Shaping Places Autumn 2013

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AUTUMN 2013

SHAPING PLACES

research + engagement news from the School of Architecture, Planning + Landscape

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UN-HABITAT Project: Food Security/ Gosforth Park Nature Reserve / Co-Motion/ Wider Mbarara Project/ Neighbourhood planning

Welcome to the first edition of Shaping Places: the research and engagement newsletter of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape.

You will be familiar with the term research but not, perhaps, the idea of engagement.

While research often arises from our own intellectual curiosity and is shaped by funders we believe that, often, the process of research and certainly the outcomes may have broader societal benefits. In this we play our part in fulfilling the University’s mission of ‘Excellence with a Purpose’ and are proud that our research has shaped the actions of government, industry, and cultural life.

Engagement is research of a different kind. It often develops out of established relationships with community partners or from dialogue in which we start trying to tease out a problem together and to explore solutions by lateral and creative thinking. So there may be differences in scale, funding and starting point but the end point is often the same desire to make a difference.

As a professionally focused School, we are in the business of exploring the relationship between people, spaces and places to create arenas for human flourishing. This depends on an understanding of people and contemporary society. Much of our teaching is directed toward developing professionals who can contribute to making places and buildings that enrich the quality of our society. The practice and academic strands are strongly intertwined with many colleagues researching how our disciplines develop effective ways of communicating with multiple publics in their pursuit of physical and built expressions of the good life.

This brochure aims to give a flavour of the type of activities we undertake, diverse in scale and geography as well as the issues they address.

We are always keen to hear about new initiatives and ideas, to make new partnerships as well as build on existing ones. If you feel that there are questions we can explore together then get in touch.

Geoff Vigar, Director of Research geoff.vigar@ncl.ac.uk Rose Gilroy, Director of Engagement r.c.gilroy@ncl.ac.uk

Contents 01/ UN-Habitat Project: Food Security 02/ Gosforth Park Nature Reserve 03/ Co-Motion: Exploring the complexity of mobility in later life 04/ Wider Mbarara Project, Uganda

05/ Neighbourhood Planning 06/ PhD Profile 07/ PhD Successes 08/ Book Publications

Cover image Great North Build at the Great North Museum/ Newcastle University

UN-HABITAT Project

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Food Security Dr Suzanne Speak, Director of Internationalisation and Senior Lecturer in Planning, is co-ordinating a multi-national research ‘Hub’ around the theme of food security as part of UN-Habitat Partner Universities Initiative (HPUI). ‘Food Security’ is one of five thematic hubs formed under the Initiative.

HPUI aims to strengthen cooperation between UNHabitat and universities, encouraging universities to partner cities and engage in problem solving, closing the gap between academics and practitioners.

Urban food security, as defined by the continuation of affordable, appropriate, safe and accessible supply, is probably the most critical issue facing the urban poor in the Global South. The UN recently raised concern over escalating world food prices.

However, work on urban food security has typically been disconnected from other development agendas; for example, spatial and urban development, housing and settlements, water quality, health, sustainability

Food security is one of the most important issues facing lower income people around the world yet it is often studied and researched in isolation of the main discipline areas, particularly urban planning, that could really improve food security. The hope is that this Hub will have a real impact by increasing awareness amongst urban planning and management professionals of their role in helping to ensure that food is available, affordable and safe for lower income households and that urban planning, modernisation and change do not make poorer people’s hunger worse. We hope to be a vehicle for making the already considerable amount of work being undertaken on food security more easily accessible to those engaged with the themes and work of Habitat.

or urban governance. There is an urgent need to bring these agendas together.

Dr Suzanne Speak

The research Hub will involve a collaboration of academic and practice partners seeking to promote

The ‘Food Security’ research Hub involves partners

urban food security through development of a range

from USA, Nigeria, India, Netherlands and Peru,

of initiatives to assure a sustainable urban food

co-ordinated by Dr Speak. There are also non-

supply that reduces environmental impact, enhances

committee members in Canada and Zambia and

the food security and livelihoods of the urban poor

potentially Indonesia.

and protects public health and urban ecosystems.

