FBE Manchester: Homes, Community & Placemaking

Over the last twelve months Covid-19 has seen many of us spending more time at home and within our local communities. For some this has been a positive experience, for others not so much.

The pandemic, alongside the government’s recently published Living with Beauty report, has shone a light on the value of good residential design and placemaking. Considered design of homes and neighbourhoods can have significant health & wellbeing effects at both the individual and collective level and set a positive benchmark for future developments to come.

With the support of our event partners, Winkworth Sherwood, FBE Manchester will be exploring these themes with four guest speakers, all of whom have a wealth of proven experience in the delivery of distinctive, engaging neighbourhoods where residents feel part of something bigger than their own front door.

Pete Swift, founder & managing director, Planit-IE

Pete’s card and qualifications say he’s a landscape architect, but he practices more as an urban designer – choosing to work at scale, on projects that take time, patience and resilience. He is acutely aware of the civic duty to the places we work and their citizens, and through growing the practice to the size it is today, Pete is focussed on nurturing that same respect and responsible approach to the design, delivery and stewardship of the public realm, across a team of over 70 individuals.

For the last 10 years, Pete has sat on design review panels across the North West and South Yorkshire and judged numerous design competitions, seeing this as further privilege to apply those skills acquired in growing and shaping both Planit and our projects for wider benefit.

Pete will be our guest event chair hosting the audience Q&A following presentations from our speakers. Pete can be found @peteswiftysan

Cany Ash, founder/partner, Ash Sakula

Ash Sakula designed the award-winning Malings in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle and Tibby’s Triangle in Southwold. They are currently helping to deliver a new quarter of 500 homes and a linear park in Hackney Wick, London.

Ash Sakula are champions of site specificity and working closely with the local economy at the earliest design stages. They always think, see and feel with the eyes of people already living in the future place in question.

Cany is an experienced co-designer, leading design workshops with young people and many community groups. Cany has also served on the RIBA Awards Group, as a CABE Enabler, a Client Design Advisor and a Civic Trust Awards Assessor.

She is an external examiner at Cambridge University and a member of the South-East Design Review Panel.

Cany will be the first of our guest speakers and can be found @cany_ash

Neil Murphy, founding director, Town

With a career history taking in central government policymaking, city and regional planning, and urban regeneration and growth at many scales, Neil has a wide perspective on urbanism and development.

He is particularly interested in how planning and design influences social and economic outcomes, and a strong believer in widening public understanding of the built environment.

Neil holds an honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Oxford. He is a Visiting Fellow within the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, an academician of the Academy of Urbanism, and a Fellow of the RSA.

Neil will be our second guest speaker and can be found @NeilMurphy1978

Craig White, chief executive, Agile Homes

Craig combines a number of roles as a designer, developer and entrepreneur to help deliver sustainable outcomes in the built environment. Establishing Agile Homes as a start-up in 2019, the Agile team has developed a uniquely different form of development, that delivers an immediate, simple & cost-effective solution to help fix the housing crisis and meet the challenge of the climate emergency.

Agile delivers safe, civil, high-quality, low carbon and affordable homes for people in housing need.

Building on experience in cohousing and community-led housing, Craig will show how affordable homes can be delivered on land hidden in plain sight.

Craig will be our final guest speaker and can be found @TweetEco and @Agile_Homes (https://agile.property)

This event is sponsored by Winckworth Sherwood.

Book on the FBE website