Future of London CityBites

In our two-part podcast, we find out how a major heritage-led regeneration project in London is balancing community identity, housing viability and historic preservation.

In the second part of the series, Bhavna chairs a discussion about heritage lead regeneration with three key members of the Woolwich regeneration partnership:

In our two-part podcast, we take the Woolwich ferry to find out how a major regeneration project is balancing community identity, housing viability and historic preservation.

Woolwich is being transformed through the heritage-led regeneration of the high street and the historic Royal Arsenal site.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich has established a long-term investment partnership with Berkeley Homes to deliver housing, public realm and new cultural attractions to bring people to Woolwich.

To find out more about this landmark regeneration project, Future of London alumni Bhavna Brooker visited Woolwich to record a two-part podcast. In the first part, she is given guided tour of the area and people involved in the regeneration partnership who bring the story alive.

When the pandemic lockdown shut London's night-time economy overnight, the city became a ghost town. This highlighted starkly the importance of night-time economy to the city, making the Mayor's goal of a 24-hour city an important part of the post-pandemic recovery.

In this City Bites podcast, we hear from two urban practitioners who share their insights on the importance of the night-time economy to London's recovery and its long-term economic success. For a start, it's not just about pubs and clubs.

Laetitia Lucy is a social scientist working in the Integrated City Planning team at Arup with colleagues from economics, urban design, landscape architecture and planning disciplines.

Mark Inger is a senior policy officer working on night-time enterprise zones ay the Greater London Authority.

Bhavna Brooker, spatial planning programme lead at Transport for London, chaired the discussion.

In the first of our City of Tomorrow podcast series, sponsored by Montagu Evans, we consider whether tall residential buildings can be social sustainable. Debating a question that has bothered generations of urbanists are Frank Filskow of Make Architects and Claire Bennie of Municipal. Holding the ring in this podcast is Dr Chris Miele of property consultancy Montagu Evans.

Claire is a tall building sceptic, highlighting the difficulty of providing satisfactory play opportunities for young children and the high costs to families of living in tall buildings with higher maintenance charges.

Frank is more optimistic about the place for tall buildings, not least offering housing density where land is scare. Frank also argues that when done well tall buildings can offer opportunities for different types of households without young children who can realise the benefits.

However Frank and Claire agree that with anything above mid-rise, the embodied carbon involved in building upwards is very hard to justify.

About the speakers

Frank Filskow, Make Architects

Frank is a partner of Make, with offices in London, Hong Kong and Sydney. He joined Make in 2004 and is an architect with over 30 years of international experience. He has been involved in a wide range of masterplanning, healthcare, residential and office schemes, including the award-winning civic and residential quarter in East Greenwich.

Frank is an expert in large-scale workplace schemes and major residential buildings. He focuses on bringing together wellbeing and sustainability to create happier places for people to live and work as a community.

His projects have won numerous accolades, including the NLA Mayor’s Prize for the Chobham Manor Masterplan.

https://www.makearchitects.com/

Dr Chris Meile, Montagu Evans

Chris is a chartered town planner who specialises in all forms of sensitive land, with expertise in the historic environment (listed buildings, conservation areas, World Heritage Sites, Registered Parks, Scheduled Monuments) and related landscapes (such as AONBs).

He also specialises in the planning of tall developments and has promoted many projects successfully over the last 15 years, including townscape, visual impact work and the treatment of amenity issues such as loss of privacy.

He has worked extensively as an Expert Witness at planning inquiries, the Lands Tribunal, the High Court QB Division and Consistory Court.

Chris trained as an architectural historian and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

https://www.montagu-evans.co.uk/people/chris-miele/

Claire Bennie, Municipal

Claire founded London-based architects Municipal, which specialises in working with local authorities. She was previously development director of Peabody, with a remit of continuing the housing association’s history of enlightened commissioning of new housing.

During that time, she commissioned outstanding design teams and contractors who shared Peabody’s quality ambitions, delivering thousands of new homes across London for those on all incomes.

Claire trained practised for 10 years before switching to the commissioning side. She is a panel member of Design South East which undertakes design reviews for a number of Local Authorities.

https://www.wearemunicipal.co.uk/

Across the built environment sector, many organisations find that attracting new talent can be a major challenge. The sector also needs to prioritise diversity to ensure it reflects the places and people it serves.