Community model for a site for ‘common field’ agriculture in an informal settlement in Peru

UN-Habitat partners will engage in five main areas of activity:

Education/ Development of curriculum and teaching materials on food security for relevant university level programmes, both for in-house and distance delivery, aiming to fill gaps in existing provision and embed the issue of food security within a broad range of disciplines

Research/ Two initial areas of research will be addressed: a. Research into the drivers and barriers to securing a healthy and sustainable urban food supply b. Develop a shared language and methodological approach to research to ensure the work of the Hub is truly multi- and trans-disciplinary Further areas of research will then be developed.

Food queue in Bolivia/ Suzanne Speak

Professional Development/ The Hub provides a unique opportunity to bring together those working directly with low-income urban communities, a wide range of professionals (including nutritionists, spatial and urban planners and community development experts), local functionaries and politicians as well as local producers in order to share and disseminate knowledge and tools. Ultimately a resource and training guide for 3rd sector organisations will be produced, so they can build capacity in local producers and communities and disseminate good practices from around the world on how to undertake programmes to assure a secure and healthy urban food supply in a safe and sustainable way.

Policy Advice/ Through a broad study of global practices the Hub will gather and disseminate information on the wide range of urban food security policies at the international, national and local levels.

It will place particular emphasis on urban food security policies affecting the poor.

Knowledge Management/ The Hub will engage in outreach activities to major stakeholders, including public and private decision-makers, to bring to their attention the full range of critical issues in securing a healthy and sustainable urban food supply.

Gosforth Park Nature Reserve

Temporary learning space in the reserve Armelle Tardiveau

Educational facility with Natural History Society of Northumbria

The Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) works to encourage young people to explore and learn about the natural world in the North East. The Society manages Gosforth Park Nature Reserve, in the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, where they are looking to develop facilities that will encourage and enable school groups to visit and study. The NHSN approached Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo, architects and lecturers in the School, to help with this project because of their experience in engaging local communities in design projects. The overall aim of the project is to develop a new education and research facility, housed within the Reserve through reciprocal learning with young people and their teachers.

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them the outstanding potential of the site for outdoor learning. The project team is expecting to learn from science teachers about their requirements for curriculum teaching outdoors. Of vital importance to the success of the facility is the participatory engagement of science teachers in helping the design proposal for a future teaching facility at the Reserve; learning about how they could use the Reserve as a resource and what they would like to see to encourage and enable them to bring school groups.

James Littlewood, Director of the Natural History Society of Northumbria:

The first phase of the project involved Armelle and Daniel, working together with students on the Master of Architecture course, carrying out a series of workshops with pupils from a year 7 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Club at Longbenton Community College. The workshops helped understand how the children engaged with natural sciences in an outdoor environment and aimed to start generating an architectural brief for a new education and research facility in this unique natural resource in Newcastle.

The second phase is ongoing and focuses on primary and secondary school teachers and their teaching practices. The aim is to enable new approaches to outdoor teaching and learning that will be supported by the nature reserve. Part of the workshop will be a guided tour of the Reserve with the teachers to show

Engagement with children and young people, as well as their teachers, generated an architectural brief for a new education and research facility in this unique natural resource in Newcastle.

The Natural History Society of Northumbria is a small local charity with limited resources to take forwards its plans. We rely heavily on volunteers to help us achieve our aims.

The work that the students and staff (from the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) have carried out to understand the learning needs of pupils from Longbenton School in relation to future education facilities as Gosforth Park Nature Reserve has been invaluable to us. Their work has enabled the project to move forwards and we hope it will also enable us to secure funding for future capital works.

Co-Motion:

Exploring the complexity of mobility in later life

Rose Gilroy, Director of Engagement and Senior

negative impact for people with a visual impairment.

