PASW Regional Newsletter: Autumn 2004
Regional Network Meeting Report
Designs on our environment?
Establishing multi-disciplinary working for the public realm.
Bristol, 22nd April 2004
Maggie Bolt welcomed all to the meeting and said that it was a great pleasure to welcome Public Art Forum to the South West and to be collaborating on this event. She thanked Arup for generously hosting and supporting the event. She finished by saying that she hoped everyone would enjoy the day, the presentations and the debate and then handed over to Emma Larkinson, Director of Public Art Forum (PAF) to provide some context to the day's events. Emma introduced PAF and its work to promote excellence of practice. "Excellence", she said, "is supported by achieving a greater understanding of public art practice. Public art demands collaboration and negotiation and it should be embedded into our aspirations for the built environment and our aspirations for a better public life. The debate today therefore", she went on, "is of crucial importance to achieving those aspirations". She concluded by thanking the speakers and then handed over to the meeting's Chair, Andrew Kelly, to introduce the speakers.
Network Meeting, Bristol, April 2004
Andrew introduced Philip Singleton, City Design Advisor for Birmingham City Council. Philip started by talking about his background as an architect working entirely in the private sector and then as Director of the Architecture Centre for the West Midlands region, MADE. He said that he would talk about the context of working in the city of Birmingham, the operational mode and aspirations of his team and then look at some of the static public art installations that exist in the city.
Birmingham, he said, over the last 15 or 20 years has undergone a renaissance, with huge regeneration particularly in the city core, centred on planning-led regeneration. This approach to planning is essential because there is a huge amount of private sector partnership required to actually make these developments function. The meeting was then shown a diagram illustrating the structure of the planning department and showing the external relationships on a local, national, regional and international level.
Philip went on to talk about how important it was for his team to have an impact on how places are recreated - to impact on the thinking and the vision of the project promoters before they even select a design team therefore enabling them to achieve a better design vision. He spoke about their mission statement, about being at the heart of the planning service, trying to drive out mediocrity and looking for excellence in future developments. He talked about the qualifications of the team and their regular work such as the Design Review Panel. Birmingham sees 8,000 planning applications per annum at the moment, a number that, Philip said, is rising. About 60% of these are large projects, so in those cases, developers come with their transport engineers, landscape people and other advisers on their team. The Design Review Panel's role is to reflect the team on their side of the table in order to ensure the quality of the scheme. They strive to understand the commercial imperatives but the developer equally needs to understand the Design Review Panel's expectations and vision for the place that is being created.
Philip went on to talk about development frameworks and supplementary planning guidance and documents such as 'Places for All' which is about places and spaces, 'High Places', which is the tall building policy and ëPlaces for Living', which is about residential development. These documents, he said, are very importantly objective driven, not numerically driven. There is a very broad urban design strategy for the city which was invested in a long time ago but the world has actually moved on since then. For example, English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation that have created a document called ëThe Urban Design Compendium' and CABE produced 'By Design', which demonstrated good practice and visual examples of issues that need to be addressed. In terms of further supplementary planning guidance, future initiatives include 'Lighting Places' and 'Art Places', looking at what a city can do in terms of the objectives around public art, how it is commissioned, the process for commissioning, its execution and decommissioning strategy.
Philip talked about the Eastside development, a huge regeneration quarter of the city, which will see £8bn-£10bn worth of building work over the next 10 years and how he sees public art offering a huge opportunity to make the place coherent and legible in terms of its function. Here there is a drafts arts vision in place and funding is being sought for an arts ambassador on the ground. Localisation is a huge agenda in Birmingham with substantial devolution going on from the centre out into the neighbourhoods. Sustainability is a big word with lots of different meanings. Philip said he was currently trying to map out where Birmingham was at the moment at a skills level and politically, seeing what the national agenda was and linking that back to the built environment's perspective.
He went on to talk about education, training and learning and about how diversity is a huge issue for Birmingham.
In the final section of his presentation, Philip showed the meeting slides of public art in Birmingham, the work commissioned for Brindley Place, Victoria Square, The Bullring and Centenary Square. "Creativity in place making", he said, "is a lot of what this is about, and it is about the fusion of skills which make this kind of place". He talked about how this work and the spaces in which they sit are maintained and the pressure this puts on the city if these areas are not private sector maintained. To end, Philip talked about some of the challenges and problems facing the city, issues around the longevity, and the sustainability and maintenance of artworks.
