Last week brought the news that Police Scotland are undertaking an estate review which could result in the closure of 58 offices across Scotland. On the same day it was announced that the MoD will be closing 8 sites in Scotland over the next 16 years. There has already been strong reaction to the potential loss of local police presence in towns and even stronger reaction to the loss of sizable military communities and the impact that will have on local economies. Both announcements will have consequences in the built environment too.

Police Closures

Most of the police offices earmarked are small and centrally located in settlements and a number are former domestic dwellings that could easily revert back to original use. Some are already sharing space with community buildings, such as Kilmacolm, and a few are substantial stone built properties such as in Oban, Taynult and Lochgilphead. Blantyre Police Station is a fine local landmark on the Calder Street roundabout which may in fact merit listing like that at Larkhall, which is C-listed. Haddington and Leith Police Stations are the most significant historic assets that Police Scotland are considering for disposal.

Police Scotland are already in talks with East Lothian Council about co-locating with local authority staff in the recently vacated Sherriff Court which would leave the William Burn designed B-listed building on Court Street in need of a new use. Leith Police Station is the most significant office to be potentially disposed. Formerly the Leith Town Hall, it retains prison cells, courtroom, lavish staircase and Council Chamber decorated by Thomas Bonnar: spaces not easily altered without diminishing their architectural and historical significance. What new use could it be put to? The much larger Leith Custom House is already exploring community use; is there local capacity for more?

Of particular note within Police Scotland’s Estate Strategy 2015 is this principle:

Recycle the estate in the spirit of Community Empowerment; working with communities, voluntary and third sector organisations to enable property to be used by relevant groups; or transfer ownership to support local improvements, initiatives and social enterprises.

So while there may be concern over the provision of local policing, there is an opportunity to be taken by local initiatives which, according to their strategy document, Police Scotland should support.

MOD Closures

The closure of the MOD sites will come with greater consequences and therefore places even greater responsibility on the UK and Scottish governments to mitigate adverse impacts on the local communities, and heritage assets. The closures are staggered: Craigiehall Scottish Army HQ – 2018, Meadowforth Barracks & Forthside Stirling, Redford Cavalry & Infantry Barracks, MOD Caledonia – 2022, Fort George & Glencorse Barracks – 2032. These comprise 6 A-listed, 16 B-listed and 1 C-listed buildings, a scheduled monument and a designed landscape but even these figures are an underestimate as Fort George is far more than just one A-listed building but a group of buildings.

The closure of Craigiehall has been known for some time and is already proposed for housing development although not designated for housing within the Edinburgh Local Development Plan. The large country house dates from the late 17^th century and sits within an 18^thcentury landscape with a number of 20^thcentury additions that are not entirely sympathetic. Redford and Glencorsebarracks possibly are ideally situated to be redeveloped for residential purposes but both sites are large and some similar former institutional buildings remain vacant, even in Edinburgh’s overheating housing market. The management of Fort George is already shared with Historic Environment Scotland but the withdrawal of the MOD will place even greater pressure on their resources.

None of these buildings should be destined for the Buildings at Risk Register. With a long lead in time the national and local agencies along with local communities and communities of interest should already be exploring beneficial new uses.

These may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to asset disposal and we, the heritage sector, must be thinking stratgically about how to manage the quantity that public agencies may find surplus to their operational requirements. Is the answer to be found in community development? And what role should the private sector play? Answers on postcards please.

Do you belong to a small provincial town in Scotland?  What will the development of ‘City Regions’ on Scottish policy agenda mean for your home town?  Will City Regions mean more focus on the city and even less on the geographies surrounding it, which will get further left behind? Or are City Regions an opportunity to see a more integrated approach to economic development, hard and soft infrastructure and the connecting of people and place?

Whatever your views on the current policy landscape, at Carnegie UK Trust we believe that towns are critical to the future economic prosperity of the U.K., sustaining and revitalising what the Centre for Local Economic Strategies(CLES) recently called ‘good local society’. ‘Twin Towns UK’ is the latest of our series of Flourishing Towns initiatives which aims to take a fresh approach to the well-established ‘twinning’ concept, by pairing towns across the UK with similar characteristics or socio-economic challenges, to consider how to make positive change a reality in their communities.

