the mantownhuman debates
the leading magazine for architects 
A series of discussions on key issues relating to architecture and design
How often have you heard the phrase 'research shows' as a way of defending
a project? "Research shows", they seem to say, "that this design is unimpeachable". Is “research” a way that building designers can avoid having to defend their work in its own terms?
For instance, in order to leverage money for green spaces, CABE research is commonly cited to show that 'a walk in the park… has been proven to reduce the risk of a heart attack by 50 per cent'. But what does this assertion really mean? Similarly BDP argue that large windows have 'been proven to improve the speed of learning' – but is that regardless of the quality of the teaching? Nowadays, engineers suggest that fresh air 'increases performance'; and designers insist that views of nature improves your health. Apparently, good architecture even “makes you feel happy”. Is this research or New Age mysticism?
Why has “evidence shows” become such a mantra in urban design circles, these days? And what is the merit of the research?
This event will explore what research means; whether correlation is the same as cause; and will examine whether architects rely too much on research – and junk science - to justify their work?
Opening remarks: Alastair Donald, Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies at University of Cambridge
Panellists: John McRae, director, ORMS Architecture Design
(Building Better Healthcare Award winner);
Harry Rich, chief executive of the RIBA; former deputy chief executive of the Design Council
Sebastian Macmillan, author of Designing Better Buildings, CABE’s The Value Handbook and Course Director, Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment, Cambridge University
Chair: Michael Owens, Senior urban regeneration expert; former head of development policy, London Development Agency
Start: 7pm
Date: 29th July
Venue: BDP's offices, Brewhouse Yard, off St John's Street/ Clerkenwell Road, London (in pedestrianised area, over ramped bridge to front door)
See here for LOCATION MAP
In the Eighties, the fact that public space was being privatised was rightly criticised . Unfortunately, there is little or no criticism today that private space is being made public; that is to say it is becoming more and more acceptable to be suspicious of the private citizen. We are no longer supposed to inhabit public space as private individuals, but instead we are encouraged to act as publicly-accountable persons at all times.
In the interests of a sanitised urban realm, we are expected to behave in a way that is publicly acceptable or risk public opprobrium or even institutional intervention. No chewing, no spitting, no running, no smoking, no drinking, no photography, no acting suspiciously, and no assuming that your erstwhile innocuous actions cannot be challenged and stopped. Why are architects and urban policy wonks complicit in managing our private selves in civic space?
Alain de Botton argues that the "great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment." Paul Finch, chair of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, states that there are examples of "built environments that are conducive to developing and encouraging mental health". The World Health Organization says that "at last there is a new recognition that the health and well-being of people is perhaps the fundamental purpose of planning".
The fact that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has noted that "the nature of the relationship between health and place is poorly understood" it doesn't stop architectural and urban pundits proclaiming that a good built environment can make you happy and healthy. Grand Design's presenter, Kevin McCloud's development company is called "Happiness Architecture Beauty." Indeed the RIBA's think tank "Building Futures" wants to "ensure knowledge and understanding of 'Happiness Science' is higher on the agenda of Architects and Designers".
So what is the role and function of happiness and architecture? Is it an end goal, or a happy coincidence? If 'quality of life' issues matter more than material development, what impact does that have on urban development? Nick Rosen, author of Living Off Grid argues that "two billion (people) worldwide are living without mains power, water or phone (and) many of those people are happy as they are", so should Africa follow the Western model of urbanization if it will only make them miserable? Should the built environment attempt to make us happy; or should architects mind their own business?
Watch this space for further information of upcoming events? More..
Email: martin_earnshaw@hotmail.com for details.
Nowadays 'architecture' and 'design' are regularly prefixed with words like
'inclusive', 'participatory', 'community-centred',
'sustainable', 'ethical', 'ecological', 'efficient',
'carbon-neutral', 'socially-engaging' or 'environmentally-responsible'.
This discussion will explore why the mere act of designing has taken on such
a moralistic mantle?
Whether for local empowerment, better governance or behaviour change; should
designers play politics?
Radical, challenging or experimental architecture always kicked against the
maintream standards of the day. The question is whether 'responsible design'
is anything more than architects acting out the government's inclusion and
well-being policies. Architecture as quangocracy.