Andrew thanked Philip for his presentation before introducing artist, Nayan Kulkarni. Nayan started by talking about his background and how, right from the beginning of his first year at Birmingham School of Art he had been interested in ideas of site specificity. However, since graduating, he said he had become increasingly concerned with how his practice works with people and places. Presently his time is divided evenly between lecturing at Sheffield Hallam University, an autonomous studio based practice and working with projects that involve sites, communities and professionals from other disciplines. He went on to state some simple and important concepts that underpin his work. The process is project and site specific, with the way of working and the outcome being specific to the site, project and team:
- Site: the street that he stands on, the masterplan for the whole regeneration scheme. In addition to this the team becomes the site of thinking.
- Collaboration: it is important to remember that it is sometimes possible that the sum of a project team can become more than the total of the parts.
- Invitation: it is far easier to proceed in a multi-disciplinary team if it is you they want to work with, not simply the idea of an artist.
- Vision: this is to integrate the conception and realisation of socially and spiritually transformative art and design into the specific process of the site.
- Consultation: consultation and collaboration are processes in the work. They are both performative. In the consultation, it is the interaction and the tools of communication that are critical to success.
Nayan went on to talk about Piper Close Islington which is a small part of the Arsenal regeneration. The team are Project Manager Colette Bailey of Metal, Bconsultants, architect Andrew Siddall, and Nayan, working with the Islington Borough Council Regeneration Team, the Islington Planning Department and the Ring Cross residents. The scheme includes 250 new homes, some shared equity, some housing association, an office block and some new retail units. The space set out for their project is a kick about space, which has been used for many years by the young people of the Ringcross Estate. This apparently unloved space provided the first lesson of the site and what specificity means: what something appears to be and what it is and how it functions socially can be completely different things. However, the first plan for the street was rejected in consultation with Ringcross residents. The process had to be revised and that is where Colette Bailey from Metal, Andrew Siddall and Nayan were brought in. Whilst at present this space 'belongs' to Ringcross Estate, in two years time there will be many homes on the other side of the street, so the ownership issues of this space are critical. The team's brief was to develop a new proposal for the street design using an arts led consultative/collaborative design process and their vision was to develop a collaborative design from the inside out. Nayan talked about the difficulties of the consultation process, about what strategies you use to meet and work with 250 people, ranging from discussions in kitchens to more formal events such as a design open day at the community centre, and at the local primary school. This process reinforced ideas the team had brought and also gave them new ideas regarding the way the space could function.
Nayan talked about areas for consideration including security and lighting, how to generate some green without being able to use trees and how they found the process of creating models essential to enable people to see the space clearly. "Currently", he said, "the project is at stage C, trying to find out what can be afforded, attempting to establish the actual boundaries, the legal requirements, the S106 etc". He showed the meeting images of the proposed works along with images of proposals for the Bristol Broadmead Development, a retail led development in Bristol which is around £650m investment in the city. Here Nayan was commissioned to work with Chapman Turner Architects and get involved in the planning workshop process. Later in the project he became quite involved with Schlegs Bergerman and Partners, a German engineering company. Nayan finished by talking about his commission for Optima Community Association to work collaboratively with two other artists to develop notions of routes and gateways through the existing and new areas of regeneration in Birmingham. Andrew thanked Nayan for his presentation before the meeting broke for lunch.
After lunch, Andrew welcomed everyone back and went on to introduce Maggie Bolt, Director of Public Art South West. Maggie started her presentation by briefly talking about her background in advertising, working in the private gallery sector and then for the Scottish Arts Council prior to joining Public Art South West (PASW). She said what she wanted to talk about was how PASW promotes the area of multi-disciplinary working and to touch briefly on some current projects and future plans."Engaging artists", she said, "as 'visual engineers' is a central theme of our work and this is why we were so keen to arrange this event in collaboration with PAF, in order that the debate could be continued and widened".
PASW is a public art development agency, serving the south west of England , but the work extends beyond geographical boundaries in terms of the critical thinking and application of artists' skills and creativity it promotes. PASW work's with national and regional public and private sectors and actively networks with a range of professions within the areas of culture, design and architecture. The field of work covers advocacy, training, advice and resources and the pro-active approach in initiating projects and ways of working is underpinned by being able to offer financial support to a range of strategically important projects and regional partners. A key component of this service is www.publicartonline.org.uk, a unique website and international intellectual resource which provides a research based forum for debate.
