The eden project

Research symposium
Spending cuts raise the spectre of dumbed down design, but the ambition to build heaven on earth should not be lightly abandoned. The RIBA 2010 Research Symposium will gather the arguments to make beautiful places

The creation of beauty is a defining purpose of architecture, inextricably linked with the third of Vitruvius’s conditions for design which is often translated as ‘delight’. Creating beauty is both one of the fundamental objectives of design and one of the ultimate tests of its success. But concepts of beauty soon start to become elusive. Can beauty be defined, and is there any need to do so? Can the central characteristics of beauty be isolated and explained through pure mathematical analysis? Or can historians unpick our perceptions by applying cultural perspective? Why do we, by and large, prefer the Parthenon to the Peterborough Premier Inn? And yet why do opinions on what constitutes beauty differ so widely, from culture to culture, and person to person? And what has any of this to do with hard-nosed, deficit-reducing government or the cost-benefit assessments that drive policy making?

Critical link
Is this even the time to be talking about beauty, when the objectives, structure and funding of the public sector are all under question? Cabe thinks so, which is why we seized the opportunity to programme the 2010 RIBA Research Symposium. The government wants to give people more control over what happens to the places they live in. We think there’s a crucial link between people’s ambitions for their places and beauty as a public value – a link that needs to be better understood. So we commissioned research to test our theory and to find out what people really think about beauty.

Cabe’s ‘Does Beauty Matter?’ project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, asks people who use the built environment to tell us what beauty means. We were convinced that the only way to give beauty credibility in the policy arena would be through listening directly to the public, so we based our research on a series of filmed interviews from Ipsos MORI, asking people living in Sheffield about beauty. Once they had got over their initial surprise at being asked, most had a great deal to say on the subject. We asked questions like ‘what’s beautiful about where you live?’; ‘what does beauty mean to you?’; ‘is it important, or a luxury?’; and ‘should everyone have access to beauty?’.

Although there were lots of different views on what’s beautiful and what’s not, there was overall agreement on one thing: that beauty does matter. Some people love to escape to the countryside around Sheffield and relax. Some see the city’s beauty in traces of its industrial past, the mills, the workshops, the canals. Others prefer the new squares, offices and public buildings associated with the Sheffield of the last 10 years. One boy, Jack talks eloquently about the personal sense of abandonment felt by those living with the decline of the Parkhill Estate, and the contrasting pride he and his friend feel exploring the nearby ruins of Manor Castle. Others mention the design of their sixth form college, the park they used when they were growing up.

Nearly all the people interviewed agree that beauty makes them feel good about where they live, and that being happy in your surroundings helps you feel more confident about yourself and your life.

We want more
We ran a national survey to find out more. It revealed that a large majority of people, 81%, think everyone should be able to experience beauty on a regular basis. Only 18% think that beauty matters less if you are poor. And even fewer, 12%, are too busy to take any notice of beauty. This is substantial evidence that beauty is a public value and that it matters to most people, regardless of who they are. Now we want to open up the debate and hear views from many more people, with the RIBA Symposium at the heart of the discussion.

‘Does beauty matter?’ is an important question in its own right. But it’s also a way to get people talking about their local environment, looking at it critically and thinking about how it affects their lives. Through lack of time or confidence, disconnection from the language used by professionals, or just a sense of pointlessness, very few people take part spontaneously in consultation about new housing or facilities in their neighbourhood.

Discussions on beauty don’t have to be about taste. They can be about the values that we associate with the built environment, and our ambitions for our place and ourselves. They can explore the significance of beauty as a public value, and as a legitimate objective for public policy. Developing an ability to read the world around us what you might call ‘visual literacy’ – is the practical starting point from which people can get more directly involved in shaping their places.

Join the debate
The RIBA Research Symposium is the ideal opportunity to drive the debate forward and hear from a range of excellent, influential speakers. We’ve invited people who can explore the meaning of beauty right now, and think about how it may be able to address some of the pressing questions we face as a society.

John Gummer, now Lord Debden, is our keynote speaker, and he is in a position to provide particular insight into current government policy from a highly experienced perspective. Architects John Andrews, Eric Parry, Irena Bauman and Sarah Featherstone will share their extensive, contrasting experiences of creating beautiful buildings and places. Highly influential community activists Sue Clifford, of Common Ground, and Pam Warhurst, of Incredible Edible Todmorden (see below) and the Forestry Commission, bring to bear their understanding of the links between community and beauty. John Calcutt tells the developer’s tale. And we’ve built in extra time for discussion, because our objective is to involve our exceptionally knowledgable audience in lively and informative debate. Philip Blond, who is chairing the afternoon debate session, has the ear of the government and will ensure that the symposium takes us right to the leading edge of current political thought.

Cabe’s research was driven by an articulate and informed public, whose views we all need to listen to. That’s why we believe the beauty debate is important and timely. We’re looking forward to a day of ideas and inspiration on 23rd September.

Tom Bolton is senior research advisor at Cabe

The RIBA Research Symposium ‘Does beauty matter?’ will take place on Thursday 23 September at 66 Portland Place, London. For details, or to book your ticket, visit architecture.com/research or phone 020 7307 3714.

Forms of beauty
What could be more beautiful than fruit and veg growing in every nook and corner, and everyone nurturing and enjoying them? Pam Warhurst puts the case for Incredible Edible

In the best possible taste
Incredible edible Todmorden, Rossendale, York, or Granada may on the face of it seem to be just a nice idea about ‘The Good Life’.

It is a project where people are encouraged to think more about local food, growing, consuming, purchasing or just skilling-up to do some or all of these things.
In many respects that is indeed what it is, but put your nose closer to the glass and you may see more.

You may see a town, in season, overspilling with vegetation – cabbages, beans, potatoes and courgettes – fruit trees, nut trees, strawberries and rhubarb. Shades of yellow, green, pink, white and red splash all over unloved corners – in car parks, on tarmac, along estate roads and at the bottom of streets.

You may see a health centre with edibles where pricklies used to be – so much easier to get through to the target audience than five a day.

There’s a high school with an edible learning landscape; social estates with raised beds full of vegetables and fruit grown by the residents for themselves.

Strangers stop to discuss with each other what on earth things are called and what to do with them.

There are young families, at tea time, taking a trip to the local vegetable patch and helping themselves to the fruits of the earth, soon to be turned into soups, salads and stews.
Kindness, laughter, friendship are all growing amid this ambitious, but at times overwhelming, desire to stop the rot to our environment, and start to put things back, for generations not yet born.

These are lessons we are all learning about what local regeneration might include at its heart.

If that’s not beauty, I don’t know what is!

Pam Warhurst is co-founder of Incredible Edible Todmorden and chair of the Forestry Commission