Urban Animation is an award winning Edinburgh-based planning and urban design consultancy. We deal with all aspects of the planning system throughout urban and rural Scotland. We are best known for our work in master planning and mixed use, sustainable settlement extensions.
Urban Animation brings a contemporary slant to traditional place making, creating vibrant and sustainable places for people to live, work and enjoy. Please visit our Practice Profile page to learn more about our approach.
You can use this website to find information or comment on our projects. You can also ask questions about current planning applications, or read our blog and tell us what you think about planning, development and urban design issues.
animate : to bring alive, or give life to.
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Doughnuts
Scotland’s rich urban tradition is still abundantly evident in our towns and cities. Unfortunately, most of our best places are now the jam inside a sprawling suburban doughnut. This is confirmed by two new studies published jointly by Strathclyde University and Architecture + Design Scotland (‘A+DS - Scotland's national champion for good architecture, design and planning’).
‘An Comann’ compares 50 towns over a 150 year period, judging success against debatable socio-economic criteria. Are high house prices a true guide to successful townscape and function? Is high employment amongst residents of commuter towns a plus? Don’t they all jump in private cars, taking the prospect of fully developed local services with them, as they funnel into our cities?
‘Under the Microscope‘ zooms in on 20 of these towns, assessing block and plot size over the same period. Again, there’s some suspect analysis. Is it any surprise small towns have fewer flats than our tenemented cities? Does low public transport use really point to poor services, or is it inevitable given higher car ownership and pedestrian trips in small towns?
These studies provide useful base information and a starting point for more rigorous research but their conclusions are not unexpected :
- Our towns have expanded rapidly since the mid 20th Century;
- The suburban housing cul-de-sac has become the dominant typology;
- Much new development lacks a sense of place and is poorly related to the settlement core.
How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Inevitably it’s a complex story. Ironically, it coincided with the emergence of the modern planning system, post WWII - zoning policy, roads standards, open space ratios, low density development, car dominated approaches, out of town retail, standard house types, design and build......
So, if our planning and development system helped create this mess, can it now clean it up? These two reports are another small step forward but we need to turn up the heat. The Scottish Government issued guidance on Design Statements as far back as 2003 and from August last year they have been mandatory for major applications. That doesn’t stop developers submitting inept box-ticking documents. A current example on the eastern edge of Forres springs to mind.
A sound design policy is worthless unless it’s fully implemented. Let’s see Council Planning Departments raise the bar and force design averse developers to jump higher - it’s no longer an optional add on but a basic requirement. Let’s see the Scottish Government calling Councils to task where policy is inadequately applied (word has it this is beginning to happen). And let’s see more developers promoting good design as a selling point.
The urban heritage in our towns is now well protected by Listed Buildings and Conservation Area controls and planning policies. Why shouldn’t we apply the same degree of care to new development? I‘d vote tactically to keep out pastiche and I support the use of ‘historicism‘ as an insult. However, is it really beyond our capability to embrace local context and past success, yet design something functional, attractive and contemporary? I’m off to check......
According to an urban legend, John F Kennedy made an embarrassing grammatical error in his famous 1963 speech by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," referring to himself not as a citizen of Berlin, but as a popular local jammy doughnut, the Berliner. Although incorrect, the legend has been repeated by reputable media including the BBC, The Guardian, MSNBC, CNN, Time magazine and The New York Times.
Richard Heggie
7 May 2010
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"Share your frustration. Imaginative architecture and community rooted development doesn't have to be expensive, but the partnering and commissioning arms of local government are depressingly conservative, continually defaulting to large, safe companies with standard products. This doesn't need legislation, just a bit of Urban Splashiness from our civic leaders. There's a few of us ready to have a go!"
May 2010
"Your pertinent points resonate with the outcomes of an Open Forum on the theme of place making and regeneration that I facilitated a few months ago in Glasgow.
Re your point about The Scottish Government Design Statements, you argue that we should “see council planning departments raise the bar and force design averse developers to jump higher”. In fact, at the forum it was private developers who complained about the lack of open thinking and aspiration in the planning system at local government level. This was said to be reflected in tick-box design codes / frameworks that produced the likes of your Forres example.
As one developer put it, ‘its hard to argue with your funders and investors for inspirational quality design when your competitors are allowed to submit, and win with, unedifying, but cheap and design-code- compliant proposals. I think it was maybe RUDI in England who pointed out that where the local statutory planners required a ‘lifting of the bar’, private developers were more than ready and able to respond.
In contrast, one of the Scottish forum participants asserted that he and his company were rebuffed when trying to raise quality place- making with a local authority planning convener who retorted, reportedly, “that’s not for us here”. The plea from several forum participants was for a display of strong leadership on quality in place-making (and masterplanning) from both the local authority and the private sectors."
June 2010My issue with Council planning departments is that they need to use the design policy which is already available to them to raise standards. Too often, PAN 68 just isn't applied. The Forres application is accompanied by an inept Design Statement but I see it's still pending, so hopefully the Council will be asking for a new improved design formula.
One difficulty is that writing a brief for good design is exceptionally difficult and where a planning department has limited confidence in private sector efforts (probably for good reason), the brief may attempt damage limitation, rather seek inspirational solutions. Leadership - YES. Better design training - YES. And let's use successful schemes as benchmarks others can aim for.
There are good examples of private and public sector design initiatives out there, just as there are bad examples from both. I've highlighted concerns in this blog but you'll see I signed off with a promise to discuss something positive next time!
Richard Heggie
3 June 2010
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