Irena Bauman will be presenting the lecture Happy Cities: Changing Our Value Systems at the Cardiff School of City & Regional Planning as part of the Glamorgan Lecture Series.
Thursday 28th October, Committee Rooms, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff 5.30pm Reception, 6pm Lecture.
For further information please contact Miss Sandra Bonney – bonney@cardiff.ac.uk or +44 (0)29 2087 4520
Irena Bauman’s Dewsbury Masterplan was featured in an article in the Yorkshire Post on 26 August 2010. Read it below:
Bauman Lyons and LLISI are hosting and contributing to a session at the Re-thinking Global Society conference at Leeds University on the 6th of September 2010. Further details below:
Irena Bauman will be one of the speakers at the RIBA Research Symposium in London on the 23rd of September 2010. Further details below:
Source: Yorkshire Post 26 August 2010 Some people dream of being swept off their feet by the man of the dreams. Others of winning the lottery. Irena Bauman goes to bed at night thinking of Dewsbury. For the last 12 months the Leeds-based architect has been charged with pulling together a masterplan, which over the next 25 years will transform the West Yorkshire town. It’s no easy task. To Let signs along Dewsbury’s central streets are sadly plentiful. When Marks and Spencer moved out a few years ago, it was seen by many retailers as the final nail in the coffin and today there is a rash of shops offering cash for gold and discount stores. Many town centres are facing similar problems, but for Dewsbury it’s not just the visible scars of the recession which have to be overcome. The legacy of the Shannon Matthews case and the July 7 bombings – Mohammad Sidique Khan, the mastermind of the terrorists, lived in Dewsbury – has seen the town tarred by association. However, it has tired of being linked to tragedy, and its renaissance is as much about changing perceptions as it is about bricks and mortar and improving footfall. “I have fallen more than a little in love with the place,” says Irena, founder of Bauman Lyons Architects, who has built a career on making forgotten urban spaces more lovable. “Dewsbury has been the victim of circumstances beyond its control, but at its heart it remains a decent town with a fiercely loyal population. It’s also quite beautiful.” Beautiful might not be a word often bandied round in conversations about Dewsbury, yet evidence of its glory days as a mill town are everywhere. York stone buildings, like Pioneer House, the former co-operative headquarters, sit nearby Victorian arcades and the recently restored indoor market has continued to thrive even through tough economic times. The town didn’t escape the concrete block architecture of the 1960s and ’70s, but it wasn’t blighted by unsympathetic development and, according to Irena, it is possible to enliven its faded grandeur. “This plan is not about erecting a wave of new contemporary buildings or getting in big retail names, it’s much more about building on the foundations of what’s already here,” she says. “The streets brim with fantastic architecture and by bringing these properties back into use we will also hopefully improve the town’s social cohesion. “In Dewsbury, as with many urban areas, different communities have settled and established their own distinct territories. The town centre has always been a neutral ground and over the next 25 years the hope is we can give the people the kind of facilities there they deserve. “I learnt very early on that people are quick to turn in Dewsbury. Ask them what they think of the place and they’ll start by reeling off the negative aspects, but as soon as you mention the wonderful architecture or the friendly atmosphere, they’ll suddenly agree. They’ll tell you they love the place and unusually most have no desire to leave. That kind of emotional investment isn’t something you can buy or manufacture.” The blueprint for the scheme has just been finalised and while not every piece of the jigsaw has been put in place, the major projects have been identified. The priorities include changing the ring road, which has disconnected many neighbourhoods from the city, developing distinct retail, residential and office quarters and creating one single high street. Long-term there are also plans to move the town’s college into the centre and build a new footbridge over the River Calder. “When the ring road was built in the 1970s, the idea was to open up areas of the town to traffic and by doing that boost the local economy,” says Irena. “However, times have changed and a road of that size and design is no longer needed. It’s taking up space and actually putting people off walking into town. “All of the plans we have are about bringing life back into the centre of Dewsbury. The college needs to move from its present site and when it does it would seem to me to make sense to move it and the 1,000 or so students who go there to somewhere more central. “Essentially what we are trying to do is to stitch the various parts of the town together. Space is not a problem here, it just needs to be used better.” Those behind the scheme are wary of sounding too ambitious. It’s with good reason. In 2003, Will Alsop’s plan to remodel the centre of Barnsley in the style of a walled Tuscan village was met with ridicule. In the Dewsbury renaissance, off-the-wall designs and blue-sky thinking are conspicuous only by their absence. “We could have come up with some headline-grabbing scheme,” says Kirklees councillor and chair of the town’s regeneration board Paul Kane. “But this is about more than a little fleeting publicity. Everything we are planning is realistic and achievable. We recognise that a serious regeneration of Dewsbury isn’t going to happen overnight and all of us are in it for the long-term.” While the plans were formalised long before David Cameron mentioned the Big Society, they do tick a lot of the current Government’s boxes. Borrowing a quote from Gandhi – be the change you want to see in the world – Irena’s philosophy