Twin Towns UK will support – through finance and expert advice – up to 10 towns to trial bilateral ‘twinning’ arrangements over an 18 month period.  Applications are invited until 25 November 2016 from interested organisations that represent their town in some capacity, that know the challenges their town is facing and want to find solutions through collaboration.

With Carnegie UK support, twinned towns will work together to identify specific shared actions that address a challenge common to both places, receive joint socio-economic planning support and have access to additional small ‘catapult’ funds to start delivering entrepreneurial activity that makes change happen. We’re looking for applications led by voluntary non-statutory organisations which are committed to working in partnership across all sectors. Take a look at our straightforward application guidance and short application form and contact me at TwinTowns@carnegieuk.org to discuss your ideas.

Pauline Radcliffe

Project Manager

Twin Towns UK

From World Heritage Sites to ancient monuments, museums to historic battlefields, cultural traditions to our myths, stories, artefacts and legends, Scotland’s 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeologywill celebrate both our tangible and intangible heritage – our buildings, visitor attractions, archaeological sites as well as our diverse traditions and cultures.

Scotland’s Themed Years celebrate the very best of Scotland including its landscapes, people and personality. During each year, both locals and visitors to Scotland can enjoy a programme of events taking place throughout the year in celebration of the themes, as well as lots of opportunities to discover sides of Scotland they might never knew existed. They also deliver impact for Scotland too – encouraging the tourism industry and beyond to collaborate, attract new customers and generate benefits for the economy.

We already know that history and heritage are key motivators for visits to Scotland – it’s what defines the country for many visitors. For example, 32% of visitors cited ‘history and culture’ as a key motivator for their trip, second only to ‘The Scenery and Landscape’ (49%) Visitor Survey 2015.  For some particular markets, the attraction itself if particularly strong – 76% of Europeans visited castles / stately homes and 49% of long haul visitors are motivated to come and learn more about Scotland’s history / culture.

The overarching aim of the 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology is to spotlight, celebrate and promote Scotland’s rich and vibrant product and place, linked with the themes, but it’s also about engagement and participation.

Are you 2017 ready? 

5 top tips for getting involved with the year:

From the Scottish Borders to Orkney, and from Fife to the Isle of Skye, we want locals and visitors to relive Scotland’s fascinating past through a range of exciting events, attractions and activities during 2017

1. To help organisations, communities and businesses think about how they can get involved, we’ve recently launched our VisitScotland Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology toolkit. Packed with promotional wording, free to use imagery and the option the download the 2017 logo to use across channels – the toolkit is an ideal one-stop-shop to help businesses promote the year ahead – www.visitscotland.org/HHA2017.aspx
2. Why not help us spread the word across your digital channels? You can join the conversation using the dedicated hashtag #HHA2017
3. Do you have a public-facing event planned for 2017 that could benefit from being part of the 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology in-kind partner programme?  For more information visit www.eventscotland.org/funding/partner-programmes
4. Ancestral tourism is an important market in Scotland, with an estimated 50 million people worldwide claiming Scottish ancestry including the key long-haul markets of North America, Australia and New Zealand. The VisitScotland Ancestral Welcome Scheme is relevant for a wide range of businesses from visitor attractions to accommodation providers. The scheme is also open to professionals in the industry who provide family history or genealogy services. To find out more visit http://www.visitscotland.org/business_support/quality_assurance/welcome_schemes.asp
5. Use VisitScotland’s marketing resources – why not add a link from your website or other online marketing material to our dedicated section on the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology – www.visitscotland.com/HHA2017

2017 provides a great opportunity to invite people to come and explore our attractions, our people, our traditions and our distinct cultures but we can’t do it alone –  we’d love to hear how BEFS members are getting involved and helping make history with us!

Chelsea Charles

Communications Manager: Scotland’s Themed Years

VisitScotland Events Directorate

The economic competitiveness of our Cities and their Regions has never been more important, and in that description I include our ‘disaggregated cities’ of Ayrshire, the South of Scotland and our Islands, each of which display many of the economic characteristics of our urban centres, e.g. economic diversity, innovative vibrancy and an internationalism which puts the activities of many of our provincial towns in the shade.

Collectively, these diverse socio-economic geographies – the places in which we all live, work and play – are the bedrock of Scotland’s economy, providing the infrastructure, both hard and soft, for businesses to flourish and in which quality public services can be designed and delivered. The connections between people and their places are what gives our country its distinctive, definitive and increasingly diverse character, providing the basis for building economic growth and spreading prosperity.

