Latest News / 2011 Highlights / Recommended / Contact Us / Tweet Us !

Message from Heather Hilburn,
CEO, Shape East

2011 has been a busy year for Shape East, so we thought we'd wrap it up by sharing a few highlights with our friends, colleagues and all those we have worked with over the last few months. Thank you for your support.

At the beginning of the year we moved location to Covent Garden ( Cambridge, not London! ) having been in Sturton Street, Cambridge, for many years. We now share a great, creative environment with NRAP architects, our neighbour Alium and planning specialist Peter Studdert.

We started the year with two contrasting events, both held on the 20th January. “People and their Historic Places" was held in Swaffham, Norfolk and commissioned by English Heritage to investigate how local communities can contribute to protecting and enhancing their historic environment. On the same evening, we hosted a finale to our HLF funded youth project "River Rhymes and Voices". This event saw over 200 young people, community groups and residents celebrate the history of our riversides through rap, poetry and spoken word. See it on youtube!

In Spring we were happy to join the National Network of Affiliated Design Review Panels supported in part by Design Council CABE and we put into place our own Design Review and Design Support Panels. We now have a great team of professionals skilled in providing support for all aspects of development in our region, including conservation, sustainability, transport, planning and a variety of issues that will affect our rural, inland and coastal communities. See who's on the panel and what we do on our Design Support pages.

In the Summer we spent some time in Peterborough with partners and key stakeholders in conservation, re-thinking our approach to combining community ownership and the protection of historic places. In the New Year we'll be developing ideas for re-focusing Peterborough’s town centre and central church as a culture hub plus social enterprise for local people and visitors to gain from and enjoy.

In Autumn we welcomed two new members to our team, sustainability specialists in the fields of architecture and engineering, to help us develop our design support offer, in particular bringing together emerging zero carbon technologies from the region with well-designed development solutions.

We now look forward to bringing in the New Year, creating synergies with new collaborators, developing ideas with champions of design, construction, arts and culture, sustainability and all without forgetting that the “Most Sustainable Games Ever” are just around the corner and will hopefully be a benchmark for delivering real sustainable innovation across the country next year and beyond.

Happy Holidays and New Year to All!

Heather

Latest Shape East News

DESIGN REVIEW AND SUPPORT - OFFER FOR 2012

In 2011, Shape East became part of the National Network of Affiliated Design Review Panels, supported by Design Council CABE. We are very pleased to be working with a great team of panel members to offer an independent, impartial design review of development schemes, as well as hands on design support for the Eastern Region. Please see our Design Support pages for information on our offer for 2012, including costs and full details of panel members. Contact us to discuss details of how we can help you in the New Year.

www.shape-east.org.uk/services-design_support.html

KETTLE'S YARD WORKSHOPS

Shape East is delighted to support Kettle's Yard on their Completing Kettle's Yard Project. Through a recent Heritage Lottery Grant, Kettle's Yard are able to build a new education wing alongside their exhibition gallery. Shape East are supporting them in a series of education workshops with primary and secondary level young people, working with artists and guest professionals from the built environment to explore the history of the site, how to develop design ideas, architecture and positive placemaking.

http://www.shape-east.org.uk/projects/2011/KettlesYard1.html

NEW WEBSITE AND LOGO LAUNCHED

Shape East is delighted to launch its new website, designed by Cambridge based creative firm aiddesign.We have a host of new educational and professional resources, project pages and news feeds. Please have a look around and let us know what you think. Oh, and we joined twitter. Finally.

www.shape-east.org.uk // www.twitter.com/shapeeast

SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION

Shape East is working together with the Judge Business School Cambridge Venture Programme (CVP) to support the development of a highly sustainable and energy efficient building system through a partnership between a contractor and architect using local materials. The CVP team are providing market analysis of how this sustainable system can be used by housing associations and developers to design and build zero carbon homes in the region. In tandem, Shape East has provided technical expertise on the performance of the developing product. The second phase of this project will take place in the New Year. Shape East will provide support to housing associations exploring innovative and sustainable solutions to build well designed and highly efficient homes in the region. We look for forward to continuing this work.

