We proudly present this article by Sir Terry Farrell talking about the Farrell Review. We think our Creative Assembly could be ideal as Virtual Urban Room System!
Written by Sir Terry Farrell CBE
This week senior representatives from over 20 institutions and
agencies involved in the built environment will be meeting at the Design
Council to discuss “The Farrell Review: What Next?”. It seems like a
good time to reflect on progress so far including a number of potential
‘pilot’ projects which aim to demonstrate how the recommendations can
work in practice.
The review was very broad in scope covering early education in
schools, professional education, adult outreach, skilling up decision
makers, proactive planning and design quality, cultural heritage,
economic benefits and built environment policy. It was also
independently funded and is independent of party politics having engaged
with Labour’s shadow Culture Minister and All Party Parliamentary
Groups.
There were 60 recommendations in total aimed at central and local
government, professional and cultural institutions, built environment
agencies including architecture centres, the media and PLACE
professionals (using the acronym for Planning, Landscape, Architecture,
Conservation and Engineering). The aim was to create a road map for
everyone involved to play their part and help bring about the culture
change that is needed – making architecture and the built environment a
major public issue like health or food. As the review is so broad, the
intention was always for action to be taken from the ‘bottom up’ and to
be dispersed and disaggregated.
One of the most significant developments is the intention of Bristol
to act as a ‘test bed’ for the review’s recommendations under the
leadership of Mayor and architect George Ferguson. Some of the
recommendations that could be implemented on a ‘city wide’ basis in
cities like Bristol include training planning committee members and
highway engineers in design literacy; forming a multi-disciplinary PLACE
review panel to review existing places like high streets, mega
hospitals or housing estates and creating an urban room with a model to
explore the past, present and future of that place.
Similar interest has been expressed by Kent School of Architecture to
explore how they could act as a pilot for the review. Recommendations
including a broad foundation course in the PLACE subjects; exchanges
with construction training courses; adding business planning,
development economics, retrofitting and refurbishment to course content
as well as apprenticeships and sandwich courses to make architecture
more accessible will be the subject of ongoing discussions with them.
The Greater London Authority, who responded to the consultation for
the review about skills and resources within local authority planning
departments, are interested in the acronym PLACE to better describe the
multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of the built environment.
Design South East have also indicated their supported for rebranding
their design review service as PLACE review to ensure it is more
collaborative and broader in scope. In Southwark, the Shad Thames Area
Management Partnership (STAMP) believe they could provide a “test bed”
for how the outreach ideas might be implemented benefitting from the
active engagement of councillors, residents and businesses as well as
the neighbouring Business Improvement District
Virtual urban rooms will be on the agenda at one of many workshops on
the Farrell Review organised by
Urban Design Group on the 22
nd
May and Assembly Studios has expressed an interest in using their
online creative network platform as a potential Virtual Urban Room
System (
www.creativeassemblyuk.com).
Other workshops and seminars focusing on next steps and are being
organised by the Design Network (with speakers including the
Government’s Chief Construction Advisor and Mathew Carmona of UCL
Bartlett) as well as regional events in Yorkshire, Manchester and
Newcastle.
At the recent event in Birmingham, locations were identified for a
potential urban room and the architecture centre MADE is in discussions
with the local authority about offering PLACE review services in return
for skilling up decision makers in design and placemaking.
For school education, there is a consensus emerging that the ‘open source’ website
www.engagingplaces.org.uk
is the right platform to provide teacher training toolkits and lesson
plans on a national basis. We will be appealing to the government and
the institutions to support the development of this website so that the
built environment can be taught through many different subjects at the
earliest age possible.
For more information about the review, including PDF downloads, visit
www.farrellreview.co.uk.
