Outspoken critic and academic Germaine Greer is set to throw down the gauntlet on the issue of Sustainability in the Future Scotland debate at the Festival of Politics tomorrow Friday, 21 August 2009. Greer will be the first speaker in an event organised by The Lighthouse and A+DS, and sponsored by PARC Craigmillar URC. Responding to her gauntlet will be Director of the Design Museum and former Director of Glasgow 1999 Year of Architecture and Design, Deyan Sudjic, and Peter Clegg, designer of the Stirling Prize winning Accordia housing in Cambridge. The debate will be chaired by broadcaster and writer, Lesley Riddoch, and will run from 11am – 12.30pm in the Debating Chamber.
In an opinion piece last weekend, Professor Greer set out her stall for sustainable communities by citing a new generation of high rise developments and a call for “groovy places downtown for preference, so you can walk to work and the shops and don't need a car”. Quoting figures on the status of the current housing stock in Scotland – half of which doesn't satisfy the seven out of ten energy standard – Greer called for existing properties to be demolished to make way for new, more energy efficient housing designed for the needs of an ageing population living in single occupancy units (the majority of Scottish dwellings are each occupied by a sole individual - in 2006, the figure was 809,000, more than a third of the total housing stock, and that figure is growing every year.)
Greer’s contention is that many of the super rich live in tower blocks and that by avoiding the pitfalls of the past a new era of high-rise developments could offer the answer to sustainable design and sustainable communities for the wider population.
Germaine Greer
A full account this Debate will appear shortly, alongside previous Future Scotland debates, on The Lighthouse website
The final Future Scotland debate, on Health, will take place at The Lighthouse on 1 September at 6pm. The panel will feature Hugh Barton of the World Health Organisation; Mungo Smith, Medical Architecture & Art Projects; and Gareth Hoskins, Gareth Hoskins Architects. The event will be chaired by Nick Barley, Director of The Lighthouse, and will be followed by a public discussion and vote afterwards. Clydebank re-built URC will sponsor this final event. For futher information and to book your place for the forthcoming Future Scotland Debate click on the following Link
Future Scotland is a series of six keynote debates organised by the Lighthouse, in partnership with A+DS. They are sponsored by Scotland’s Urban Regeneration Companies with media partners Herald Newspapers and Architects Journal.
To read our associated feature on the Future Scotland debate focusing on Education click on the following Link
