Shape East offers walking tours of Award-winning Accordia

Due to popular demand, Shape East is now offering guided walking tours of Cambridge's award winning housing development, Accordia. The first ever residential scheme to win the acclaimed RIBA Sterling Prize, Accordia has been held up as an exemplar of 'high density housing at its best' (RIBA panel)

The tours are led by Shape East and are suitable for both professionals and students groups with an interest in the built environment. They last approximately 1 hour with a charge of £10 per person (min charge £150).

"We found the tour very intersting and lessons learnt will be very useful as we go forward working on the Core Strategy for our District" (Bath and North East Somerset Council)

Please contact Hollie at Shape East to discuss further details or to arrange a tour.
e:events@shape-east.org.uk
tel:01223 462606

Final Places Available: free 'Building for Life' training day
The Guildhall, Cambridge, 14th July 2009

Building for Life is the nationally recognised standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods. The standard brings together twenty questions to ask about any new housing development.  For more information visit www.buildingforlife.org

Working with Shape East, CABE is offering a programme of engagement and training to support the emerging role of Building for Life as a pre-planning quality check and quality indicator for reporting to CLG.

We are committed to train and accredit at least one person in each local planning authority in the East of England to assess new developments using the Building for Life criteria. 

CABE and Shape East are therefore offering candidates a free place at a one-day training workshop at The Small Hall, The Guildhall, Cambridge on 14th July 2009. In order to complete accreditation, candidates will then be asked to complete some independent work for review and sign up to a code of conduct, which outlines the use of the tool in assessments.

To find out more information on how to nominate a candidate from your council, please contact Hollie at Shape East:
e: events@shape-east.org.uk
t: 01223 462606

To download the full invitation, please click here.

Managing Change in Urban and Rural Historic Landscapes:
Seminar Fully Booked

Due to overwhelming demand, this English Heritage funded seminar is now fully booked. This free, one-day seminar will take place at her Majesty, the Queen's Estate at Sandringham, 18th September 2009, tackling subjects such as:

• the modern day threats to our landscapes
• the preservation of landscape through the planning process
• masterplanning new developments within existing landscapes
• landscape and climate change

For those who are not able to attend, please remember that Shape East, wherever possible, will provide downloadable versions of the day's presentations from our website. Please check our 'Recent Events' page for these after the event.

Ely Masterplanning Workshops

Shape East was commissioned by East Cambridgeshire District Council to develop three visions for the future of Ely, to produce a report and a public exhibition of the findings. Three potential development areas were considered: -

'Networking Evening for Heritage Champions and Conservation Officers'

Shape East would like to thank all of the Heritage Champions and Conservation staff who made the networking drinks event at Brooklands House such a successful and inciteful evening. Funded by English Heritage, the event brought together a diverse range of local authority members and officers from the Eastern region. As well as providing an opportunity to talk to senior English Heritage staff, the guests were welcomed by Greg Luton, regional director of English Heritage, East of England, who spoke enthusiastically about both the past and future collaborations between his organisation and those represented by the guests. We look forward to holding our next networking event in the English Heritage gardens this Summer.

'Renewable Energy Online Debate'
Cambridgeshire Horizons and Renewables East have launched a new website today to ask Cambridgeshire residents for their opinions on renewable energy via an online survey. The website contains a wealth of easy-to-understand information about renewable energy options and how these could be installed and operated in new homes and new communities, as well as a questionnaire to find out more about the local communities view on renewable energy.

Please do take the time to look at the website, and also to fill it in if you are a local resident or worker. We'd also really appreciate it if you could share the link with your friends and family, that live or work in Cambridgeshire, to help us build up a clearer picture of local opinion on renewable energy.'

See www.cambridgeshireenergysurvey.co.uk for all the details

‘Eastern Coastline Recieves New Funding'

The historic Deneside area of Great Yarmouth has recently been awarded £3

million, a quarter of the total £12 million granted each year by the CABE-led Sea Change programme. The grant is to be used for a variety of regeneration and community-focused purposes, including the development of a Grade 1 listed chapel into a new arts centre.

The picture to the right is an artist's impression of the regeneration of King's Street and St Georges Chapel in Great Yarmouth.

For more information, see 'News'

Accordia wins Stirling Prize: The first housing scheme to win the architectural award.
The judges commented: “This is high density housing at its very best, demonstrating that volume house-builders can deliver high quality architecture – and that as a result they can improve their own bottom line."

Shape has already led tours around this prize-winning scheme and is developing more opportunities, so watch this space.