Brought to you by Leicester Urban Observatory as part of LCB Depot’s Design for Life/Design Season 2022
Urbanism in Focus: A public debate between built environment specialists on how we live together and interact in and around Cities (Public Session)
Speakers include:
Michael Hopkins is a Principal Planner in the Local Plans Team at Charnwood Borough Council. Before working in local government he was a researcher in urban morphology at Birmingham University. He will provide a perspective on Urbanism reflecting on the relationship between Leicester, Leicestershire and Charnwood. He is interested in Urbanism as an emergent phenomenon linked to the parts and wholes that make up built form (bricks – walls – dwellings – street/neighbourhood – settlement) and the importance of difference and connections in its creation. He will explore relationship of Leicester as the central city with Loughborough and the Soar Valley villages and how urban or not they are in terms of form and function.
Dave Singleton was originally a geographer and surveyor from the East Midlands. He stopped making maps and moved into landscape architecture some thirty years ago. Latterly he has dabbled in urban design. And even urbanism. He set up DSA Environment + Design in Nottingham 2005. DSA is currently working on a number of public realm projects including in Sheffield, Rotherham, Grimsby and a redesign of Maid Marian Way in Nottingham as well as several large housing schemes and healthcare settings. Dave will introduce a perspective on Urbanism from the Landscape architect’s point of view. Dave teaches at Nottingham Trent University and University of Nottingham. He is an author of Building for a Healthy Life and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His interest centres on how people engage with place, in particular the role of blue-green infrastructure in making places, and what this might mean for the health of people, creatures and the natural environment upon which these depend. Dave considers Urbanism to be the study of people’s interaction with an urban (that’s to say in contrast to rural) environment.
Representative from the Royal Institute of British Architects (To be confirmed) To offer the perspective on how architects define, assess and respond to the challenges and opportunities of Urbanism
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