Stimulating Enterprising Environments for Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) Conference University of Sheffield, 14–16 April 2015

Abstract

Conference ReportCities must cope with continual change. The rigidity of the urban built environment contrasts with the relative fluidity of the socio-economic processes that it accommodates. Ultimately, the former adapts to the latter through the redevelopment of land and buildings to meet new requirements. This involves various combinations of change of use, renovation, alteration, demolition and new construction, and so on. However, physical, social, economic, political, institutional and cultural factors frequently cause a hiatus between the decline and obsolescence of land uses and buildings and their redevelopment. Thus vacancy and/or dereliction are common stages in the urban development cycle.Post-industrial cities have experienced a dramatic growth in vacant/derelict land and buildings, raising questions about how such sites may be used temporarily for social, economic or environmental benefit, and about how these transient uses may affect the long-run trajectory of urban development. The Stimulating Enterprising Environments for Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) project responds to this situation - and aims to promote the temporary re-use of vacant land and buildings as an essential, but hitherto neglected, part of long-term planning and development. The interdisciplinary, applied research project - funded by the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme - unites the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership, Sheffield City Council and the University of Sheffield in the UK, Denmark's University of Copenhagen, the City of Goteborg in Sweden, Deltares and Regio Groningen Assen in the Netherlands, Lawaetz-Stiftung in Germany and Vlaamse Landmaatschappij in Belgium. Since 2012, the group has been working towards a durable legacy of improved planning policies and transferrable re-use strategies which have been tested on the ground with pilot projects across the partner nations.1The SEEDS Conference was the culmination of the project, and an opportunity for those involved in planning, supporting and realising temporary re-use projects to not only engage in the findings of the research, but to share successful case studies, innovative spatial planning instruments, transferrable principles and methods, and ideas for the future of temporary use. The event featured keynotes and presentations by speakers from a range of European countries, as well as New Zealand, who were involved in both enabling temporary use projects and building or designing them directly. Similarly, the audience comprised individuals ranging from not-for-profit organisations to urban regeneration practitioners, development trusts, local government, architects and landscape architects - with an emphasis on the practice of temporary use rather than its theorisation in academia. Three fundamental questions were addressed by the keynotes, and percolated discussions throughout the conference: what is important about the temporary use and re-use of sites and buildings; why are the benefits not fully recognised; and what is the future of such interventions? A series of four parallel workshops in the afternoon sought to confront the barriers to temporary use, including changing mindsets, dealing with organisational frameworks, the importance of people and partnerships, and the journey from short- to long-term transformation.Changing context, changing cultureForming the backdrop to the conference was an awareness of how the context within which cities are shaped has altered since 2007 - prior to this date, development was typically planned without change in mind. The situation since 2007, characterised by market failure, credit freeze and shrinking populations, has resulted in forgotten, stalled, and abandoned development projects - precipitated by outmoded inflexible planning policies. As Tom Wild of the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership explained in his opening address, a fundamental change in the way we approach the development of cities is required. …