‘The Resilient City’ will explore sustainable development with a focus on socially and environmentally responsible regenerative design, landscapes and architecture, and how places and placemaking can enrich society and elevate environments for the wellbeing of people.
Resilient Landscapes | Dan Pearson OBE FSGD HON FRIBA RDI
Tuesday 30th January 5.30-8pm Museum of Bath Architecture BA1 5NA
Dan Pearson is a British landscape designer, horticulturalist, gardener and writer. His work is characterised by an innate sensitivity to place, an intuitive and light-handed approach to design, bold and painterly naturalistic plantings and deep-rooted horticultural knowledge. Dan trained in horticulture at RHS Gardens’ Wisley, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He has been practising as a landscape and garden designer since 1987. Dan Pearson Studio works with engaged clients around the world on projects from small, urban courtyards to urban realm landscapes, from rural estates, public parks and resorts to therapeutic, healing and educational gardens. The common thread is a shared desire to create beautiful environments which bring people close to nature and experience. With every decision grounded in an acute sense of place and a deep understanding of how natural environments affect human emotions.
Dan’s talk will reflect on public projects and reveal their sensitive, robust, and responsive approaches to landscaping urban environments and the impact of planting on places, people and planet. With insight on how landscapes and gardens can be planted to become more nurturing and sustainable within a changing climate and through changing seasons.
Happier Housing | David Mikhail
Wednesday 31st January 5.30-8pm Museum of Bath Architecture BA1 5NA
David is a Founding Director of Architecture practice Mikhail Riches and has been responsible for the celebrated 2019 RIBA Stirling Prize winning social housing scheme Goldsmith Street for Norwich City Council, The Housing Supply Programme for The City of York and post graduate accommodation for Queens’ College Cambridge.
Before forming Mikhail Riches in 2014, David had already built a reputation building exemplary one-off homes with his practice David Mikhail Architects, (Hoxton House, East London House, Richmond House). With sister practice Riches Hawley Mikhail, he also helped deliver innovative and sustainable housing projects. (Clay Fields, Brentford Lock West). With Mikhail Riches, David is now realising his ambition of working with a team of talented practitioners to deliver environmentally and socially engaged places around the UK, on projects which aspire to very low CO2, both in use and during construction.
David’s talk will cover their work at Park Hill, a grade 2 listed brutalist housing scheme in Sheffield, the original ‘Streets in the Sky’, with 1000 homes within Europe’s largest listed building. How it has been successfully retrofitted to hugely improve its energy performance, whilst gently tweaking and enhancing its many assets to make a great a place to live and work. And Goldsmith Street in Norwich, using a low rise, medium density street-based approach, combined with the latest building technologies to deliver super low energy bills for its residents (often in fuel poverty) with walkable streets, secure ginnels and gardens for social cohesion and healthier lifestyles.
Resilient Architecture | Alex Ely MA(RCA) RIBA RTPI
Wednesday 7th February 5.30-8pm Museum of Bath Architecture BA1 5NA
Alex Ely is Founding Director of Mæ, a London based architecture and urban design studio. The studio has established an international reputation for sustainable architecture and urbanism and specifically for the design of innovative housing and social infrastructure. Alex leads Mæ’s design direction; the quality of which has been recognized in numerous awards including the RIBA Stirling Prize 2023 and Stirling Prize shortlisting in 2022. Alex also advises government and the Mayor of London on urban and planning policy promoting an agenda of design excellence. He has recently published ‘Towards a Resilient Architecture’, a book that explores how we can design more inclusive and environmentally conscientious buildings and places.
Alex’s talk will set out the polemical of his recent book ‘Towards a Resilient Architecture’, which considers how we can create sustainable designs which promote social equity, whilst working within our planet’s limits. Using key examples of built and unbuilt projects by the practice, the discussion will explore the interconnected social, sustainable, and spatial principles that underpin the design of more inclusive and environmentally conscientious buildings and places.