Planning Derry

The story of the making and eventual implementation of a city and regional plan for the Londonderry area makes fascinating reading. Published in 1968, just before the outbreak of the recent 'troubles', it became the basis for subsequent plans implemented by officials of the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and dedicated community leaders. Their often heroic commitment to the future of the city and its environs transcends even the worst days of civil strife. The author was one of a small team that made the plan and he places it in context, explains how it came to be made and records the difficulties of planners working in the political circumstances that prevailed. Against the background of the general social, economic and physical conditions of the city and region, he focuses on the housing crisis before elaborating on the making of the plan in particular. Professor McSheffrey stresses that although the story may be of interest to planners and development professionals, it is not an academic study of the planning process. He hopes it will introduce general readers to the importance of planning and the complex social and ethical issues inherent in the process. Planning Derry for example, involved value judgements concerning people and political and religious views in Northern Ireland at the time, but he has tried to be objective and avoid bias or the espousal of a particular political viewpoint. The book is, above all, about the dedication of individuals who believed their planning efforts could make a difference and provide better living conditions and choices for the people of the area. McSheffrey concludes on an optimistic note concerning the future place of Derry in Ireland. As the peace process unfolds, he hopes that perhaps the people of Derry, as they continue to develop and rebuild their city, might become a symbol of liberation from the past and of expectations of a peaceful and prosperous future for all Irish people.

Using a rich empirical resource base, this book takes a critical look at recent practices to see whether the new spatial planning is having the kinds of impacts its advocates would wish. Contributing to theoretical debates in planning, state restructuring and governance, it also outlines and critiques the contemporary practice of spatial planning.

The story of the making and eventual implementation of a city and regional plan for the Londonderry area makes fascinating reading. Published in 1968, just before the outbreak of the recent 'troubles', it became the basis for subsequent plans implemented by officials of the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and dedicated community leaders. Their often heroic commitment to the future of the city and its environs transcends even the worst days of civil strife. The author was one of a small team that made the plan and he places it in context, explains how it came to be made and records the difficulties of planners working in the political circumstances that prevailed. Against the background of the general social, economic and physical conditions of the city and region, he focuses on the housing crisis before elaborating on the making of the plan in particular. Professor McSheffrey stresses that although the story may be of interest to planners and development professionals, it is not an academic study of the planning process. He hopes it will introduce general readers to the importance of planning and the complex social and ethical issues inherent in the process. Planning Derry for example, involved value judgements concerning people and political and religious views in Northern Ireland at the time, but he has tried to be objective and avoid bias or the espousal of a particular political viewpoint. The book is, above all, about the dedication of individuals who believed their planning efforts could make a difference and provide better living conditions and choices for the people of the area. McSheffrey concludes on an optimistic note concerning the future place of Derry in Ireland. As the peace process unfolds, he hopes that perhaps the people of Derry, as they continue to develop and rebuild their city, might become a symbol of liberation from the past and of expectations of a peaceful and prosperous future for all Irish people.

Northern Ireland has a complex urbanism with multilayered socio-spatial politics. In this environment, issues of communication, self-representation and expression of identity are central to the experience of urban space and architecture where the dichotomy of division and shared living are spatially exercised in everyday life. Unlike other studies in the area, this book focuses on the everyday experiences of local communities in both public and private spheres - issues of ‘shareness’ - challenging conventional approaches to divided cities. The book aims to layer its narratives of architectural and social developments as an urban experience in post-conflict settings over the past two decades.

Breaching Derry's Walls is the first book to examine the island-based society of Ireland from the point of view of its Northwest quadrant. In particular, Derry, a city long known as a center for culture, plays a central role in Professor Jon Van Til's research. Dividing his sections historically pertaining to societies and conflicts Professor Van Til draws upon his personal experience as a Fulbright scholar to provide a fresh and original way of conceptualizing Ireland and all its facets. Appealing to students and conflict specialists, this book implements a new van tage point for understanding the Northern Ireland region. Book jacket.

The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace is the first multi-authored volume to specifically address the many facets of the 30-year Northern Ireland conflict, colloquially known as the Troubles, and its subsequent peace process. This volume is rooted in opening space to address controversial subjects, answer key questions, and move beyond reductive analysis that reproduces a simplistic two community theses. The temporal span of individual chapters can reach back to the formation of the state of Northern Ireland, with many starting in the late 1960s, to include a range of individuals, collectives, organisations, understandings, and events, at least up to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. This volume has forefronted creative approaches in understanding conflict and allows for analysis and reflection on conflict and peace to continue through to the present day. With an extensive introduction, preface, and 45 individual chapters, this volume represents an ambitious, expansive, interdisciplinary engagement with the North of Ireland through society, conflict, and peace from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches. While allowing for rich historical explorations of high-level politics rooted in state documents and archives, this volume also allows for the intermingling of different sources that highlight the role of personal papers, memory, space, materials, and experience in understanding the complexities of both Northern Ireland as a people, place, and political entity.

Design education in architecture and allied disciplines is the cornerstone of design professions that contribute to shaping the built environment of the future. In this book, design education is dealt with as a paradigm whose evolutionary processes, underpinning theories, contents, methods, tools, are questioned and critically examined. It features a comprehensive discussion on design education with a focus on the design studio as the backbone of that education and the main forum for creative exploration and interaction, and for knowledge acquisition, assimilation, and reproduction. Through international and regional surveys, the striking qualities of design pedagogy, contemporary professional challenges and the associated sociocultural and environmental needs are identified. Building on twenty-five years of research and explorations into design pedagogy in architecture and urban design, this book authoritatively offers a critical analysis of a continuously evolving profession, its associated societal processes and the way in which design education reacts to their demands. Matters that pertain to traditional pedagogy, its characteristics and the reactions developed against it in the form of pioneering alternative studio teaching practices. Advances in design approaches and methods are debated including critical inquiry, empirical making, process-based learning, and Community Design, Design-Build, and Live Project Studios. Innovative teaching practices in lecture-based and introductory design courses are identified and characterized including inquiry-based, active and experiential learning. These investigations are all interwoven to elucidate a comprehensive understanding of contemporary design education in architecture and allied disciplines. A wide spectrum of teaching approaches and methods is utilized to reveal a theory of a ’trans-critical’ pedagogy that is conceptualized to shape a futuristic thinking about design teaching. Lessons learned from techniques and mechanisms for accommodation, adaptation, and implementation of a ‘trans-critical’ pedagogy in education are conceived to invigorate a new student-centered, evidence-based design culture sheltered in a wide variety of learning settings in architecture and beyond.