Isn't 'responsible architecture' the equivalent of 'sensible shoes'? This
session will explore: What's so good about being virtuous?
Opening remarks: Karl Sharro, Senior Associate Partner, PLP Architecture;
Respondents: Tim Abrahams, Associate Editor, Blueprint; Melissa Kinnear, General Manager. Architecture Sans Frontieres;Katherine McNeil, Trustee, Architecture for Humanity UK; Chair: Michael Owens, Senior urban regeneration expert; former head of development policy, London Development Agency
Listen to opening speech here:
25th March 2010
BDP and BD magazine. READ REPORTBACK HERE
Whatever the uses and abuses of climate research lately, buildings are still said to cause 40 percent of carbon emissions. As such, architects see themselves at the forefront against global warming. But why do most contemporary solutions involve evermore constraints? Indeed, it is now common to hear the argument that more restrictions aid creativity. Doesn’t more freedom aid creativity?
This, the first of three mantownhuman debates asks: Should architects not maximise - rather than minimise - their footprint?
Provocateur: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project; founder mantownhuman
Respondents: Ken Yeang, Director at Llewelyn Davies Yeang; Charlie Peel, RIBA Building Futures; author, "Facing Up to Sea Level Rise"; Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute; Chair, Global Commons Trust; Craig White, founding Director of White Design; Chair: Michael Owens, Senior urban regeneration expert; former head of development policy, London Development Agency
Minimum…. or Maximum Cities?Convened by Alastair Donald, Min-Max Cities Group, Dept of Architecture, University of Cambridge
What is the future for cities? Are they expanding at an ever-increasing rate or are they being abandoned and shrinking into oblivion? Are cities polluted, overcrowded and anonymous, or are they dynamic centres of innovation and culture? Are they sociable or anti-social?
How might new opportunities be maximised and social advances realised? Are our creative talents best employed in seeking a 'minimum' city as a means to retrench, rethink and rebuild? Or is a 'maximum' urbanism the answer, based on expansive cities for a dynamic and globalised planet?
From transport systems to energy grids, from social networks to economic activity, this is the forum in which to debate the implications of min/max alternatives. And given the often fraught debates over lifestyles, liberties, aesthetic values and technologies, to clarify the architectural and cultural attributes that can best help address the urban future.
Sessions include:
The Anxious City: The Dilemmas of Growth
The Agile City: Local Ties versus Global Reach
Powering the City: Innovating Energy Supply
The Future City: Rewriting the Rule Book
Brewhouse Yard, London EC1V 4LJ
Architecture is seldom seen without the prefix ‘sustainable’. But what does it mean? Richard Rogers says sustainable architecture means ‘the humanising of the built environment’. Spencer de Grey insists that sustainability the equivalent of ‘good design’ while Leon Krier says that today’s ‘unsustainable architecture’ is the ‘architecture of excess’. Conversely, these could simply be examples of what Financial Times’ architectural commentator Edwin Heathcote calls the ‘glib mantra of sustainability’.
Champions of sustainable architecture will explain their ideas to, and be grilled by a panel of critics:
Presenters: Cany Ash, partner, Ash Sakula Architects, Chris Bannister, director of Hopkins Architects [Building Magazine's Sustainable Architect of the Year 2008].and Craig White, director White Design
Panellists include: Charlie Luxton, Five TV; Karl Sharro, KPF; Keiran Long, editor, Architects' Journal; Keith Papa, director, BDP; Professor Joe Kerr, head of Critical & Historical Studies department, RCA; Amin Taha, director, Amin Taha Architects.
Part bear-pit, part celebrity wrestling, part rigorous review, the point of the discussion is to see if the architects – and panellists – can convey their ideas successfully, but also to see if those ideas themselves stand up to criticism.
Come along for a beer, a 7:30 start and the architectural challenge of the year. The event is free but please email austin.williams@thenbs.com if you want to come.
Exploring the city limitsSpeakers include:
Dr Jason Rentfrow, Dept of Psychology, University of Cambridge,
researching Personality and the City,
Emily Cockayne, author, Hubub: Filth Noise and Stench
in England,
Rick Muir, Institute of Public Policy Research, co-author
The Power of Belonging. Identity, citizenship and community cohesion,
Dolan Cummings, Research and Editorial Director, Institute
of Ideas and a co-founder of the Manifesto Club.
