The Developer podcast: Recent Episodes
The Developer
How do we make places where people want to live, work, play and learn? A podcast on cities, property, architecture and urban design. Support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/thedeveloperuk
How do you develop a new town hall and civic hub in a community with a longstanding mistrust of its local authority? “You’ve got to listen,” says James Stockdale, Development Director at Muse. Your New Town Hall in Brixton, the project to restore the Grade II-listed Lambeth town hall was never going to be easy. According to a 2013 resident’s survey, the council was not held in high regard. The report said residents felt “policymakers have stopped listening to them, and their culture and identity is gradually being lost.” Not a great starting point for a major development project. “Regeneration is always going to be contentious. Buildings will get knocked down,” says Stockdale. “You’ve got to listen. And by doing that hopefully more people will be happier than not.”
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As regulations on biodiversity net gain and sustainable drainage become mandatory, Carolin Göhler, president-elect of the Landscape Institute, explains why the role of the landscape architect is as vital as it is misunderstood. In areas prone to overheating, flooding or drought, having a lead designer focused on land use makes sense. The increase in social impact measurement, social prescribing and ESG investment also highlights the role of green spaces in improving health and wellbeing. But if the discipline is to take its place at the head of the table, people need to understand exactly what they do. A wide ranging discussion on urban trees, future-proofing heritage planting and the electrification of maintenance.
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Local authorities are moving head with net zero and climate resilience plans, installing solar panels and heat pumps. But a recent report from Key Cities, a group of 27 UK cities, concludes that "progress is being hindered by central government through a lack of powers, clarity, capacity and funding". Gina Dowding Lancaster County Counsellor and Richard Cook, Leader of Gloucester City Council, discuss the recommendations from the report, Levelling Up, Emissions Down, which captures the palpable frustration at the lack of clear direction and mandate for action on climate change.
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We need to talk about SLOAPs, aka Sites Leftover After Planning. We've all seen them, corridors of tarmac or patches of grass with no purpose or social life. Could we put these fragmented spaces to better use as sites of biodiversity, food growing, play or connection? Soham De from EcoResponsive Environments and Valerie Beirne from Where Pathways Meet have been adding up the potential of this multitude of tiny sites, and want to spark an industry-wide conversation about the mapping and transformation of leftover spaces into sites of care, biodiversity and creativity.
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Art in public space has long been subject to hot debate. It was back in the 1970s that James Wines referred to Modernist sculptures as "turds in the plaza" and "Plop Art". The removal of sculptures associated with slavery as part of the Black Lives Matter are proof positive that public art matters deeply to people and places. So when seeking to commission public art, is community involvement the answer to question of relevance, appropriateness and permanence? Shiro Muchiri, founder of SoShiro art gallery and Hanna Afolabi, founder of Mood and Space, have teamed up to create Art in Architecture, a consultancy that believes public art can deliver social value – if you get the community involved from the very beginning. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of commissioning art for urban public spaces.
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Street art has a lot to do with play, says Dr Lee Bofkin, co-founder of Global Street Art, who points to the evolving role of streets as a backdrop for content creation and personal digital expression. Global Street Art has connected street artists with sites to paint 3,000 murals in the UK since 2012, including pieces created under the Art for Estates programme and launching the London Mural Festival. In this podcast, the co-founder of Global Street Art discusses the expansive role of public art and why we should all live in painted cities.
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In this special 100th episode of The Developer Podcast, author Carolyn Steel hosts Stephen Witherford, co-founder of Witherford Watson Mann architects and Sophia Craxton, food anthropologist and manager of the community kitchen at almshouse Appleby Blue. What emerges is passionate and emotive discussion about how we design spaces for dignity, and the building as the beginning of a conversation about how we live and what we value. In a city where loneliness is one of the biggest killers, the question was how to create an architecture that promotes the good life: The answer was the use of food as an instrument for creating community. "Eating on your own and cooking for yourself can be one of the most soulless things, when you've lost people you spent time cooking and eating with," says Witherford. "We wanted to a place where people cook together and they eat together and share their experiences. Ultimately this is all about how to get residents to speak to one another."
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The construction industry is struggling to attract young people with an acute shortage of skilled workers hampering innovation and quality. Architecture and engineering need more diversity. At the same time, developers are creating playgrounds and spaces for teenagers to attract families and create community. What if we could solve all these needs with a single intervention? The adventure playground is not a new concept – the first one opened in Camberwell in 1948. But their longstanding tradition of giving children the tools, skills and materials to build their own play structures under supervision of trained playworkers has fresh resonance. "These places have been doing co-design from the beginning," shares Nitasha Kapoor, anthropologist and trustee of SWAPA in Hackney. In this interview, Kapoor talks about the potential for adventure playgrounds and their skilled staff to transform places and lives with one caveat – they need our help, skills, materials and financial support.
