Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

The GM Housing Retrofit Strategy was put out to stakeholder consultation for key consultees in the Greater Manchester region for comments. The consultation period will be 3 weeks, after which the comments will be collated and the strategy amended where possible to take on board these comments. 

Studio Brief: Cultivate

Nature operates according to a system of nutrients and metabolisms in which there is no such thing as waste.
McDonough & Braungart, Cradle to Cradle

Today no city lives within its own means. Instead they rely on a network of global distribution systems to feed their every increasing nutrient and resource needs. These same systems are then used to relieve the cities of their ‘waste’. As our cities grow the pressures on these systems and the natural environment will only increase.

This Wayfinding Strategy Document - ‘Walsall’s Way Ahead’ - reviews how people navigate the town centre. We have looked at all stages of people’s routes round town, from their approach and arrival to patterns of circulation, and assessed how to make way finding around central Walsall easier for all. With footfall being the lifeblood of Walsall’s retail core, the primary objective has been to support existing busy footfall routes, and open up underused ones.

The overarching aim is to help Walsall present its varied asset base as a more unified town centre offer.

As assessors of Igloo's 'Footprint' Sustainable Investment Policy, URBED have been asked to out a post-completion assessment of the developoment at Bermondsey Square in London. This development, completed in 2008, has already been assessed at the design and construction stages. Working with Professor Tim Dixon of The Oxford Institute of Sustainable Development,  this final assessment under 'Footprint' is intended to test whether the scheme is performing as expected against Igloo's policies on 'Regeneration', 'Environmental Sustainability' and 'Urban Design'.

We are in the process of submitting a hybrid planning application for the proposed extention of the garden centre. As part of the design process we have developed designs for the extension in colaboration with volunteers and users of the garden centre. 

Below are a series of photos taken during a community design workshop and a session with the Friday club at Hulme Community Garden Centre.

A public consultation was undertaken to engage Liverpool's residents about the buildings which are coming closer to being put in for planning permission. An exhibition was placed at two locations over two days.

With the designs moving forward fairly fast, we have created a few overview boards for people involved in the project to comment on. This was done through the workshop with the ABCC young people and at an Expert event where Debbie Clark, NW food adviser for Sustain and member of Unicorn Grocery Cooperative in Manchester came to speak about her experience working in a coop and also pointed out some great campaigns appropriate to the project. On 31st October Marianne talking to the young people about how their designs are translated into computer drawings.