Valentina Giordano
Valentina is an urban designer and planner with over 15 years UK experience which includes professional consultancy (urban design and streetscape intervention), academic research and teaching. She is a Chartered Member of RTPI and an Urban Design Group Recognised Practitioner.
She is currently managing the Place Alliance with Professor Matthew Carmona, following the time spent at Farrells where she was hired to liaise with UCL on the development of the Place Alliance and the Farrell Review. She is a Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Planning where she teaches a number of Urban Design Undergraduates and Postrgraduates Modules. In addition she still works as an urban design consultant on private sector projects.
Valentina professional experience has provided her with the opportunity to work on a variety of projects in a multitude of contexts, including masterplanning, urban design, regeneration and policy evaluation. She has specific experience of the planning, environmental assessment and design of transport infrastructure and public realm projects in London and related public consultation processes.
The Place Alliance was established in 2014. Initially it aimed to encourage collaboration, communication and collective leadership in the cause of better place quality. Increasingly it has developed a campaigning role and does this through direct engagement and the dissemination of targeted research and thought leadership to key governmental, professional and community audiences. The Place Alliance provides a forum for its supporters to come together, debate and work towards raising the national consciousness regarding the importance of place quality.
Place Alliance has been working with its partners to deliver a programme focussed on generating a based line of knowledge about the quality of the built environment and its delivery. The intention is that this is an ongoing study programme that monitors the capacity of the country to deliver high quality urban environments, and tracks how this changes over time. My work at Place Alliance combines knowledge transfer with campaigning and collaborative partnership in a manner focussed on enhancing the impact of our research and making the case nationally for a greater consideration to design quality.
Recent work includes:
Urban design skills in local authorities: In 2017 a national survey of public sector urban design skills was conducted, supported by the Urban Design Group
Place-value-wiki: In 2018 the place value wiki was launched bringing together almost 300 empirical studies on the value added by a better designed built environment: health, economic, social, environmental
Design review in London: In 2018 the Place Alliance conducted research on the use and utility of design review in London, the first systematic review of these practices since the closure of CABE, supported by Urban design London and the GLA
Local politicians and design: In 2018 a survey of local councillors views and attitudes to design was conducted and this will be published in early 2019, supported by the Laidlaw scholarship programme
Ladder of Place Value: In 2019 the evidence from place value wiki is being developed into an accessible documents for practitioners, supported by the Design Network with MHCLG grant monies