Across Scotland, place is not just where we are, but also who we are.

Our surroundings shape us and tell the world about us, they provide a window into our relationships with each other and reflect how we treat one another too. The state of our places, both public and private, are an indication of the state and resilience of our socio-economic system. For example, whilst we have some spectacular natural scenery, and very creatively designed elements of our built environment, if we linger awhile and look around, we have an awful lot of unproductive place – both a symptom of, and a contributor to our Productivity Puzzle.

Whether it’s the decay and dereliction of our post-industrial landscape, which scars so many of Scotland’s provincial towns, or the forgotten neighbourhoods and sink peripheral housing estates of our cities these places are sad reflections of who we’ve become and an indicator of a dangerous lack of economic engagement for far too many of our population. As we consider a future with no, or limited, access to the EU labour market, we must use the coming together of economic and social policy levers at Holyrood, which have been the split responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government in London and the Scottish Government in Edinburgh throughout the post devolution period, to address this part of our Productivity Puzzle.

If, for example, we devolve responsibility for decision making to the City Region level, within a stronger, more integrated framework of economic and social policy, acting coherently and not diverging into the deep trough of despair of the ‘devolution divide’, (that vacuum for ideas and initiatives falling between the responsibilities of Holyrood and Westminster) can we finally start to tackle the dereliction and decay of our industrial past? Is it now possible, at the City Region level to reconnect people and place by driving local economic activity and therefore boosting national productivity?

SCDI is working to bring both governments together to share a common economic platform for growth and prosperity and ensure that by doing so, we don’t let communities fall between the constitutional cracks as power for economic growth transfers from Westminster to Holyrood. In so doing, we want to open up a debate on the productive use of place, both public and private, in our cities, towns and villages. As we embrace the emerging economy, and it’s likely characteristics of being both more mobile and agile, we’d welcome your thoughts, advice, support and above all engagement in this economic effort.

This blog was originally posted on LinkedIn here.

STBF is a group of forums across Scotland which aims to organise and deliver events which will raise the profile of traditional building skills and materials across all sections of population.

The origins of BEFS, or Built Environment Forum Scotland, represent an interesting and important moment in the evolution of what might be called ‘place-care’. That is a clumsy phrase, I know, that not many might really want to use, but it carries few of the associations that have only too frequently handcuffed our sector. Terms like ‘historic’, ‘built’ and ‘environment’, or the portmanteau-like combinations that we construct to echo our own more personal predilections, such as ‘historic environment’ and ‘built environment’, too easily may be more about defining the territory we want to occupy than resolving the issues we want to address.

Similarly, awareness of any prospective disjunction between formal title – built environment – and actual locus (everywhere, and when) was hugely important at the founding of an organisation like BEFS precisely because inclusion had to lie at its heart: many of the people helping to shape our places would not even recognise the BEFS agenda, never mind realise their relevance to its objects. The remit of the new link body of BEFS would have to encompass everyone’s place of work, play and rest, as well as the places they had yet to inhabit, or even experience. So, in naming BEFS, it was crucial not to alienate those players that its own members already found so difficult to engage with, crucial because BEFS was to be the most important mechanism its members could access to secure that wider engagement and, for many, the only one.

In summary, the naming of ‘Built Environment Forum Scotland’ was a challenge for all those involved, especially for those officers, such as myself, who were trying to capture the wide scope that the new organisation would need to encompass to deliver on its ambitions. We faced then the same critical question we recognise today: might the titular reference to the ‘Built Environment’ lead to the exclusion of those that did not necessarily see themselves as sitting within its broad tent, and so lead more to exclusion than inclusion.

Significantly, perhaps, at the time of the naming of BEFS, the decision to identify first with that which had been ‘built’ – rather than, for example, that which might be ‘historic’ – was made in part at least with our own historic circumstances in mind. A potential host organisation for our interests – Scottish Environment & Amenity Link or SEAL – existed before BEFS was formally established, though it focused largely on the natural environment. SEAL also then served as a network for some key historic environment interests, though its agenda inevitably was shaped by management strategies that reflected natural environment priorities.