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The regeneration playbook is to takeover industrial spaces in favour of housing and mixed-use development, displacing the garages, workshops and sheds and pushing them to the margins of the city. But an increase in industrial rents and a shortage of industrial spaces has led to a radical rethink, with councils seeking industrial intensification instead, funding the creation of multi-storey light industrial spaces. In this interview, Regeneration Officer Francis Moss from London Borough of Ealing and Holly Lewis, Co-founding Director of We Made That explain the radical shift taking place and why industrial uses are essential to local economies and communities, making the case for keeping, and increasing, the sheds on our doorstep
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The popularity of New York's Highline saw other cities scouring maps for disused infrastructure – and Camden was no exception. The discovery of a disused viaduct running between King's Cross and Camden Road sparked the campaign for a Highline. Fast-forward and the design has planning permission and is now fundraising towards the build. We speak to Simon Pitkeathley, CEO of Camden Town Unlimited and CEO of Camden Highline about the journey so far, Georgie Street, Head of Projects at Camden Town Unlimited on the future green loop strategy and Tatiana von Preussen, architect and co-founder of vPPR on how to make the park, which runs along a live set of tracks, accessible and magical.
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Back in 2018, one of The Developer’s first podcasts was an interview with Linda Thiel, director of White Arkitekter’s London studio. The Scandinavian practice had been hired for the second phase of the regeneration of the Gascoigne estate in east London, replacing 1960s high rise blocks while adopting what the practice calls a “Scandinavian approach” with an emphasis on public space. More than four years on, Thiel got in touch to say that there had been a change in the practice’s thinking and, for the final stages of the project, they were now proposing that rather than demolish the original buildings, they should consider retrofitting them. Such an approach could also break a cycle of demolish and rebuild that began in the 1950s when the Edwardian terraced housing that originally sat on the site was razed, having been condemned as slums, only to be repeated as, in turn, those towers fell out of favour, creating a level of intergenerational trauma as communities were once again uprooted. Speaking in a new podcast, Thiel tells the story of White Arkitekter and Civic Engineers’ investigation into the feasibility of retrofit and raises fresh questions of equity and inclusion Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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The Key Cities report, Culture and Place in Britain, identified access to culture as a driver of wellbeing in areas of socioeconomic deprivation. But how can we seek stable and sustainable funding for grassroots culture in our places? Alan Waters, Culture Lead for Key Cities and previous leader of Norwich City Council and Sarie Mairs Slee, who previously led the Salford Culture and Place Partnership, discuss how the Cultural Compact, which partners institutions with artists and grassroots initiatives, can help unlock investment Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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Horatio’s Garden Chelsea, designed by Harris and Bugg with McMullan Studio, has been awarded the coveted Best in Show title at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In this podcast, we sit down with Charlotte Harris and Andrew McMullan to discuss the process of designing a fully accessible garden for this UK-based charity that nurtures patients after spinal injury in NHS spinal centres. Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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Paul Monaghan, architect and co-founder of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, talks about his role on the advisory board for The Office for Place, a government body helping to shape design codes and neighbourhood plans in England. Announced in July 2021, having emerged out of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, the purpose of the Office for Place is “to make it easier for all neighbourhood communities, wherever they might be, to require what they find beautiful and refuse what they find ugly.” Monaghan explains why he's pleased the government is passionate about design quality, even if he's not entirely comfortable with its new favourite buzzword: ‘beauty’ Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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What are we doing wrong when it comes to urban tree planting? With an estimated 30 to 70% of city trees expected to die within a year of planting, landscape architect Elaine Cresswell, founder of ReShaped, dishes the dirt on the reasons city trees die, from funding to specification, soil to maintenance. With targets for net zero, flood resilience, air pollution and Biodiversity Net Gain, we need our landscapes to work harder than ever. Other topics covered include why architects shouldn't put cherry blossoms or birch trees in their renderings and planning applications. Please subscribe if you like our podcasts. Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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There are times when placemaking is about urban acupuncture; a series of strategic interventions that signpost and make accessible what is already there – microplans in lieu of masterplans. In this podcast, landscape architect Valerie Beirne, founder of Where Pathways Meet, discusses her 14 years at Better Bankside and the potential impact of incremental projects where a singular vision is delivered by local partnerships big and small. Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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Psychologist B. F. Skinner famously compared old age to a foreign country: “You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.” But are UK towns and cities ready to welcome those on the journey? Figures from the 2021 census revealed that there are 2.5m people aged 50 or older living in London, while the OECD estimates that older adults comprise 15% of the population of metropolitan areas of the UK.Could a new almshouse in Blackfriars be a future model for independent, affordable living for older Londoners? Chris Wilson, CEO of Southwark Charities and Justin Nicholls, founding director of Fathom Architects share their visionIf you love what we do, please subscribe to The Developer Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up to The Developer Weekly email to find out when new episodes go live. Visit our website at www.thedeveloper.live to find out more. You can support our podcast on Patreon at www.patreon.com/thedeveloperuk Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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When it comes to the creative industries, people are looking for workspaces that you want to come to and do things together, says Richard Pearce, founder and director of office developer TCN. “It’s going to be hybrid working from now on. People need to have a reason to get out of their comfortable homes.” For TCN – which describes itself as a “creative workplace” provider – the offer is an interesting office space and a community of creative SME businesses. But how do you bring different businesses together and foster collaboration? Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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What is a community land trust and why start one? We speak to Tom Chance, chief executive of the Community Land Trust Network about this legal entity which gives communities ownership and power over land and property development. We dig into how CLTs get started, what types of homes and places CLTs are delivering from high street regeneration to affordable housing, and the three biggest challenges faced by most community land trusts: acquiring land, finance and expertise. Support our podcast and also get the magazine
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"It's about showing up, not just as a professional, but as a person; to bring your whole self." Founders Rachel Fisher and Liane Hartley talk about Urbanistas, a network for amplifying women's ideas to improve cities as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. From its early beginnings in London to its global expansion with several chapters around the world, from Manchester to New York, Sydney and Rotterdam, Fisher and Hartley share their unique perspective on what makes their expo model so replicable and successful as a fun and effective training ground for women leaders.
