URBAN UPDATE
12th June 2015
Main news
from the Urban Design Group
Jobs – WYG + PhD opportunities
Garden Cities – Event Report
Urban Design Photo Competition
What makes a good tower? // Why is high rise considered quality?
Entries invited for 2016 Urban Design Award for practices
Industrially produced Housing in Russia - Reviewed
Bristol – venue for 2015 National Conference on Urban Design
Health funds could be spent on changes to the built environment
Lessons from the Vision Zero initiative to eliminate road deaths
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National Urban Design
Awards 2016
Entries Invited for
Practice Awards
http://www.udg.org.uk/content/udg-practice-award
Francis Tibbalds Prize worth £1000
Deadline 26 June
Don’t miss the limelight!
Don’t miss the deadline
Check out the details and deadlines for entering the
other awards
Student - £600 prize
http://www.udg.org.uk/udupdate/news/urban-update-12-June-2015
Garden Cities Event
This event, chaired an orchestrated by Ben van
Bruggen, Van Bruggen Urbanism drew 4 leading
figures in design and urban development and a packed
crowd to The Gallery on Wednesday.
Yolande Barnes presented her view as to what
sustainable urbanism was: a picture of streets with
diverse uses, and not the model of open planning that
was prevalent in the UK in the second half of the 20th
century. She equated sustainable urbanism with
Garden Cities. Savills studies had found that the top
factors people look for in new housing is
neighbourhood, external appearance, good schools, low
maintenance and a safe environment. A recent IPSOS
Mori poll appeared to confirm that the public prefer
streets (Ben was later to refer to research that suggests
people like pitched roofs and chimneys). Using this
approach to design would change the level of public
Jim Coleman from Buro Happold looked at the economic
side of development. Demand for housing was increasing,
with ONS projections forecasting a UK population of 70
million in little over a decade. Government financial
intervention was focussed on the demand side: providing
additional funds to enable people to buy housing, rather
than addressing supply. When promoted by the private
sector, new development had to make a profit. Yet there
were types of land use which provided a substantial benefit
to society (such as parks and greenspace) but which did
not bring a financial return. This presented a problem.
Dominic Papa of S333 looked at the detailed
design of settlements including Ebbsfleet and Almere. He
stressed the importance of richness of experience, the
potential for rethinking designs at local and a more strategic
scale, and the potential for “differentiation” from creating the
landscaping within streets, to neighbourhood centres and
neighbourhoods themselves.
There are some people who have criticised the
Garden City concept as being low density and car
Public Sector
Developer
Book
http://www.udg.org.uk/awards
objection or support, and in turn would change the value
of land.
As to actually creating better development,
Yolande stressed that the current practice by
developers and housebuilders was to build and sell to
obtain an annual return rather than to hold out for a
long-term return. The pay-off from better design arises
over a longer term: housebuilders business practices
don’t capture this increase in value. “They are the
wrong people to do this” she said.
dependent. Rob Cowan demonstrated using some
sophisticated mathematics that at the time Ebenezer
Howard was proposing the idea, there would have been
just six and two thirds of a car in each garden city. (It is too
easily forgotten that most old-world suburban development
was based on the omnibus, metro, suburban rail and
bicycle.) He then went on to explain the current working
definition of Garden City as promoted by policy
makers…….
A lengthy discussion followed, including car parking and
Very few UK politicians or policy makers appear to have a
Forthcoming UDG Events
The City as Developer
Joint with the AoU
Wednesday 8th July - London
Featuring contributors to the forthcoming edition of
urban design
Peter Bishop, Peter Studdert, Lawrence Barth,
Henk Bouwman, Dick Gleeson (tbc)
Led by John Worthington
Academician and UDG Patron
Weather in the City - How design shapes the
Urban Climate
The launch of a book by Sanda Lenzholzer which
brings an understanding of wind, sun, heat and air
movements within the reach of any built
environment professional. Introduced by Professor
Michael Hebbert
Monday 20 July – London
Underground Urbanism
Wednesday 16 September – London
Your ideas for events invited
We will be sending an email around soon inviting
your ideas for future topics.