has been to involve the ordinary residents of Dewsbury from the start. A Town Team has been set up, focus groups have been asked for their opinions and underpinning the major developments will be a series of stepping stone projects driven by the public. There’s already an idea for a giant community table, which could be rented out by different groups for everything from children’s activities to sewing sessions and a duck race to bring people down to the currently overlooked and under-used riverside. “The whole plan is driven by the philosophy that you can’t expect someone to come along and say, ‘Here’s a pile of money, do what you want with it’,” says Irena. “In part it’s about people themselves taking charge of their own destiny and showing what can be done. I have a dream that as the project gets underway and these stepping stone schemes come to life, it will encourage the town’s already successful business people to follow in the same philanthropic footsteps of their Victorian ancestors.” It is early days and with details of the Government’s October spending review still to be unveiled, there is a certain amount of finger-crossing going on. However, the scheme has already shown what’s possible on the tightest of budgets. Recently, one of the empty arcade units was converted into a café-cum bakery-cum-bike store. The pop-up shop was by its nature temporary, but it successfully ignited interest from passers-by. “There was a real buzz about the place,” says Chantelle Stewart, who along with her husband, James, helped revitalise the space. “The idea was to show how Dewsbury could look. Bakers on the market provided the bread, people were coming to buy chutneys and overnight the place was transformed.” James grew up in Dewsbury and with the couple having returned to set up the Dekka design company after a year living in Ireland, he for once feels optimistic about his home town’s future. “When I was young, Dewsbury was a really nice place to live,” he says. “I guess the decline was so gradual that no one noticed, but the whole place now feels just a little unloved. “It doesn’t need whizz-bang schemes that go nowhere, it needs sensible plans. “I was a little sceptical at first, but I honestly believe that Dewsbury does have a future and we can pull it off.” For now, all Irena and everyone else involved in the masterplan can hope is that eventually their dreams for Dewsbury do become a reality.
Event 1
Irena Bauman will be one of the speakers at the RIBA research Symposium on the 23rd of September 2010 in London.
http://www.architecture.com/NewsAndPress/News/RIBANews/News/2010/RIBAResearchSymposium.aspx
Event 2
Bauman Lyons and LLISI are hosting and contributing to a session at the Re-thinking Global Society conference at Leeds University on the 6th of September 2010.
http://www.sociology.leeds.ac.uk/bauman/conference/re-thinking-global-society.php
Irena Bauman’s Dewsbury Masterplan was featured in an article in the Yorkshire Post on 26 August 2010. Read it below:
The first phase of the Tower Works project developed by Yorkshire Forward started on site this week. The first stage is the restoration and conversion of the listed buidings to the Globe Road frontage and public realm works. The new building will provided space for the creative industries and is seen as grown on space from the facilities at the nearby Round Foundry Media Centre.
Irena Bauman will give a key note address at the Building Health Conference on the 22nd of January 2010 in Bristol.
Bauman Lyons Architects have been successful in securing the Dewsbury Strategic Development Framework project working with GVA Grimley, Camlin Lonsdale, AECOM, Jan Gehl Architects, Meena Jeewa and Phil Wood.
Guy Smith and Irena Bauman have been appointed to the Sheffield Sustainable Development and Design Panel.
Light Neville Street has been formally re-opened. Working in conjunction with international sound/light artist Hans Peter Kuhn and local graphic designer Andy Edwards the project aims to improve the environment both visually and acoustically, creating an exciting entrance experience into the city.
Planning Permisson has been granted for a proposed new south entrance to Leeds Station designed by Bauman Lyons and AECOM. The only viable location was to site the access point over the River Aire and there were a number of severe constraints. The form that developed is a respond to the need to minimise the enclosure and affect on the light levels and amenity of the residential properties on either bank of the river and produce an elegant, eye-catching entrance point respecting and celebrating its unique location.
Research Project: ‘Road to Voting’ with University of Leeds
http://www.theroadtovoting.org
On 27th of March Irena Bauman will lead the last of 4 debates organised by ARC in Hull. The title of the debate is ‘Is Hull’s past the key to its future?’
Our book ‘How To Be A Happy Architect’ has now been published. Read the first review in The Leeds Guide below.
Bauman Lyons have submitted a planning application for a £45 Million mixed use low carbon canal development in the Holbeck Village in Leeds. The scheme has been commissioned by Yorkshire Forward and developed in collaboration with Isis Waterside Developments and Creative Space who contributed visionary ideas for the facilities management of the scheme. The site contains three listed towers; Giotto, Verona and Little Chimney as well as two listed buildings.
Irena Bauman has accepted an invitation to act as an external examiner at the Welsh School of Architecture from 2009-2011. She will also teach at the new MA Urban Design Course at the Sheffield School of Architecture.
Irena Bauman has accepted an invitation to act as an external examiner at the Welsh School of Architecture from 2009-2011. She will also teach at the new MA Urban Design Course at the Sheffield School of Architecture.
‘How to be a Happy Architect’ is now available from all major architectural book shops and Amazon.co.uk
Credit: Holly Warren, 2nd of August 2008 at Salts Mill, Saltaire.
