Spaces for Creation: Greening the City
Event Information
Description
Spaces for Creation : Greening The City
Part of a series of conversations about urbanism and cultural space
Join Prof. Nigel Dunnett and Anna Webster of Interrobang architects for a discussion about the role of urban greening and integration of horticulture in public spaces in mental health and well-being.
Spaces for Creation is supported by Arts Council England.
Anna Webster is part of Interrobang, a London-based transdisciplinary architecture and engineering practice founded in 2015 within Webb Yates Engineers. "At Interrobang we believe that a person’s discipline defines the expertise they bring to a project, not the restrictive zone within which they can operate. Much of contemporary practice involves battling extensive, often conflicting constraints. To create meaningful intervention in our built environment therefore requires a collaborative and, critically, adventurous attitude to problem solving. Too often architects are divested of any power to innovate in the face of impenetrable engineering imperatives, and somehow at the same time, engineers are relegated to ‘making it work’. This debilitates architects, undervalues the innovation clever engineering can bring to a project, and squanders a host of potential designs. Interrobang rejects this bunk by colluding with and engaging engineers’ visionary, divergent thinking in every project from start to finish."
Prof. Nigel Dunnett is Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield, and is one of the world’s leading voices on innovative approaches to planting design. He is a plantsman, designer and pioneer of the new ecological approach to planting gardens and public spaces. His previous work includes planting design for the Queen Elizabeth London Olympic Park, a new planting scheme for the Barbican Centre and Sheffield Grey to Green inner-city planting scheme.
