A presentation given by Stephen Hill at the 2011 Design Skills Symposium that was held in Stirling and organised by Architecture + Design Scotland and Historic Scotland.

1. Stephen Hill
C20 Futureplanners
Design Skills Symposium 2011, Tollbooth, Stirling
“Delivering Better Places”

2. How to live more sustainably?
Aligning Personal and Professional Values
Stephen Hill, C2O futureplanners
Dare to be
in – subordinate !

3. Shelley McNamara, Grafton Architects
What would be your dream commission?
Something like Ilôt 13 in Geneva, which
developed organically with a mixture of
squatters, students, cooperatives and
private sector housing, new and old.
The way a project is commissioned
determines the outcome.
Design is only one component

4. Les Grottes
“Unhealthy and unsuitable for
the imperatives of modernity
of a growing city”

5. “…doomed to integral destruction”
1977 Referendum halts city council
plans…“the inhabitants having
democratically invited themselves
to the decision-makers table.”

6. “Instead of blocking
inadequate projects,
the inhabitants become
genuine actors…”
Europan 1991
Ilôt 13
Atelier 89

7. “More participative,
and ecological
approaches…
suppress the
car parking…
new housing…
“…half the cost of
workspace… classic retrofits.”
cultural centre”

8. Exhibition Road, London

9. DIY Solar Panels…
catalyst for the country
"When we invested in a place… it becomes alive”

10. The Big Society
“Too much has been imposed from
above, when experience shows that success
depends on communities themselves having
the power and taking the responsibility.
It‟s no good officials in Whitehall or even the
Town Hall telling people what is needed in their
street.”
…. everyone has a stake based
on equal rights and where they
pay their dues by exercising
responsibility in return, and
where local communities shape
their own futures.

11. Neighbourhood planning
and
Community Right to Build
“I want to spark a… !!!
A bottom up
revolution ….
from the top…
with support from the
highest levels
of government…

12. Do something unprecedented…
We are too used to accepting the
boundaries we ourselves have created...
Greatest task will be convincing people
they exist at all…
Change the culture…
The Bill is not enough…

13. What makes a good sustainable
neighbourhood?

14. “A wonderful place to grow up”
Colin Ward

15. Design Paradox:
Ye Olde Placemakynge and Spatial
Plannyng…
“The exceptional urban
and environmental
qualities we esteem in
many of our older cities
were achieved with a
very modest input of
resources, and by a
careful and evolving
response to the needs
of their inhabitants.”
Ralph
Erskine, Architect

16. Design Conundrum:
Do it like I say…
“Specifying in a plan
that development
must be sustainable is
no more useful as
guidance to a developer
than describing a piece
of music as beautiful
tells us anything about
what it sounds like”
Rob Cowan - The Dictionary of Urbanism

17. Design Solution:
Do it like we do… “We must learn
to see that every
problem that
concerns us…
always leads to
the question of
how we live”
Wendell Berry
"Solving for pattern – finding solutions
that solve multiple problems”

18. “We haven‟t done enough on the design…
that‟s a major area for improvement” (John
Prescott)
CONTROL !
Why are we so pre-occupied with “design”?

19. Landowner Control “Vision for Britain”

20. Poundbury
Design Guide
• Stretcher bond…not permitted
• Soldier arches…not allowed
• Shiplap boards...not permitted
• Parking of caravans, boats or
trailers…not allowed “Judicious mixing (of chimney pots)
• There shall be no flat roofs will give a feeling of the collective
roofscapes having evolved”
• Permission will not be given to
demolish chimneys
• Windows with asymmetric “Windows
subdivision…not permitted and doors
• Bathroom windows should not shall be
be obscured or patterned glass built
• Woven panels of wooden entirely of
fencing…not allowed timber”

21. Public Interest
Control
Design Code
143 pages

22. You can have any house you
like…providing it‟s…
BLUE !

23. “It‟s like Beirut…”
Germaine Greer in the Guardian, September 2009
“…uniformly depressing”
Another developer

24. Score analysis: Kickstart funded schemes (136)
9%
10%
54%
27%
Very Good (16+) Good (14-15.5) Average (10-13.5) Poor (0-9.5)