Chair: Alastair Donald, Min-Max-Cities Group, Martin Centre, University of Cambridge and co-author, ManTownHuman.
Exploring the city limits…. is a free event. Reserve a place by mailing min-max-cities@arct.cam.ac.uk
LISTEN HERE:
While India is showing signs of economic dynamism, its development is not without problems. Cities like Bangalore and Mumbai are implementing slum clearance, decanting large numbers of people into newly-built homes, a process involving costly infrastructure development as well as causing unrest. Some condemn this as gentrification; others argue the city should develop organically; still others suggest if it ain’t broke, why fix it? National Geographic explored Dharavi, the massive slum at the heart of Mumbai, and found ‘once you get accustomed to sharing 300 square feet of floor with 15 humans and an uncounted number of mice, a strange sense of relaxation sets in’. Following the success of Slumdog Millionaire, slum tourism has taken off, with highlights including gawping at a stall of six toilets serving 16,000 people.
Urban strategist Jeb Brugman says negative views of the slums reflect ‘a Raj or British period mentality’. For him, slums are centres of creativity and dynamism; necessary precursors to development. Indeed, the slum economy provides a sixth of India’s GDP, and slum-dwelling is no barrier to economic development. With the new Four Seasons hotel towering over the nearby shanty-towns, and land prices in Mumbai reaching record levels, change is certainly underway in Dharavi, but the contradictions of the Maximum City are clear, with bosses in luxury on one side of the road and slum-dwellers facing them in squalor.
In his best-selling book Imagining India: Ideas For A New Century, IT entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani notes ‘with a factory worker costing 80 per cent lower than averages in developed markets, India can become the next big source of manufacturing labour in the world’. So is India creating a society of equals, or relying on inequality and cheap labour to survive? Speaking symbolically of India’s relationship with the world, as well as its internal difficulties, Deepak Chopra echoes Aravind Adiga and asks whether ‘the slumdogs will one day rise up against the millionaires’.
Panellists: Sunand Prasad, immediate past-president, Royal Institute of British Architects;
Professor Stuart Corbridge, co-author 'Reinventing India';
Parminder Bahra, Poverty and Development correspondent, The Times
Chair: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project
Bishopsgate
Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH
In their famous post-war study "Family and Kinship in East London", Young and Wilmott romanticised a period when a sense of community seemed to thrive. Today, in contrast, there is a widespread conviction that we live in a "broken society" with endless stories of feckless parents or feral children, and a collapse of "respect" and "trust". Will government initiatives such as Community Service Volunteers, Citizens Panels and Commissions on Integration and Cohesion help to create new social solidarities? Or do such official interventions threaten to undermine the very relations they seek to create?
Yvonne Roberts, senior associate,
The Young Foundation
Eamonn Butler, director, Adam Smith Institute; author,
"The Rotten State of Britain";
Alastair Donald, urban designer, researcher and co-editor,
"The Future of Community";
Steve Wyler, director, Development Trusts Association;
Chair: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities
Project & Battle of Ideas' committee member
2:
30pm – 4:00pmBritish
Library, Conference Centre, Main Auditorium, 96 Euston Road, London
With over half the world’s population now living in cities,
and Mumbai set to become the world’s largest by 2015, questions
about what makes the experience of living in cities distinctive
take on a new urgency.
Panellists:
Mani Sankar Mukherji (Sankar): ex-street hawker whose novels
Seemabaddha and Jana Aranya were made into films by Satyajit
Ray.
Suketu Mehta author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.
Awarded Guggenheim fellowship for a New York follow-up.
Namdeo Dhasal is a maverick Marathi poet who founded the militant Dalit
Panther modelled on Black Panther. Awarded the Padma Shree for literature.
Austin Williams is director of the Future Cities Project and the architectural
producer of NBS Learning Channels.
Chair: James Boyle is the founder of Edinburgh UNESCO City of
Literature and Glasgow UNESCO City of Music and Chair of the British Council
in Scotland.
