REGISTRATION OPEN: MESA Symposium, 25th June 2019

REGISTRATION OPEN: The Missing Map: Mapping social impacts

To register please email: n.m.eames@reading.ac.uk

Research Symposium, Tuesday 25th June 2019, School of Architecture University of Reading, UK 

With keynote talks by Nishat Awan (Goldsmiths University of London) and Professor Doina Petrescu (Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée and University of Sheffield), this Newton funded symposium will explore methodologies for the spatial mapping of social value, for example connection, community, memory, identity and empowerment. Contributions are invited from researchers both practitioner and academic with an interest in making social impact more visible and therefore more valuable.  Maps are often thought to be benign and neutral representations of the world. But as James Corner observes through the ‘selection, omission, isolation, distance and codification’ of maps, they have the capacity to be, ‘strategic, constitutive and inventive’. Moves towards open and freely available mapping, such as Open Street Map and Google Earth, alongside advances in technology, mean that more and more people carry maps in their pocket as they go about their daily activities in the city. Previously, high resolution satellite imagery and geolocating technology would have been the preserve of the military, however, today it is ubiquitous. With the rise of smart phones and sensors people can easily gather, produce and navigate city data. This raises questions, not only with regard to what mapping can reveal about the city, but also about what remains hidden.   In order to explore sociocultural concerns in context, mapping may provide visual and/or participatory ways of exploring alternate perspectives. By taking into consideration the stories behind these maps, previously unrecorded narratives can richly complement our understandings of where and how we live.  To encourage debate, intimacy and networking across disciplines and sectors numbers will be restricted. There will be no registration fee. The symposium is part of Mapping Eco Social Assets (MESA)(https://research.reading.ac.uk/urban-living/projects/mesa/) a two year Newton Funded collaborative project between the Schools of Architecture at the University of Reading and Santo Tomas in Manila in the Philippines.

ABOUT THE NEWTON FUND 

The Newton Fund builds research and innovation partnerships with 17 active partner countries to support their economic development and social welfare, and to develop their research and innovation capacity for long-term sustainable growth. It has a total UK Government investment of £735 million up until 2021, with matched resources from the partner countries. 

The Newton Fund is managed by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and delivered through seven UK delivery partners, which includes UK Research and Innovation (comprising the seven research councils and Innovate UK), the UK Academies, the British Council and the Met Office. 

For further information visit the Newton Fund website (www.newtonfund.ac.uk) and follow via Twitter: @NewtonFund.

MESA Blog – The Value of Civic Participation and Institutional Partnerships

The Value of Civic Participation and Institutional Partnerships

by Noel Cruz

PHOTO: From Left: Ar. Leah Dela Rosa (Newton UST Team Lead),
Ar. Rodolfo Ventura (Dean of UST College of Architecture) and Mayor Dan Fernandez (Mayor of Santa Rosa City)

From my personal experiences of working for the MESA project and talking with local residents from the City of Santa Rosa, I have witnessed firsthand how local participation is of great importance in addressing the real and urgent needs and aspirations of a society.

 

PHOTO: Some of the community representatives

The concept of civic participation is said to be closely linked with the concept of democracy. Although the concept of democracy is not new, in the Philippine context, it is only in recent decades that “bottom-up” approaches to development, which incorporate local opinion in decision-making, have become popular. After six months of working with some of the local residents of the City of Santa Rosa, we came to reap the first fruits of our collaboration with them during the first Local Advisory Council meeting on January 7, 2019. It was attended by 14 local representatives from the different barangays of Santa Rosa, as well local professional counterparts, the local planning office and the Newton research teams of the University of Santo Tomas and the University of Reading. Highlights of the meeting were the presentations of milestones achieved during the research and the personal sharing of all the local representatives. It is heart-warming to hear some of them say how the Newton research has become a venue for them to become more knowledgeable of their society, making them feel empowered and more engaged. During their sharing, it is interesting to note how the various barangays with different ecological profiles share the same needs and aspirations. Two of the most common are the need for an ‘ecopark’(green space for recreation and relaxation) and a proper waste water management system that could hopefully reduce flooding. The meeting ended with the sharing of positive and hopeful insights from both the UST and UoR research delegations.