Lecturer in Planning, is part of an interdisciplinary

Not only are our mobility needs and aspirations

research team investigating mobility in later life, an

different but over the life course we may experience

issue of national importance to an ageing society.

key transitions that impact on our mobility and

Figures from the Office for National Statistics

therefore our wellbeing. Time turns most drivers

forecast a 50% rise in the number of over-65s and a

into pedestrians; death may take the only driver in

doubling in over-85s between 2010 and 2030. This

a household; sensory loss may make a confident

rapid demographic change presents a number of

independent person into someone who has to re-

challenges to, as well as opportunities for, society.

learn how to get around; poor health may exclude previously used transport modes or route ways.

Wellbeing in later life is linked to the maintenance of independence, physical mobility itself and the

The research team, led by York University, will work

sense of being able to get about. Mobility is vital

closely with a large and diverse group of older people

for accessing services, resources and facilities, for

and stakeholders from different areas of the UK.

participation in communities and society, and for avoiding loneliness. So mobility might be described

Rose Gilroy will lead the work in the Northumberland

as a form of engagement with the world. As

market town of Hexham. It will involve working

researchers concerned with the built environment

intensively with local policy actors, stakeholders and

we know that its design can enable or frustrate that

a group of older people to not only identify problems

engagement.

but also solutions. The research has a number of strands ranging from “app development” to possible

However, because our needs are so varied, our

re-design of mobility scooters and will employ a

attempts at adaptations to improve some people’s

range of methods from interviews, guided walks;

mobility causes problems for others: blister

creative workshops, crowd sourcing, participatory

pavement that promotes safe movement for visually

Geographic Information Systems and testing of

impaired people makes life difficult for those

product design.

using mobility scooters. There may also be conflict between agendas: do we smooth out the paths or

Co-Motion is funded by the EPSRC under its call on

do we preserve a historic landscape with cobbled

Ageing and Mobility. The work will be carried out

lanes? Our desire to reduce carbon emissions may

over a three year period.

lead to limiting the hours of street lighting but has a

‘Slow down young man’ Lowri Bond, Northern Architecture

Above/right: Quality of Life Partnership Newcastle University

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Co-Motion focuses on alternatives to physical design or re-design of the built environment which can be personalised to the individuals’ needs.

Wider Mbarara Project

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Mbarara, Uganda www.widermbararaproject.btck.co.uk

The House of Love Orphanage provides a home for the most deprived orphans in the Kichwamba area.

The Wider Mbarara Project (WMP) is an established

The students undertake design work through a

programme which, since 2004, has endeavoured

dialogue with local people and the money they raise

to provide resources previously unavailable to

through fundraising pays for materials and local

communities in and around Mbarara, Uganda.

labour. All the members are volunteers and pay for their own travel and living expenses whilst on

The Project is organised annually by students in

expeditions.

Newcastle University’s Schools of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (APL) and Civil Engineering

In summer 2013 the group completed the master

and Geosciences (CEG).

plan and constructed a second dormitory, allowing the orphanage to take in more children. The students

Since 2009 WMP have been involved in the

also undertook feasibility work on future projects in

construction of a shelter for children orphaned

the area which will continue to make a difference to

by AIDS called the House of Love, in the village of

the lives of others.

Kichwamba. The project relies on 12 volunteers raising ÂŁ12000, designing the building and travelling

This project allows students to gain hands on

to Uganda to assist local labourers with the

construction skills while living within the local

construction.

community. Students have the opportunity to travel within East Africa, and experience a variety of

On land donated by a local family, WMP has created

cultures, people and places while making a positive

a central living building, eating area, learning centre

contribution.

and dormitory block as part of a five year plan to expand the capacity of the orphanage.

Wider Mbarara team working with local labourers on construction/ Wider Mbarara team

Neighbourhood Planning Professor Geoff Vigar, Dr Zan Gunn and Dr

At a more detailed level, Neighbourhood Plans

Elizabeth Brooks have conducted a research study

are useful in bringing a community together to

on Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs), a

decide what they want their place to look like in

new mechanism introduced in the 2011 Localism

the future. But projects of this kind are likely to

Act which enables communities to draw up a plan for

encounter hurdles: inevitably, a local community is

their area. NDPs aim to give communities more of a

anything but a homogeneous entity and resources,

say in local development. The study looked broadly

both human and financial, are finite, while many

at how such plans were developing and where, while

potential participants do not wish to enter potentially

also conducting detailed research in Allendale in

contentious debates about allocating land with their

south west Northumberland, one of the 17 ‘first

neighbours in fear of damaging personal relations.

wave’ projects initiated as part of the Government’s Neighbourhood Planning ‘Front Runner’ programme.

