To help promote the new National Design Guide, we are running a series of free webinars. Our webinars provide an overview of the National Design Guide, including demonstrations of best practice and reflection on the post-covid19 world. We also cover the opportunities and obstacles that the National Design Guide presents.

The sessions will be interactive, with the Panel using questions and comments from the audience to help shape the discussion. We will also be asking you, the audience to provide us and others with insight into how your practice is being influenced by national and global events.

The webinars will be helpful to Councillors, and practitioners in the public and private sector, and anyone interested in delivering high-quality, well-designed places. Our panellists have extensive careers in both public and private practice and will be sharing their experience and perspectives.

The sessions will be delivered by Creating Excellence, and Design Midlands who manage the Design South West Review Panel and Midlands Design Review Panel and design enabling services. As Design Network partners, Creating Excellence and Design Midlands are providing this support as part of a programme being delivered across England by the Design Network, supported by MHCLG.

Feedback will be collated after the events.

This webinar focuses on art and creativity in placemaking, the integration of transport, housing, employment, healthcare, green and blue infrastructure and education. How through using art in urban design and planning, we can respond to COVID and
the wider issues of delivering health and well being benefits to our communities.

Garry Hall, Urban Designer (Facilitator), Fiona Heron, Landscape Architect, Jo Fairfax, NESTA Fellow, Alison Davies, Architect

In this last session, the Panel discusses design issues around movement including walkable neighbourhoods and retrofitting or designing in at the outset sustainable transport options.

Garry Hall, Urban Designer (Facilitator), Tim Stonor Managing Director of Space Syntax, Juliet Bidgood architect/urban designer, Phil Jones Chartered Engineer

The National Design Guide (NDG) makes 45 references to ‘community' against five themes: resilience, facilities/services, cohesion, management and community-led development. The NDG focuses on ‘quality' but fails to fully address ‘process’. Conversations with the community need to start early to encourage involvement and participation.

To deliver high quality design a community needs support to facilitate conversations on design in planning, the role of architects and other design professionals is crucial.

To achieve social and environmental equity, we need an understanding of the 'social variables of place’; early site analysis helps to demonstrate how that can be measured.

COVID has made digital consultation more accessible. But, the fundamentals of good community engagement remain the same - manage expectations, identify hard to reach groups and be proactive in providing timely and consistent feedback.

Design Review Panels could be adapted to engage better with the community. Although confidentiality of schemes remains essential, there is scope to consider this process.

Design and Access Statements need to be strengthened, their use to explain how a scheme has evolved is useful, but generally they lack emphasis on wider issues of health, well-being and social inequality.

Annabel Keegan, Urban Designer (Facilitator), Chris Twomey, Architect (Design:Midlands Chair), Peter Neal, Landscape Architect, Laura Alvarez, Urban Design, Community Facilitator

The National Design Guide (NDG) explains the 10 characteristics of a well-designed place but falls short of really exploring streets, movement and connectivity, which are integral to character.

The NDG fails to address the processes needed to achieve high quality design and how it relates to delivery, including early community collaboration in planning stages. 

‘Context' plays an important role in defining character; emotional, physical and historical connections and activity within a place. Who are we building for? Is it well-connected? The NDG encourages the creation of, and not just the replication of context.

A vision is important in justifying a design approach. Using Design and Access Statements to explain that rationale is encouraged.

Design Codes offer a controlled approach to design, but do they have their limitations? Can they ensure character? 18th century Georgian town building depended on formal design codes; how does this compare to 21st century factory-made homes?
 
The post-COVID world is encouraging a rise in ‘critical consumers' of the public realm. Sticky streets (streets where people want to linger and enjoy their surroundings) are essential to this.
 
A landscape-led approach to character definition is not just about token tree planting – its more sophisticated, aligning with contextual analysis. Landscape needs to be considered at the outset, in conjunction with the street hierarchy.

Garry Hall, Urban Designer (Facilitator), Joe Holyoak, Architect (Design:Midlands Vice Chair), Fiona Heron, Landscape Architect 
Emily Walsh, Transport Engineer

In this first session, the Panel discusses design issues around climate. Good design must take into consideration the challenges of both adapting to and mitigating against climate change. We will cover topics such as the need to reduce travel and make travel more sustainable, energy efficiency within the construction sector, and the role of landscape and water management in the future of our places.

Garry Hall, Urban Designer (Facilitator), Prof. Peter Clegg, Architect (Design:SW Chair), Sarah Jones Morris, Landscape Architect, Doug King, Energy & Sustainability Consultant