The programme was delivered in two phases. Phase One built on an original concept developed by Muf Architects, London. It brought together participants from the 3 locations - Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth. The ideas behind Places from spaces were introduced through a series of workshops and foreign visits. At the same time the training content for Phase Two was created in collaboration with the Universities in the three locations.
Phase 1 (Sept '07 - July '08)
Project Partnership and Programme Development - Autumn 2007
Initial meetings were held between the Architecture Centres with local authorities and universities to identify participants and delivery partners and to develop a work plan, programme and schedule.
Workshops - Spring 2008
To begin with, the project offered a series of 1 day workshops, one in each city to look at issues around urban design and in particular, the nature and quality of public space and what makes a good place.
The workshops offered an opportunity to engage with experts in the field of public space and urban design from London, New York and Helsinki into the cities to bring a different perspective and enable discussion of the issues of importance to each city. Participants from all three cities were invited to all three workshops.
Study Trips Summer 2008
The study visits to Porto and Copenhagen each ran over three days and enabled participants to compare and contrast the nature and use of public space in their own coastal cities with a southern and northern European coastal city. Each trip was designed to offer an overview of the planning and development of public space, including presentations from academics, city planners and architects and visits to a wide variety of buildings and places in each city. The study visits also offered an opportunity for the University partners to get to know the local authority participants and a useful networking opportunity for the participants from the three UK cities.
In each case we employed the assistance of a native of each of the cities, currently based in the UK, to assist with developing contacts, provide local knowledge and language support during the trip.
Phase 2 (Sep '08 - Sep '09)
Seminar Programmes - Autumn 2008
Following the study visits, a series of 3 half day seminars was devised and delivered by the university partners to further investigate the nature of quality places and the role of temporary interventions as a method of consultation and testing possibilities for change. Each group of city council participants identified a space in their city that was in need of change, formed part of long term plans for development and had resources identified for long term change. The seminars began the process of thinking about the implementation of a practical project and developing a brief for architecture students in each of the three cities to investigate the place and propose a temporary intervention that would explore some possibilities for change in the space.
Temporary Transformations - Development, Winter 2008/Spring 2009 - Implementation, Summer 2009
A competition was held among each student group to identify a temporary transformation to take forward in each city. The city council participants were involved in development of the brief, critical input to the design process, refining student proposals and the final selection of proposals for implementation. Students then worked with a local architect project manager and the city council to develop and implement their proposals. The temporary transformations took place in each city during Summer 2009.
