On wednesday I attended a presentation by Chris Miele of consultants RPS on Heritage and Regeneration - the idea that conserving our historic areas and buildings is worth doing for economic benefits as well as for its own sake. Making this work however, needs a good basis on which to build and Chris Miele's presentation was about a technique called 'Characterisation'. You can find out more at this site which covers a project in Cornwall, although the presentation dealt with Gloucester and Shoreditch. So far I haven't been able to track down web links for those.
The Cornwall & Scilly Urban Survey is providing a framework for sustainable regeneration in 19 historic towns. The project integrates two key factors - improved understanding and characterisation of the rich and diverse historic environment which makes Cornwall and Scilly’s towns so distinctive and the identification of heritage-led regeneration opportunities so vital to the region’s future
This approach is by no means new, as Chris acknowledged. He cited the work of Patrick Geddes (and here), Camillo Sitte, and Parker and Unwin in the British new towns of Welwyn and Letchworth, as well as Gordon Cullen and Thomas Sharp.
What seems to be new(ish) is the way in which this historical analysis is being put in a wider spatial context as a key part of the regeneration process. The Cornish study I referred to earlier was used by the SW Regional Development Agency in support of work on Objective 1 funding. In Gloucester a similar study was used to underpin the work to establish a new Urban Regeneration Company, while in Shoreditch it was intended to guide the response of the local council (Hackney) the pressures for development overspilling from the City of London.
Timing seems to be critical - the Gloucester study slotted nicely into the process of setting up the URC, but in Shoreditch it may have been too late with a great deal of investment in land and sites already having taken place on the backs of expectations which the study may not have supported.
I'm hoping to get hold of copies of some of these studies, since it looks to me as if at least some of the work could be carried out by community groups. After all Village Design Statements, which are yet another approach to characterisation, have been developed by local groups for some time. Indeed if funding isn't available, the DIY approach may well be the only way forward. Many local communities will have within them people well versed in local history who know their way around the archives for example.
It would be fun too to see the results of this historic mapping tagged to the area through something like the Urban Tapestries project. Even better would be a set of VR glasses like those at the heart of William Gibson's novel Virtual Light!