Listening to residents is informing change at Mount Anvil, including the pressing need to address the cost-of-living crisis by reducing energy use. But their approach to community engagement is also changing as a result: Marcus Bate, Partnerships and Communities Director, talks about how the Covid lockdowns made them realise the value of face-to-face conversations: “Forcing us to rely on digital has shown us some of the flaws in our digital strategy.”
A fresh canon of queer architectural precedents drawn from a rich and undocumented cultural history, artist Adam Nathaniel Furman and architectural historian Joshua Mardell discuss their book Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Spaces and why it's so important that the Royal Institute of British Architects has published this book, giving up-and-coming queer designers a celebratory history and institutional legitimacy
How do you transform an out-of-town business park into a place where people want to work? Ilaria de Beato, CEO, Frasers Property UK talks about shaking up the business park with sports and leisure facilities, better transport connections and a fresh commitment to sustainability, health and wellbeing for employees and tenants
Local Space is a unique social housing provider that buys and refurbishes properties for homeless families in four London boroughs. Some have been evicted, others are living in their car or sofa-surfing in overcrowded housing. Their average length of tenancy is six years. Josie Parsons, CEO of Local Space, speaks about the cost of living crisis, their pilot project to refurbish homes to an EPC A and busts some myths about people on benefits and made homeless
Socius describes itself as an “impactful developer” that balances profit alongside purpose to deliver sustainable mixed-use places. We catch up with directors Barry Jessup and Olaide Oboh to learn about their new development in Milton Keynes, their commitment to sustainable development, the B Corp journey and why design and architecture matters
How do we break out of our silos and adopt more holistic ways of working? How do we renew our cities and places while respecting the environment and planetary boundaries? How can we take an equitable approach to planning and urban renewal in our cities in the context of a climate emergency? What does participatory planning look like, and why does it matter? Featuring Leonora Grcheva, Cities and Regions Lead, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, Pooja Agrawal, CEO, Public Practice and Karen Jelenje, Founder, Activate the City!
If we don't do something about our high streets, town centres and people working from home, we will lose a way of life and the social fabric of our places, says Roger Wade, CEO, Boxpark in this interview. Wade makes a passionate plea for government to level the playing field between online retail and shopfronts in terms of business rates, arguing that physical retail can compete on content. "The centres of our communities don't need to die... but we need to create the right circumstances for hospitality, restauranteurs and shops."
Approximately 1 in every 14 people over the age of 65 will suffer dementia in the UK, but as citizens they are often excluded from consultation on the design of our places and cities.
Dr Samantha Biglieri’s research seeks to change that. Her work, which lies at the intersection of public health and urban planning, asks what we can learn from engaging with people suffering from dementia.
What are we missing when people with dementia are locked out of community engagement? What can the experience of dementia teach us about the liveability of our urban and suburban places?
Turning historic buildings to new use, Tim Heatley, co-founder of developer Capital&Central, and Mark Braund, architect director at BDP talk about Stockport’s Weir Mill and how they're creating a community out of an historic mill complex and bringing mixed-use urban apartment-living to the suburbs.
What is the cost of displacement through gentrification? What are the alternatives in the context of the private rental boom? How do we genuinely level up while renewing urban places, and ensure existing communities feel the benefit? Recorded live at the Festival of Place, we hear from Prof. Loretta Lees, an urban geographer and scholar-activist who wrote the book on gentrification and Alisha Morenike Fisher, Founding-Director of Migrant’s Bureau, a social design and urbanism practice for Black, disenfranchised & migrant communities.
Can the design of a place make people happier or healthier? Can architecture itself make a positive social impact, and can that value be quantified on a spreadsheet? We brought together a range of professionals for live podcast recording to discuss the impact, metrics and importance of social value. This podcast is supported by Hawkins\Brown, and features Matt Woolgar, Hadley Property Group; Hazel York, Hawkins Brown; Natascha McIntyre Hall, Portsmouth City Council; Blossom Young, Poplar HARCA; May Molteno, Trilogy; Michael Riebel, Hawkins\Brown; Hani Salih, Quality of Life Foundation and Annabel Precious, Civic Engineers
If you really want to tackle representation in your organisation, don't invite the marginalised to volunteer on a working group that will inevitably go nowhere. That's just one of the tips Dr Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City, shares in this talk from Festival of Place: Gender Equal Cities in a podcast episode sponsored by IE School of Architecture and Design
Developers discuss post-Covid public space and town centre design in the context of the climate emergency. Has the pandemic derailed or accelerated progress in making our cities more climate resilient? How do we design public spaces that support social connection and democracy while tackling critical urban issues such as flooding, drought, pollution and overheating? This live podcast recording is sponsored by Vestre and features Chris Brown, Igloo; Olaide Oboh, First Base; Jonathan Wilson, Citu; Paul King, Lendlease; Yẹmí Àlàdérun, Islington & Shoreditch Housing Association and Neil Murphy, TOWN with Romy Rawlings, Vestre.
