Collaboration with professional practice is integral to the ethos of the Manchester Urban Design LAB. As the students on our Urban Design MSc course graduate and begin their careers in practice, it is important that alongside providing them with the relevant practical urban design skills, they are presented with a picture of what the varied role of an urban designer might look like.

We set up the MUD-Lab Professional Practice Forum to invite external speakers to host seminars for our students, both to support their academic studies and to share the nuances of their own roles, highlighting the wide-ranging field upon which urban designers have an impact. We are resoundingly grateful to our visiting speakers who share their time and expertise, many on a recurring basis.

The 2022/23 programme saw MUD-Lab host 5 Professional Practice Forums in our dedicated design studio – with a fantastic variety of speakers. Below is a short synopsis of each Forum.

PPForum 1: Rhiannon Monaghan, Infrastructure and Delivery Lead, Manchester City Council.
Kicking off both the PPForum and the academic year, Rhi introduced the city to our students from the context of her role in its regeneration. She began by introducing Strategic Regeneration Frameworks, critical documents which, when delivered successfully, can underpin a large-scale development, retaining the initial design vision and contextual connections through the implementation phases. Rhi went on to talk through delivery mechanisms and partnerships. Masterplans do not end with the designer, and it is important for our students to consider how the development is delivered once the document has been completed and handed over to the client and delivery team. Rhi discussed this process through the lens of the Victoria North development in north-east Manchester, the largest regeneration project in the north of England set to create new homes, schools, healthcare facilities and supporting transport links.

PPForum 2: Hannah Harkis, Urban Design Associate, LDA Design.
Hannah delivered our second seminar on the topical issue of design coding – LDA have been involved in the delivery of a number of pioneering design codes following the publication of the National Model Design Code. Hannah shared with us two live LDA projects in Shrewsbury and Friar Park. In Shrewsbury the design code was structured to provide overarching town-wide guidance, followed by area-specific guidance for two areas of the town centre. LDA developed an overarching design vision for each area, underpinned by detailing on a series of urban design layers including movement, nature, built form and identity. The Friar Park design code was accompanied by a masterplan and Hannah expertly unpacked the process of evaluating design options not only through design review but with local communities, given their lived experience of the site context.

PPForum 3: Jim Fox, Director, Jim Fox Placemaking; and Associate, Hyas Associates
Jim got hands-on in PPForum 3, leading students in a comprehensive design assessment exercise, discussing the role of design codes and masterplans and the challenges and opportunities associated with their development. Jim introduced the students to the masterplan for Leicester Waterside, alongside the design code and green infrastructure strategy. Through the story of this site, Jim outlined the range of design promotion tools including design and development frameworks, guides, codes and policy documents, followed by a discussion on the importance of design review and assessment. Quality design review can have a transformational, positive impact on a masterplan, particularly in a context such as the Leicester Waterside example where the design team were subject to the programme constraints often experienced in practice.

PPForum 4: Duncan McCallum, Chair, Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings / former Strategy and Listing Director, Historic England.
Duncan visited the MUD-Lab studio as our students were starting to develop their own project masterplans. The student sites are real-life brownfield locations within Greater Manchester, each with a unique heritage – often relating to Manchester’s industrial past. One of the important considerations at this stage is the retention or removal of existing buildings and structures on the site. In parallel, design decisions must be made which inform the character of the proposed place. Duncan educated the students using the SPAB approach to clearly defining time periods through the use of contemporary materials and design choices and in doing so, celebrating the retained heritage which sits alongside the new development.

PPForum 5: Dr Gemma Jerome, Director, Building with Nature.
Our final Professional Practice Forum of the year was delivered by Dr Gemma Jerome, her seminar purposefully coinciding with the students’ focus on designing streets and spaces in detail, which involved immersing themselves in the human scale in order to create successful spaces for people. Gemma’s presentation and associated dynamic discussion on the opportunities of GI within this context was perfectly timed! Sharing the critical infrastructure and components which make up GI, the clear message was that nature recovery and carbon net zero goals sit hand in hand when it comes to delivering quality environments. As Director of BwN, Gemma shared their GI quality standards along with a series of case study examples which can be found on the group’s website https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk/

We are grateful to all our guest speakers who have joined us as part of this year’s Professional Practice Forum for sharing their expertise and enriching our students’ urban design learning. The feedback on each of the seminars was overwhelmingly positive and we are excited to see how the lessons learned influence and shape final student submissions.

If you would like to join our community of professional affiliates, or be part of our Professional Practice Forum, contact rachel.kerr@manchester.ac.uk to discuss how we might work together.

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