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The Developer informs and connects professionals working in the development and design of urban spaces.

Our magazine, website, podcast and events bring professionals together to define what makes a place worth living in; cities where people thrive

14/06/2024

The health benefits of green space have led to calls for equitable access to parks. When new green spaces are built in low-income communities, however, gentrification often ensues. The “green gentrification” literature has paid little attention to gentrification that might occur before greening. In this paper, we explore whether and under which circumstances gentrification might precede and follow greening, a process known as the “green gentrification cycle.”

Green gentrification describes the influx of wealthier residents to previously disinvested neighbourhoods due in part to the creation of new green spaces. Often leading to the displacement of low-income renters, green gentrification complicates urban planners’ efforts to improve green space equity in cities worldwide. Specifically, displacement fostered by green gentrification might deprive displaced long-term residents of the many benefits of new green spaces, such as improved physical and mental health, climate mitigation, and earnings.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3xVNOdc

13/06/2024

The Pineapple awards for place were presented by The Developer founding editor-in-chief Christine Murray at a party on 16th May. Seventeen golden Pineapple trophies were awarded to developments and initiatives, selected from 88 shortlisted projects, marking The Pineapples biggest year to date.

Hundreds of developers, architects and engineers submit their projects to The Pineapples. Submissions are assessed and scored by pan-industry and supporting judges and built works are then visited by at least one judge. All the shortlisted projects then had the opportunity to present their project live to a panel of judges during a week-long Festival of Pineapples live-streamed on Airmeet from 16-18 April.

The expert industry judges were instructed to take into account the social and environmental impact of each project. The judges also had the discretion to award more than one Pineapple in each category, should two projects of equal merit emerge. As the only award recognising the urban life of places, the awards highlight best practice and celebrate thriving places.

The Pineapples’ categories include Place of Year, Activation, Public Space, Community Engagement, Place in Progress, Creative Retrofit, Future Place, International Future caption for the photo that is above Place, Activation: Reuse, Future Place: Public Realm, Infrastructure and Climate Resilience. New categories this year include Building, recognising the contribution of a new piece of architecture to a wider place, and Activation: Community Space.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/4bS5Fkn

12/06/2024

Pioneering ethical developer Chris Brown shares his professional journey to a radical shift in thinking regarding carbon...

During my first 15 years at igloo Regeneration, we lived by the mantra ’fabric first’. The climate problem was burning gas to heat our new-build homes and the solution was loads of insulation.

Then our understanding began to change. First, we started to better understand embodied carbon. Better defined as upfront carbon, this is greenhouse gas emissions released when making the materials used to build homes – the manufacturing of concrete, bricks, glass and insulation.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3X3ud5w

11/06/2024

The Atmos project won lottery funding and planning permission submitted under the Community Right to Build Order, but a shock last-minute sale and a planning win on appeal has scuppered their dream. Harriet Saddington reports on Atmos for Totnes and the fight that carries on.

As you come out of Totnes train station, a vacant former-dairy-processing plant looms large behind you. Its 8-acre site runs from the station to the River Dart and once fuelled the local economy, providing jobs for local people straight out of the secondary school next door.

When this Dairy Crest factory closed its doors in 2007, a group of locals formed the Totnes Community Development Society (TCDS) to develop the site into community ownership. The project, called Atmos, was for a mixed-use scheme for 62 affordable homes, workspace and community facilities in the site’s Grade-2 listed pumping building, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Their participatory process was ahead of its time, with an open door for co-design with local people, attracting contributions from 4,000 people (in a town of just 9,000) and culminating in a town-wide referendum for planning permission (86% in favour), submitted under a Community Right to Build Order.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3XaBlNg (Link in bio)