After SEAL re-named itself as LINK, the organisation published a report in 2002 on the historic environment which centred on archaeological issues. That work galvanised an already burgeoning awareness of the need for a more holistic, cross-sector approach to place-related issues centred around cultural, amenity, urban and related considerations, including not least those of enhancement and improvement.  It soon became clear that the member interests of the ‘body to be known as BEFS’ could not be effectively served if operated simply as a kind of cultural thread within an equivalent body for the natural environment, like LINK. So the explicit reference to ‘built’ environment in the new body of BEFS might have indicated – consciously or otherwise – an easy but formal distinction from the ‘natural’ environment link body.

The other thread in this background to the titling of BEFS arose when BEFS’ earliest promoters made the case to secure core-funding from the then national heritage agency, Historic Scotland. We focussed on a simple but challenging approach: that having a title framing the ‘built’ environment would help ensure the most inclusive relevance to ‘place-care’ interests – including development and construction sectors.  These interests could then be more easily encompassed within Historic Scotland’s heritage agenda ‘without prejudice’ to wider objectives, and the heritage agenda discreetly subsumed with the kind of all-embracing remit needed to maximise both value for money, by funders, and success, for the sector.

Fortunately, Historic Scotland soon recognised that its own aims could be best achieved by supporting BEFS as a third party interest that explicitly focussed its operations far beyond any core departmental heritage remit. In adopting this strategy, Historic Scotland also undertook what some have seen as its most innovative conservation strategy to date.  It acted on a core truth that many parts of our sector still struggle with: the historic environment was not a ‘thing’ as such, any more than the built environment was a ‘thing’. Rather ‘historic’ and ‘built’, in these terms and titles, only indicated single, reduced perspectives on the infinitely more complex phenomenon of ‘place’, a phenomenon to which anyone can, and should, bring their own perspectives and visions.

Historic Scotland saw BEFS as a body that could respond to places that exist within a collective experience, not alternatively as cultural or natural, built or historic, perspectives that those who name them naturally take as their default. Those terms captured nothing more than more individual approaches, and any thought that the adoption of such terms conferred superior rights or authority on the ‘namer’ would miss the point: a body like BEFS had to engage directly with everyone involved in places, doing all it could to operate in support of others getting the right outcome for all.

So, through funding BEFS, Historic Scotland demonstrated its understanding that the best way to look after its own sectoral ‘historic environment’ perspective on an entity as complex as ‘place’ was to make sure that all of the perspectives on that place – social, residential, environmental, commercial, financial – would be encompassed, informed, shaped and even on occasion led within a wide, ‘place-care’ agenda. This strategy was shrewd, targeted and cost-effective all in one!

Historic Scotland could see that BEFS would engage most by valuing and understanding the breadth of interests and perspectives involved. It would achieve most by making sure that those same interests and perspectives were fully informed and engaged with all the matters relevant to their roles, including of course any heritage values.  And it would deliver most, for all of its members, by ensuring that those heritage values were properly embedded and proportionately represented across all the processes involved in shaping places.

BEFS’ earliest founders also reflected the full diversity of lead interests required to respond to this broad agenda, across heritage (such as AHSS and SCT); planning (RTPI) and development (RIAS), and the same breadth of interests that shape best practice in ‘place-care’ generally. That cross-disciplinary spectrum of ‘place-care’ interests also came to be represented in the IHBC’s model for conservation skills and processes, our Conservation Cycle (Chart 3), as both BEFS’ members and IHBC conservation embed heritage values as a constructive consideration (evaluation) within process of managing changing places through planning (management) and development (intervention).  This model characterises conservation as an iterative process that can be applied as good practice in any ‘place-care’ operation – conservation-driven or otherwise, though most memorably it aligns with World Bank environmental management processes – while capturing also the headline specialist practice areas represented by the originators of BEFS.

For BEFS today, as members continue to grow and learn from the lessons BEFS offers and the experiences it generates, the object must be to maintain the widest purview relevant to the core interests of BEFS’ members in ‘place-care’: challenging received ideas; batting back the urge to tick the proffered box, and leaping into the many spaces between BEFS’ own members so that it can bridge and span their work most effectively, and for all our benefit.

In those early meetings with Historic Scotland a key message was that investing in heritage care and advocacy through a conduit structured like BEFS would be not only uniquely appropriate but, to Scotland’s great and global credit, nothing less than visionary. BEFS today is no less unique, appropriate or visionary as, with a universality of membership underpinned by its holistic understanding of how, why and when places change, BEFS’ combination of embedded heritage awareness and structurally inclusive representation continues to capture the essence of what is needed for effective ‘place-care’.

