Urban Design Compendium
14 February Cowcross Street

David Walton of Llewelyn-Davies and Robert Thorne of Alan Baxter's office presented aspects of the Compendium published by English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation in August last year. The next stage is to arrange a series of seminars throughout the country together with an exhibition and a CD-ROM as a means of disseminationg the objectives.

The Compendium followed on from the DETR/CABE "By Design" which tended to provide more of a definitive, non-prescriptive document on urban design and a cultural context, whereas the compendium aimed to indicate the process through which an urban design approach could be achieved. David Walton stressed that the delivery of urban design quality should be an integral part of social and economic policy - urban design must be seen as far more than just a physical solution.

He illustrated work in Devonport where the community is firmly involved in turning round a dysfunctional area severed from the city with nothing joined together. An Edinburgh scheme showed the context of intrinsic assets onto which a new urban form was grafted. He felt that the UK had the best policy framework but the worst practise but one doubts if the first statement is really correct - in urban design terms - and isn't it much to do with cultural barriers? Both speakers emphasised the need for streets for people - not just roads. Robert Thorne outlined four objectives of movement systems:

• the need to integrate the new with the existing

• to provide choice of movement

• to create a relationship between built place and movement

• to consider alternative ways to provide parking. He emphasised the need for buildings to define places through which pedestrians moved and where the roads could be threaded through the space.

He illustrated development at Bishop's Stortford which appears to follow this objective but was damned for the setback of the housing and in particular for the standard kerb detail. This was taken up in the discussion - is the solution better local design guidance - or better informed clients - or awards or wooden spoons for designs? We need enlightened clients, as Span were years ago, but there are few who want to adopt the whole urban design message and are not required to do so by the local authority.

The Compendium was intended for various audiences - internally for the sponsors, externally in funding of schemes - but it was clearly felt engineers and local authorities still needed to be persuaded. Perhaps the UDG should be doing more in this direction. #

John Billingham