10/06/2024

Rent control, like any other governmental policy, has its intended and unintended effects. Its intended effect is to ensure affordable housing, meaning that tenants face a reasonable rental burden. Typically, the rental burden — defined as the share of the rental costs in the total income of the household — is considered reasonable if it does not exceed 30%. The exact threshold and the definition of rental expenditure and income may be a matter of discussion (Ballesteros et al., 2022), but the fact is that a too high rental burden can have devastating effects. When the rental burden is excessive, it prevents households from buying other goods and services, thus negatively affecting the quality of life. In extreme cases, it can lead to poverty and malnutrition. Therefore, it is important to guarantee the affordability of housing.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/457S1qK (Link in Bio)

14/05/2024

Net zero group LETI has slammed the introduction of a loophole that would allow developers to opt out of Part L performance requirements and has called on built environment professionals to respond to the government consultation before 6 March.

Introduced in the Future Homes and Building Standard consultation, the clause would allow CO2 emission rates to be “relaxed or dispensed with” if the local authority or Building Safety Regulator concludes those standards are “unreasonable in the circumstances”.

LETI is urging built environment professionals to respond to the government consultation and insist the loophole is closed.

“Building regulations should be the minimum standard across the country without exception,” LETI submitted in its response to the consultation. “If enabled, these exceptions are likely to affect the poorest areas of the country.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3JPJ2Rp

09/05/2024

My PhD fieldwork showed that residents had operational emissions that were between one third and two thirds of the average UK household, writes Dr Penny Clark

A powerful, intuitive and compellingly simple way in which we can live more sustainably is by sharing, whether it’s sharing our objects, amenities, homes or maybe even our sustainable skills, norms and values.

Communal living was once considered a bit out there; it was often thought of - pejoratively or otherwise - as the realm of hippies or religious groups. Yet with the loneliness, cost of living, and environmental crises we are facing, living more communally makes a lot of sense and, since the early 2000s, there has been growing interest in new forms of communal living such as co-housing.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/4a0w3Hr

08/05/2024

The working Wikipedia definition of a sacrifice zone is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by environmental damage or economic disinvestment. However, such an expansive and non-specific definition causes two problems: firstly, it allows for legal disputes over what is meant by “impaired” and “permanently”; secondly, it means that policy and legality are only concerned when the bad thing is an extreme case. This leaves communities unable to seek justice at those first instances of poor health outcomes.

We propose the use of geospatial and physiological data to create a more specific working definition of “urban sacrifice zones”, one that will allow communities to hold industrial polluters accountable at “first harm” or as close to “first harm” as possible. Adapted from the work of Dr Max Liboiron, the “right to pollute” was coined by Centric Lab to describe the legal rights given to industrial polluters to contaminate soil, water and air.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3x8oKzy

07/05/2024

Place Database:

Powered by The Pineapples awards for place and curated by The Developer. Search by location, developer or company name to search this database of hundreds of UK places under development.

https://bit.ly/4b6BPIv

06/05/2024

Public buildings are more than just structures – they’re reflections of our society. Pre-order our upcoming edition as we explore the state of public buildings, from vibrant parks to iconic libraries.

Anthropologist Caroline Bennett offers a captivating placetest of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, accompanied by stunning new photography from John Sturrock. Sarah Wigglesworth delves into the past and future of civic architecture, while Laura Mark takes us on a journey through new Amsterdam social housing.

With insights from Teshome Douglas-Campbell on Sidcup’s new public library and a peek inside bustling markets and innovative public spaces, “The Developer” magazine is your guide to understanding and shaping the future of places. Don’t miss out – grab your copy now! https://bit.ly/3LeI695

07/12/2022

Co-living is an experiment on vulnerable people at scale

Jonny Anstead asks whether it’s right to deploy an untested model of housing without robust evidence of the potential positive and negative impacts

07/12/2022

Entries have opened for The Pineapples 2023, with the call for entries opening on 31st October with an early bird deadline of December 15, 2022.

The Pineapples are the only awards that celebrate excellence in place-based design and development in recognising projects that make a meaningful social impact in a range of categories, from Creative Retrofit and Public Space to Activation and Place of the Year.