Join the StreetNW mailing list on
mailto:street-north-west@urban-design-group.org.uk
dash or DAWDLE
A fun information event in Clerkenwell
celebrating National Beer Day Monday 15 June
Choose to dash? Complete the challenge in less
than 75 minutes and you are entered in to a draw to
win a copy of The CAMRA Guide to London’s Best
Beers, Pubs and Bars by Des de Moor (RRP
£12.99). Beat the fastest time and get your entry fee
back!
1. Take a selfie of you and your friends - wear or
carry something distinctive
2. Tweet your selfie and include #DashClerkenwell
3. Use the clues to find 12 specific pubs in
Clerkenwell - at each pub Tweet a selfie of you
(and your group) in front of the pub and
remember to include #Dash-Clerkenwell in your
Tweet.
Choose to DAWDLE? Take all the time you like and
if you fancy sharing your fun, then Tweet using
#Dawdle-Clerkenwell - one of your Tweets might win
you a prize too!
whether and where to accommodate it: parking courts
and perimeter development evidently having fallen out
of favour; the privatisation of greenspace; cows,
agriculture and urban food production, the tendency for
popular, vibrant neighbourhoods to become more
homogenous, as the vibrancy is priced out; the failure of
the planning system to deliver land; and whether it was
time weedkiller was poured on the Garden City.
Urban design is about the design of towns and cities at
all scales from the strategic down to the finest detail.
Yet the current UK debate on development focuses
mainly on houses, streets and neighbourhoods and
excludes the strategic scale. Ebenezer Howard
proposed a city cluster of some 250,000 people with a
balanced economy that would produce most of the
things that it needed, and where with communities were
based on mutualism, shared ownership, and what is
now termed “prosocial behaviour”.
Thanks go to the speakers, Ben van Bruggen for arranging the event,
and to Rob Cowan for the cartoon.
city perspective. They need to address questions such as
 how income and wealth are distributed across society as
this strongly influences where people live, the form of
lives they lead, the urban form that follows, and the
diversity of activity that can be found in a street or
neighbourhood;
 the extent to which people are willing to live and
participate in a cooperative society, and how this is being
affected by social networking, smartphones and the
internet, as friendships and economic activities become
increasingly dispersed or clustered
 how much people are prepared to pay for public assets,
and whether we all share in a rich experience of the city,
or deteriorating litter-strewn streets, and barren parks
and greenspaces;
 the nature of manufacture and services in the 21st
century. To what extent is a self-sufficient city possible
when it is cheaper (at the moment) to ship goods from
one side of the globe to the other, than it is to take them
from the docks to their destination?
We owe it to Ebenezer Howard to consider these
questions.
http://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/events/dash-or-dawdle/
Other events
New on UrbanNous
Health and Urban Design
CycleCity Active
UDG AGM
Where do you read Urban
Design? Prize competition
Major 2 day conference
25-26 June
Newcastle
http://www.landor.co.uk/cycleactivecity/programme.php
Academy of Urbanism
Event / Mid-Year Review and Reception
22nd July – London
http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/events/mid-year-review-and-reception/
http://www.urbannous.org.uk/health-and-urban-design.htm
BOBMK Events
http://bobmk.org.uk/our-programme/
Next events autumn
MADE
Greening the city:
Urban streets and verges
Ian Hingley. Landscape architect, Urban Movement
http://www.made.org.uk/events/calendar/
Designing Single private houses
16 June
Introduction to Design Codes
23 June
Museum of Walking
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27 June Saturday 10.30am-1.30pm
Ruskin Walk in Shoreditch: Home Fronts
with artist and creator of the Ruskin Walk: Martin
Fidler
to complement the Geffrye Museum’s “Homes
for the homeless” exhibition

Read more

Book here
http://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/events/ruskin-walks/
http://home-fronts-ruskin-walk.eventbrite.co.uk
PTRC
http://www.urbannous.org.uk/greening-the-city-streets.htm
UrbanNous Catalogue available on-line
Go to the home page and move your cursor to where it
says “Hover here to bring ideas to life”
Highlights include Christopher Alexander, George
Ferguson, Hans Monderman and scores of others.
