David Cotterrell, a speaker at the forthcoming Creative Clusters Conference, questions whether we are fully grasping the opportunity to challenge failings in urban planning.
Masterplanning is a strange seductive process. Separated from common experience it offers a rare opportunity to perceive the world from a satellite view. Layers of complexity, flood-plains, transport corridors, architectural massing and population density add to the gravity of the abstracted schematic society. The litter, broken signs and uneven paving is edited from vision. Towns are composed as a painting or photograph, with a sense of balance, rhythm and geometry. Aside from a few extraordinary individuals who migrate globally from city to city always to experience the remarkable period of dynamic change heralded by a masterplanning commission, the rest of us watch with awe as the incremental evolution of the built environment is interrupted by the flamboyant gestures of the macro designers. It is funny that after only a short period, a vast array of acronyms naturally converge with our vocabulary and we start to believe that we (and they) are capable of understanding our environment in plan view. A period of significant growth, as is being experienced by increasing numbers of conurbations, cities and provincial towns in the UK, offers tantalising opportunities. Grants from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister break the stalemate of parochial ambitions and all of us from politicians to voluntary enthusiasts find ourselves hopefully murmuring the mantras of Gateshead, Bilbao and Barcelona.
I suppose the great question is, are we taking advantage of these extraordinary opportunities to really challenge failings in urban planning? Consultants familiar with the unusual demands of growth descend to shore-up the community?s political and social knowledge-base with precedents and strategies. As we become more immersed in development and witness more than one scheme it is possible to recognise a certain familiarity with the names of the individuals and companies that have managed to amass expertise in transport analysis, urban design and even public art commissioning. The complexity of the process means that relatively few organisations have been able to invest in the knowledge and capacity needed to comprehend and respond to the challenges of integrated growth. It is easy to forget that for the communities, residents, civil servants and businesses that have tied their ambitions and loyalty to the place in question, this period of change may have been long awaited and be once in a lifetime opportunity. Offering current understanding of best practice as a response is a responsible approach but in some way also denies the possibility for real investigation of identity and innovation. If we accept that society has still not developed the lucid self-awareness necessary to produce a design for a generic utopian environment then we as residents, politicians and consultants must see through the varying degrees of glamour, self-interest and caution embedded within precedents and stock-solutions. Periods of growth offer investment and idealism but the pace of change can offer little time to really reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of visions and solutions.
As the consultants, masterplanners, artists and agencies successfully complete another masterplanning project and begin to divert their attention to the next national opportunity, a community remains to devote their lives and careers to the implementation of the design. It is an appropriate time to consider what tools have been omitted from the array of documents and policies left behind and to consider how better we could serve the societies that are the subject of our national ambitions as they endeavour to translate the plan-view solution into first-person experience.
David Cotterrell, is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. He will be speaking at this years Creative Clusters Conference in Belfast, 24?26 October. For further information, http://www.creativeclusters.com