Place-making at September Future Cities Forum
We are delighted that the experienced planner Stuart Robinson will be joining our September forum on place-making at Ravensbourne University London, next to the O2.
Stuart spoke at our forum at White City last summer about his experience of preparing the site of the Royal Arsenal Woolwich for sale to the commercial sector - a huge task to bring back the former historic military site for development use. Production of armaments during both world wars had left the 'secret walled city' contaminated. He also spoke about his landmark research place-making report which he worked on with the renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl.
He will be one of our contributors on place-making at North Greenwich, a recently developed area of entertainment, education and housing, which sits alongside the the Jubilee line station hub - which the Mayor of London has highlighted as nationally significant infrastructure. Stuart has worked with TfL through his own independent planning and place-making consultancy, as a Strategic Planning Advisor and he has Chaired the Commercial Development Advisory Panel for HS2.
The Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava has designed the Peninsula Place development which will sit on top of the North Greenwich underground station beside the entertainment venue, the O2 arena. It will feature 800 apartments including 200 affordable homes, around a landscape of offices, shops and restuarants. The development covering 150 acres of industrial land opposite Canary Wharf aims to complete by 2032.
Before his work for TfL, Stuart was Head of Planning at CBRE on development schemes for the UK and Ireland, the world's largest property company. Whilst at CBRE, Stuart was involved in some of the UK's headline projects such as Kings Cross Central Partnership (with Argent), Regent Street (Crown Estate), Spitalfields (SPG), Tate Modern, the Bull Ring in Birmingham and Victoria Quarter for Hammerson in Leeds.
Stuart is a frequent contributor to the national media and his advice has been recognised by the Mayor of London, with on two occasions his projects being given the Mayor's Planning Prize (Regent Street and Kings Cross) in 2010 and 2012. The Royal Town and Planning Institute has also given him the award for planning excellence for the Francis Crick Institute. He has been included in Property Week's Top 50 most influential professional and legal figures.