Urbanism Beyond the Nuclear Family: Event report

Last Wednesday 4 March, in the days preceding International Women’s Day, we held an invigorating evening event diving into how the implicit expectation of a traditional family structure impacts urbanism, and how the built environment can facilitate independence, not isolation.

Event chair Liane Hartley set the scene expertly, introducing the idea of considerate urbanism and asking what a care-based urbanism looks like after centuries of design influenced by narrow, gendered assumptions.

Jonny Anstead then talked us through the origins and modern-day manifestations of co-housing principals, using case studies from TOWN as well as other schemes across the UK. He made the case for how alternative, more fluid and communal, housing models provide community, support, and independence for all ages.

Lastly Shira de Bourbon Parme zoomed out to a city scale, looking at how a ‘fabric of care’ can create successful, interdependent cities. She shared international case studies spanning a three point approach: layering and diversifying care to form a system; care embedded in everyday spaces; and designing everyday feedback loops.

Suitably fired up from the talks so far, we had an engaging Q&A discussion with attendees and these chats continued into the night over drinks long after the mics had been put away.

The recording of the event will be made available in the AoU Members’ Corner in the coming weeks, to relive or catch up on if you missed it.

Thanks to all our speakers and those who joined us on the night.