Monday evening, lecture room, they've turned the heating on tonight, this guy must be important. (first) Director of Design for the LDA I think. Pretty big then. So question number 1: Where did planning play its part in the projects presented?
Having worked as a planning director for the past 20 years in four different Central London Boroughs, and on big projects like Canary Wharf, BBC campus and Kings Cross, I would imagine the majority of the lecture would have been about planning, but surprisingly, he talked of 'beauty' and 'delight' and the values of designing at a human scale in the city, not the norm for a planner. He's got good at the game of 'addressing ones audience' I believe. The nice little snippets of information and stories in the presentation proved this. And so we may as well slip in question number 2 here: Where did spatial awareness and design have its moments? Bishop merged the subjects of Planning and Urban Design quite nicely, in a way that suggested that all decisions made had been the right ones. In the use of the lifetime of a child growing up as a means of 'selling' the way in which Kings Cross should be developed to Argent (the developers), we can see the way in which all parties involved in its planning and design were encouraged to join in, though only if they were saying the right thing, 'Always use your stakeholders to support arguments, but don't let them on the table to distort arguments'.
Honest. Clever. Engaged. Seller.
'See the space before it's there, and move into it before it's created.'
Both spatially but in talking to people, whether that's consulting/persuading the public, talking profits with developers, or getting planners to be flexible.
In other words having your cake and eating it.
In other words having your cake and eating it.
He wasn't so good in talking at the question time. Once the lecture he must have been trained so well by now to give was over he surely was awaiting admiration and confirmation of his successes. The Kings Cross Critique by Christian has put Peter off badly. He had no real defence to the accusations of flattening the rich fabric of the city and showed little knowledge in the intrinsic details of the design.
ReplyDeleteThough did he flounder, or just brush it off with another question? Both the same response of poor information and not giving in I suppose, but just a nire controlled way of dealing with people asking the questions you don't want to be asked.
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