Forum for Alternative Belfast: summer school 16-20th August

Forum for Alternative Belfast

The 2nd Forum Summer School will take place on the ground floor foyer area of the University of Ulster’s York Street campus from 16-20th August. This year’s focus is on part of inner north Belfast. The primary purpose of the School is to respond to the “˜Missing City’ agenda; the outcome of last year’s Summer School. The School will promote a strategic understanding and a strategic response to each focus area. Key themes for the week’s work, therefore, will include: connectivity; the pedestrian experience; ground floor animation of buildings; good quality public spaces; workable street layouts; high standard sustainable urban housing; and robust block design

Last year the FAB Summer School gathered 50 people to map the vacant areas of the central- city of Belfast; this is the first time this had ever been methodically undertaken.. In January the ?Missing City? map was published. It effectively presented a condition report for Belfast that sets out quite starkly the need to fill up our city.

“This year we want to gather together all those people that will and should inform the development of the north central city.. This area is arguably the most fractured in our city, but it also has a large number of ongoing current projects. – These projects, if brought together in a coherent vision could transform this landscape within the next ten years.

“We are asking people from each of the relevant sectors to come together over 5 days in mid August. This would involve taking time out from daily work to collaborate in a creative process that can potentially allow participants to gain new ideas, generate solutions and build new relationships with their adjacent partners in urban renewal. Contributors can participate without necessarily committing their respective agencies to the details of the final outcomes. The project also has the potential to demonstrate how collaborative regeneration could work if professionals and others from separate agencies and groups can act together to ensure that ?the the whole is greater (and more creative) than the sum of the parts?. This would mirror the Total Place pilot in England. Our ambition is to demonstrate the value of critical process and to show how strategic projects can reinforce each other for significant economic and social benefit.”

People connected with the study areas may wish to only attend certain workshops within their field of interest. Students and other professionals are invited to be participants over the week in a number of specialist groups. These specialists groups also feed into the study area workshops. For further information: info@forumbelfast.org