Solent Centre for Architecture + Design

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Design Training

New programme of workshops and study tours for 2010/11 to follow shortly

To register for a workshop or study tour, email: val@solentcentre.org.uk

24 Hours to Save ...... Winchester!

Friday 19th-Saturday 20th March

Designs for a Sustainable City

‘So, planners, architects, and engineers take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don’t hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us on this spaceship earth of ours.’

Climate change is the single most pressing issue that faces the planet today.

Architects, engineers, planners, artists and design students are well placed to be at the forefront of tackling this challenge not only at the level of single-built projects but also at the city scale. 24 hours to Save... is a design initiative being coordinated by the Solent Centre for Architecture + Design that encourages designers from all these disciplines to give their imaginations free reign and to seek solutions for a sustainable city by the year 2020.

Culminating in a 24 hour design event, 24 Hours to Save... is part competition, part workshop, part action debate, part exhibition, that aims to bring fresh thinking and challenging ideas into the public debate about how we will need to live in the city of the future if we are to redress the current pressure we place on ‘spaceship earth’.

Beginning at midday on the Friday, multi-disciplinary teams will be set the task of discussing, exploring, creating and ultimately presenting their ideas of the sustainable city at Midday on the Saturday to an open, public audience. At the start of the process a brief will be given to each team that focuses on different aspects of the sustainable city – from housing to urban layout, from transport to energy provision, from local food production to civic infrastructure. The teams will be asked to respond to each of these which will build up into a holistic design for the sustainable city.

During this 24 hour period, there will be lectures from specialists in the fields of urban design, sustainable architecture, emerging technologies, renewable energy, new governance, and community visioning that members of the teams can attend and feed resulting ideas into their presentations.

Alongside this it is hoped there will be an exhibition of local year 7 school-children’s ideas for the future - many of whose unconstrained thoughts will act as catalysts for the professionals’ responses. (*Children born in 2009 will be starting their secondary education in 2020).

The teams will work through the night, sustained with freetrade coffee and energy foods, and be ready to present their proposals the following day to the other teams and members of the public.

Invitations to participate will be sent to all architecture practices, engineering, practices, artists and students who work within the City’s postcode area along with specialists from planning, highways, and other relevant disciplines employed by the City Council. Teams can be formed by the practices themselves with ‘orphans’ being invited to join up with others on the day. Members can stay throughout the whole 24 hour period or run relay through the night. In order to take advantage of technology teams are free to employ some members within their own offices with the proviso that at least 3 members of the team are present at the workshop headquarters at any one time.

Members of the public will be able to attend at midday on the Saturday to view the teams' designs and listen to their presentations, after which there will be a vote for the best design.

If you wish to take part, please email: val@solentcentre.org.uk

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