Ruimteconferentie 2008

Keynote speeches en presentaties

Keynote speaker: Liesbeth van der Pol

Liesbeth van der Pol is per 15 augustus 2008 Mels Crouwel opgevolgd als Rijksbouwmeester, de eerste adviseur van de directeur-generaal van de Rijksgebouwendienst (RGD) en de minister van WWI voor het Rijkshuisvestingsbeleid. Daarnaast is zij verbonden aan Dok architecten te Amsterdam. Naast haar werk als architect is Van der Pol verbonden geweest als gastdocent aan verschillende universiteiten en academies. Ze heeft zitting genomen in talloze jury's, waaronder in 2006 de jury voor Rijksprijs de Gouden Piramide en de jury voor de BNA-kubus. Momenteel is zij hoofd van de afdeling 'Man and Public Space' aan de Design Academy.

Het verlangen naar schoonheid

ir. Liesbeth van der Pol (Rijksbouwmeester)

Onder de titel ‘Het verlangen naar schoonheid’ geeft Liesbeth van der Pol een toelichting op haar eerste ervaringen als Rijksbouwmeester. In haar lezing geeft zij een representatief over­zicht van de reikwijdte van het werk van de Rijksbouwmeester en van het College van Rijksadviseurs, met als leidend principe 'het verlangen naar schoonheid'.

Keynote speaker: Susan Owens

Susan Owens is Professor of Environment and Policy aan de Universiteit van Cambridge. Haar werk beslaat een diversiteit van thema's rond omgevingsplanning en milieu. Recentelijk hield zij zich bezig met de vraag hoe een eigentijds planningsstelsel kan worden vormgegeven in Groot Brittannie. Susan Owens is lid van de Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution sinds 1998. Professor Owens is erelid van de Royal Town Planning Institute en ontving diverse prijzen en onderscheidingen waaronder in 2000 the Royal Geographical Society's 'Back' Award voor haar werk op het terrein van duurzame ontwikkeling.

Land, Environment and Democracy

professor Susan Owens (University of Cambridge, UK)

Can institutions that regulate land use help bring about the sustainability transition? In her key note lecture professor Owens will explore connections between land use, environment, spatial planning and public policy. She will argues that the mechanisms in land use regulation that are most promising are not those most typically presented in policy discourse.

Land use is linked to environmental change through a multiplicity of direct, indirect, sometimes cumulative and often uncertain effects. These links operate at multiple spatial scales, and they have economic, legal and political dimensions. Yet the relationship between land use, or spatial, planning and environmental sustainability is often narrowly conceived, with planning seen as offering a set of tools or instruments to ‘deliver’ more sustainable patterns of land use, defined in conventional terms. It is more interesting – and more revealing – to consider how the opportunity structures offered by planning systems have admitted new, sometimes radical, ideas into key domains of public policy – often through what Brian Wynne has characterised as ‘uninvited public engagement’ (at the Annual Meeting of the Science and Democracy Network, Cambridge, UK, June 2007). In sectors such as energy and transport, for example, planning has contributed to the ‘greening’ of the state not through (or not only through) officially sanctioned tools such as impact assessment, or ‘reducing the need to travel’, but by providing democratic spaces within which the dominant discourse in policy sub-systems can be challenged.

This crucial (‘subversive’) role for planning is threatened by reformist pressures in many western democracies, where planning is increasingly seen as an obstacle to economic growth and competitiveness. Whilst advocating ‘public engagement’ on the one hand, governments are systematically attempting to close any apertures through which engagement might seriously challenge the status quo. At the time of writing, in England, at least three significant initiatives concerned with ‘streamlining’ and re-scaling the planning system seek to do just that. It is argued that the implications both for democracy and for sustainability are substantial.

Some relevant writings

• Cowell, R. and Owens, S. (2006) ‘Governing space: planning reform and the politics of sustainability’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 24: 403-421 (PDF, 196 KB)
• Owens, S. (2002) ‘‘A collision of adverse opinions?’: major projects, planning inquiries and policy change’, Environment and Planning A 34: 949-957, 2002.
• Owens, S. (2004) ‘Siting, sustainable development and social priorities’, Journal of Risk Research 7, 2: 101-114.
• Owens, S. and Cowell, R. (2002) Land and Limits: Interpreting Sustainability in the Planning Process, London and New York: Routledge, 244pp ISBN 0-415-16276-9.