Edp Masterplanning

[Leysan Torri]

Wehelp clients produce inclusive and enjoyable places to live and work, that promote decarbonisation, protect and enhance ecology, and encourage active travel and public transport. Our expertise is underpinned by deep technical knowledge of interrelated infrastructure systems, from water and energy to transport and data.

In our work we also prioritise a role for nature, creating strategies that are not only environmentally-led, but also aim to restore and enhance natural ecosystems. This dimension of urban masterplanning has become critical as cities around the world attempt to implement natural solutions to rising temperatures.

Regeneration projects are often an opportunity to address longtanding needs in a community. Masterplanning must be informed by a rich socio-economic understanding of the past and present. We work with public and private sector clients to develop exemplar regeneration strategies.

Climate change is now a hugely important factor. Arup shapes waterfront masterplans that provide a foundation for urban renewal along rivers, harbours or coastlines, protecting communities and prioritising natural solutions over hard engineering to create long term resilience to increased flooding and sea levels.

Kam is a city strategist and planner and has worked in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore and the United States and project experiences from Taiwan and Vietnam covering strategic consulting, master planning, urban design, station-area development and sustainable development consulting.

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Great provinces and historic cities are often held up as prime examples of masterplanning, however current masterplanning practice is a relatively recent development. It faces a number of different challenges to historic masterplanning:

There is a developing consensus about how to approach masterplanning, but it has not yet become a standard process with common language, clearly understood objectives and known outcomes. The outline process described in this article is the result of an ongoing dialogue between an urban designer and an engineer; it aims to begin the process of establishing a shared language and framework for the process of masterplanning.

Although the application of the masterplan varies greatly depending on the scale of land under consideration and the nature of the change required, a number of basic principles are common to the process. These are expressed here as a series of questions which the masterplanning team should ask:

Sometimes clients may have carried out extensive consultation, options appraisals, business planning as well as traffic, land use and infrastructure surveys before commissioning a masterplanning exercise. Others clients may have done nothing beyond owning the land, and this tends to mean that their requirement is only pecuniary.

Historically in the UK, some strategic masterplans have been let down by the lack of a coherent and workable business case. It has been estimated that 95% of all masterplans fail to some extent because of a lack of business planning in undertaking the masterplan.

The business case should consider what might happen if nothing was done, as well as assessing the need for and likely consequences of change. It also needs to take on board issues beyond the boundaries of the masterplanning site such as:

People inhabit spaces and engage with their surroundings in complex ways which go beyond the purely physical and vary depending on age, sex, social class, race, religion, economic status and even general outlook. It is important therefore to understand the context of a masterplan in social and narrative terms as well as in relation to physical and economic outcomes.

For example, what would be the outcome if the language used to describe a place was changed? A powerful re-branding exercise kicked off Glasgow's move from being a low-status city to winner of European City of Culture. The narrative of a place can be assessed through carefully planned stakeholder engagement and a comprehensive consultation process.

Change to the fabric of the space can only begin once the narrative for the masterplan has been established. Changing how a place is described by users affects how they feel about it. If a narrative has not been established and endorsed by users, physical changes proposed by the masterplan may not be well received and may not produce the anticipated outcomes. When Ferguslie Park, near Glasgow was redeveloped in the 1990s, some local inhabitants rejected the changes and vandalised the new developments. The masterplanning process had failed to engage with their views and wishes.

The masterplanning process could be considered part of the teasing out of the key elements in the development of the first brief. By the time a masterplan has developed to a planning application, most key decisions have been made.

Up until that point, the purpose of the masterplanning process is to encourage creative thinking, to test out of how these ideas might work in practice; developing a robust logic to underpin the scheme:

The outcome might be a policy document, a planning application or construction. It is essential to continue consultation with all stakeholders during this process. The final outcome should embody the societal values that underpin it and should include economic, cultural and social values.

The scale of the challenges in urban design and masterplanning has vastly increased along with the rapid global trend towards greater urbanisation. Each increasing factor of population, energy consumption, transport needs, pollution and required prosperity must be taken into account on a scale not seen before. Aedas designs places across the world that respond to these challenges. We are creating successful contemporary urban environments, with planning for the future, that are sustainable in real terms by sharing our international knowledge and through rigorous analysis by our local teams.

The author's research was enabled by grants from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), the SfA (the Netherlands Architecture Fund), the Danish Embassy and support from the Alfred Herrhausen Society.

"Lucy Bullivant has completed and published in Masterplanning Futures a comprehensive outlook on some of the most relevant large scale developments in the world that are configuring a new understanding on the role of master plans." - Manu Fernandez, Human Scale Cities

"Set against the wider horizon appearing in the wake of the global economic crisis, this book presents a thoroughly researched argument for a reclaimed approach to masterplanning. A lively, discursive introduction charts how masterplans can no longer be singular, top-down prescriptions but must offer a collective vision and operate as a framework that can be adapted over time." - Juliet Bidgood, Issue 128, Autumn 2013, Urban Design

Our sustainable, vibrant places combine deliverable masterplanning and urban design solutions in collaboration with our in-house multidisciplinary teams. From detailed masterplans and site layout plans for small and large scale residential and commercial developments, to town regeneration projects and work on greenfield sites, we support a wide range of public and private sector projects.

At the heart of our masterplanning is a commitment to economic viability, deliverability, and environmental and social responsibility. We champion, sustainability, active travel, and healthy lifestyles to create inclusive, successful, and resilient places.

Masterplanning is a privilege, an opportunity to plant a flag in the ground for quality. It means getting under the skin of a place and working closely with communities. It means ensuring new infrastructure also results in better places to live, work and visit.

Everyone deserves to be in a place where they can be healthy and happy, where there are things to do at any age and close contact to nature, and where you are likely to bump into a neighbour. And most of us are lucky enough to know what a place like this feels like.

At LDA Design, masterplanning is a social endeavour. People are connected to place through landscape. If masterplanning is to succeed in its social purpose, it needs the power of synthesis that landscape brings.

A landscape-led approach to masterplanning creates specific kinds of value. It produces welcoming, civil spaces that draw on the history of a place. It best places us to work with local people to tackle some of the most pressing issues they face, addressing severance and lack of opportunity, as well as the causes of loneliness, obesity, poor air quality and anti-social behaviour.

What makes our approach to masterplanning distinctive is how we combine a creative, landscape-led approach to spatial planning with a sound strategy for the making of place, underpinned by well-grounded development economics. For us, landscape-led not only secures exceptional place quality but delivers land that can be serviced efficiently, released in tranches that amount to a sensible sequence of place making, minimises major grey infrastructure costs and maximises the value that can be reinvested in communities.

At Welborne in Hampshire, we are masterplanning one of the first of the new wave of 21st century garden communities to ensure it is an enterprising community, with workspaces, health hubs and community spaces.

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