www.urbannous.org.uk
Annual Transport Practitioners Meeting
1st – 2nd -3rd July - London
https://www.ptrc-training.co.uk/Portals/1/Documents/TPM/TPM15Leaflet.pdf
Urban Design London
Events coming up – extensive programme some
free, some charged/£175+VAT (Free for
subscribers)
http://www.urbandesignlondon.com/?page_id=3251
UDL HOUSING SPECIAL
Density Debate
30 June
Housing Policies
1st July
Viewing and Assessing Schemes, a Built for Life
update
2nd July
The National Conference
on Urban Design 2015
Bristol 8-9-10 October
This year’s conference is happening in Bristol, one of
the UK’s most vibrant and successful cities,
The conference this year focuses on the role of
developers and housebuilders and how better design
quality can help to achieve social and economic benefits
and reduce costs to the public purse, yet still make a
profit.
AGM elects New Urban Design
This picture was taken in Jalisco, Mexico.
Can you beat it!!
The Urban Design Group will award two prizes to the best
photographs taken during this Summer and submitted
before 5th September 2015. The idea is to show interesting
or original places in which members have read the journal.
The competition is open to individual UDG members and
the photograph (only one per member) should be submitted
as a jpg at 300dpi for a minimum size of 190mm width, with
your name, and the location of the photograph . The author
of the best photograph, to be chosen by the Editors, will be
given a year's free subscription to the journal; the runner-up
will be sent a recent book about urban design and invited to
review it for the journal. Both photographs will be published
in the journal and online on the UDG website.
URBAN DESIGN Edition 134:
Design South East / Kent Design
Event Calendar
http://www.kentdesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Event-Calendar-2015-16-edited-14.4.15.pdf
Growing a Place
UCA, Canterbury
19 June
Introduction to Building for Life 12
Sevenoaks 24 June
Group Executive
View the list of members and what they hope to do over
the coming year
http://www.udg.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Executive%20Committee%20Nomination%20List%20201516.docx
Katy Neaves continues in her second year as chair, with
Colin Pullan as Treasurer.
Current edition sent to UDG members
Past editions can be downloaded on the UDG website
Jobs
Graduate Urban Designer - WYG
London - St John's Street
Competitive Salary + Excellent Benefits
http://www.udg.org.uk/jobs/london-and-south-east/graduate-urban-designer-wyg
PhD Opportunities in Healthy planning – Welcome
Trust
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Sustaining-health/index.htm
Urban Design around the World
Latest Research, Policy and Practice
Global
Humans, Health, Society
20 Most Bike-Friendly Cities in the World (Find Out Which U.S. City Made the
Cut)
Prospect of NHS funding being used to pay for changes to the built environment
that prevent illness
https://ecowatch.com/2015/06/10/bike-friendly-cities/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33016431
10 Must-Read Books for Urbanists on Cities, Race and Public Space
Study provides further support that changes to environmental light exposure in
humans may impact body weight regulation
http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/books-recommended-race-cities-public-space
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150609/Timing-of-exposure-to-moderate-light-may-influence-BMI-body-fat.aspx
Weekend screen time linked to poorer bone health in teen boys
Australia
The untouchable suburbs of Australia's cities
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-untouchable-suburbs-of-australias-cities-2015-6
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-weekend-screen-linked-poorer-bone.html
Sleep problems and energy product use associated with increased alcohol use in
teens
http://www.universityherald.com/articles/19899/20150610/sleep-problems-may-be-linked-to-increased-alcohol-use-in-teens.htm
Canada
Designing communities for urban living
http://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/condos/designing-communities-for-urban-living
Daily sugar-sweetened beverage habit linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/daily-sugar-sweetened-beverage-habit-linked-non-alcoholic-fatty-liver-disease
Risky outdoor play positively impacts children's health: UBC study
http://www.med.ubc.ca/risky-outdoor-play-positively-impacts-childrens-health-ubc-study/
Russia
Teenagers should exercise like kids to achieve best health outcomes
Is the 'Moscow experiment' over?