Those who perpetuate hate crimes attack people for being different, so can we design public spaces that make marginalised groups safer by making them less visible? Professor Pippa Catterall discusses the problem of violent attacks for the LGBTQ+ community and explains why a large echoey open public square can be a deeply uncomfortable space where individuals are easily targeted. What makes us stand out in public space, who does the looking, and what design features could make our cities more tolerant of difference?
As a maverick serial entrepreneur behind tech and innovation clusters including Canary Wharf's Level39 and the Olympic Park's Plexal, Claire Cockerton knows what kind of office environment helps start-ups thrive and grow. But in the post-Covid environment, she believes our approach to office space is changing - and to attract and support female founders, the attitude on site in tech clusters must change too.
With 80% of youth spaces occupied by boys, how can we create parks, play equipment and public spaces where young women and girls feel safe and that they belong? We talk to Make Space for Girls, a campaigning charity set up by author and TV producer Susannah Walker and lawyer Imogen Clark, who argue that providing public space for girls is more than an ideal, it's a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010
"We need to understand why places are poor, why people have fewer life choices, why their health is poorer... all major factors in place-based inequality," says Andrew Westwood, Vice Dean for Social Responsibility at the University of Manchester and commissioner on the Greater Manchester Independent Inequalities Commission. In this podcast, we discuss how England is the most unequal country in the OECD, about the impact of racial, class and place-based inequality, and the commission's radical ideas on how to bridge the gap between the richest and the poorest in Greater Manchester. The commission's report reads: "The vision we describe is not utopia and not a pipe dream. Everything we describe is already happening somewhere."
Imagine adding a few trees to your street, a public space, a few benches, maybe a bike rack. You may find it easy to envision your urban transformation, or at least know who to call to make that sketch. But how can the average citizen participate in the design process? That’s the question Ascha Lychett Pedersen is answering with her big app idea, Wild Streets. A macroeconomist and UN sustainability specialist, Lychett Pedersen, CEO of Wild Streets, had been working for the UN for a decade when she got the idea that would become Wild Streets. This podcast is sponsored by IE University School of Architecture and Design
Going circular in construction is not just about saving the planet, it also saves on the bottom line, given the growing cost of waste disposal and the hidden costs of over-ordering in construction. In this podcast, May Al-Karooni, the inspirational founder and CEO of Globechain, talks about how she spotted the need for a reuse marketplace and sold the idea of circularity to the construction and built environment industry. Globechain diverts construction waste from retail and commercial refurbishments and gives them to charities as raw materials.
Small post-industrial cities have walkable downtowns, affordable housing and the opportunity to become post-Covid places we want to be. But how can they avoid gentrification while attracting investment? Reif Larsen, founder of the Future of Small Cities Institute talks cars, resources and political influence. This podcast is supported by IE University School of Architecture and Design
"Built spaces are important signifiers to outsiders, and people in power like to think that what they don't see, doesn't exist," says Dr Omeasoo Wahpasiw in this podcast from her popular talk at the Festival of Place. Wahpasiw is Assistant Professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Education, and has written about Indigenous feminism and about how Indigenous design-thinking can inform architecture in a 'new-old' way. Wahpasiw is a policy analyst, facilitator and presenter on Indigenous historical issues, and has worked with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations. In this podcast she talks about the links between identity and place, and how "identity building spaces" determine how we live our lives
Find out more about the new part-time Global Master in Real Estate Development at IE University. "If you are passionate about real estate, if you're a city-maker, this part-time programme is for you. Just log in from wherever you are around the globe on Saturday afternoon." Martha Thorne, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design tells The Developer all about it in this sponsored podcast. Check out their Woman Scholarship for up to 25% off tuition fees.
When they started Capital & Centric, they wanted to create award-winning architecture, says co-founder Adam Higgins. Ten years on, it’s about more than that. It's about doing something for the people who don't live in the buildings. Higgins talks working with "ugly" buildings, the barriers to lush landscape architecture, and about the Dutch and Scandi influences behind their Kampus development in Manchester. This podcast is sponsored by the Global Master in Real Estate Development at IE University
Why doesn't the property industry work more collaboratively when it comes to tackling climate change and retrofit? David Cowans is Group Chief Executive of Places for People, one of the largest property management and development companies in the UK, which owns or manages 147,000 homes. In this interview, which took place at the Festival of Place, he tackles retrofitting, net zero, modern methods of construction.
The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, was elected in May 2016. On that day Bristol became the first major European city to have elected a mayor of black African heritage. During his first term in office he has overseen the building of over 8,000 homes, announced the development of a mass transit system and provided quality work experiences for over 3,500 children who wouldn’t readily have access. He led the successful bid to bring Channel 4 to Bristol and is leading the city’s response to both the climate and ecological emergencies. Rees sits down with Christine Murray for a live interview with questions from the audience as part of the Festival of Place
How do you design a feminist city, and an intersectional city? What are the questions you should be asking when designing and developing a place? From protest to the Sex in the City, Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, moves beyond Jane Jacobs to expose what a just, sustainable and women-friendly city would truly feel like, and how we get there. Live talk from the Festival of Place, followed by an audience QA
A visit to Liverpool One shopping centre leads anthropologist Rebecca Toop to explore the role that shopping plays in our lives. In the context of the retail apocalypse, what can replace the social role of shopping? Part of a new miniseries where Christine Murray explores the best of The Developer 2020.
