Monday 14th January 2019 at 7.30 p.m. at the Shopfront Theatre, City Arcade, Coventry, CV1 3HW
John Prevc is an architect working with Make in London. Make is an employee owned international practice with offices in London, Hong Kong and Sydney.
John joined Make when it was founded in 2004 and has taken a leading role in projects across a range of sectors, from transport to arts and culture to higher education. He has a great deal of urban design experience, and has led some of Make’s key city regeneration projects, including their largescale masterplan for Elephant and Castle.
John is vice-chair of the Future Spaces Foundation, Make’s thought leadership arm, and a member of Design Council CABE as a Building Environment Expert. For the past three years he’s been an external examiner for Coventry University’s School of Art and Design.
Coventry Society meetings are open to the public, free for members, but we ask for a voluntary contribution of £2 from visitors to cover the cost of room hire and refreshments.
Add this meeting to your Google Calendar
I was greatly stimulated by the talk, entitled “Vital Cities not Garden Cities”.
The case for vital (high density) cities is based on minimizing the sprawl of suburbia over England. Both to preserve the countryside and to create real communities.
With dormitory suburbs, people commute long distances every day to work and have few or no local places for social or cultural activities after work.
An alternative approach is happening in the centre of Coventry, where large numbers of students study and socialise in an area within walking distance of where they eat and sleep.
Leaving aside those people who work at home, I suppose there’s no a lot of scope for people in the 25-65 age group to live close to where they work.
But what about retired people?
Many retired people live in homes far larger than they need and where social and medical needs can only be met by travelling some miles. Wouldn’t it make sense to build retirement villages close to the city centre, so that social, cultural and medical needs could be met within walking distance of people’s homes, leading to a real community?