The Developer and Festival of Place

Join as an organisation member now Individuals and organisations can support our independent content and you’ll receive every issue of our uncommonly beautiful print edition of The Developer. Receiving a special thanks at our events, listed on our websites and your organisation printed and thanked in the magazine. You’ll get an unlimited number of passes to all digital Festival of Place events, plus in-person tickets to the annual summit. Get in touch today: james@thedeveloper.live for more information

How do you develop a new town hall and civic hub in a context of mistrust? “All you can do is listen,” says James Stockdale, Development Director at Muse developer of Your New Town Hall in Brixton, the project to restore the Grade II-listed Lambeth town hall and create housing and modern workspaces for the council Listen to the podcast here: https://bit.ly/4dgxyE1

M oving about urban environments easily, relaxing in and enjoying them – these are all outcomes that we as designers of cities and urban spaces pride ourselves in getting right, but the way we have gone about shaping cities on the whole presents challenges for autistic people. The challenge ahead is addressing mistakes of the past and making cities more inclusive. I’m not a member of the autistic community, but I have been on a journey of understanding Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for several years. This is personal because my wife, the person closest to me in the world, is autistic. This has involved how we can move together through a currently allistic, if not neurotypical urban world through streets and spaces, mitigating overstimulation and dysregulation. Continue reading: https://bit.ly/4b8lEtA

Have you visited our talks library yet? The latest (and all the older favourites) Festival of Place talks are ready to be viewed on demand at www.festivalofplace.co.uk 2024 talks include a selection from the main stage and afternoon talks from Town Hall supported by Muse stage Happy viewing! #FestivalofPlace #placemaking #architecture James MacLeod Christine Murray

Individuals and organisations can support our independent content and you’ll receive every issue of our uncommonly beautiful print edition of The Developer. Receiving a special thanks at our events, listed on our websites and your organisation printed and thanked in the magazine. You’ll get an unlimited number of passes to all digital Festival of Place events, plus in-person tickets to the annual summit. To find out how to join as a member today, get in touch with James MacLeod

Building bridges to biodiversity Isabelle Asante senior development manager at Muse on its joint venture at Hale Wharf where a diverse mix of new homes includes a new bridge across the River Lea Navigation linking to a 10-acre area of green space connecting local people with nature. Read here: https://bit.ly/3Wjjm5f

Pooling resources: The resurgence of the lido Is a public lido a community luxury or an essential part of our urban fabric? In the lido heyday of the 1930s they certainly thought the latter. At its peak the UK boasted 300 active lidos. Outdoor swimming was not a new phenomenon but this post-war embrace coincided with intense public investment, new-found freedom, and architectural flair. The ambition was for London to be “a city of lidos” with everyone in walking distance of one. By the end of the 1930s, the capital had 68. Lidos were classless and joyful. But they were almost entirely reliant on council funding and operation. So when the subsidisation tap got turned off in the 1960s in favour of a mandate for indoor pools, these once-thriving community hubs fell into disrepair, were filled in or simply demolished. Continue reading: https://bit.ly/4d7Gdre

Did our photographer capture you? Check out the gallery of images here: https://bit.ly/3LzePqs #FestivalofPlace

“If resilience is a goal – and it must be – human and planetary health must become a priority at the heart of Government” Health – of both our population and our planet – is critical for resilience and preparedness, write Daniel Black and Katie Barnes T he 20th century saw a profound and global shift in the health of the public. Infectious disease remains a clear and major threat – as demonstrated by Covid-19 – but it is now non-communicable diseases that present the largest and fastest-growing burden of disease. In the UK, heart failure, cancer, obesity, and mental ill-health cause an estimated 89% of deaths. An ageing population is a major driver of this growing burden, but non-communicable diseases (NCDs) affect the whole population. Yet it is widely suggested, even within Government, that NCDs are ‘to a significant extent, preventable, and the costs … largely avoidable’ (HM Gov, 2017). Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3xV0SQI

If you were at Festival of Place 2024, we’d love you hear from you! Let us know how you’d like to shape the Festival 2024 with a short form here: https://lnkd.in/eNp-WibM #FestivalofPlace