Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Join us for free Fri 5/28 Book Talk with Nabeel Hamdi, author of "The Placemaker's Guide to Building Community"

PublicForum Book Talk with Nabeel Hamdi, author of "The Placemaker's Guide to Building Community"

Friday, 28 May
13:00 Eastern / 17:00 GMT (60 minutes, Audio Conference)

Free Registration
Registration closes Wednesday, 26 May
A Circle Club members-only event.

Nabeel is this month's Featured Author in our Bookstore

Join our next PublicForum Book Talk with noted author Nabeel Hamdi.

He is currently Professor Emeritus at Oxford Brookes University and teaching fellow at The Development Planning Unit, University College, London. In 1997 Nabeel won the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour for his work on Community Action Planning; he is an award-winning architect and has authored several books on subjects that include participatory planning, international development and housing.

Nabeel's newest book, The Placemaker's Guide to Building Community (Earthscan, 2010), is packed with practical skills and tools that engagement practitioners, planners, urban designers and other built environment specialists need to engage effectively with development work in any context.

Drawing on four decades of practical and teaching experience, Hamdi offers fresh insight into the complexities faced by development practitioners when working to improve the communities, lives and livelihoods of people the world over. The book shows how these complexities are a context for, rather than a barrier to, creative work. The book also critiques the single-vision top-down approach to design and planning. Using examples of successful professional practice across Europe, the US, Africa, Latin America and post-tsunami Asia, Hamdi demonstrates how good policy can derive from good practices when reasoned backwards, as well as how plans can emerge in practice without a preponderance of planning.

Reasoning backwards is shown to be a more effective and inclusive way of planning forwards with significant improvements to the quality of process and place. The book also offers a variety of methods and tools for analyzing the issues, engaging with communities and other stakeholders for design and settlement planning and for improving the skills of all involved in placemaking.

Don't miss this insightful discussion that will focus on practical tools and approaches to engaging people for the purpose of placemaking!

Agenda
o Welcome and Introductions (5 minutes)
o Interview with Nabeel Hamdi by Beth Offenbacker/PublicDecisions (20 minutes)
o Open Discussion (35 minutes)

Register for this program

Please note the interview portion of this program will be recorded and will subsequently be made available via podcast.
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