A talk on the challenge of creating liveable cities through regenerating buildings, communities and public spaces

1. Liveability
–the Regeneration Challenge
Ciarán Cuffe , Planning Lecturer and City Councillor
Queens University Belfast, 19th May 2015

2. Liveability

3. Liveability
The ability of places to provide
for the needs of all generations
to learn from, benefit and help
each other throughout their lives

4. In an age of limits our inner cities can
continue to act as role models of low-carbon
walkeable, cycleable and vibrant
communities
Role of the Inner City

5. Dublin: affluence and deprivation

6. Dublin’s Inner City

7. Belfast: affluence and deprivation

8. Development
• Focus on regeneration and refurbishment
• Importance of area based planning schemes
• Mixed use
• Near zero energy
• Walkability

9. Refurbished Seventeenth Century Buildings

10. New buildings and public space in Dublin’s Docklands

11. Old and new along the Liffey Quays

12. Community
• Potential for community gain
• Places for inter-cultural gathering
• Involvement of residents
• Importance of festivals, pop-up events
• Mixed-income neighbourhoods

13. Importance of community participation in regeneration

14. Phoenix Park, a place for intercultural encounters and learning

15. Signs of community ownership of place in Phibsborough

16. Community festival in Stoneybatter

17. Place-making
• Antithesis of Corbusian Ideal
• Need to reclaim the Street
• Importance of temporary uses
• Place as a social construct
• Potential of city-owned small sites
• Redesign balance between hard and soft modes of
travel

18. Modernity: a false dawn?

19. Lubetkin at London Zoo: disliked by penguins

20. Pop-up Granby Park on Dominick Street

21. Children fishing on Liffey Quays

22. Derelict city-owned sites: potential for redevelopment

23. Anti-social places in the heart of the city, traffic comes first

24. Travel/Spend share: Dublin CBD

25. Conclusions
• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves
• Empowering communities crucial to success
• Place-making must be inclusive
• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers
• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration
ciaran.cuffe@dit.ie

27. One more thing…

28. One more thing…
Some thoughts on
Belfast

29. Victorian Legacy

30. Twentieth Century Horror

31. Skywalks as street Killers

32. Embodied Carbon: -strip and refurbish?

33. Possibilities for wraparound development

34. Living over the Shop?

35. Successful refurbishment, but traffic calming required

36. Potential for residential conversion

37. Conclusions
• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves
• Empowering communities crucial to success
• Place-making must be inclusive
• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers
• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration
ciaran.cuffe@dit.ie