VITAL PLACES II
A seminar held on Wednesday 23 March 2016 10am–4pm.

 

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We all have favourite places. They are the back-drop of our lives. The places where we meet, spend time visiting, and the places we live in. Places are constantly evolving, and reflect our changing lives and the everyday world around us.

The patterns of the past are still with us, but what of the present? Why do people need to ‘come into town’ in the digital age?

How can we make the places we live in better for the people who live here, and how can we engage everyone in the process through which places are made and re-made?

Three speakers, with diverse perspectives, will explore what this means in their own practice, and how this can be creatively tapped into to initiate new models for art and regeneration in Haverfordwest.

Programme
10.00 Registration/coffee
10.20 Introduction and welcome Gordon Gibson, urban designer, Trilein
10.40 Julian Dobson Director Urban Pollinators
11.20 Coffee break
11.40 Rosie Hervey Architect – Studio Weave
12.20 Lunch
13.00 Prof. Paul Haywood Deputy Dean Middlesex University School of Art & Design
13.40 Panel Q & A
14.20 Group discussion: local perspectives 15.20 Tea break
15.40 Closing summary from the Chair
16.00 End

Speakers biographies

Julian Dobson is the author of How to Save Our Town Centres, published by Policy Press in 2015. He is a writer, speaker and commentator who focuses on how places can be better for everyone.

He is director of the research and policy consultancy Urban Pollinators (www.urbanpollinators.co.uk ). He was co-founder and for 12 years was editorial director of New Start, the UK’s magazine for regeneration practitioners, and previously edited Inside Housing, Britain’s national publication for social housing professionals.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a board member of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies and an external adviser to Sheffield University’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Professor Paul Haywood is the Deputy Dean of the School of Art and Design at Middlesex University where he has a Chair in Fine Art Practice. He holds an honorary Chair in Creative Community Engagement at the University of Salford.

Professor Haywood joined Middlesex University in September 2013 to take up the role of Deputy in support of the Dean, Professor Hilary Robinson. His main roles encompass the oversight of curriculum quality and development, the student experience, international partnerships, and business and community engagement.

Paul Haywood’s research activities are rooted in practice, focused on socially responsive cultural enterprise and processes of co-creation that prompt artistic outputs. Having started his career as an independent artist he has collaborated across many disciplines; producing projects in diverse contexts that have covered a full range of educational settings, social benefit and inclusion campaigns and both physical and social regeneration programmes. In recent years he has worked in the service of sustainable initiatives led by voluntary sector organisations and citizen networks, the most recent of which is a design collaboration seeking to develop the effectiveness of open mutual learning in active communities.

Rosie Hervey joined Studio Weave in 2013 after completing her Diploma thesis on the provision of inner city housing for the elderly.

Prior to joining Studio Weave, Rosie worked for the public realm consultancy Publica and for the Arcola Theatre on the development of their sustainability outreach programme.

At Studio Weave Rosie has worked on the regeneration scheme for 19 acres of Croydon public realm, working to develop and illustrate a ‘choose your own adventure story’ that was used to engage with local young people and communicate the public space strategy for Croydon.

Recently she has been working with a community in Ireland on a theatrical regeneration project with the aim of collectively re-imagining the local high street. Passionate about finding ways to involve people in the ‘making’ of their local area, Rosie enjoys finding innovative ways to involve the community in the construction stages of a project.

Founded in 2006, Studio Weave is an award-winning RIBA Chartered Architecture Practice based in London. They balance a joyful, open-minded approach with technical precision to create a diverse body of work in the UK and abroad. Valuing the idiosyncrasies, from the characteristics that make somewhere unique, to the particular skills of a master craftsperson, they aim to harness the strengths of a project and its team to create something distinctive and of exceptional quality.