New New Town: Symposium

21 February 2008

The full-day symposium draws lessons for the future from the experience of the past and the present. Speakers address issues such as: How can you plan for the unplanned? How can community be created? Is the future suburban? How can the experience of past and current projects contribute to building exciting, successful, inclusive and sustainable new settlements?

 

PANEL ONE
PAST: THE EXPERIENCE OF PLANNED TOWNS

Architects, planners and artists draw upon the core aspects of new town development, based upon research and experience gathered from seminal new town planning. The panel combines intuitive analysis with pioneering comparative research conducted on new towns worldwide.

INTRODUCTION
Joe Kerr
, Royal College of Art (Chair)

1ST SPEAKER
Sir Peter Hall
, Bartlett, UCL

2ND SPEAKER
Sylvia Grace Borda
, Visual Artist

3RD SPEAKER
Derek Walker
, DWA

4TH SPEAKER
Michelle Provoost
, Crimson

DISCUSSION
Panel & audience



PANEL TWO
PRESENT: MODELS FOR CONTEMPORARY LIVING

In an increasingly urbanized culture, it is no longer enough to rely solely on suburban dreams of cleaner, safer, quieter living in order to attract buyers to new residential developments. Nor can the planning of new settlements be founded upon rigid design parameters and formats; one needs to cater for increasing flexibility and adaptability in both the architecture and the lifestyle that new settlements can offer. The panel will examine the key ingredients to the development of urbanity for new settlements, new models that meet present day conceptions of an urbanised lifestyle.

INTRODUCTION
Joe Kerr
, Royal College of Art (Chair)

5TH SPEAKER
Arnold Reijndorp
, Amsterdam University

6TH SPEAKER
Nick Falk
, URBED

7TH SPEAKER
David Lock
, DLA / TCPA

RESPONDENT
Sir Peter Hall
, Bartlett, UCL

DISCUSSION
Panel & audience

 


PANEL THREE
FUTURE: HOW TO CREATE NEW SETTLEMENTS

When looking into the future of new settlements, we may have to challenge our outlook on what constitutes innovative planning strategies. Can architects and planners learn from societies where ad hoc and self-built architecture transforms our perceptions of how people want to live? Where cities are growing at an extreme pace, planning strategies are often confounded by individualised and uncontrollable uses of urban territories. Or should we follow the lead of more planned developments in highly developed countries?

INTRODUCTION
Joe Kerr
, Royal College of Art (Chair)

8TH SPEAKER
Richard Rees
, BDP

9TH SPEAKER
Pier Vittorio Aureli
, DOGMA

10TH SPEAKER
Nick Johnson
, Urban Splash

11TH SPEAKER
Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss
, NOA

RESPONDENT
Sir Peter Hall
, Bartlett, UCL

DISCUSSION
Panel & audience

 


SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
Vicky Richardson
, Blueprint Magazine,
Joe Kerr and Lars Lerup