Reshaped

Our speakers in Reshaped are bursting with ideas to fix what's wrong about the way we live, starkly revealed by the pandemic. It kicked down the door to the future and we see clearly what we must do to have more equitable, enjoyable lives. Our survival instincts have been roused. We can use that energy to save the planet, create the homes and places we need, invent new ways of working, shopping and enjoying ourselves. The best lever we have to make those changes happen is the built environment. 

The difference between Ireland's post-war provision of social housing and today is stark. Especially when compared to that of other EU countries. Equally stark is the need for a rethink in housing policy. Investment in Irish social housing needs to be kept within the system and not allowed to drain away into the private sector. Or future generations will once again have to replace it. The hole in Ireland's social housing bucket needs fixing, argues Professor Michelle Norris. 

Pandemics, disasters, recessions tend not to re-set things, but they do amplify pre-existing trends. This is what Peter Bishop, a leading planning academic, predicts will happen. Tech will keep driving globalisation as economic activity is separated from geography. We will return to cities, but some workers may be forced to work in isolation. We will 'recalibrate' how we use cities, but they are robust enough to assimilate changes. Maybe in future we'll value quality over quantity rather more. 

Who is Dublin designed for? A question that needs answering, with up to 70% fewer people venturing into the centre in Lockdown. The plight of the homeless and inequalities in housing and access to amenity were laid bare. The absence of cars however was 'quite wonderful' says Suzanne O'Connell. Can the centre be redesigned with more people living there, for whom new intimate spaces could be created and greater priority given to pedestrians? Dubliners need a conversation that reveals the answers.

Irish people are less conservative than their politicians who need to catch up with this shift, argues Gary Gannon. Public opinion recently forced changes to abortion laws for example. The pandemic has revealed a desire for the state to create new homes, because the market isn't providing, while poorer citizens have borne the brunt of Covid in cramped conditions. And people want more priority over cars, especially in Dublin. The Republic needs more 'morally viable' policies, he suggests.

The next RIBA President thinks mooted changes to the planning system offer opportunities for architects and that the system needs to be simpler, less exclusive and less expensive. Covid has usefully accelerated the carbon agenda, increased flexible working, and made us want more space at home; all things that need fresh design solutions. Architects will also have to meet challenges arising from Grenfell; not least how they maintain the integrity of their designs and how buildings are procured.

The pandemic has shown we can survive without commuting to shops or offices. It has revealed we can redistribute economic opportunity using technology. We can restore the pride and purpose of towns all over the UK. An opportunity local politicians, employers and property owners should seize now technology has aligned the business and social case for keeping towns vibrant. We must build tight-knit communities with amenities we can walk to, because that way happiness lies, Peter Freeman argues.

Dubliners made the most of 'empty road time' during the pandemic, walking and cycling while working from home. More problematic was the 'exodus' of residents from the centre for greener pastures. Dublin's historic housing stock struggles to meet today's needs, argues Jude Byrne, and a shift in policy to increase Dublin's supply of affordable land on which to develop new homes to buy and to rent would enable more of the city's workers to put down roots and sustain the city's famous streets.

Our planning system is supposed to be an arbiter of competing interests. But when it comes to people's perceptions, they feel excluded and mistrust it. Perhaps that is because it takes decisions on people's behalf but often not in their perceived interests, Daisy suggests. The pandemic has pushed planning online disadvantaging many. Yet planning remains 'a good thing'. We need to restore trust in it by engaging people earlier, she argues, with 'big public conservations' about our most important issues.

Machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are combining in the '4th Industrial Revolution' to generate unalterable, ubiquitous data that will transform buildings and the built environment into 'devices' to help us live better lives and tackle pandemics. Centralised 'Cloud' databases are being replaced by self-repairing, locally-based 'Edge Computing' to make our digital future more sustainable. 'The way we navigate the world' is changing radically, argues Abel Maciel.

The idea of the '15-minute neighbourhood' is very popular. But, Professor Paul Chatteron argues, it requires a fundamental shift in how we plan our towns and cities strategically, not just locally. Especially how we link neighbourhoods together and avoid the inequalities of 'gentrification' and car dominance. Covid has 'supercharged' the sustainability agenda, he thinks, and offers the opportunity to embed the 'net zero carbon' and socially-just placemaking principles we all now aspire to.

Urban Splash's tie-up with Japanese house-builder Seksui, and Homes England, has introduced a major new 'disruptor' to the UK's housing market. Technology has always driven architecture argues Tom Bloxham, yet Britain's housebuilders have preferred traditional methods and styles. By improving the efficiency of production lines and components in the factory, Urban Splash intends to change the way we build and, in the process, make better homes and places.

Covid has highlighted the housing crisis in Berlin and cities everywhere. It is caused by what Michael LaFond calls 'commodification' of housing, resulting in gentrification and rising prices which exclude people. Berlin's co-housing movement has built homes and places that offer greater social cohesion and address directly issues such as equality of opportunity, economic need and climate change. There is a growing political imperative to support such alternatives to market-made housing.

We still struggle to get the basics right when we build homes and places, thinks Mary Parsons. Yet Garden City principles still hold good, especially after Covid has forced us all to think harder about where we live, where we work, and how we use towns and cities. Planners, designers, builders and developers need to think even harder about quality and less about quantity, she argues. Which means understanding what people really need and avoiding our recent tendency to build-in obsolescence.

Suresh Singh trained as a carpenter before studying architecture at the Polytechnic of Central London and the Bartlett. He talks about the 'architectural spirit' that resides in 'the accidental beauty of the everyday' - an interest his Sikh father inspired in him as they witnessed the streets of London's East End change around them over the last 60 years. 'It's not just about steel and glass' he argues, 'it's about the interaction of people'.

We need to harness 'tech to measure how ecological issues created by our built environment are interconnected and can be better managed, so we can influence what we do about them. Pooran Desai advises projects around the world on ways they can help meet the One Planet Living principles he pioneered 20 years ago - otherwise we will continue to contribute to what he calls the 'sixth mass extinction' of species.

Nicola Bacon's consultancy Social Life seeks and finds the 'social glue' that sticks communities together and advises government, third sector agencies and developers on how to tackle inequality and disadvantage working with those communities. She argues for profound changes in the way the built environment industries work before we demolish and 'regenerate'.

Stories is one of a new breed of property developers seeking to ensure the benefits of development are spread more widely among the community using better ways of engaging with people and politicians, to win support and find better solutions for projects, but also because that will help drive long-term value. Investors too, he finds, are also increasingly keen on longer-lasting solutions.

Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz of Newham, the first female directly elected mayor of a London borough, believes people must be involved in decision-making to improve the design of both the built environment and the way local authorities provide services. Finding 'hard to hear' voices and giving them a say is a powerful tool in improving opportunity and reducing inequality she argues. Her approach could herald a change in the way we organise society to tackle challenges highlighted by 2020.