Global Perspectives on Urban Design Brought to Fore With INTBAU World Congress
The INTBAU World Congress is a biennial forum which brings together global perspectives and knowledge for discussion and debate of pressing issues facing the built environment in communities around the world. The 2016 event takes place on 14th -15th November at RIBA. In this piece for After Nyne, Harriet Wennberg of INTBAU writes about the highlights of the Congress.
In 2001, INTBAU was launched as a research project to link together individuals and organisations from across the world working to promote a viable future for traditional building, architecture, and urbanism. In its early days, INTBAU acted as a mutual support group for practitioners who felt they were in the vast minority.
The battleground has shifted significantly since then, with the principles of traditional urban design now commonly accepted as those best suited to place-making for the present and future, and with architecture embracing the inherent sustainability of local materials and context-sensitive design.
INTBAU’s 5,600 members and 27 national chapters are a force for the continuity of tradition in architecture and building and the promotion of traditional urban design, in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Cuba, India, and Poland. Since its founding, the network has organised over 100 workshops, training courses, conferences, and study tours, and has promoted research into the diverse vernacular building styles that help give places their unique identities.
On 14-15 November, INTBAU will host its second World Congress on ‘Tomorrow’s Cities: Building the Future’. In partnership with RIBA, RSA, the International National Trusts Organisation, and the London Evening Standard, the conference seeks answers to three questions:
How can our cities grow sustainably?
How does heritage evolve?
How can we build better homes?
Speakers will represent the United Nations, DFID, the Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit, the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, Create Streets, and Habitat for Humanity. Delegates will also hear from experts in informal economies and informal settlements, as well as the Director of the Indonesian Heritage Trust. Tickets can be booked here.
The day before the conference, the National Trust and INTBAU are co-hosting a Routemaster bus tour on ‘Shelter: 150 Years of Housing and Crisis’. Taking in Octavia Hill’s Red Cross Cottages, Arnold Circus, Bevin Court, and the Packington Estate, the tour will wend its way from south to east to north London, exploring different architectural and social responses to housing from the 1860s to the present day. Tickets have all sold out, but you can stay tuned to the National Trust’s website for future tours.
Alongside the conference, five Excellence Awards will be presented at the Royal Society of Arts to buildings, urban plans, student projects, and community initiatives from Bangladesh, Burundi, India, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.
