Transport and Infrastructure design webinar

Sue Morgan

Director
Around the Block Ltd

Mary Creagh

CEO
Living Streets

Judith Sykes

Director
Expedition

Anthony Dewar

Professional Head Buildings and Architecture
Network Rail

Peter Elliott

Head of Property Development
Places for London

Peter Hendy

Chair
Network Rail

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The Design Council and NLA present a panel event to discuss the value of design in public transport infrastructure.

Transport infrastructures and stations are much more than transport nodes. These places are central part of cities, places where people meet, work, spend their time and do shopping. London is experiencing substantial regeneration activity that gravitates around new stations or infrastructure, with entire parts of the city being transformed around those projects.

This webinar, chaired by Design Council, heard about case studies and the value of good design.

PROGRAMME

00:00 Welcome from Chair

Sue Morgan, Acting Joint Chief Executive, Design Council

Sue begins the Webinar by introducing the panelists and providing background on Design Council, which was originally set up by Churchill's government to aid post-war recovery, now they aim to make life better through design. They have set design standards and principles for organisations for rail road which is important in the context of this conversation.

Panel discussion

05:27 Mary Creagh, CEO, Living Streets

Mary introduces Living Streets, conceived to lobby and campaign for the right of pedestrians to be seen, acknowledged and be kept safe. They focus on the humans, making them the centre of the City, ensuring the voices of children and old people are met. This means design has to be constructed around the desired lines for social inclusion, while thinking about how motorised traffic influences everyday life.

09:45 Judith Sykes, Director, Expedition Engineering

Judith states that the progress comes when we adopt a pragmatic approach and focus on the outcomes, and recognises the need for 'design champions' to push for systemic change, and tackle the ongoing training and skills shortage, issues that have, along with placemaking, been accelerated by Covid-19.

15:39 Anthony Dewar, Professional Head Buildings and Architecture, Network Rail Property

Anthony says it is important to remember that infrastructure is there for people, and that Network Rail is trying to reflect this in their work. He scorns work of the past, suggesting they 'almost forgot their purpose' and is striving to 'design towards the future'.

18:57 Peter Elliott, Head of Property Development, TFL

Peter Elliott, considers design crucial on TFL's significant landholding, where it is trying to increase the capital’s housing stock with the creation of 10,000 homes, without negatively impacting the transport network. To do this they have bought in a design-quality team and have set up a design ethos for all to comply with, while recognising the idiosyncrasies in different locations.

23:21 Sir Peter Hendy, Chair, Network Rail

Sir Peter Hendy talks about his time at TFL, stating that it had a 'brilliant history of architecture' and how campaigns like 'every journey matters' pushed design to make peoples' experiences important. Peter discusses his time with Network Rail and his work with designers to change iconography, fonts, etc. to help return the railway to how people need it and make it easily recognisable.

31:55 Q&A

The Q&A session discussed some of the important issues in implementing design changes, such as, work-life balance, important of public spaces, government barriers and procurement reform.

57:29 End

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