The 2022 International Making Cities Liveable Conference (IMCL) will take place in Paris between the 18th and 20th May. The theme is "Architecture and the Edges of Public Space: Tools and Strategies for a New Urban Agenda". John Burrell will be giving presentations to Plenary sessions and moderating a Break-out session, in his role as a member of the IMCL Board of Stewards.
John Burrell presenting at the 2018 Beijing Design Week, City for Tomorrow Conference
The IMCL and its partners will host the next conference in the ground-breaking series begun in 1985. The IMCL is a unique peer-to-peer gathering of civic leaders, professionals and scholars dedicated to transitioning to a more liveable, humane and ecological generation of cities, towns and suburbs. Once again, they will focus upon successful case studies and evidence-based research, sharing effective tools and strategies to drive real change.
This year’s topic is: “What is the role of architecture in supporting more active, more connective, more beautiful public spaces, promoting human and planetary health, well-being, and liveability? How can we move from objects to places? What are the tools and strategies that we will need?” The focus will be on the tools and strategies to build, protect and enhance thriving public spaces, and the adjacent private spaces and uses to support well-being, social interaction, quality of life, exercise, health, and economic opportunity, for ALL the residents of cities, towns and suburbs.
The Maison des Arts, the conference venue, located on the central square of Le Plessis-Robinson, Place Jane-Rhodes.
The Paris region will be a case study this year. The main venue for the conference is Le Plessis-Robinson - a remarkable exemplar of suburban retrofit and transformation from a monocultural dormitory suburb to a mixed, walkable community built on universal principles of urbanism and public space. The conference will feature in-depth case studies of the Paris area, including new efforts toward a “15-minute City,” challenges of affordability and displacement, post-COVID urban interventions, and many other emerging topics. Examples from Europe, the USA and other parts of the world will also be examined.
As a member of the Board of Stewards of the IMCL, John Burrell will be making contributions to the plenary sessions on his work on remediating ‘grey land’ sites in London to show how ‘development’ should always be seen as part of a ‘city building’ process that acknowledges the primacy of the public spaces that we all inhabit. He will also be presenting the BFF proposals for the UK’s first planned new ‘e-quarter’ neighbourhood, based on 15-minute city principles, on the former Salthouse Mills brownfield site in Barrow-in-Furness.
Consultation on emerging plans for the UK’s first planned new ‘e-quarter’ neighbourhood, based on 15-minute city principles, on the former Salthouse Mills brownfield site in Barrow-in-Furness.
John’s pioneering and longstanding research for the intensification and placemaking in ‘new urban centres in suburbia’ has been presented in Paris, Berlin, Florence, Beijing (2018 Design Week), London, Glasgow and Moscow. In 2017 he was presented with the IMCL Honor Award for Excellence in Designing Public Places for Community, Democratic Dialogue, Health & Equity at the IMCL Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. The award recognised John Burrell’s and BFF’s work with organisations such as SAVE Britain’s Heritage and The Spitalfields Trust in proposing alternative viable schemes for Smithfield Market (now to become the new Museum of London), and King’s College in the Strand and the Norton Folgate Area of Spitalfields. John was subsequently invited to join the IMCL Board of Stewards.
John will be moderating the Break-out session “Building 15-minute Neighbourhoods’” at the 2022 IMCL conference, which will include presentations by
Frederick Biehle, Professor at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, USA
“Reinventing Public Housing: Restoring the Infrastructure of Community that Modernism Left Out”;
Mark Moreno, Professor of Architecture at Andrews University, Michigan, USA
“Promoting Healthy Neighborhoods: Lessons from COVID-19”; and
David Woltering, Community Planning Consultant, Woltering Community Planning, Santa Rosa, California, USA
“A Downtown Reimagined: Visions and Strategies to Restore the Historic Squares, Districts, and Public Spaces of Downtown Santa Rosa, California”