It's argued that modern planners are fighting a losing battle to impose order on complex systems because they fail to understand what it is they are dealing with. Cities can be planned but only if we work with, rather than against, the complex systems of urban growth. This is something that was well understood in the past but was lost in the post-war planning reforms.

Human settlements are a mix of self-organisation and planning. There is a great deal of academic work seeking to apply complexity theory to cities, but little about how this interacts with the process of planning. If emergent structures are the result of the interplay of relatively simple rules and forces over time, what role does planning have in shaping those rules? From the medieval hill town to the mature cities of Europe the megacities of Asia: the struggle between the planned and the unplanned is universal.

This timely event will include two presentations by leading international experts focusing on the impact and imprint of cumulative change on the physical and social urban fabric.

Programme

16:00: Registration and Networking

16:30: Welcoming + Masterplanning: Why Bother?- Husam Al Waer

16:45: Climax City: Masterplanning and the Complexity of Urban Growth - David Rudlin

17:30: Making Massive Small Change: Ideas, tools and tactics to build the urban society we all want - Kelvin Campbell

18:15: Q&A- Chaired by Diarmaid Lawlor

18:45: Drink Receptions

David Rudlin is a director of URBED, Chair of the Academy of Urbanism and Honorary Professor at Manchester University. In 2014 he was the winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize and has recently published his third book Climax City written with Shruti Hemani and published by RIBA Publishing. He is chair of the Sheffield and Nottingham Design panels and writes a monthly column for Building Design Magazine. A planner by training he joined URBED in 1990 having previously worked for Manchester City Council where his focus was the redevelopment of Hulme. He has worked on major masterplanning projects across the UK including the award-winning New England Quarter in Brighton, Temple Quay in Bristol and Trent Basin in Nottingham. His previous books Building the 21st Century Home (1999 and 2009) and Urbanism (2016) were both published by Routledge.

Kelvin Campbell is a collaborative urbanist and avid writer. He is the chair of Smart Urbanism and the Massive Small Collective. After founding and leading Urban Initiatives­—a successful urban planning and design practice—for over two decades, he decided to step aside and take a different perspective on urbanism, something he is passionate about. Kelvin was lead author with Rob Cowan on By Design: Urban Design in the Planning System, the UK government’s policy guidance on good urbanism. Together they have collaborated on and published numerous books and polemics including, The Cities Design Forgot, The Connected City, The Councillor’s Guide to Urban Design, Start with the Park, Re:Urbanism: A Challenge to the Urban Summit, and The Radical Incrementalist. Kelvin is also the author of Massive Small: The Operating Programme for Smart Urbanism, which is the beta version of his latest book, Making Massive Small Change: Ideas, tools and tactics to build the urban society we want.