UDG's February round up

Sunday 28 February 2021

Resources

EVENTS

Walking in London with London Living streets
London Living Streets and the Urban Design Group teamed up for a special event with guest Will Norman, London's Walking and Cycling Commissioner.
David Harrison | Emma Griffin | Will Norman

Future facing approaches to parking and movement: a UDG Coalition Conversation
It is generally agreed that there is a need to move towards less car dependent ways of living. We heard from those delivering the required change.
Katja Stille | Simon Harrison | Daniel Quan | Mathew Sampson | Jonathan Smalesl | Kenji Shermer

National Model Design Code - UDG workshop
This event, the first in a series, was an opportunity to learn more about the National Model Design Code and discuss with colleagues in the built environment and offer suggestions for improvement. Chaired by Katja Stille with opening presentations from:
Robert Huxford | Adriana Bonilla

Check the event archive page for further details and presentations from UDG events. Recordings are made available with thanks to our media partner UrbanNous.

ideasSPACE

UDG Treasurer, Christopher Martin was in conversation with James Delaney of Block by Block discussing the magic of Minecraft for engaging communites in creating better built environments.

You can watch all the ideasSPACE conversations on the ideasSPACE youtube channel

Campaigning + Influencing

APPG FOR WALKING + CYCLING

UDG's Christopher Martin was invited to speak to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Walking and Cycling, chaired by Ruth Cadbury MP, about the opportunities in the Planning White Paper and National Model Design Code for reaching carbon targets and changing how we move about in cities.

Chris spoke passionately about cities needing to use transport as a servant to quality of life, and how this thinking has to penetrate into all designs and guidance to ensure that ambitions get delivered through streetscape and public realm projects. More background and info

CLIMATE FRAMEWORK

UDG is now a supporter of the across-industry action group Climate Framework to upskill and build our collective capacity for climate action. We believe it is an important initiative and sits very well with the Group's objectives.

Supporting

EVENTS

Trees, People and the Built Environment 4
The Urban Design Group partnered with the Institute of Chartered Foresters for a cross-disciplinary conference on urban greenspace.

UDG Director, Robert Huxford, chaired a session on Woodlands, Weeds and White Privilege looking at conflicting community needs when it comes to parks and open spaces. White graduates prefer a naturalistic landscape: exercise and dog walking are main motivators. However, other communities go to parks so that their children can play, or to socialize and prefer a more built-up style of park. Out-of-control aggressive dogs, and dog mess are major problems; in some branches of the main religions dogs are regarded as unclean.

Ideas with Beers
UDG Director, Robert Huxford and David Harrison of London Living Streets presented the History of Streets parts 1

Hosted by Brian Deegan, Ideas with Beeers is a weekly session discussing topics in transport (particularly walking, cycling and decarbonisation). Held every Tuesday at 5pm UK time on zoom. Contact ideaswithbeers@gmail.com for the link.

STUDENT WORK

Members of the Group continue to work with students at the University of Dundee who are working on redesigning parts of Perth and Kinross.

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