Community Engagement: Quality design or design compromise?

Date: Tuesday 21 June 2011 Time: Drinks from 6.30pm, talk from 7 to 8pm Venue: The Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EL Speakers: The Glass-House, The Building Exploratory and The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment Chaired by: Lee Mallett Tickets: £5 / £3 for students & concessions, inc. a glass of wine Booking: www.eventelephant.com/CommunityEngagement21June Engage in some lively debate about different approaches to ensuring design quality, and the importance of listening and responding to the community voice. High quality design begins with a clear vision and good brief, and designing for the public realm and community facilities must draw on local knowledge and aspirations to get that vision and brief right. The Glass-House will explore what both the designer and the community need to know and expect of each other to get the best design possible. Sophia de Sousa, Chief Executive of The Glass-House, comments: "Localism and changes to planning legislation will present new opportunities for communities to shape their neighbourhoods, but how can we ensure that design quality is not left out of the equation? This talk will be a great opportunity to explore the impact that communities can have on design quality and vice versa." The Prince's Foundation pioneered the ‘Enquiry by Design’ process to bring community engagement and urban design into the same forum. At the heart of the organisation's work is a belief that neighbourhoods will accept new development that they understand and which reflects recognisable characteristics of the place. James Hulme, Director of Policy for The Prince’s Foundation, says: "local people's appetite for collaborative planning, and for development generally, will be stimulated if consultation is seen as a transparent process with demonstrable influence on the final design of schemes." Nicole Crockett, Chief Executive of The Building Exploratory, will present their approach to working with communities to celebrating place and the role that knowledge and creativity plays in engaging people with change. She will discuss the recently completed Kilburn Grange Adventure Playground. Lee Mallett, who is chairing this debate, comments: “I’m all for community engagement. The biggest risk in the market is whether you’ll get planning permission or not and that is as it should be in a democracy. But you can’t expect people to vote for development if you don’t engage them in your ideas. Bring it on! The big problem is there are so many bad designers and councillors/planners who don’t know that there are better designers out there.” This is the second in a series of Architecture Centre Network talks exploring community engagement in the built environment. Further information: www.architecturecentre.net