FUTURE CITIES FORUM

Rachel Fisher, Deputy Director of Regeneration and Infrastructure at The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government , will be making the opening presentation at our October forum, 'City regeneration and place-making'. She was unable to attend our last forum due to unexpected family illness, but will now be appearing this autumn. She has been invited to guest blog for us today and her words are shown below. Rachel highlights the importance of finding ways to support

Hammerson is to exit retail parks in the medium term in favour of fifteen prime city locations. The disposal target is £1.1 billion by 2019. Part of this change in direction is the firm's 'New City Quarter' concept and a focus on 'operational excellence and cost savings'. Hammerson points in its step change to devoting more resources to meet increased consumer demand for experience enhancing events and a sophisticated digital offer. David Atkins, Chief Executive of Hammerson

When the new Hard Rock Hotel opens in London next year, guests seeking the ultimate experience will have the opportunity to become 'Rock Royalty' with rooms and suites offering a personal concierge and a luxurious lounge. Architects have converted the Cumberland Hotel at the corner of Oxford Street and Mayfair and because of the association with the Hard Rock Café, it is hoped that cultural music fans will frequent it. 80,000 items of memorabilia from the famous Hard Rock Caf

Our autumn forum on October 10 will look at creative place-making in towns and cities: where do we build homes and what type of environment do city dwellers want to live in, where do we want to work and how do we want to connect in our communities? Ancient Greeks were mindful to create places called the 'agora' or 'marketplace' where citizens could meet. As a reaction to the 1960s desire for out of town university research campuses and shopping centres, contemporary planners

The Mitsui Fudosan Group is entering into a joint project with Shanghai Metro into a new type of station retail development. The Lianhua Road Station Building is on the Metro Line 1 in the Minhang District, the historic area of the city and this will be demolished to redevelop it into the first subway redevelopment project for Shanghai Metro. The area is over 500,000 square feet with five stories above ground and one below and Mitsui Fudosan will take a portion of this area t

Picture: Imperial College West campus at White City The Director of Financial Strategy at Imperial College London, John Anderson, joined the third panel at "Intelligent Cities" at White City Place to discuss with Mitsui Fudosan's David Height and HOK's Daniel Hajjar how cities can create significant knowledge clusters in vibrant urban districts. John explained how the university had grown at a compound rate of 7% throughout its 100 year history but had become constrained by i

Medway Council's Head of Sport, Leisure, Tourism and Heritage, Bob Dimond, attended our heritage and tourism round table last week with Historic England, to talk about the future of visitor attractions in region. He told Future Cities Forum that 'the trouble is not the physical connection' of an excellent and fast railway line (Javelin train connection from St Pancras) to Medway for visitors, ' but the mental perception of the connection ' concluding that Medway has to 'tell

WYG's Planning Director Anne Clements took on the topic of challenges around graduate entry into our UK planning system in our interview with her following our recent White City Place forum. 'Intelligent Cities' this month. Anne described how planning in the UK could be improved in the public sector by attracting well informed and empowered people with experience of the world at large, who can make decisions and persuade their political masters with a clearer indication of wh

We were delighted to welcome the Royal College of Art to our 'Intelligent Cities' forum at White City Place, London this month. Leader of the RCA's new City Design MA, Dr Tarsha Finney, joined the Managing Director of Bexley Co, Huw Lewis, and WYG Planning Director, Anne Clements to discuss why we need new approaches to designing homes at greater density.The panellists also talked about attracting inward investment and how to create' place' in new housing projects across the

HOK was a vital contributor to our debate at 'Intelligent Cities' on the successful funding, development and design of urban knowledge hubs in the UK, with Imperial College London and Mitsui Fudosan. The global design, architecture and engineering business, which is advising on the creation of new centres for Glasgow University - part of the £40 million research hub at Gilmorehill campus - and the Translational Research Facility for Cardiff University, is well known for its d