Future of London’s Emerging Talent Programme is working to attract talented individuals from ethnically minority backgrounds to work in the built environment sector, and support them to springboard their careers.

In this episode, three members of our first cohort share their experiences of their work placements and the wider development experiences after six months after starting. Tune in to hear about why Precious Oppong-Gyimah, Safaa Usmani and Israel Aguirre decided to be part of the programme, and how they're finding the experience so far.

Each of the recruits are working in three different host organisations, gaining insight into different professional career paths, as well as developing their workplace skills. They've shared with us about how the programme is providing them with a unique opportunity to really learn about the different careers in the sector, as well as building their professional networks. 

At the time of the recording, Precious is on placement at Arup, Safaa with the Department of Levelling up, Housing and Communitie, and Israel is at London Borough of Camden.

How can working in the built environment make an impact on London's communities? What's it like to start a career in housing, planning or regeneration?

In our first interview with members of our inaugural Emerging Talent Programme cohort, Bébert Longi and Khuzaymah Pathan discuss why they applied for the programme, why this kind of project is important, and what they've learned so far with Candice Stanton.

At the time of recording, Bébert and Khuzaymah are on their first placements at Quod and Sanctuary Housing respectively.

About the Emerging Talent Programme

Launched in January 2022, this innovative programme aims to address the lack of ethnic diversity in the Built Environment sector in London.

We've recruited a talented cohort of candidates – all from ethnic minority backgrounds – keen to launch their careers in housing, regeneration, urban and economic development and infrastructure.

The cohort are on a 21-month programme, which consists of three placements into host organisations working across different sectors in the field. Following their induction at the end of January, the cohort are now all in their first placements across fourteen host organisations, including London borough council housing and regeneration teams, central government, regional government, housing associations and private sector developers and consultancies.

Find out more here.

Wonder why so many rooftops are still just dead space? Future of London grad and Pollard Thomas Edwards architect did (not least at his own building), so he came up with a tool owners and councils could use to quickly sort out whether beehives, solar, resident space or other uses could work. Find out more here or at https://bit.ly/2WK4CBU 

Sarah Hall is a Development Manager at Swan Housing and a graduate of Future London Leaders 25. Her Proposal for London was voted "favourite idea" - incorporating accessible tech into older people's housing for greater support, independence and sustainability. Check out this short interview and visit the Future of London webpage to watch her 5-minute online proposal and find resources for how technology can improve quality of life - if done well! 

https://www.futureoflondon.org.uk/2021/08/19/proposal-for-london-smart-homes-for-independent-living/

Future of London's Leading the way for cities is an alumni-led series of events, podcasts and blog posts that engage with city-makers in their aspirations for the future of our cities, drawing on their collective experience, ideas, resilience and leadership as we emerge from the pandemic.

The series seeks to re-appraise the status quo, bring fresh thinking to tricky issues, and help us to challenge ourselves on ways to be more ambitious for our cities, through our work.

In this episode Inner Circle Consulting's Managing Consultant and Alumni Rep Katie Randall speaks with Adam Cossey, Partner and Civic, Community & Culture Sector Lead at Hawkins\Brown, about how councils are transforming their civic centres to create new mixed-use spaces for the community. 

Find out more about the alumni-led series, Leading the way for cities, and the CityBites podcast at futureoflondon.org.uk

Future of London's Leading the way for cities is an alumni-led series of events, podcasts and blog posts that engage with city-makers in their aspirations for the future of our cities, drawing on their collective experience, ideas, resilience and leadership as we emerge from the pandemic.

The series seeks to re-appraise the status quo, bring fresh thinking to tricky issues, and help us to challenge ourselves on ways to be more ambitious for our cities, through our work.

In this episode LB Sutton Programme Manager and Alumni Rep Mandar Puranik speaks with Arthur Kay, chair of the £100m Key Worker Homes Fund and Founder and CEO of Skyroom - an award-winning technology and urban development company which delivers precision-manufactured homes in the airspace above existing buildings.

Find out more about the alumni-led series, Leading the way for cities, and the CityBites podcast at futureoflondon.org.uk