25. House builder Total Schemes Scores Scores Scores
5 or more schemes Submitted >10 < 10 >14
submitted [66% All]
Barratt 32 9 23 2
Bellway 24 7 17 3
Bovis 8 2 6 0
Countryside 11 6 5 3
Crest Nicholson 6 2 4 1
Galliford Try 14 8 6 6
Gentoo [HA] 9 2 7 0
Gladedale 5 1 4 0
Keepmoat 12 4 8 2
Lovell 6 5 1 2
Miller 8 1 7 1
Persimmon 26 1 25 1
Swan New Homes [HA] 5 2 3 1
Taylor Wimpey 6 0 6 0
TOTAL 172 50 122 22
Urban Splash 4 4 0 3

26. LPA Total Score Score Score Low Scoring High Scoring
5 or more Schemes >10 < 10 >14 House builders House Builders
schemes Entered <10 >14
Birmingham 9 4 5 1 Bellway/Miller/
City Persimmon
Co. Durham 5 0 5 0 Barratt/
[New Unitary] Keepmoat
Leeds City 6 6 0 4 Barratt/Bellway
Miller/
Urban Splash
Liverpool City 8 4 4 3 Bellway/Lovell
Manchester 7 6 1 3 Lovell
City
Northumberlan 3 0 3 0 Barratt/Gentoo
d
[New Unitary]
Rochdale 6 4 2 0 Persimmon
Solihull 7 2 5 0 Bellway
[all 7 schemes]
Stockton-on- 6 1 5 0 Bellway/
Tees Gladedale/
Keepmoat/ Barratt

27. Freiburg:
Co-producing Design and values
for living

28. Karlsruhe Nordstadt
“Thank goodness, it‟s not Vauban”
Smiley West
• Local Authority arms length enabling company
• Recruit and support 10 „building groups‟
• Masterplan and design code
• Construction management
• 7.5 acre/3 hectare site
• 190 homes – 65+ dwellings/hectare

29. Managed co-production

30. A grown up politics of design
… „Secure by Living Together‟
Family Passivhaus group

31. Barrier free group

32. Lower cost family group

33. High value
detached and
semi-detached
villas

34. Mid-market family group
“Managing our co-existence in shared space”
Prof. Patsy Healey – Definition of Spatial Planning

35. Coop Mika
Smiley Barracks
Karlsruhe

36. Self-refurbishment: Flats for
family and single people

37. Mixed uses and
community facilities

38. Diversity and maturity in mainstream
politics and housing markets - Germany
Tübingen Südstadt
Karlsruhe, Hamburg,
Leipzig….
Project Vauban, Freiberg

39. The Tübingen way…
Co-production of shared space

42. The English way…space as commodity

43. Trust…
in the design
code…
This is all there is
…and
co-production
through dialogue
How many pages does
your Design Code have?

44. Alternative public practice
• Pelham Grove Coop N17
• The Game>>Planning for
Real
• Brief: “not look like a
council house”

45. 40 years on-
Sanford
Coop, Railway
Cuttings,
Lewisham…
60% cut in CO2

46. Resident controlled market housing
The Ralph Erskine Test of time,
and skills and ideas we have lost
The Hall and Hallgate, Blackheath 1957
The trouble with planners is…
The Architect in Society, Keith Godwin

49. SPAN Housing at Corner Green…
…50 years on

50. “My particular interest
was the formation of
the courtyard which I
thought was a dead
space. [It] is not a
dead space. It is
actually circulation”
Eric Lyons
“Resident-controlled management companies may
sound dully utilitarian, but have been crucial to their
success.”
Tony Aldous, former resident and architectural writer

51. Wesley Square Co-ownership,
North Kensington

52. Community and Private Self-build
DETR Housing Design Award citation:
• “ a microcosm of what could be
achieved on other sites all over the
country by harnessing the
imagination and skills of ordinary
people.”
• “that indefinable quality which marks
out the outstanding from the excellent
The Diggers, Brighton 1998
Sussex Road, London N19 1999

53. Ashley Vale BfL Gold Award 2010
• 37 homes with affordable business space…started in 2002.
• Built on a former scaffold yard.
• Grew from local opposition to original redevelopment proposals
• Urban sites with “a rural feel” with a nature reserve.
• Site layout “creates pleasant, friendly public spaces”
• “Relatively high levels of parking are balanced by a home zone
approach…to create attractive streets that feel safe for pedestrians.”

