Debate 2: Play / Space: innovation in the metropolis

[Francis]

News of the next Information Project event for Wed 28th May:

The Information Project Presents
Debate 2 in the series ‘What is Culture in the 21st Century?’
28 May at 7:30pm, Salvation Army Worship Hall, Westow Street, Upper Norwood


With proposals to redevelop Crystal Palace park, a group of local residents have started The Information Project to publicise the possibilities for the park and to help create a critical, intellectual debate about the identity of community, place, culture and design for the twenty-first century.

The group is organising a programme of debates featuring high profile architects, developers, planners, politicians and London based broadcasters, thinkers and writers. There are also plans to include local residents in a visioning exercise.

Continuing the theme of ‘who owns culture?’, the premise of this second session is to discuss and develop ideas of the outside in the urban setting. The vacant symbols of past occupation haunt the spaces of Crystal Palace park, and in those too there can be inspiration. The panel will reflect on the social and physical benefits of ‘play’ and ‘space’ with multi-generational use.

Questions to be asked and debated include: how do people interact with the park? what are the methods for engagement to provide a catalyst for sustained, safer use? Discussion will include practical aspects of design and management for facilitating an open learning resource, creating opportunity for play and keeping the sense of open, democratic space. Alternative trajectories for the park as a community benefit across all ages will also be considered.

The concept of the park can be used to reinforce community ties, and as Crystal Palace sits across five boroughs, the aspect of it being ‘on the edge’ of geopolitical borderlines provides an energy that makes it a special place. The panel will debate the question whether through stakeholder involvement, is it possible to mesh consensus with differences to maintain the rich urban vitality in the future?

Debate 2: Play / Space: innovation in the 21st century metropolis
28 May at 7:30pm, Salvation Army Worship Hall, Westow Street, Upper Norwood

Guest chair:
Katharine Heron, Professor of Architecture, University of Westminster

Panellists:
David Burchett, operations manager, Learning through Landscapes
Carlos Cortes, visual and movement artist whose practice involves public space and communities
Tim Gill, writer and consultant, Rethinking Childhood
Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, Co-Chair, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University
Ben Stringer, academic, trustee Oxford City Farm Project

For more information http://www.facebook.com/infodevelopment ... palacepark

[Tim Lund]

Hi Francis

How about joining in debate here?

Ye Cannae Ignore the Social Sciences

[Tim Lund]

This group gets a plug in the latest SydSoc newsletter, with an upcoming event 21st June

The Information Project

A Series of Debates:
I. What is Culture in the 21St Century?

With proposals to redevelop Crystal Palace Park, a group of local residents in the Upper Norwood area have started The Information Project to publicise the possibilities for the park and to help create a critical, intellectual debate about the identity of community, place, culture and design for the twenty-first century.

The group is organising a programme of debates featuring high profile architects, developers, planners, politicians and London-based broadcasters, thinkers and writers. There are also plans to include local residents in a "visioning exercise".

Noreen Meehan, Chair of the Crystal Palace Overground Festival, and one of the project organisers said: "Crystal Palace is an extraordinary place to live, with myriad aspects to its cultural heritage. The park has been the scene for many of these activities. The debates and events we are organising will draw thinkers and experts into a conversation about what the future should be for this enigmatic and beloved space and what culture actually means during our lifetime." Local architects Dagmar and Christopher Binsted are co-curators of the debates - both are members of RIBA and the South London Architects Society.

The next debate is scheduled for 21 June.

[leenewham]

After going to the Olympic Park at the weekend, which is amazing, a real testament to British design, it's so sad that the LDA plans for the park didn't go ahead.

Unfortunately a vocal minority cost the taxpayer lots of money, delaying the scheme and we now have this latest scheme to build something 'in the spirit of' the palace (which means 'nothing like it whatsoever') on the top site, which I'm 100% convinced is the wrong thing to do.

Sometimes you reap what you sow.