Urban Design Week: Manchester debate

For Urban Design Week Taylor Young will be organizing two coffee shop debates, one in Liverpool and the other in Manchester. It will involve three speakers at each event discussing thoughts on a particular subject. Refreshments and snacks will be provided.

Thursday 20th September Drip Coffee Shop Fourways House, 57 Hilton St, Manchester, M1 2EJ 6-8:30pm

Question for debate: ‘Money for nothing but your conscience is free’: High rise living getting you down!

Efficient planning and design is now about ever increasing densities and the layering of uses within the townscape. This has seen a renaissance of the apartment or flat within our urban areas but is this creating high quality sustainable neighbourhoods? In some cases they are high priced, low specification living solutions which do not respond to the family ideal. Are they right in every circumstance and location ranging from the city core to the suburb?

With resources increasingly tight in land and materials, buildings are a more permanent reminder of today’s fashion. Is the building industry as fickle as the fashion industry – will apartments be ‘old hat’ in ten years like fondue parties and shoulder pads?