The plan was to create a new type of city that answered the needs of Moscow’s
creative middle classes.
Our bodies are designed to move. Our cities should be too.
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_455919_en.html
http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/our-bodies-are-designed-move-our-cities-should-be-too.html
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/08/is-the-moscow-experiment-over-gorky-park-sergei-kapkov-alexei-navalny
Your phone knows how many steps you take per day, shouldn't your doctor?
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-day-shouldnt-doctor.html
Industrialised Housing in Russia - Reviewed
At the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Union began the largest experiment in
industrialised housing in history. Owen Hatherley visits three of Moscow’s
resulting mikrorayons, where the majority of Muscovites still live today
Obesity associated with increased cancer risk in postmenopausal women
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/tjnj-oaw060915.php
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/12/moscows-suburbs-may-look-monolithic-but-the-stories-they-tell-are-not
UK
Why on Earth is high rise considered high quality?
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/business/commercial-property/earth-high-rise-considered-high-9433101
Movement
Five Key Lessons From Europe’s Vision Zero – the aim for zero fatalities
1) Managing speeds — and speed differentials — is a top priority
2) After speed, street design is key
3) Engineering efforts have taken priority over education and enforcement
4) Private sector buy-in strengthens efforts
5) What’s next? Vision Zero 2.0
USA
One mom’s fight to make Seattle’s most polluted neighbourhood greener
http://grist.org/people/one-moms-fight-to-make-seattles-most-polluted-neighborhood-greener/
Designing Better Public Spaces Could Reverse Troubling Social Trend
http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/design-public-spaces-cities-community-trust-city-observatory-report
What Happened to Los Angeles Venetian style canals?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3114848/Venice-America-s-history-shows-canals-hidden-pavement.html
Built Environment
Leaky pipes can allow contaminants into our drinking water
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/leaky-water-pipes-contaminants-drinking-water-1.470248
What makes a good tower?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2015/06/06/will-boston-high-rise-boom-reach-architectural-heights/MyMf5yrY9p3zSj0SZ9HQnI/story.html
http://visionzeronetwork.org/notes-from-abroad-five-key-lessons-from-europes-vision-zero-success/
Do 20 mph speed limits actually work?
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/29/do-20mph-speed-limits-actually-work-london-brighton
Critics say that the limits are ignored by drivers, not enforced, and only reduce speeds by
1 mph. But against that is the reality that drivers ignore all speed limits not just the 20
mph limit, as is demonstrated by government speed data. As to enforcement, the same
applies: the 30, 40, 50 60 and 70 mph limits are not enforced. The 1 mph reduction in
average speeds is being borne out by experience, and while it doesn’t sound much, the
reduction in kinetic energy is over 8 percent. The 20 mph limit movement is about much
more than speeds, but about recognising streets are for everyone, including children, and
not just vehicles and parked cars.
Public Works: The App That Shows You How And Why to Commute Without a Car
http://torontoist.com/2015/06/public-works-the-app-that-shows-you-how-and-why-to-commute-without-a-car/
Woonerfs: Rethinking a Public Realm for Bicyclists, Pedestrians and Cars
http://www.thelinemedia.com/features/woonerfs06092015.aspx
Centre Point – gets the UK’s tallest ever building wrap - Timelapse
http://vimeopro.com/user25873713/centre-point-wrap/video/129197761
57 story skyscraper built in 19 days – Timelapse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-3cca82c0-af80-4c3a-8a79-84fda5015115
Photography
Photo exhibit reminds us of S.F.’s unembellished, unnoticed spots
Environment
Light pollution threatens the Balearic shearwater
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150610101139.htm
When trees aren't 'green': Poor management leads to overcrowded, older trees
with little understory
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/asoa-wta061015.php
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/place/article/Photo-exhibit-reminds-us-of-S-F-s-6317196.php
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