.

Ben Addy

The presentation will introduce and detail the Sustrans’ ‘DIY streets’ initiative. It will provide a short background and inspiration for the project, showcase a number of case studies and present some evaluation undertaken. It will also discuss the future direction of the project and it relevance within the current policy context.

George Weeks (TfL) 

Monetising the benefits of good urban design; Valuing the Urban Realm (VUR)

Most people can recognise a good quality streetscape. A poor quality streetscape is even easier to notice, since people tend to avoid it. The design of streets and open spaces has a huge impact on people’s lives, but it has, in the past, been very difficult to put an objective monetary value on these benefits.

Since 2004, Transport for London has carried out three major studies on the qualities of streetscapes. This research, entitled Valuing the Urban Realm (VUR), has been rigorous and far reaching. The VUR findings have recently been developed into a web-based Toolkit. This provides an objective, reliable and cost-effective way to value public realm improvements, showing how benefits accrue to users and property owners.

This presentation introduces the challenge of measuring quality. It then gives a brief précis of the research carried out and how this informed the Toolkit. Finally, it shows how the Toolkit gives a much stronger voice to users of public space and ensures that they are included in the urban design process.

Why should I be interested in this talk?

Valuing Urban Realm is unique, and is the only system in existence for monetising the values of improved public space. This talk should be of interest to anyone who would like to know more about the significant monetary benefits arising from high quality planning.

 

How to Book a Place

Members of all branches of CIHT are welcome to attend Greater London events. We also welcome non-members as guests. It is always preferable to book your place. Some events may have a limited number of places so please book early to avoid disappointment.

To book a place on any event contact:

the Branch Secretary Ross Corben email greaterlondon.secretary@ciht.org.uk

or the Branch Web Officer Geoff Dadd on 0208 318 6187 or email greaterlondon@ciht.org.uk

Always check the web site for the latest information.

 

Six months after the completion of the refurbished Exhibition Road, Mahmood Siddiqi will recap on the obstacles that were overcome to deliver this project and share some of the initial findings from the post-construction monitoring.

 

This seminar will cover:

Overcoming obstacles in delivering shared public space

Valuing public realm and the future for the design of public spaces

Helping communities to redesign their streets?

Developing shared space with constrained funding