Gehl Architects talk part of London Festival of Architecture at
the Danish Embassy, London
Please see also later in this post the community campaign relating directly to this topic.
"Urban Planning. How to get from
vision to action"
Helle Søholt, Gehl Architects,
Founding Partner, CEO, Architect MAA
Tina Saaby, City Architect, City of
Copenhagen
Tuesday 10 June
After Work Talk: 6.00 – 8.00 pm at the Danish Embassy, Sloane Street, London SW1
Reflecting on the talk….. and how these issues affect
Leaving the talk tonight, I feel deflated and the prospect of
going home to pick up on unanswered emails and other related duties suddenly
feels tough..
Gehl architects and Copenhagen city architects presented what I
know so well and partly miss, having grown up in Scandinavia. All this, the
stuff they talked about, the positive projects and the seemingly polished
process is second nature in these places. From my past I carry with me notions
of unquestionable privileges I expect yet have to search for, fight for and
regularly explain in the city or place debate in my neighbourhood, here in
London. Culture, health- and well being, educational, recreational- and socio
economic aspects that I fully support, particularly the focus on the way cities
can be better places by introducing new methodologies in the process of
planning and building urban spaces. These planned, designed and built spaces
and places must also be maintained, monitored and preserved, updated yet
contained within their heritage and agency.
On paper and when listening to the presentations this evening - and
when I watched the Gehl Architects film The
Human Scale - I wonder how perfect these ideas are? I don't think the
presenters claim their ideas to be perfect, but to a London audience they
probably seem ike science fiction and intangible. Where I live, the area has
been placed on the English Heritage at-risk
register. Our neighbourhood has been neglected and forgotten about for so long.
Our neighbourhood, that should be a thriving architectural gem, has been left
to decay.
Between the lines of our everyday, there is anger and
frustration in the streets, the community that tries to find loopholes in the
planning and licensing legislations, find themselves banging their heads
against the wall of power and small print and quite frankly regulatory systems
that are inconclusive and difficult to fully grasp for them to be successfully used
in the favour of the community, which, ironically, many of the legislation and
acts were designed for. Our ongoing concern is the influx of betting shops in
our area - a big campaign is taking place by a small army of residents to
combat the betting shop giants - but the betting shop clustering that is
happening in our area is clearly a damaging process to the landscape of our
streets and urban realm. We feel helpless and hopeless. But the fight must go
on.
Still from The Human Scale film trailer/YouTube
I wonder how many people in the room [at the talk at the
embassy] are unhappy, desperate like we are in Wood Green, in having to waste
good community energy and spirit in fighting off betting offices, clustering in
our high streets and closer to home, in any possible and impossible space they
can take over, highjack for their non-inclusive and addictive businesses and
related activities.
My hand held high at the Q&A session after the talk, I
didn't get to ask my question or voice my concern this time. I came to this
city as a teenager, searching for Utopia from, what I then felt was the boredom
of the Swedish slow paced lifestyle and middle of the road attitudes.. I still
see many beautiful and interesting spaces and places here, but so much has been
taken away, ripped out and replaced by 'plastic' throw-away versions, for me
and my neighbours to have to walk past, visit and use, with feelings of
disappointment, resentment and betrayal towards the local government that due
to legislation made decisions resulting in these consequences.
This is not the first time I have seen injustice and lunacy in
decision making in our top down system - whether it is 'because of planning,
licensing or otherwise’.
One day soon I want to be able to walk past a building in my
immediate neighbourhood and think 'I
helped save that', 'We made it
possible because we fought, we researched, we telephoned we emailed, we begged
and borrowed - because we care!'.
There are rules and regulations. In George Orwell's '1984', I
recognise feelings, emotions and sheer fright and frustration from the people
at the bottom. The imbalance and injustice is here too in 2014..
Following on from the Awareness Event 1st July 2014 I was invited to talk on London Live the following morning, 2nd July 2014. Link to footage http://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/paddy-power-s-controversial-expansion-in-haringey
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