2006 Lectures

Making The Sustainable City A Reality

The Leeds Schumacher Lectures 2006
Held at Leeds Metropolitan University , September - December 2006

The annual series of Schumacher Lectures, held in Bristol every year since 1980, has become synonymous with the kind of deep and radical thinking on issues of sustainable and human-scale development, and its relationship to social, cultural and spiritual issues, that was pioneered by Fritz Schumacher, author of 'Small Is Beautiful', and that is vitally needed if we are to meet the huge challenges of our contemporary situation. The Leeds Schumacher Lectures 2006 focussed on turning the deep ideas of sustainable urban development that have emerged over the years from the Schumacher community into practice.

Speakers

Susan Roaf: Solar Cities September 15 2006

Susan Roaf, former professor of architecture at Oxford Brookes University, was convenor of the recent ground-breaking Solar Cities Conference. For the last ten years she has researched the relationship between energy, the environment and buildings. Not content with a merely academic approach, she built her own ground-breaking solar electric house in Oxford, the first in Britain. She publishes widely on many topics, including the traditional building technologies of developing countries, and is co-founder of the International Organisation for Teachers of Architecture.

Herbert Girardet: Cities of the Future October 27th 2006

Herbert Girardet is Chair of the Schumacher Society and is internationally recognised as one of the world's leading thinkers on sustainable urban development. His long record of intensive research and practical involvement in the issues uniquely qualifies him to address the deep strategic problems of creating an authentically sustainable and humane urban environment. As Research Director of the World Future Council, he is also uniquely qualified to comment on the crucial issue of the need for a new level of political vision and leadership in tackling the momentous issues we are now confronting.

Ezio Manzini: Creative communities and the diffused social enterprise November 3rd 2006

Ezio Manzini is Director of the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on Innovation for Sustainability, Milan, and is perhaps the world's leading expert on sustainable design, with a focus on solutions that encompass both environmental and social quality. His concept of the 'Sustainable Everyday' - sharing of local initiatives that enhance quality of life and build community solidarity while contributing to environmental sustainability - has won widespread recognition as a key element in the emerging new strategies of sustainable development.

Peter Harper: Building Sustainable Communities December 8th 2006

Peter Harper is Head of Research and Innovation at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales, where he has been involved in a unique experiment to create a sustainable community for over 25 years. A biologist, horticulturalist and author of the Natural Garden Book, he coined the term alternative technology in 1972 and has been a leading force in the movement since.