The Architecture of Place: Planning for Rapid Urbanisation, with Ben Bolgar, Haja Halimah Lukay, and Peter Oborn

By 天美传媒

February 2, 2021

The 天美传媒, , and the are pleased to announce a collaborative series of high-level online talks on ‘The Architecture of Place’.

Perhaps now more than ever before, we are all aware of the built environment that surrounds us, and of the impacts it has on the health of individuals, communities, and the planet. The Architecture of Place series brings together the established and emerging voices working to create a better built future. You can find more information on the full series here.

This program, originally held on November 24, 2020, focused on issues of rapid urbanisation. The world’s urban population is projected to almost double over the next fifty years, and if current settlements trends persist, this would mean a tripling of the urban land mass. Half of that growth is projected in secondary cities and across Commonwealth Countries, with much of it likely to be unplanned.

The program began with a presentation by Peter Oborn from the Commonwealth Association of Architects, who has just published a survey of the professions – a critical piece of research exposing how areas of the world that are growing most rapidly often lack any professional built environment resource. Ben Bolgar from the Prince’s Foundation then presented a new mayor’s toolkit designed to assist with planning for rapid urbanisation in places where professional planning resources are scarce. Ben was followed by Haja Halimah Lukay from Bo City Council, Sierra Leone, who talked about her experience of using the mayor’s toolkit in Bo (where the urban populations is projected to triple in 20 years) and how she and her team have managed to implement the first phase of development control, ‘planning and planting’, within 7 months of starting the process.

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