As offices migrate away from downtown, the people who formerly worked in them are subject to a double movement: some are being lured into the city by falling rents and the possibility of walking or cycling to their workplace when they do need to be physically present; others are taking advantage of remote working by relocating to places where they can enjoy more congenial lifestyles. In this audio version of an article written by Steve Taylor for The Developer, we find out what the mix of future city centres might feel like, and ask whether it's materially distinct to what came before
In this podcast, we speak to First Base director Barry Jessup and Director of Partnerships, Olaide Oboh, about trust, delivering value, their social outcome statement, and making promises to communities that you can keep.
Dr Ben Clifford, author of the government report on the impact of Permitted Development on housing quality, speaks out about the devastating plans to extend the rights in the context of widespread planning reforms that will set the English standard of housing provision back more than 50 years. Consultation on wider planning reforms ends 1 October and can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-current-planning-system
Once you have a radical idea, how do you test it, develop it, sustain it and grow? May Al-Karooni is CEO and founder of Globechain, a marketplace for construction, retail and office 'waste' that can be reused by charities as part of the new circular economy. Al-Karooni describes how she spotted a need six years ago and developed it into a purpose-based business that is now the world's largest reuse marketplace.
You want to do things differently. You've written your mission statement. But how do you ensure your business isn't just paying lip-service to change? How do your values manifest themselves in your business culture and practice? Vestre is a Norwegian furniture practice that has supported The Developer and the Festival of Place since inception. We hear from Commercial Director Romy Rawlings about how they put their social and environmental values into business practice.
The industry is locked in competitive silos, landscape architecture has been marginalised, communities lack a mechanism for meaningful involvement, policy is not shifting in the right direction, and planners are only focused on the potential, not the present. In the context of the climate emergency, we have got to get our act together. In the conversation with Will Sandy, we discuss why we need a Radical Rethink.
Lee Hallman, former Head of Design for Qatari Diar Europe, speaks about Chelsea Barracks, the 13-acre development that found itself at the heart of a new style war, as revealed in the Prince of Wales' Black Spider Memos. With its first phase now complete, Hallman discusses the design evolution of the project in the context of changing tastes in architecture.
Can humans be social from 2m away? How can we shape urban space to bring us together now that Covid-19 has made us suspicious of strangers, fearful of shopping and transport, and locked us down, apart? Nick Tyler is Director of the UCL Centre for Transport Studies, Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering, UCL and Director of CRUCIBLE Centre for Lifelong Health and Wellbeing at University College London, where his research investigates the ways in which people interact with their immediate environments. At this online event, Tyler talks about the challenges in designing social spaces in the new normal of physical distancing
What happens when you take a 250-year-old network of canals and combine it with 21st century drainage technology? Katie Hughes, previous Estates and Commercial Director for Scottish Canals, tells the fascinating story of Glasgow's Smart Canal, a flood-prevention project that unlocked 110 hectares for redevelopment
Carolyn Steel, author and leading thinker on food and cities, will explain how at this time of change, food is both a saviour and a source of stress. Steel's latest book, Sitopia or "food-place", explains how food is central to our quality of life, and the key to unlocking the predicaments and opportunities of our urban, digital age. Steel's talk was recorded at a Festival of Place Bytesize event run in association with U+I Think.
Nick White, principal adviser for Net Gain at Natural England, explains the rationale behind improving the biodiversity of property developments and the push for net gain policy
The £1.4bn Mayfield project in Manchester is on 24 acres of land that sit within 150 yards of Manchester Piccadilly Station with a river running through it. The only problem? No one in Manchester knew where it was. Which is why U+I have been running 'meanwhile' projects – or as they like to call it, 'worthwhile' projects. We speak to James Heather, development director, who is responsible for delivering for U+I as part of the Mayfield Partnership consortium, which also includes Manchester City Council, LCR and Transport for Greater Manchester. Like what we do? Support us at patreon.com/thedeveloperuk
Mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville talks about the redevelopment of Kings Crescent Estate, Covid-19 emergency road changes, tree-planting and why child-friendly cities are more resilient. Glanville also explains why advocates for sustainable transport shouldn't assume that the lockdown has created a new consensus for a car-free future. It hasn't. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for a new way forward.
Citu has gone from being a developer to bringing the whole design and manufacturing process in-house with Citu Works, their factory building airtight homes. In this podcast, we meet founder and Managing Director Chris Thompson, visit the factory and go on a walk around the Climate Innovation District in Leeds, a 21-acre site on the River Aire. If you like our podcast, please support us on Patreon www.patreon.com/thedeveloperuk
Glasgow is a city of extremes. It has the lowest life-expectancy in the UK, contains pockets of severe deprivation and is home to the most polluted street in Scotland. But it also, in sharp contrast, has the highest weekly income per resident among UK core cities, has pockets of overheated housing market, and has increased its workforce productivity by 30% over the past decade. We speak to Kevin Rush, Director of Regional Growth for Glasgow City Region, is delivering projects as part of the £1.13 billion City Deal that he believes will make a positive impact on poorer communities. Over the next five years, £700m will be spent on infrastructure to unlock improvements across the city. If you like our podcast, please support us on www.patreon.com/thedeveloperuk
Kevin Barton, Director at Robert Bray Associates, creates climate-resilient landscapes, including flood-mitigating playspaces and a blue-green roof that saved one Hackney developer £800,000. When it comes to designing cities, he believes we need radical change. From tyre-dust microplastics to raw sewage overflows from Victorian pipes, Barton says professionals need to challenge the urban fabric and make it work a lot harder to proactively eliminate toxins and contribute to healthier cities. “That’s where we get really excited,” says Barton. “We are a natural disaster ourselves, but for the climate’s sake, and for our sake, we need radical change and some of this will be uncomfortable.”