The study further concluded that there are wider questions about the effectiveness of Neighbourhood

The research team were evaluating the

Plans, even in the areas where it is happening.

neighbourhood plan process, but they also

Some communities have identified priorities and

contributed to the development of the plan and

sites, for affordable housing for instance, but most

provided advice to the community where relevant.

communities are getting very little out of what is typically a two year commitment to get a plan to adoption. Project leader Professor Geoff Vigar

Conclusions from the broader research study suggest that neighbourhood plans are more likely to emerge in wealthier areas, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities.

commented, “giving neighbourhoods genuine power and resources to determine their futures would undoubtedly be a good thing. However, Neighbourhood Planning as currently set out gives very little authority to communities and at a time of austerity for local government there are few resources to be had more generally”.

Communities in the North are especially poorly provided for as most of the financial mechanisms proposed in Neighbourhood Planning and associated mechanisms are aimed at providing for unmet housing needs in the greater South East of England.

Cuts in local government funding worsen this situation with local authorities unable to commit resources to groups without all the necessary skills, which are considerable, to prepare a plan themselves.

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Area of Allendale, Northumberland/ Googlemaps

PHD Profile

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Dr Islam Abohela Islam Abohela received a scholarship from the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape to undergo his PhD research, focusing on maximising the energy yield of urban wind turbines, in September 2009.

Islam submitted his thesis The Effect of Roof Shape, Wind Direction, Building Height and Urban Configuration on the Energy Yield and Positioning of Roof Mounted Wind Turbines in September 2012 and passed his viva voce with minor corrections in November 2012.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was implemented to simulate wind flow around the investigated cases and for validation purposes the simulation results were compared to wind tunnel tests results. After finishing his PhD, Dr Abohela joined the staff of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape as a Research Associate

working on the eViz research project Energy Visualisation for Carbon Reduction in Buildings. The project is an EPSRC-funded study investigating how to reduce energy demand in buildings by transforming people’s understanding and behaviour through novel energy visualisations using personal pervasive digital technologies. It is a £1.5 million project which is being carried out by four universities: Newcastle University, Plymouth University, University of Bath and University of Birmingham. Other research Dr Abohela is involved in focuses on investigating the significance of visionary architecture in science fiction films, which was the topic of his Masters research in architecture from the Architectural Engineering Department in Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt where he also got his degree in architecture.

PHD Successes Congratulations to the following people, who successfully passed their PhD Viva Voce in 2012-13:

Islam Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamed Abohela Effect of Roof Shape, Wind Direction, Building Height and Urban Configuration on the Energy Yield and Positioning of Roof Mounted Wind Turbines Kyungjin An Implementation of Computer Visualisation in UK Planning

Reham Mahmoud Ahmed Abdelatif Design Reviews at a Distance: A Qualitative Analysis of Mediated Interaction in 3D Real Time Virtual Environments

Zuraini Anang Assessing the Effective Demand for Improved Water Supply Service in Malaysia: Focusing on Johor Water Company

Ahmed Mohamed Aly Abdelrehim Development of Decision Support System for Resolving Conflicts in Environmentally Sensitive Areas

Nelly John Babere Struggle for Space: Appropriation and Regulation of Prime Locations in Sustaining Informal Livelihoods in Dar Es Salaam City, Tanzania

Faziawati Abdul-Aziz The Investigation of the Implications of Squatter Relocations in High-Risk Neighbourhoods in Malaysia

Amina Batagarawa Assessing the Thermal Performance of Phase Change Materials in Composite Hot Humid/Hot Dry Climates: An Examination of Office Buildings in Abuja, Nigeria

