A selection of interactive seminar sessions, providing an opportunity for delegates to explore distinct aspects of key importance to the creation of Sustainable Communities, featuring:
Seminar A - Places Matter! RIBA
Details to follow
Seminar B - Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network
Seminar Title: Meeting the 2016 Zero Carbon Housing Challenge
The Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network is partnering with the Zero Carbon Hub to consider the opportunities and challenges of meeting the 2016 Zero Carbon Housing Challenge. The workshop will look at how the MBE KTN is supporting innovation in the built environment and the how the Zero Carbon Hub is working with government and industry to ensure the effective delivery of Zero Carbon Homes.
Seminar C - Action with Communities in Rural England
Local people in 4000 communities across England already use community led planning to work in partnership with their local authority to help shape the future of their local area. With the help of external facilitators, they organise dialogue within their communities to explore a sustainable future for the services and facilities within their local area and how local people and groups can contribute to making that vision a reality.
Community-led planning is a step-by-step structured process to empowerment. It considers the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of the community and all those who live and work there. Dialogue within the community increases local people’s understanding of the needs of all residents, particularly those disadvantaged by lack of mobility, lack of employment, or marginalised for other reasons. External facilitation and involvement of local authority officers, public service providers and elected members happens throughout the process, providing the bridge with wider community engagement strategies.
Community-led planning delivers three types of outcome:
· Initiatives that local people and groups can do for themselves
· Actions that can be done by local groups, but which need some external resources
· Priority issues on which to influence public authorities and service providers.
In many local authority areas, community led planning is now embedded as part of the landscape of relationships between citizens, communities and local government. It has delivered Beacon status to councils for their community engagement strategies. The scale of participation and range of local actions that have been generated show how communities can be empowered when they are encouraged to take on the challenge themselves.
The seminar will explore how best practice in engaging with local communities through use of community led planning can support local government’s duty to involve and provide added benefits in generating sustainable community action.
Seminar D - Arup
Cities in the Ecological Age
Immediate financial crises aside, global warming is the defining issue of this century. With over half of humanity now living in urban areas and producing over three quarters of global carbon emissions, the battle to prevent catastrophic climate change will be won or lost in cities.
We will discuss how municipal governments can lead a shift into the ‘Ecological Age’, improving standards of living and create more sustainable urban areas and the role of the private sector in supporting this initiative. Stern has predicted that 2% of GDP is now required to deal with the effects of climate change, double his previous prediction, so it is pertinent to consider how it could be spent and the most suitable projects to effect significant change. The discussion will led by Ken Livingstone’s former environment adviser, Mark Watts and Arup Director, Chris Twinn. Corinne Swain, OBE will chair the seminar.
Seminar E - EDAW
With dynamic change sweeping through the UK planning system, spatial planning is key to the new focus on placemaking and masterplanning. As a leader in spatial planning, EDAW’s strength is in combining experience and expertise with innovation and creativity. Creating attractive, distinctive, well-served and thriving communities is at the heart of our work.
What is Pecha Kucha?
Pecha Kucha was started in Tokyo, Japan by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein-Dytham Architecture as a creative show-and-tell event. The idea is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have several presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one session. For this session, three speakers will present the key components of spatial planning – vision, strategy and delivery.
Why are we doing it?
We’re doing it to share a unique approach to achieving smart, sustainable growth through the planning system – using some clever tools and techniques to help planning professionals assess a range of growth scenarios, identify their infrastructure needs and look at a range of solutions for funding them.
What do I have to do?
Show up at our workshop Smart growth - smart delivery. We might need you to stand up, move around, make a bit of noise. Participate… because that’s what we think planning is about. See you there.
Seminar F - Cool Planet Technologies Ltd
Details to follow
Seminar G - Materials Knowledge Transfer Network - Sustainable Materials & Design
Theme
To demonstrate how the effective integration of materials selection, design concepts and total life cycle considerations is ensuring that the UK leads the global effort on having sustainable communities.
Aims/Objectives
Businesses in the UK that produce and process materials have an annual turnover in excess of £170 billion and as such have a large impact on the UK economy. Development and application of sustainable materials, including natural materials, and mobilising product designers to have access to up to date information on new developments in sustainable materials, are important activities being pursued through effective knowledge transfer between designers, manufacturing companies and the research community.
Delegate Benefits
• To learn about how the UK’s Materials Industry is developing sustainable materials solutions for sustainable communities. • To learn about the development of innovative new materials and debate the steps being taken to understand their properties and life cycle impacts
• To learn about developments taking place to make recycling and re-use of materials an every day activity.
To explore together how the Materials KTN can help Local Authorities and other public procurement teams to influence the design process and specification of sustainable materials for projects.