I look forward to seeing more of that vision in action, in BEFS, in Scotland and, hopefully, beyond.

No pressure then Euan!

Currently there are just under 130 groups in Scotland affiliated to the Scottish Civic Trust.   Some are called civic trusts, others amenity societies or ‘friends of’ or heritage groups.  Their aims vary but most share a common purpose which is to care for, celebrate and champion their local village, town or city. Some have websites. Some don’t.  A few even have Twitter and Facebook accounts.  Many spend a lot of time commenting on planning applications and are battle-scarred from years of fighting inappropriate developments or loss and neglect of heritage assets.   A lot of the groups run programmes of talks and some of them publish heritage leaflets and magazines.

Most members of these societies tend to be older and, indeed, many are retired.  They offer lifetimes of experience and come from a wide range of backgrounds, some professional, some not.   They are, perhaps, not as representative of their larger communities as they would like to be.   Almost all struggle with the same issues – ageing membership, lack of voice, recruitment of new, younger members and a feeling of swimming against the tide.  With limited success and much frustration they make a stand against waves of inappropriate and ill-conceived development and gradual piecemeal erosion of what makes certain places special.

What drives them on is civic pride – pride in their area, responsibility for its upkeep and future and a determination to stand up for it when it is under threat.   Some might call them curmudgeonly while others will respect them for the voluntary work they do in promoting local heritage and encouraging better placemaking.  Their sense of civic duty harks back to an earlier time – the 1960s and ‘70s when civic society in the UK was at its most active.  Then, in response to the widespread destruction of much of the country’s historic fabric, delivered with fervour by modernist zealots from the architectural and planning professions, the Scottish Civic Trust was founded, followed by scores of civic and amenity societies across the country.  In a time when people lived in neighourhoods for much longer than today’s transient populations, sometimes a lifetime, there was a greater connectivity to one’s environment.  This cohesion, along with a campaigning spirit, imbued groups to challenge decisions made by planning authorities and city and town leaders and helped to grow the conservation movement as we know it today.

The challenge for these groups now is how to be relevant and effective in today’s fast moving world of multiple distractions, 24 hours news coverage, and the shifting sands of modern society.  They can sometimes appear analogue in a digital age but it is encouraging to see some of our groups engage with social media, recognising that having ‘followers’ might be as important as more members.

It would be easy to claim that the biggest threat to the future of civic society in the 21^st century is apathy but I don’t buy this.   People are interested in their built environment, local history and heritage.  If not, why else would over 70,000 people visit Doors Open Days buildings every September or how can Facebook sites such as ‘Lost Edinburgh’ have almost 136,000 followers?  Of course, it is far easier to click a ‘Like’ icon on a Facebook page than join a group, become a volunteer or comment on a planning application.   Perhaps the mind-set within local authorities needs to change to better reflect the concerns and aspirations of the public.   In the Scottish Civic Trust’s recent six-point action plan, produced in the run up to last May’s Scottish Parliament elections,  we argued for a strengthening of the role of communities in major planning applications, particularly at the pre-application stage as well as endorsement of the new Place Standard tool, applicable to new housing developments and existing neighbourhoods.   This resource, along with the Community Empowerment bill and the recent Review of the Scottish Planning System must lead to more people getting proactively involved in decisions affecting their local places and spaces.  If they don’t they will have failed.

So what is the future of civic pride in 21^st century Scotland?  I don’t believe there is a crisis yet but as Cliff Hague pointed out in the recent Scottish Civic Trust Annual Lecture, Civic Pride, Civic Identity, Civic Trust, “civic pride is most likely to be constructed when there is a strong sense of shared civic identity, enriched by stories that are told be governments that are civic champions”.   In other words, it is not good enough for our local heroes, civic champions and heritage angels to be drawn just from communities; our elected representatives, council leaders and officers need to demonstrate they too are committed to enhancing and celebrating Scotland cities, towns and villages and to putting civic responsibility before politics and profit.

John Pelan, Director, Scottish Civic Trust
21 June 2016

“Could you write a blog for us William?” “Yes”, I said. Then the realisation hit me, I’ve written blogs which have been kindly published on the Beith Trust website/social media.  However, this is different, the Built Environment Forum Scotland, that’s scary knowing that a wider audience will be reading and commenting on not only this blog but on the Beith Trust, so here goes.