54. Old people look after
Tenant Management
themselves… Coop
HAPPIer and cheaper 355 Queensbridge Rd
than the council

55. Springhill
Co-housing
Stroud

56. “Not my weeds…
you mean our weeds!”

62. “Weirdy…they are not normal.”
Ward Councillor (from the Big Society Party)
at Planning Committee

63. Threshold
Centre, Dorset
First HCA grant funded mixed tenure
co-housing with Synergy Housing
Shared facilities include:
• The stone farmhouse for visiting
guests, and shared meals
• 1 acre community market garden
• Laundry
• Car pool
Commitments for all residents:
• 4 hours per week of unpaid time to
help look after the shared
facilities, and do cooking
• 1 car and 1 pet per household
• Paying share of the running costs
of shared facilities
• Before taking up residence,
spending up to 4 nights here, for
the new resident and community
to get to know each other.

64. Joint Venture
Self Development
Hearthstone Co-housing
N. Denver, Colorado
33 leasehold houses and
flats with a 4,800 sq. ft.
common house on a 1.6
acre site.
The community was the
JV first phase of a ‘new
urbanist’ redevelopment in
the historic North Denver
neighbourhood.

65. The model for
Community Right to Build
Cornwall CLT Programme 2007
17 villages – 120+ homes
Unique partnerships…
enabling district councils, their
communities, Carnegie UK Trust,
Blisland CLT
and an RSL on Bodmin Moor

66. St. Minver CLT
Average house price £650,000
Market value £350,000
Cost including land £120,000
12 houses 12 months
On time – On budget
A social movement ?
Voluntary taxation?
Or just compliance with policy
for affordability „in perpetuity‟ ?

68. Spatial Planning &
Placemaking
Outcomes
• Community membership and
ownership
• All incomes and tenures
• Medium and high density
• Value for money
• Long term stewardship
• Life in the space between the
buildings
• Social Capital for the care of
the place and people
• Resident satisfaction and
wellbeing
• Sustainable living and
resilience through social
organisation
Material Considerations?

69. Big Placemaking…

70. Nice design… but how do you
actually make the place?

71. Phase 1

72. Phase 2

73. Phase 3

74. Phase 31

75. Phase 31

76. Completing the vision…
• Building centres and
along connections
• Diversity of housing
provider
• Early adopter movement
patterns
• Interim Uses & Services
• Town utilities
• Backfill spaces in
between
• Roles of new residents
• Spaces left over for
possibilities
Design Leadership doesn't equal control

77. Co-production… or making places
with communities
New (old) ideas:
• Culture, Skills
and Competence
• Control and
Accountability
• Scale
• Mixed economy
- Self-help
- Social Enterprise
- Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrIVjSK6oA

78. Values into action
“Planning is not a
value free activity.
Planners have to
understand how
their values affect the
choices they make in
both choosing how to
look at an issue, and
how to turn the
results into reality”
Prof. Bill Peterman
Neighbourhood Planning and Community
Based Development 2000

79. Value norms…
“Cities have the
capability of providing
something for
everybody,
only because and
only when, they are
created by everybody.”
Jane Jacobs in „Life and Death
of Great American Cities‟

80. Fitting the place to the people
• “People learn from each other
about their own creative powers”
Jacobs: The Economy of Cities
• Ordinary people overcome
everyday constraints on
living, by:
- adapting
- improvising
- transforming
- trial and error
Hamdi: The Placemakers Guide to building
communities
• “There is a positive function of
disorder in cities – energy and
lack of control go hand in hand”
Sennett on Jacobs

81. Planning as debate and co-production
• Loose fit masterplans
and design codes
• Planning for
Possibilities and
Adaptivity
• Creative use of
present and past
planning techniques
• Culture change in
planning…
different tasks

82. Design
Leadership?
• Formal process of
“design” ends
• Design as “living”
begins
• Scale and Identity
• Intimacy of place
and people
• Loud and quiet
architecture
• Unlocking creativity
More than ticking the
boxes…

83. Being a
professional
“It is no longer possible
for us to masquerade as
disinterested, or objective
professionals, applying
our techniques with equal
ease to those clients we
agree with, as well as to
those we disagree with.
We are, in effect, the client
for all our projects, for it
is our own society we are
affecting through our
actions.” (1972)

84. The magic of
design…time to
break free from the
spell