2012 SHAPE EAST TOUR GUIDE:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

In preparation for the International Women's Day celebrations in March 2012, Shape East are putting together a new walking tour of Cambridge City Centre in association with local poets Page to Performance. The tour will be printed in booklet form for free public use. The aim of the tour is to highlight the role which women have played in making the city what it is today, by combining a selection of exciting and often forgotten female histories with historic and architectural information about the buildings or spaces in which these histories took place. The buildings have been chosen and we are currently taking submissions from female architects, historians and students interested in writing no more than 200 words on the history or architecture of these spaces. See the link below for details.

http://www.shape-east.org.uk/projects/2011/Walking_With_Women.html

2011 Highlights from Shape East

SMARTLIFE LOW CARBON CENTRE OPENING

The SmartLIFE Low Carbon Centre is a joint venture between Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge Regional College that supports businesses looking to adapt to a low carbon economy. It opened in October 2011 as the first phase of The Hive education and enterprise park. Shape East participated in the development of the centre as a member of the SmartLIFE Special Interest Group (SIG), in particular Shape East Trustee David Adamson who chaired the group itself. We would like to thank the SmartLIFE centre for inviting us to this opening event.

http://www.smartlife.org.uk/

DEVELOPING LOCAL DESIGN REVIEW

Alongside an array of professionals involved in Design Review, Shape East attended and spoke at this RIBA event, which provided advice to members hoping to support the development of local Design Review in their areas. RIBA will be discussing the outcomes of this event and using it to inform guidance to members and feedback on the draft NPPF. Other speakers included Terry Gilbert, former associate of Shape East and member of the Cambridge City Design and Conservation Panel.

Shape East Design Support // Shape East Events

RESILIENT HERITAGE CONFERENCE, PETERBOROUGH

The Resilient Heritage conference highlighted a range of approaches to the historic environment and heritage assets and the need to do things differently within the industry. Our CEO, Heather Hilburn, spoke about sustainable innovations in the East of England and the important role which social enterprise may play in shaping community-led development. Other presenters included English Heritage, Projectbook and keynote speaker Dr Jonathon Foyle.

http://resilientheritage2011.wordpress.com/

GREENBRIDGE SUMMER SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Shape East was invited to participate in the University's GREENBridge programme as an industry mentor and evaluator. The Summer School was addressed to students, academics and professionals who wanted to explore sustainability and contribute towards the improvement of educational buildings.

GREENBridge Programme

"THIS HOUSE BELIEVES...." CFCI ANNUAL DEBATE

Over the last 20 years, the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry (CFCI) have hosted lively, thought-provoking annual debates in the historic Cambridge Union. This year, Shape East was asked to join in, presenting alongside Chris Blencoe, Tristan Rees Roberts and Sian Reid in response to the cry that, "this house believes Cambridge deserves better buildings".

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PEAPOD SESSIONS

The 2011 'Pea Pod Sessions' was an interactive evening at London's central National Geographic store featuring short talks, live music and open discussions on Climate Change and Sustainable Living. Shape East learning coordinator Hollie McNish raised the crowd's attention to issues of sustainable living and natural resource-use through a performance of spoken word poetry.

See all Shape East projects: www.shape-east.org.uk/projects.html

Recommendations for the New Year

January - March 2012
GREENBridge Seminar Series
CRASHH (The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), Cambridge
http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/greenbr/events/index.htm

7th February 2012:
Cambridge Carbon Footprint presents: The Economics of Happiness Film Screening plus discussion
Cambridge Arts Picturehouse
http://cambridgecarbonfootprint.org/blog/economics-of-happiness-film-showing/

23rd February 2012:
RIBA East CPD Programme presents: Sustainable refurbishment projects: concept to completion
SMARTLife Centre, Cambridge
http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAProfessionalServices/Regions/East/2012/2012CPDSeminarCoreProgramme-East.pdf

27th March 2012:
Opportunity Peterborough Lunchtime Lectures presents:Wildlife and Buildings
St John's Church, Cathedral Square, Peterborough
http://www.opportunitypeterborough.co.uk/events/?event_id=53

If you feel you have an event we may want to include in our next newsletter or are part of an organisation we should include on our Local Links page, please contact us at admin@shape-east.org.uk

For further information, please contact us:
admin@shape-east.org.uk / 01223 462606

website: www.shape-east.org.uk
twitter: www.twitter.com/ShapeEast

13 - 15 Covent Garden // Cambridge // CB1 2HS