Events

Growing the City: Designing the Urban Edge

Kent Design: Urban Design Autumn School at CSA

The School of Architecture hosted this year’s Urban Design Autumn School, co-organised by Kent Design/Design South East and the MA Urban Design course at UCA Canterbury. Working in interdisciplinary teams participants developed strategies for the future development of South Canterbury.

Canterbury is currently witnessing the most rapid and substantial growth in its history. In response to the increasing demand for housing Canterbury City Council has designated a number of strategic sites across the district to accommodate approximately 16,000 new dwellings over the course of the next fifteen years. With more than 500 acres South Canterbury is by far the largest development area, around four times the size of the historic centre. The intensive two-day design charette used the historically and ecologically sensitive site as a test bed to speculate about the contested extension of the city beyond its existing urban perimeter.

Tutored by leading urban design practitioners, the five teams consisted of Design South East members from both, the public and the private sector, as well as UCA postgraduate students. The proposed concepts ranged from ‘The Incentivised City’ (Team Cany Ash), via ‘Living & Learning Landscapes (Team Joanne Cave) and ‘The Floppy Rurban Grid’ (Team Charles Holland), to ‘Green Fingers’ (Team Stephen Proctor) and ‘Active [W]Edges’ (Team Gabor Stark). The design sessions were complemented by a series of input talks and a Multistory* lecture by David Richards from GROSS.MAX, and the five teams presented their proposals to a panel of guest critics on the Friday afternoon.

A big THANK YOU to all participants and contributors for making the event such a success.
We are looking forward to hosting another Urban Design charette next year.

…

GROWING THE CITY: DESIGNING THE URBAN EDGE
Kent Design: Urban Design Autumn School
Thursday 6 & Friday 7 October 2016
UCA Canterbury

Organised by Noha Nasser, Kent Design & Gabor Stark, UCA MA Urban Design

Participants (affiliations)
• Canterbury City Council
• Countryside Properties PLC
• Dartford Borough Council
• Ebbsfleet Development Corporation
• Gravesham Borough Council
• Maidstone Borough Council
• Swale Borough Council
• Thanet District Council
• UCA M.Arch & MA Urban Design

Tutors
• Cany Ash, Ash Sakula
• Joanne Cave, David Lock Associates
• Charles Holland, Ordinary Architecture
• Stephen Proctor, Proctor Matthews Architects
• Gabor Stark, Course Leader MA Urban Design

Speakers & Critics
• Will Alsop, UCA, aLL Design
• Allan Atlee, UCA Canterbury School of Architecture
• Chris Lamb, Design South East
• Nick Lee Evans, Lee Evans Partnership
• James Gross, Urban Place Lab
• Guy Holloway, Guy Holloway Architects
• Adrian Penfold, British Land
• David Richards, GROSS.MAX

Links
http://www.kentdesign.org
http://www.designsoutheast.org
http://www.uca.ac.uk/study/courses/ma-urban-design/