Rethinking Urban Design

[Mark Siddall]

Building (the act) and building (the experience good) exist within a broader context and engage with many socially relevant issues. Most building (all?) forums seem to focus upon individual buildings and the plots upon which they are built. Perhaps this is because these forums cater for many self builders. I think that it is important to open things up so that we can make space for the debate about socially relevant design within urban and rural settings.

I hope that this topic area will provide a place to discuss or raise matters that lie beyond the boundary of a single plot. Discussion regarding transport, food, community etc. are welcome.

Mark

[Mark Siddall]

Would you like to live in a Gated Non-Community?
http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/node/478

[Tom Foster]

Transition?
Permaculture?
New forms of governance robust against eventual takeover by the usual 'politicians' (defined as those who take the power because they have that knack)?

Lack of this has been the downfall of most previous utopias, because form of governance was not attended to, amongst all the 'other' idealistic focus. The myth is (not sure if it's true) that amongst Australian Aborigines, anyone showing signs of wanting to be the 'leader' gets shut down and excluded straight away. That's what I can robust.

The Transition Movement has a whole strand of development that is just that, in embryo. It forms part of the international Transition Training agenda.

[Tom Foster]

This looked like a gd thread – any more takers?

[Mark Siddall]

Tom,
The transition movement is very much a bottom up solution- which is great. Key to the transition movement is this the Energy Decent Action plan. An example of which is the Kinsale document: http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/KinsaleEnergyDescentActionPlan.pdf How can the EDA be harnessed to influence urban design? Benchmarking the existing environment is key as is the development of high calibre best practice targets. To be sucessful the targets need to be both specific and measurable.

Personally I am cautious about the heavy reliance upon the peak oil arguement. Whilst this is a good consideration there are other qualitive considerations that also need to be considered. Some things are picked up in the Kinsale document but what is missing? How could it be improved? Any thoughts?

Mark

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