The Centre for Architecture and the Sustainable Environment (CASE) is pleased to announce that their first open lecture of the academic year will be given by Esther Kurland, Head of Urban Design London. Esther Kurland’s lecture titled, ‘Learning from Lockdown – will Covid lead to place change?’, will take place on Tuesday 20 November at 18.00. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, all open lectures will be held online via Microsoft Teams. Please use this link to join the lecture.
Esther Kurland writes, “The Lockdown of Spring 2020 brought about huge changes to lifestyles and the way we used places. Many of these changes are being solidified with people moving jobs or homes and businesses closing or expanding. Attitudes to homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces, leisure activities and retain have all changed. We don’t know for sure how things will pan out, but it is unlikely we will go back to pre-Covid patterns. In this talk I will look at the problems, and opportunities changes might mean for the built environment – from promoting more local living to changing the way we think about the use of buildings.”
Esther is a planner by background. After working for 10 years in local authority planning departments she moved to the Greater London Authority (GLA) to draft the built environment policies for the first London Plan. She then moved to CABE to lead on their planning work before becoming director of Urban Design London in 2005. Esther sits on numerous Design Review Panels and design advisory boards, has given evidence at a number of Government inquiries into built environment issues and was the key author of the Design Companion for Planning and Placemaking (RIBA) and its sister document, the Councillors Guide for Planning and Placemaking.
Please use this link to join the open lecture, all welcome!