Beith has a population of just under 7,000 and is situated on the border between North Ayrshire and Renfrew.  A town once famous for high quality cabinet makers, from 1745-1757 the Parish Minister was one John Witerspoon. Witerspoon was the only clergyman to sign the American Declaration of Independence on the 4^th of July 1776. And being the birthplace of Dr Henry Faulds, the first person to publish a detailed report on ‘the conception of fingerprints in criminal investigation’, in the scientific journal Nature in 1880, as well as founding the Tsukiji hospital in Tokyo in 1875.

Today, let’s be honest, you might see Beith or other towns in North Ayrshire on the TV weather map and wonder who or what they are. These hamlets, villages and towns in North Ayrshire and other areas are often overlooked, seen simply as a feeder or commuter towns; you live in these places but work and spend your money outside, never connecting/engaging or being an active participant in the community.

How, dear reader, do I know so much? Well, I grew up in North Ayrshire, went to school here, so have and continue to see the affects the aforementioned has/is having across the region.

Established in 2010, the Beith Community Development Trust (BCDT) has evolved into a community/social hub. In the beginning it was a combination of parents, young people and children who wished to take over the running of the local Astroturf pitch from the local council, which was achieved in 2012. The evolution from simply a sports group to community hub at the Beith Astro has taken a mixture of time, money, resources, good will and continued dedication. At the Astro today you have a soup group, a community garden, play scheme, street meet, employability sessions and opportunities for those eligible to undertake Duke of Edinburgh, to name but a few groups/classes.

From 2012 until November last year the Astro was the one and only base/Headquarter. However, in November of 2015 after 18 months the Trust was given the keys to the old Geilsland School. Geilsland, the former school given approval by the Scottish Education Department for building in 1963, for years lay empty, worse the longer the campus was left the more it became disconnected physically and in the minds of the community.

Sounds very negative doesn’t it; not exactly filling you with confidence about the future. Well, fear not, as our journey continues. Showing essentially a new campus for the 21^st century with connections to the past, the campus is currently undergoing its largest major refit, including remodelling and re-positioning. It’s the belief of the Beith Trust that that campus can/should become the ‘gateway to North Ayrshire’, an asset along with others in the region to entice residents and visitors to stop, reflect, linger, spending time and money locally on local produce, goods, recreation and amenities, reversing the Garnock Valley’s decline over the past thirty years.

Furthermore, the campus will continue to support the delivery of a range of opportunities, activities and initiatives, giving individuals the tools to enable themselves to learn, and develop as active, informed contributors within the community. This creates a circle in which wealth is created and retained locally in monetary, social, environmental and cultural measurements.

I end this blog with this: for any regeneration to work and be sustainable you need community engagement. You can’t just assume it will happen, you need to tell the community what you are, what services you provide and for them to take a positive outlook/view on what you are trying to do. Yes, you can show them with an all singing all dancing website or brochure but the real test is when they or their kids come and won’t stop talking about how much of a great time they had; that’s how you measure success. This also involves engaging with the community when the town has something positive to shout/whoop about, such as Beith Juniors reaching and winning their first Scottish Junior cup final. Or working with local businesses to improve the appearance and condition of your main street as is the case with Beith Main Street, embracing the towns past while not being defined by it.

It also involves highlighting the positive assets of an area. For too long only the negatives have been highlighted. True, everywhere has its issues, but that’s never been the full story.

William Morton, Administrative Assistant at Beith Trust.

To understand a building’s history is to understand its soul. People, events, even memories, all lend significance to a building, making it more than the sum of its materials. It doesn’t matter the scale, that soul means something to someone. It can reflect anything from one family’s story to key moments in a nation’s history.

The host of that soul, the outward facing facade in which lives are lived, tells its own story. The vernacular design of our buildings should express the history of where they are found as much as the stories of the people who lived there. Granite or brick, tiled or slated, cottage or tenement, buildings of the past visually form a critical part of a place’s identity today. Buildings form a communities’ sense of place.

I see a problem though as more and more new development appears in the landscape. It no longer seems to matter where you are in the country; the setting of the landscape, the vernacular heritage into which something new is built, has become irrelevant. Local identities have been replaced instead with a generic architecture that rarely inspires, or tells that local story.