Can property development be an enabler for improving the environment? London-based developer The Berkeley Group is committed to increasing biodiversity on all of their sites. Louise Clarke, Head of Sustainable Places from The Berkeley Group explains why and how they incorporated a focus on nature into their corporate vision, and explains their biodiversity toolkit. Recorded at The Developer Live: Risk & Resilience
Once part of Ford's vast manufacturing outpost, the 720-acre post-industrial site will be transformed into a neighbourhood that includes 3,000 homes, a new train station, two schools and a medical centre. If you think brownfield sites are easy, listen to this. With Rob Wilkinson Managing Director Partnerships at Countryside and Evonne Clarke, Head of JV & Development East Region at LQ
Martin Farrington, Director of City Development at Leeds City Council, about how the city tackled flood risk and created public space at the same time with its moveable weir, recently used during Storm Ciara. This podcast was recorded live at The Developer's Risk & Resilience conference.
We need to ‘depave’ our cities street by street, says De Urbanisten’s Dirk van Peijpe, whose famous water squares combine flood resilience with public space including basketball courts and skateboard ramps. In this podcast, we hear van Peijpe's talk at The Developer's Risk & Resilience conference, where he talks about combining budgets to combine urban drainage with green space.
How do you evaluate climate risks such as flooding and build the momentum to invest in mitigation? We hear from industry leaders seeking to strike the balance between risk and resilience, including Dr Kathryn Oldham OBE, Chief Resilience Officer, Greater Manchester Combined Authority; Alexandra Notay, Build to Rent Fund Director, PfP Capital; Chantal Henderson, Director of Commercial Finance, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland; and Paul Berg and Jack Wolstencroft, both directors at Griffiths & Armour
Natascha McIntyre Hall on the vision and people-first design for Tipner West in Portsmouth, which transforms an 140-acre post-industrial peninsular, home to a Ministry of Defence firing range, into a 4,000-home, car-free neighbourhood with one million square feet of marine employment.
“How much of your [property] fund is at risk from flooding, severe winds or overheating? If people can’t go to the office, they aren’t going to pay their rent,” says Alastair Mant, Head of Business Transformation, UKGBC. The opening speaker at The Developer’s Risk & Resilience conference in November 2019, Mant describes how finance is leading the charge on climate change risk-mitigation, and why this, more than anything else, is accelerating change in how we build our cities.
Selina Mason, Director of Masterplanning at Lendlease speaks to The Developer about the past and future of London’s 560-acre Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a project she’s been involved with, on and off, since 2007; first, working on the delivery of the original 2012 masterplan for the Olympic Delivery Authority, then on the post-games Transformation Masterplan for the London Legacy Development Corporation, and now with Lendlease's 22-acre International Quarter London
Architects are ivory-tower idealists and developers are profit-driven pariahs, or so the cliché goes. But in this interview, they agree on at least one thing – the need for radical change. Nick Searl, Partner of Argent and Argent Related and Daniel Hajjar, Managing Principal of HOK London and Dubai talk collaboration, communication and the climate emergency.
What kind of cultural infrastructure is needed in our cities, how do we value culture and can it be curated? From music to food, we explore the ways in which culture contributes to place, and how to help creatives nest and grow. An on-stage conversation with Emma Warren, Author of Make Some Space: Tuning into Total Refreshment Centre, Danny Keir, Global Head of Business Development for Sound Diplomacy; Clarisse Tavin, Group Manager of Major Programmes and Projects at City of London Corporation; Akil Scafe-Smith, Founder of Resolve Collective and Mark Davy, CEO and founder of Futurecity
“Liverpool is undergoing unprecedented growth in investment,” Claire Slinger, Assistant Director for Investment and Development at Liverpool City Council tells The Developer. We learn how the council unlocked plans for its stalled 100 acre Festival Gardens site, and hear about their plans to entice more than 80,000 university and college students to stay in the city after graduation. We also talk about "inclusive growth" and how to bring the public along in a rapidly changing city.
Dr. Patrice Derrington, who leads the prestigious real estate programme at Columbia University, tells the audience at the Festival of Place why she believes the high-stakes, fraught environment of real estate development needs a rethink, exploding some common myths about what makes places prosper along the way
Our high streets and city centres are in trouble. How should we remake them? Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance in Manhattan, Rachel Fisher, Deputy Director of Regeneration and Infrastructure at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Patricia Brown, Director of Central and Contributing Editor of The Developer share their views, learnings, and future plans.