PHOTO: Group photo of LAC participants including 14 community representatives,
city planning representatives and the UST and UoR research teams

Overall, my experiences so far from this research has given me a deeper understanding of my responsibilities as a professional in assisting communities. It is humbling to learn of how third party institutions such as universities can help in bridging gaps between the government and the local communities in identifying and solving local issues as well as developing new strategies and policies that will promote a more livable and sustainable society.

MESA Blog – Barangay Aplaya, Santa Rosa City, Laguna

Barangay Aplaya, Santa Rosa City, Laguna

by Sylvia D. Clemente

I always ponder on the many contradictions of this small barangay located along the lake shore of Laguna Lake. The first time we visited it’s impossible not to see it as one of the poorer barangays in Santa Rosa as you are greeted by the very narrow streets and alleys, old bridges that cut across a number of silted esteros, dilapidated wooden houses, street hawkers peddling food, and children playing on the streets.  It’s a lively community with its public space full of life as people go about their day-to-day activities and the ubiquitous tricycles darting in and out of the main street.

The main street is the heart of the community and is where you get a glimpse of its character.  Churches of all denominations from Iglesia ni Cristo, Aglipayan Church, to Born Again, line up along this busy street.  The people are very religious, friendly to outsiders, are generally content and do not demand much from the government.  They live and co-exist peacefully regardless of religious denominations.  In a nation that is predominantly Roman Catholic (around 70% because of Spanish colonization), this small barangay appears to be an anomaly.

They are resourceful, hardworking, resilient, and self-reliant, no doubt. You can see sari-sari stores(convenience stores), talipapa(small wet markets selling fish, vegetables, and carinderia/home-cook food),  water stations (selling purified drinking water for lack of potable water with majority still using artesian wells), and ambulatory vendors with their makeshift pushcarts sellingkakanin/street food.  Some of the residents work abroad as domestic helpers to support their family back home; the young with limited schooling work in the factories in the light industrial park of Santa Rosa.  Others work in offices,  while some have their small businesses (formal and informal).  There are fewer and fewer fishermen now, so I am told, as Laguna Lake becomes less sustainable for fishing because of its environmental problems (siltation, illegal fishpens, pollution from industries, etc.).  I have personally witnessed the environmental degradation when I went around the Laguna Lake with a fisherman.

For now, the local government approved a PPP (public-private partnership) eco-tourism project to be built along the lakeshore which will reclaim and transform it into a mixed-use/recreational park.  The newly elected barangay president of the Bantay Lawa, a volunteer group of fishermen that police the Laguna Lake against illegal activities, is in favour of it as it will provide them with open/recreational space.  They reminisce about their childhood days when the lakeshore with its parola  used to be a place where people would stroll and rest at the end of the day.  It was a time when the lake was still clear and pristine with an abundance of fish and marine life.

 

 

 

Britain’s Housing Crisis: Designing Future Homes and Cities

Britain’s housing system is broken. Sky-high house prices mean buying a home is just a dream for many people, yet it is still considered an essential pursuit. Tenants are pushed into poverty or forced to move by rent rises, pulling families and communities apart. Young people see their life options constrained in a string of shared flats, or stuck at home with their parents.

So what’s the solution? In this lecture, architect Professor Flora Samuel will deliver her manifesto for a better housing future. She will show how designing better homes and cities is crucial to resolving the current crisis. Intelligent design of towns and cities can improve people’s health and happiness. Social homes must be built in growing numbers that are not only affordable, but enviable. The aim must be to improve the physical environment for the next generation, to help them tackle a growing list of social, political and economic challenges.

Flora Samuel is Professor of Architecture in the Built Environment at the University of Reading, and a Co-Investigator at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), for which she leads the ‘Place’ theme.

Wednesday 20 March 2019

G10 Palmer Building

19:30

https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/Events/about-public.aspx

Why Architects Matter

Flora Samuel is delivering a keynote at the All Ireland Research Group Conference at Dublin School of Architecture,  24 January 2019

Value of Architects project for ACE

Lorraine Farrelly is presenting our work on the Value of Architects to the Architects Council of Europe Assembly 23 November 2018 at Leeuwarden, Netherlands.