Of course developer profit drives much of this approach, along with perhaps an unknowing indifference from buyers. I understand this, market forces are king, but there are ways to embed community identity from the start. A way to give a new building a starter soul as it were.

The vast majority of archaeology today is undertaken commercially as a result of requirements placed on developers in the planning process. Too often the effect is to view archaeology as either a constraint or a form of pollution to be dealt with. However, if approached imaginatively, the results of archaeology can be used positively. Archaeology is no longer an issue to be resolved, but rather a key urban design tool for every architect to embrace.

If we think of the historic environment from the start of the design process, all sorts of possibilities present themselves. Consider how products of the archaeological mitigation process link with stages of the development process:

Archaeological Desk-based Assessment and the Site Plan

What was the landscape used for in the past? Are there specific shapes to the parcels of land which echo those uses? How can these be incorporated into the overall layout?

What are the key historic landscape features that could be retained (buildings, field boundaries, routeways, local names etc.)?

What are the traditional materials used in the region? What are the traditional building shapes? Is there a particular architectural detail that can be reflected in the new building designs?

Did anything of historical interest happen on the site, whether it be local or of national importance? What traditional stories does the community know about the site? Could these events be used to inspire art or other public realm elements?

Archaeological Excavation and the Public Realm

What was found? Could it be used to inspire shapes or art within the development (pavement art, plant beds or allotments reflecting the footprint of buildings found on the site, artefacts that could be accessibly displayed etc.)? 

Are any of the discovered remains worthy of being kept? Could they be included in the greenspace? If so then what types of interpretation could be introduced (traditional information boards, digital reconstructions, graffiti murals, 3D printed models etc.)? Could they contribute as assets for bringing visitors into the area?Could reconstructions be used for play areas or community facilities?

Which new streets or buildings could be named after particular things that have been found under or next to them? Can names be used to connect the new development with the area’s past?

Archaeological Publication and the Community

How can the technical archaeological reports be made more accessible to the public? Can it be made into an information pack that is provided as standard to every new householder? Could the information be used in local school projects?

Could a community walking trail be established guiding people to where things were found? Could a community timeline be produced, showing the depth of their history?

All of these ideas are just the tip of the proverbial design iceberg. Like an iceberg the true potential lies hidden out of site, only revealed if we go looking for it. We can never be entirely certain what archaeological remains will be found on any given development. What we do know though is that they, along with the wider historic environment, offer an opportunity to add personality to something new.

It helps embed development into the landscape, giving it a continuity with the local vernacular. It gives development an immediate soul which people can fall in love with. After all, if you only build to the design that everyone else is using, you will only build what everyone else is building. Instead look to archaeology for inspiration, and give communities a real sense of place once more.

A recent Tweet of Jane Jacobs’ words: ‘A sense of place is built up, in the end, from many little things, some so small people take them for granted, and yet the lack of them takes the flavor out of the city’ went viral[1]. She gave a simple message loaded with observation and experience, appreciative of the rich, layered and evolving character of place.  Ian Nairn voiced the same concern advising against ‘the annihilation of the site, the steamrollering of all individuality of place to one uniform and mediocre pattern’. [2] Jacobs was inspired by him and drew from his writings.

The trail-blazing guidance of these two great critics from the 1950s, Nairn (1930-83) and Jacobs (1916-2006), has informed and inspired policy for successful place-making and urban design over the subsequent decades.  However, their wise words have not yet won-over the ‘movers and shakers’ who re-develop our towns and cities, those who too often persuade our councils of their higher claim.   Re-familiarising ourselves with the key messages of Nairn and Jacobs’ forces a view on how far we have come – or how much we are standing still.  It also provides a CPD par excellence.

Nairn’s perceptive words have caused many to draw breath. The master historian Nikolaus Pevsner bowed to Nairn’s eye for place-making, stating ‘Mr Nairn has a greater sensibility to landscape and townscape than I have, and he writes better than I could ever hope to write.’[3] In June 1955, at just 24 years of age, Nairn awakened a civic conscience in a special edition of the Architectural Review, the polemical ‘Outrage’. For the purpose of positive guidance on how to remedy the errors, he succeeded this with ‘Counter Attack’ published in the same magazine in December 1956, offering antidotes to the problems identified.

