We were invited to present the work we did for Heartlands (Cornwall) at the annual conference on spatial planning (Ruimteconferentie 2009, 3 November 2009), organised by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving). The workshop Geke presented our work in was titled “Beyond the dichotomy city-countryside”. She presented the Heartlands project as a case study to illustrate how local communities and future users can be effectively involved in the regeneration of a large area including both urban conglomerates and rural areas.
STBY was invited by David Hamers, who works for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and has recently been appointed as Lector Stad & Land at the Design Academy in Eindhoven.
The keynote lecture at the conference was by Caroline Steel. She is the author of the book ‘Hungry City. How food shapes our lives‘. In the keynote and the book she points to the feeding of cities as one of the great challenges of our time. It has a strong social and physical impact on us and our planet, yet few of us are fully aware of it. In respons to this challenge she introduces the concept of ‘Sitopia’ of ‘Food place’ (based on the ancient Greek; sitos = food and topos = place). A very interesting talk, and surely a fascinating book.