Hazel Rounding of shedkm reflects on the second gathering of the Public Realm panel, embracing the pillars of Collective Responsibility, Providing Clarity and Building Trust.

Through the second gathering of the Public Realm panel, we embraced the pillars of Collective Responsibility, Providing Clarity and Building Trust via our three established sub-groups of Climate Resilience, Safety + Security and Social Justice.

 

The Climate Resilience group addressed the fundamental question of how we bring nature in and effectively re-wind our cities.  Biodiversity gains can in turn help the ‘green not grey’ approach of responding to increases in global temperatures through green canopy balance for user comfort.

 

The comfort of users became the common thread of our debate with the Safety + Security sub-group leading us through examples of a ‘walk home’ via the high street, crowded spaces and gated parks.  A review of road safety in the public realm and pedestrian priority routes were presented alongside the debate of how to declutter the public realm with simple, cheap and effective installations. Generally, the group were fearful of a collective response and the idea that rule books stifle design and our ability to create a ‘proportionate response’.

 

The Social Justice sub-group provided some thought-provoking questions regarding places for all generations and genders and how we create a sense of place with identity and pride.  Ultimately how do we maintain the vibrancy of meanwhile use, marry social and commercial values, yet make the public realm more fun?

 

Collectively all three sub-groups led to the same question of how do we raise the quality of the public realm and improve such for the individual user.  We debated how a “health Londoner’ pin-wheel could be created as a measuring tool in creating a policy which aims at creating an acceptable standard for the health and well-being of the individual user.  By the establishment of 10 KPIs, are we able to develop a tool which would allow scoring at various stages of the design, delivery, use and maintenance of a place?  Could this embrace community scoring in the pre-application process to enable ‘impact’ through access to the design team/developer along with ‘justice’ for the people the public realm is ultimately intended for.

 

Our first thoughts on the measurables of this sunburst pinwheel were established through the offerings of each group and we now look forward to testing this on a pilot scheme and through further assessment!