We need a more blended approach to creating mixed communities says Anne Power, Head of LSE Housing and Communities. In her address at the Festival of Place 2019, Power draws from her professional experience working in government policy, from ten years in Thatcher’s government to working under New Labour, to point out some of placemaking's failings. Power has been involved in tackling housing and urban problems since 1965, including working for Martin Luther King’s End Slums campaign in Chicago in 1966.
Sir Stuart Lipton talks offices and place in conversation with Giles Barrie at the 2019 Festival of Place. One of the first developers to recognise the importance of place in creating large-scale urban developments, Lipton talks about the past, present, planning and future of workplace making.
Dan Labbad, Chief Executive of Lendlease Europe and future CEO of the Crown Estate talks to Christine Murray on stage at the Festival of Place on what he's learned working for the past 20 years at the centre of heated debate about how we redevelop UK cities: "Your license to operate comes from how you impact on communities."
How Helical with AHMM transformed an unloved and badly managed British Telecom office complex on Old Street Roundabout into a place. This classic 1960s Modernist campus has seen its former rear carpark transformed into a mews-like street. Across the complex, there are five restaurants, two coffee bars, a hotel, gym and new public spaces. The nature of the businesses based here – Farfetch and WeWork, amongst others – reinforces the decision to combine business with leisure to create a place, rather than office space. The Old Street neighbourhood has the most expensive creative and tech office market per square foot in the world. Less recognised perhaps is that this is still one of the most deprived areas in the country.
Without the Royal National Institute of Blind People, there’s no chance Countryside would have gained planning for private housing on the green belt; and without Countryside, RNIB would not have been able to replace their dated 1960s facility on site. So began an innovative partnership that sees the design and development of an inclusive enclave from what Cocks descried as “a cold and empty place that felt more like an institution than a community.”
Landscape architect Will Sandy and Building Centre creative director Vanessa Norwood discuss the impact Extinction Rebellion’s actions are having on the built environment and how we perceive the future of the city. Sandy is creative director at The Edible Bus Stop, a biodiverse design studio whose temporary and permanent spaces can be seen all over London. Norwood is creative director of the Building Centre and was previously Head of Exhibitions at the Architectural Association.
The Bee Network creates 75 miles of Dutch-style segregated cycle lanes and safe pedestrian crossings, and 1000 miles of walking and cycling routes in Manchester and will be accessible to 92% of the Greater Manchester population, the largest network of its kind in the UK. Nitasha Kapoor met with street design engineer Brian Deegan on designing cycling infrastructure for the northwest.
What does a city need to foster a successful music industry? This is something Shain Shapiro knows better than anyone. His consultancy advises city governments and property developers on the cultural economy. But despite the growing profile of Sound Diplomacy’s work, however, Shapiro says “the debate is broken.” For policy to be successful, Shapiro says, officers must be agnostic to musical style. One person’s noise is another’s music, Shapiro adds, with a reminder that the two most popular genres are drill and metal.
Bonus episode: In this talk at the Roca London Gallery, Danish architect Jan Gehl discusses his extensive work creating cities for people worldwide, using psychology and architecture to support a human-centred approach to urban planning and design.
Global Generation’s Skip Garden in King’s Cross is a much-loved organic core for its development. Now co-founder Jane Riddiford has created the Paper Garden, a new incarnation at Canada Water, with the ambition of realising the power of community.
Director of the Illuminated River Project, Sarah Gaventa discusses Leo Villareal’s public art project in London that will accentuate 15 bridges over the Thames. The ambitious £45m project begins with the illumination of London Bridge, Cannon Street, Southwark and Millennium Bridge, with all bridges completed by 2022.
After a call-out on Twitter, professionals from across the UK joined a conversation about child-friendly cities in the UK that developed into a meet-up at a curry house near the train station in Leeds, organised by Emma Bearman of Playful Anywhere CIC and recorded by The Developer. Here, practitioners shared their ambitions and the challenges they are facing in pursuing a child-friendly agenda. This conversation serves as a powerful sign of this growing movement across the UK to create more playful, liveable cities.
Attendees included Adrian Voce, President of the European Network for Child Friendly Cities, Andre Reid of Kiondo in Birmingham, Sadiya Salim, Local Authority Officer at Child-Friendly Leeds for Leeds City Council; Grant Menzies from The City of Play, David Craig from Assembly Bradford, Gayle Appleyard, architect from Gagarin Studio, Dr Mohamed Radfar, Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, Elaine Cresswell, director of Reshaped landscape architects, Kristina Hall who focuses on providing space for organic learning and sustainable learning outcomes, Rebecca Thomas, Regeneration Officer at Leeds City Council and organiser Emma Bearman of Playful Anywhere CIC
Paul Monaghan is founding partner of one of the most successful architecture practices in the UK, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. Now, he's got a new role, as design champion for his hometown of Liverpool, with a mandate to get design quality on the agenda. We talk about urban redevelopment in the UK: the good, the bad and the uniquely Scouse.
With a need for new homes and under pressure from council cuts, Croydon Council established Brick by Brick in 2016, a limited company that would tackle the housing crisis across the borough. The ambition was to build 2000 new homes on 50 sites. We take a walk with Chloe Phelps, Head of Design for Brick by Brick to visit some of the first fruits of this ambitious programme
What is the social value of the high street? We meet Holly Lewis, co-founder of architecture and urbanism practice We Made That, for a walk down the high street and a chat about ‘High Streets for All’, a research study commissioned by the Greater London Authority to unpick the contribution of London's high streets to the city. Unexpected results include that half of people on the high streets are not there to shop.