A decade on from Towards an Urban Renaissance, the word ‘community’ takes precedence over the ‘city’, and ‘designing behaviour’ is frequently prioritised over ‘personal freedom’. Do these new labels mask the fact that we have lost sight of what “a city” really is?
Speakers:
Hank Dittmar: Chief Executive, Prince's Foundation; Karl
Sharro: Future Cities Project; Quentin Stevens: University
College London; Dan Hill: Urban Initiatives; Edwin
Heathcote: architecture critic, Financial Times - tbc;
Chair, Alastair Donald: urban designer, researcher and writer; founder
member of ManTowNHuman; Co-Editor, Future of Community
Hosted by the Urban Design Group
We are constantly being told that we are losing a ‘sense of community’. This book shows that the notion of community is actually under threat from the very thing supposed to protect it: relentless government intervention.
Read more on the Future of Community BLOG hereLaunched at the Belfast Salon. Read more here...
Go on almost any architectural website today, and you'll find proclamations
of how "innovative", "forward-thinking" and "experimental"
they are. But what does it really mean?
Sean Griffiths, director, Fashion
Architecture Taste (FAT); and
CJ Lim, director, Studio 8 Architects
presented one of their innovative projects …and were grilled by:
Helen Groves, architect director, Bristol, BDP
Kieran Long, editor, Architects' Journal
Jeremy Myerson, director, Helen Hamlyn Centre and InnovationRCA
Karl Sharro, KPF and co-founder, ManTowNHuman
Amin Taha, director, Amin Taha Architects
Benedict Zucchi, board director, BDP
Chair: Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project
See the debate here
Speakers:
Alastair
Donald: urban designer, founder member of ManTowNHuman,
Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge.
Richard
Brown: urban policy consultant, led GLA's work on the London 2012 bid
and Thames Gateway development programmes.
Tony
McGuirk: chairman, BDP (Building Design Partnership), architect and urban
designer.
Steve
McAdam: architect, founder and director, Fluid Design; visiting lecturer,
London Metropolitan University; consultant, Council of Europe.
Chair:Michael
Owens: senior urban regeneration expert; former head of Development Policy
at the London Development Agency.
The event was sponsored by the Building Design Partnership
mantownhuman
"I love this manifesto - it has guts and irreverence
and gusto. Almost every aspect of it is designed to upset and
maybe that is the point. It is wilful and dangerous, with a strong
tone of belligerence." Will
Alsop
BBC "Newsnight" coverage of the Manifesto: WATCH HERE...
See Blog for more information and updates
1. THE NEW PAROCHIALISTS
Transport and mobility denied
2. THE OPT-OUTS
Energy and the end of universal provision
3. THE LIMIT-SETTERS
Architecture's loss of humanity [listen
to interview on Chicago Public Radio]
4. THE INDOCTRINATORS
Environmental educators' underhand tactics
5. THE PESSIMISTS [read
an edited sample]
Putting the brakes on China and India
6. THE NEW COLONIALISTS
The Developing World's sustainable underdevelopment
7. THE MISANTHROPISTS
America's unease with Modernity
CONCLUSION
Reclaiming the future
Visit the Enemies of Progress blog site for further details, reviews and upcoming events
Shanghai Administration Institute Programme, University of Oxford
Austin Williams; Corey Powell, editor of Discover magazine; Ronald Bailey, science correspondent, Reason magazine; and Professor Emeritus Martin Hoffert at The New School, 55 West 13th Street, New York
For more information click here
Nowadays, buildings are credited with changing our behaviour, promoting our welfare, and addressing intractable social problems. For instance, it has been argued that large windows in schools improve students' performance; natural ventilation increases productivity in offices; well designed homes and neighbourhoods prevent anti-social behaviour; healthy sports stadia reduce spectator obesity; and hospitals with soothing decor help people get better quicker.
This debate addressed the question of whether we have lost our ability to argue for better provision in its own terms and for its own sake. No doubt the way buildings are designed do make us feel good, but how transient is this response? In order to tick the right funding box, is it justifiable to over-claim for the immediate benefits of a project, or do we lose something in the process?
The Bartlett School of Architecture, London
Read Dave Clements' speech from the conference here