Maggie talked about the belief that the integration of artists' creativity and skills in our built and natural environment creates benefits for communities, urban renaissance and business. When art becomes a recognised component of regeneration, it can encourage personal development, build confidence, skills, and social networks and encourage social cohesion and community empowerment. Quality of thought and implementation, in terms of design, results in imaginative and exciting places that are fit for purpose, reflect local identity, provide economic benefits and which meet respective communities needs, by engaging them in the cultural process. "PASW therefore", she said, "champions multidisciplinary working and promotes that arts and design professions should work together and recognise the mutual benefits this can bring, in terms of delivering high quality environments".
"However", she went on to say, "we also recognise that this way of working is a specialised area, and to quote from a paper PASW have just commissioned for the website on collaboration and what it means, by the artist David Patten, 'not every artist can do this sort of work'. There are issues about commodification, compromise and whether full integration results in such a blurring of the boundaries that the essence of what an artist is and brings becomes lost in a corporate sea. There is also growing evidence that the pool of artists wanting and willing to work in this way is getting smaller".
"So", she asked, "is this a direct reaction to the fact that the opportunities being offered to artists aren't the right ones? Does it mean that artists are turning their backs on projects, which require a team rather than an individual solution? Or is it the lack of opportunity to gain the necessary skills needed to work in this way and therefore more help is required in the form of training and skills development? But whatever the reason there is a need to continually assess who is responding to opportunities and why? Who is benefiting? And most importantly, are we moving forward in terms of creative solutions?"
Maggie then talked about the strategy for Architecture and the Built Environment in the South West which they have worked closely on with a range of partners including the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Civic Trust, the South West Regional Development Agency, English Heritage and Government Office South West. The outcome ëDesigning our Environment ñ towards a better built environment for the South West', has been published by Creating: Excellence, which, she said Dominic Murphy would be talking about later.
A key aspect of that work was the desire to make the integration of artists' skills mainstream within new developments. The following paragraph from this publication, sums up the partners aspirations in this regard:
'We champion an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to design in the environment. We believe it is time to stop thinking in narrow terms or dividing up the roles and responsibilities we have for creating the built environment. To promote a richer mix of talent, we need to encourage greater co-operation between planners, engineers, designer, surveyors, artists and other professionals. The process of creating new spaces and regenerating old ones demands teamwork. We should not miss the opportunity, for example, of including artists and other conceptualisers in design teams as a way of enriching this vision'.
"The challenge now", she said, "is to realise these aspirations within actual projects in the South West and make real this ësea change' in attitude they are looking for".
PASW has also recently commissioned a small and very focused piece of research on the role of artists in regeneration. Whilst this work is still ongoing, its early findings are re- affirming the belief that the lack of good communication and team briefing is one of the main barriers to the realisation of successful projects.
Another key project for PASW is a major new scheme they are running on behalf of CABE and A&B, which will run until the end of March 2006. The purpose of the scheme is to engage artists, public agencies and the private sector in a range of projects that will have a positive impact on the places in which we live. It will bring a new dimension to, and promote wider issues around, the development of a high quality built environment. It will do this by supporting artists to comment on or work within the design, planning and construction sectors in order to influence and create a shared vision for architecture, public space, planning and high quality urban design. Covering England , Northern Ireland , Scotland and Wales , the scheme will particularly focus on the areas of housing, education and health.
Maggie talked about how the emergence of Design South West, and the establishment of a Devon and Cornwall Design Action Programme Manager, funded by CABE and SWRDA, whose remit was to encourage design quality within local authorities, offered another big opportunity for promoting this way of working.
Maggie concluded by saying that the time had never been better for proposing new solutions and ways of working in order to achieve the goal of quality living environments which stimulate mentally as well as physically. "Central government planning guidance is now full of references to the need to achieve good design and local government is reviewing its role in light of the call for Design Champions and cohesive approaches to the public realm. Artists can make a significant contribution to this aspiration for quality. Our role is to encourage those responsible for the creation and regeneration of spaces to be creative commissioners and provide the opportunities for artists to do just that."
Andrew thanked Maggie and then invited Dominic Murphy, Development Manager, South West Regional Development Agency, to present to the meeting.
Dominic started by saying that he would be picking up on things already raised in the meeting and putting it in the South West context. "Creating Excellence", he said, "is the South West's version of the Centre of Excellence".