07 Paul John Cowie In-migrant Networks and Knowledge Economies in the Rural North East of England Bahram Enayati Connecting Urban Planning, Management and Open Space in Seismic Zone Gholam Hossein Karbaschi The Role of Decision Making Processes in Urban Management Systems: Case Study of Tehran Sungnam Park The Social Dimension of Urban Design as a Means of Engendering Community Engagement in Urban Regeneration Halima Sani-Katsina The Transformation of Dwellings in Settlements around Kaduna Oil Refinery: Understanding the Effect on the Quality of Life in Processes, Practices and Outcomes on Households and Neighbourhoods

Book Publications The collaborating planner?

Practitioners in the neoliberal age Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Newcastle University, and Ben Clifford, University College London Bristol: Policy Press, 2013 Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a greater pace of reform to planning in Britain than at any other time. As a public sector activity, planning has also been impacted heavily by the wider changes in the way we are governed. Yet whilst such reform has been extensively commented upon within academia, few have empirically explored how these changes are manifesting themselves in planning practice. This new book aims to understand how both specific planning and broader public sector reforms have been experienced and understood by chartered

Demolishing Whitehall: Leslie Martin, Harold Wilson and the Architecture of White Heat Adam Sharr, Newcastle University, and Stephen Thornton, Cardiff University London: Ashgate, 2013 This book is about a lost world, albeit one less than 50 years old. It is the story of a grand plan to demolish most of Whitehall, London’s historic government district, and replace it with a ziggurat-section megastructure built in concrete.

In 1965 the architect Leslie Martin submitted a proposal to Charles Pannell, Minister of Public Building and Works in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, for the wholesale reconstruction of London’s ‘Government Centre’. Still reeling from war damage, its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century palaces stood as the patched-up headquarters of an imperial bureaucracy which had once dominated the globe. Martin’s plan - by no means modest in conception, scope or scale - proposed their replacement with a complex that would span the roads into Parliament Square, reframing the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The project was not executed in the manner envisaged by Martin

08 town planners working in local authorities across Great Britain. After setting out the reform context, successive chapters then map responses across the profession to the implementation of spatial planning, to targets, to public participation and to the idea of a ‘customer-focused’ planning, and to attempts to change the culture of planning. Each chapter outlines the reaction by the profession to reforms promoted by successive central and devolved governments over the last decade, before considering the broader issues of what this tells us about how modernisation is rolled-out by frontline public servants. This accessible book fills a gap in the market and makes ideal reading for students and researchers interested in the UK planning system.

and his associates, although a surprising number of its proposals were implemented.

But the un-built architecture is examined here for its insights into a distinctive moment in British history, when a purposeful technological future seemed not just possible but imminent, apparently sweeping away an anachronistic Edwardian establishment to be replaced with a new meritocracy forged in the ‘white heat of technology’.

The Whitehall plan had implications well beyond its specific site. It was imagined by its architects as a scientific investigation into ideal building forms for the future, an important development in their project to unify science and art. For the political actors, it represented a tussle between government departments, between those who believed that Britain needed to discard much of its Victorian and Edwardian decoration in the name of ‘professionalisation’ and those who sought to preserve its ornate finery.

Demolishing Whitehall investigates these tensions between ideas of technology and history, science and art, socialism and elitism. It presents a compelling case study of the relationship between architecture and power.

Public Lecture SeRies The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape runs a public lecture series, inviting speakers of international, national and local acclaim currently writing, researching and practising in the built environment and related fields.

Lectures are advertised on our website and details sent out via our mailing list. If you would like to join please contact anne.fry@ncl.ac.uk

Lectures are free and open to all and our aim is to welcome people onto campus to inform, stimulate and engage them in current thinking on issues of societal and global concern.

Previous lectures are also available to watch via the School’s youtube channel: NewcastleSAPL

CONTACT Kim McCartney Research & Consultancy Manager

kim.mccartney@ncl.ac.uk Anne Fry Events & Engagement Manager

anne.fry@ncl.ac.uk

follow us on twitter – @NewcastleSAPL

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