Architects must be at the centre of the planning process renewal, says new RIAI president

Charlotte Sheridan, a director of Sheridan Woods, Architects and Urban Planners, and a board member of Nama is the new President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI). She will serve a two-year term. It was growing up in a Co Cavan market town that instilled in her both an appreciation of town living, but also how towns must repurpose themselves to thrive. I spoke with Ms Sheridan to hear her views on today’s issues for architecture, planning and development.

Having qualified as a chartered architect, it was those observations from her home town and a realisation that Ireland was developing with an emphasis on car-reliant estates on the edges of towns that drove Ms Sheridan’s interest in urban planning and she completed a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning. A period working in Berlin and a growing interest in how city centres can “repair and regenerate” contributed to what she describes now as her passion for placemaking, community and creating neighbourhoods.

Charlotte Sheridan believes that there are both great opportunities?and challenges?for architects?in interacting fully with a planning process in an era of change with a greater emphasis on the importance of “planning led” development and a plethora of national and regional planning initiatives.

The value of creating “neighbourhoods” in towns and cities?has never been more important, she tells me, and has been strengthened by the pandemic. “Architecture,” she says, “is all about creating plans for people to make high-quality and sustainable places and buildings” and she insists that architects must play an active role in developing planning policy.

Project Ireland 2040, the National Planning Framework, and all national policies are inter-related, Ms Sheridan says, “and the challenge to architects is to deliver on those plans, which can be difficult from a design point of view”.

Priorities are the re-use and adaptation of derelict buildings?and the re-use of “back lands”. Many cities and town centres, she tells me, have large gardens to the rear of buildings on the main street. These lands are serviced and well-located and there is an opportunity to develop them as residential areas so as?not to rely on building on the edges of towns. Architects are playing a big part in this “sensible land assembly”, she adds.

Ms Sheridan describes The Housing for All?plan as “incredibly ambitious” and she believes it has a lot of potential. The Strategic Development (SHD) initiative, which led to a swathe of judicial reviews, was, she says, “an attempt to address the housing crisis that had a rocky road”.

It will be replaced by a return to local authority led planning, which, she believes, will have many of the attributes of SHD.

At the highest level, the country’s planning codes are being reviewed by a Planning Advisory Forum and the RIAI will play a key role in that activity. There is great stakeholder engagement in this process, Ms Sheridan tells me, which is crucial as communities need to understand the plans?and this will reduce adversarial issues.

There is an important role for architects to participate in making sophisticated plans at local authority level, in conjunction with professionals including engineers, urban planners and landscape designers. However, there are just 197 architects employed by local authorities in Ireland, and some authorities have none.

“The balance of skills and the resourcing of planning departments needs to be improved,” Ms Sheridan concludes.

A link to the article is available here.