Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

In 2014 URBED won the Wolfson Economics Prize by focusing on the pressures of growth being experienced by small and medium-sized cities. The essay looked at Oxford as a detailed example but, in doing so drew heavily on the experience of Cambridge. In the late 1990s Cambridge started a process to explore how to accommodate its housing growth. It set out plans to build 70,000 new homes and to capture the value created to invest in new infrastructure such as the guided bus way. URBED were asked to write the Cambridge Quality Charter that set out principles for the quality of the new housing being created. 

 

We concluded in the Wolfson Essay that the Cambridge example was probably the best example of a comprehensive approach to strategic housebuilding in the UK. It did however still fall far short of what has happened in Freiburg. The seminar would be an opportunity to review these issues and the progress that has been made since the Wolfson prize, particularly through the political process at the election.