ROB COWAN, Director, Urban Design Skills
Eighty-four per cent of Masterplans are Completely Useless
Date/Time: 5th November 2009, 17:30
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A RECORDING OF THE LECTURE
Any planner who refused to provide a drawing could not be planning in any meaningful way, according to Thomas Sharp. ‘Either they have the plans worked out or they’ve got a nonsensical document,’ he thundered. Seventy years later it seems that his message has finally got through. Today everyone is busy masterplanning, but the output of nonsense is undiminished. Rob Cowan sounds the alarm and offers a solution for architects, planners and urban designers.
Rob Cowan is a Director of Urban Design Skills. A member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a former special advisor to the House of Common ODPM Committee. He is editor of Context and author of (among other publications) The Dictionary of Urbanism, The Connected City and The Cities Design Forgot. He is without doubt Britain's most experienced urban design trainer.