The particular aspect which seized Nairn and which he urged should inform contemporary planning and design was that of local and regional distinctiveness, achieved with unselfconsciousness and surprise: he urged avoidance of bland anonymity and sameness, advising that ‘there is only one real rule, that each place has its own nature, its genius loci’.   Yet how many modern housing developments have we seen which lack any reference to their location.  He loathed artificial beautification as much as he rejected the repetitive.

Jacobs believed in people making cities, that is people using cities and the urban form as a response to what makes us congregate and circulate. In an article published in Fortune Magazine in 1958, ‘Downtown are for People’, she explained:

‘No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at the boulevards of Paris, as the City Beautiful people did; and they can’t find it by looking at suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities.  You’ve got to get out and walk.

…the best way to plan for downtown is to see how people use it today; to look for its strengths and to exploit and reinforce them. There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.’[4]

Jacobs believed that variegated streets full of surprises were crucial to magnetic places.  They should ideally belong to a mix of periods.  The green agenda was not in currency in the fifties but still she saw the calibre and value of re-using much of the old. ‘Why is a good steak house usually in an old building?’ she asks, and invites us to:

‘Notice that when a new building goes up, the kind of ground-floor tenants it gets are usually the chain store and the chain restaurant. Lack of variety in age and overhead is an unavoidable defect in large new shopping centers and is one reason why even the most successful cannot incubate the unusual–a point overlooked by planners of downtown shopping-center projects.’[5]

Fifty years later, Jan Gehl repeated the truth of Jacobs findings.  Most of the architects of the new Copenhagen, he pointed out, live in the historic suburbs, not the new areas they have created.[6] In Cities for People (2010) he acknowledges his debt to her while providing new examples and guidance on successful urban place-making. He records that ‘Jane Jacobs was the first strong voice to call for a decisive shift in the way we build cities’.[7]

While the article ‘Downton is for People’ contains the essence of much of Jacobs findings, Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) provided more detail and developed her contribution.[8]

Not everyone has liked the passionate language with which Nairn and Jacobs conveyed the thinking – notably Tim Abrahams – but as ‘rhetoric with pound-signs’ is used by many of those re-designing our places, being armed with counter-intelligence is essential to make all players stop, think and analyse.[9] Balance is crucial, reasonableness and rationality require care. The informed and attention-grabbing analogies of Nairn’s writing or the hard truths voiced by Jacobs are both welcome. ‘Outrage’ and ‘Counter Attack’, ‘Downtown is for People’ and Death and Life of Great American Cities were, and remain, hugely influential. Matthias Wendt gives an update on Jacobs for the planning professionals:

‘Jacobs’ notions that planning practitioners should promote diversity in cities and be self-critical in achieving planning goals are highly relevant today. Death and Life is especially cherished by planning students and active planners. Jacobs provides hands-on examples and relates to common sense and everyday city life by using vivid language instead of writing in a code indecipherable by the average planning practitioner.’[10]

Rowan Moore, writing in The Guardian, has stressed that Nairn’s words are similarly as relevant as ever.[11] Sadly, he notes too that: ‘in wanting officialdom to feel as intensely about places as he did, Nairn was doomed to disappointment. But anyone who cares even slightly about their surroundings should be intensely grateful for his attempt.’

Nairn and Jacobs for CPD: Sample Sources

Nairn worked on around 30 films, notably Nairn’s North (1967) and Nairn’s Journeys (1978) and two TV series, Nairn at Large and Nairn’s Travels. A number of his programmes are currently available on BBC iPlayer, see www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Nairn%20Across%20Britain&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Ap01q1km2.

In addition to the watershed editions of Architectural Review discussed above, key influential monographs by him are Nairn’s  London  (1966) and Nairn’s Paris (1968).  Gillian Darley and David McKie’s have provided a short celebration of his life and work Ian Nairn: words in place, 2013 which is a valuable digest of his achievements.

Jane Jacobs’s article ‘Downtown is for People’ published in Fortune Magazine, 1958 is available at http://fortune.com/2011/09/18/downtown-is-for-people-fortune-classic-1958/.  

Various pdfs of her publication, The Death and Life in Great American Cities, can be found in a search online for the title, which is available at a moderate price though several book suppliers over the internet.  

Online Biographies of both writers are available through the Wikipedia.  A further biography of Jane Jacobs is at http://www.biography.com/people/jane-jacobs-9351679