He went on to make a 'confession', saying that having worked in regeneration for some 20 years, he was somewhat distressed with the evidence that the Government had compiled since 2000; that we have not been doing a very good job and one of the reasons, or the evidence that we have for that, is that we are continually returning to the same neighbourhoods to do more or less the same work with the same communities, more or less on the same themes. Therefore, he said, there is fairly strong circumstantial evidence that this programme called ëregeneration' has not actually been hitting the spots that we wanted it to hit.
He said that he felt that this was in part due to a failure to invest in the people who have to deliver regeneration, to invest in their skills and knowledge. Hence the recognition of failure by Government could actually be a positive thing. After a quick trip through the history of regeneration, during which Dominic said that he felt the temptation was to over simplify what is actually a really complicated set of problems and that what was needed was a recognition of the sophistication and the complexity of what we are and that it is not a science, it is an art. "In fact, if anything was an art, regeneration was". The focus of the Centre therefore, is on practice. How they support the people who get paid and unpaid on the ground - the artists, the residents, and the children. To improve their own neighbourhoods and to gain the expertise and the skills and knowledge to make that regeneration sustainable. For Centres of Excellence, the three main areas of work are knowledge, about - what does and what does not work, in learning, in its widest sense and about networking - introducing people (who maybe do not traditionally talk to one another) to one another's agendas so that we can start to develop a much wider body of knowledge and wider understanding of our work.
Dominic then talked about the Egan Review and its recommendation that we have to start learning more together and sharing each others' thoughts and agendas. Dominic talked about skills and the acquisition of skills through experience and through learning. "We are not expecting everyone to be experts in everything", he said, but "what everybody needed was access to those experts".
Dominic talked about the Centres of Excellence not being great big gargantuan things "there is plenty of expertise out there already". What he wanted to do was to help these people to talk to one another and help them to get in touch with the people who need to benefit from them. The last thing they want to do, is to raise everybody's expectations above not just the regional but to the national aspirations, using national networking to share information across the regions and across cities. This is something they are promoting through a newly formed Excellence Network.
Dominic then outlined the basic elements of the organisation:
1. Design South West - which was called the Architecture, Planning and Built Environment model, where discussion focuses on the learning needs.
2. Regeneration South West Network: a way of being in touch with practitioners, through contacting all the networks.
3. Funding South West: one of the biggest issues for anybody who works in regeneration is "How are we going to pay for this?" Different funders have different rules and different application, monitoring and evaluation processes. This is about bringing together all of those funders in the South West to talk to one another about sharing good practice and about improving the way they do their work.
Dominic said that the publication Designing our Environment was about promoting the benefits of design, raising awareness and firing peoples imagination. Another thing they want to do was to build on some work that CABE have been doing nationally and with the Kent Architecture Centre in the South East of England and start to establish a design review panel. The aim being to recruit expertise right across the region on a 'call off' contract. This will include recruiting artists and youth workers, all sorts of people who have a view on the design process and then they will be able to use them to supplement local panels which will involve residents, and people who have a more local interest in particular schemes.
Creating:Excellence are already running some training events and seminars, most recently with the Architecture Centre in Bristol and building a website. Also with CABE, they plan to provide training for local authority elected members. There is a specific project that Mark Pearson from the Architecture Centre in Bristol is going to run, concentrating on Devon and Cornwall and which promotes the agenda laid out in Designing our Environment. It will act as a contact point for CABE, providing CABE with an ambassador in Devon and Cornwall , one of the major objectives of that, is to leave a legacy at the end. It is a two year programme, with the aim of creating a built environment or architecture centre.
Dominic finished by saying that he saw the core activity of the Centre being networking, with the job of bringing the diverse networks together and that once funding had been secured they would be recruiting some staff, with an official launch planned for the Autumn.
Andrew thanked Dominic for his presentation and then introduced a plenary session. An interesting session then took place with a number of issues being raised, including:
1. the problem of fewer artists wanting to work within this framework
2. what artists should/do expect from working with local authorities
3. how the role of artists is often not included or defined within current documents such as the Egan Review. Whilst their skillsare mentioned, they are not necessarily attributed to artists and as such their status is unclear
4. what art is, how it and the skills used are defined
After the discussion, Andrew drew the meeting to a close, thanking all the speakers for their contributions and Arup for their generous support in hosting the meeting.
Lisa Harty
Network Co-ordinator, on behalf of PASW