> Download event flyer here

This year the conference will take place at

Ayr Racecourse Event Centre

2 - 6 Whitletts Road
Ayr
KA8 0JE

The Welcome Dinner and overnight accomodation booked via the organisers will be at the hotel attached to the racecourse:

Western House Hotel

www.westernhousehotel.co.uk/

The purpose of the 2 day conference, which will take place this year at the Racecourse in Ayr, is to inform better practice on briefing to achieve better outcomes for places by design.

Some highlights of the programme include:
integration of current thinking on participation and collaboration, and user focused briefing, drawing on examples across Scotland, and lessons for wider practice from initiatives like www.learningtowns.org linking with current thinking on asset management in the public sector estate, including lessons learned from the 4th Annual Holyrood Conference on asset management in the public sector estatepresentations and workshops on the use of spatial scenarios as a means of developing place based briefs, facilitated by urban design and movement experts, Urban Initiatives. Using a spatial scenarios game method, Urban Initiatives enable participants to visualise the implications and trade offs of spatial choices at whole town, neighbourhood and street scales, in terms of criteria like environmental performance, sustainable movement, health and deliverability. This method forms part of the 'Sustainable Placemaking' programme jointly run by A+DS with SNH exploring practical methods of improviong plan making at a variety of scales in Scotland. presentations and masterclass on streets and blocks by the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. The Academy is a practice oriented learning institution, where all tutors work in practice and teach. The urbanism programme tests current issues and thinking in urban design. Two recent projects will inform the Symposium in Ayr, both of which are part of their 'patterns in urbanity' programme; the Streetworksproject which examined 6 city streets across Europe to derive principles of making better streets, and the recent masterclass on re-thinking the urban block.

Picture courtesy of Graven images