Roger Madelin, Head of Canada Water for British Land and maverick of place takes us on a whirlwind tour of his new major project in this double episode. We travel up a tower and across the site, followed by Madelin's stream-of-consciousness rap in a noisy cafe where he talks risk, planning policy, the art of stuff, the future of Southwark, Section 106, the axing of SureStart and why we should walk like Italians do
In part two of this interview, we take a deeper dive into Wembley Park. From underground vacuums for garbage, to dog parks and community events, Angus Dodd, CEO of developer Quintain, takes us on this walking tour around the unfinished development
There used to be nothing around Wembley stadium, but Quintain has been changing that. Wembley Park is their project to transform 85 acres of city. Quintain chief executive Angus Dodd shows us around and explains why they switched to private rental in 2015 and how the alternative would have been disastrous
After the London Olympics were over, two giant sheds were left on the Olympic Park - the former Press and Broadcast Centres. There was scepticism when it was announced that Delancey was going to make these redundant hangars into a technology innovation centre. For one, it's not the easiest place to reach – but now when you arrive, you’ll find a campus with character and a fascinating mix of tenants, from upstart start-ups to Ford, from UCL’s robotics lab to fashion e-and soon, an outpost of the V&A museum. In this podcast, Gavin Poole, chief executive of Here East and Joy Nazzari, founding director of brand consultancy dn&co to discuss the journey from shed to destination workspace
Menno Schilthuizen, evolutionary biologist, describes why pigeons are changing the colour of their feathers, why blackbirds sing earlier in the morning, and how supporting greater biodiversity by design would support the human animal, too
Karen Livingstone, Director of Masterplan and Estate for the Science Museum Group, talks about the vision for York 2025, a new historic quarter for Manchester and the trouble with London’s Exhibition Road in this discussion about the role of the museum in the city
A special recording of the Urbanisation forum on Connectivity, hosted by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce at Google's UK headquarters in King's Cross. Speakers include Simon Dixon, Deloitte's Global Transportation Leader; Jon Simpson, Google's Smart Building Technical Lead; Max Ryerson, CEO & Chief Digital Strategist at StratForce; Geoffrey Palmer, Sweco's Director of Buildings; Transport for London's Iain Macbeth, Head of Foresight and Linda Thiel, Director of the London Studio of White Arkitekter
When Barking and Dagenham’s development arm, BeFirst, appointed White Arkitekter to redesign the Gascoigne East estate, the practice’s Swedish roots were a contributing factor. In this podcast, London studio director Linda Thiel describes how they are taking a Scandinavian walkable and open approach to the regeneration of an East London estate.
“Cities are defined by their buildings,” says Simon Silver, Director at Derwent London. “It worries me as a Londoner when I see buildings that are soul-less. How did they win planning? How did they get through?”
While they are not known for placemaking per se, wherever you stand in Fitzrovia, you are spitting distance from a Derwent London building. With a portfolio of 5.5m square feet, 98 per cent of which is in Central London, Silver has a strong sense of how buildings contribute to the fabric of place.
Silver talks about materiality, soul-less glass towers, and how buildings should speak to each other, not just stand silently shoulder to shoulder
King's Cross Central is the most successful regeneration project in the UK, recognised for its dynamism and quality of environment. Just over halfway through this mammoth 67 acre development, Robert Evans, partner at developer Argent, responds to recent criticism that King's Cross is too clean and too safe, explores the question of value, estate management, edge conditions and the challenge of making a place for everyone.
We look at the city through the lens of neuroscience with Araceli Camargo, cognitive neuroscientist and lab director of The Centric Lab, with consultancy director Josh Artus on applications in the built environment
Liverpool Waters is a huge dockland development that consists of five neighbourhoods, two ferry terminals and the Everton football club will transform the waterfront over the next 20 years. Controversial with UNESCO, who has threatened to withdraw the city's Heritage Site status on the basis of the development, in this podcast we talk to Ian Pollitt of Peel about their plans for this mammoth site.
At Stanhope's first residential development in White City, the hand-picked selection of restaurants were open before residents had even moved into their luxury flats in Television Centre. Why is it important to get the mix right, and how does retail create community? How will it change when the affordable residences are built nearby - are these shops for them, too?
On the day of the Bake Off final, we take a walk around Television Centre in White City, London with Stanhope Managing Director Alistair Shaw, who explains the developer's peacemaking approach.
Playground design reflects the workforce we hope to create, the behaviour we hope to correct and the adult we aim to engineer. Anthropologist Nitasha Kapoor talks us through the history of playground design, and explains what kind of equipment we're using now. With the dawn of automation and AI, when it comes to child's play, resilience and creativity are on the agenda.
As the Child-Friendly City movement gains traction, with cities eager to attract families, we discover how children are the generators of successful places. Dinah Bornat of ZCD Architects explains what design makes a child-friendly development, explains what makes Barking Riverside work, and takes us on a walk around the Christchurch Estate in Hackney to unpick how to encourage unsupervised play.