The case for the business process has been powerfully made with the recent Fairclough Review — re-thinking construction innovation and research. Critically this differentiates between innovation and research and yet for most of us this is still a lesson we need to learn. Fairclough’s own experience in the computer industry is that innovation is the driving force behind the business.

If we are to respond to our customers’ expectations for performance improvement, as articulated by Peter Rogers’ Strategic Forum, then we will need to be innovative. This cannot be delivered as an ad hoc process and needs to be managed as part of our core business processes.

The debate was chaired by Michael Dickson, Chairman, Buro Happold and the newly appointed Chairman of NewCRISP who has been charged with the implementation of the Fairclough Recommendations.

Speakers:

Richard Saxon, Director BDP and Chairman of BE

David Leatherbarrow, MD Trox GmbH, UK and South-East Asia, The TROX Route for Innovation

Mike Murray, Visiting Professor in Innovation in Design and Construction, Loughborough University

Action points generated on the night.

Urban space is a critical realm for national productivity. It is where 89% of us work, where 90% of us live and where 91% of national output is generated and yet — according to one survey — where only 20% of us are content with our lot.

We need to be able to make urban space work, to accommodate us and help us lead comfortable, convenient and productive lives.

Cities offer all sorts of sustainability economies of scale but this will only begin to pay dividends when the congestion issues can be addressed. And relieving congestion is largely a matter of urban design and behaviour.

Couple these issues with the problems of mounting levels domestic and construction waste, the logistics of goods and people and the role of the planning process itself, and it’s easy to see why it’s time to Rethink Urban Design.

A One Day Conference hosted by SISTech and Edge Debate and supported by the ICE, RIBA, CIBSE, RIAS, IStructE and UDAL.

Programme of speakers:

1. Paul Jowitt - Rethinking Urban Design: Introduction

2. Mark Whitby - The Case for Urban Design

3. Sarah Boyack - Interfaces between political decision making, professionals and people

4. Hildebrand Frey - Meta Cities

5. Mike Galloway - What we have to do differently

6. George Paschke - Sustainable Construction

7. Murray Woodburn - What’s Planning got to do with it?

8. Herbert Girardet - The Metabolism of Sustainable Cities

9. Howard Liddell - Forward to the Past

10. Brian Edwards - Global responsibilities and urban design

11. Robin Nicholson - What’s going on?

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Making waves, blowing in the wind or just going up in smoke?

The Government’s Policy & Innovation Unit’s review of UK energy policy is the hot topic of the moment. It offers a vision of the energy needs of the future, in terms of technologies, efficiency gains, and economic frameworks.

Scotland's energy

There will be a commercially strong and emerging role for renewables, where many see Scotland as having a major role to play. Yet the PIU review keeps options open on coal and nuclear power — a UK Government reserved matter — as part of its view of the low carbon future.

Does this amount to a secure and sustainable energy policy? Are there things the energy industry and other key industrial sectors could be doing to make it more secure and sustainable? A White Paper is promised in the autumn: the Edge Debate was an opportunity to rehearse our responses.

Louise Batchelor of the BBC chaired the Debate.

Paper 1: Energy Issues for Scotland

Rhona Brankin, MSP and Member of the Enterprise & Lifelong Learning Committee

Paper 2: Energy Policy - Some Thoughts

Fred Dinning, Environment Director, Scottish Power

Paper 3: The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

Professor Brian Smart, Heriot Watt Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Edinburgh

SISTech was also responsible for chairing the seminar “Rethinking Urban Design“.

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