06/12/2022

We love to see you receiving your copy of the latest edition. If you haven’t already got your copy, link in bio!

06/12/2022

Working with, not against, communities, is a faster route to better places, writes Christine Murray in the latest issue of The Developer magazine.

06/12/2022

"Anyone following the paths can stroll around the factory and see the green roof covered with natural forest vegetation, and the nearly 900 solar cell panels that supply energy to the building" features in the latest edition of The Developer magazine

30/11/2022

It’s landing! Have you ordered your copy yet?

03/11/2022

Delighted to share with you all the new cover of our Winter 2022 The Developer magazine! The theme is community, and you can pre-order your copy of the magazine at www.the developer.live or using the link in our bio!

15/08/2022

AD - Job Advertisement: Belfast City Council is looking for a Regeneration Development Surveyor to play a key role in Belfast driving regeneration to significantly improve local residents’ quality of life and ensure inclusive growth across the city. Find out more and apply here: https://bit.ly/3A6jxa8

09/08/2022

Congratulations to Sunderland City Council who are one of the two Pineapples for Future Place winners 2022!

Riverside Sunderland will be a sustainable carbon-neutral development created by zero-waste construction processes using MMC. Decentralised energy networks will support decarbonisation. Part of a masterplan that will double the resident population of Sunderland city centre from 2,500 to 5,000 and increase employment by 50%, when complete, 10,000 people will work at Riverside Sunderland. New leisure spaces include music venues such as the Auditorium and £80m Arena and a new digital library, described as the UK’s best.

The judges were excited by these ambitious plans that unlock the infrastructure needed to develop across the Weir and reconnect with the place's natural assets: the gorge, the Weir and surrounding landscape. They saw this project as undoing the harm done over time to the city and welcome these exciting plans to grow the number of people living and working in the city centre in an inspirational and net zero way.

Read more, and watch the winning presentations here: https://linktr.ee/tweakltd

08/08/2022

AD - Job Opportuniy: Belfast City Council is looking for a Regeneration Development Surveyor to play a key role in Belfast driving regeneration to significantly improve local residents’ quality of life and ensure inclusive growth across the city. Find out more and apply here: https://bit.ly/3A6jxa8

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Congratulations to Sunderland City Council who are one of the two Pineapples for Future Place winners 2022! Riverside Sunderland will be a sustainable carbon-neutral development created by zero-waste construction processes using MMC. Decentralised energy networks will support decarbonisation. Part of a masterplan that will double the resident population of Sunderland city centre from 2,500 to 5,000 and increase employment by 50%, when complete, 10,000 people will work at Riverside Sunderland. New leisure spaces include music venues such as the Auditorium and £80m Arena and a new digital library, described as the UK’s best. The judges were excited by these ambitious plans that unlock the infrastructure needed to develop across the Weir and reconnect with the place's natural assets: the gorge, the Weir and surrounding landscape. They saw this project as undoing the harm done over time to the city and welcome these exciting plans to grow the number of people living and working in the city centre in an inspirational and net zero way. Read more, and watch the winning presentations here: https://linktr.ee/tweakltd

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For makers and shapers of place

The Developer is a publication for enlightened real estate developers working in the private and public sector along with their investors, local government, architects, placemakers and project teams. It’s major event, the Festival of Place, brings its audience together to learn, inspire and debate the future of placemaking.

We inform and connect professionals working in the development and design of urban spaces through our journalism, podcast, films, magazine and live at the annual Festival of Place, breaking down silos to bring professionals together to define what makes a place worth living in; cities where people thrive.

We recognise the need to eradicate systemic racism and ethnic oppression from property development and urban planning. We are committed to amplifying the voices of black and ethnic minority professionals, citizens, writers and photographers, and to openly discuss and challenge racism in urban space, planning and property development.

Our content is free and supported by our subscribers, Patrons and sponsors, tickets for live events and entries to our awards programme, The Pineapples.