Young Professionals Think Deep Programme (YPTDP) 2016 Glasgow (ITACUS-ISOCARP event)

For the first time, ISOCARP in partnership with ITACUS has organized a Young Professional’ Think Deep Program (YPTDP) Workshop. The event was hosted by the City of Glasgow (Glasgow City Council) and took place within the 23rd – 28th of October 2016.The intention of this workshop was to produce a set of case studies contributing towards in-depth analysis of interrelations between city planning focusing on urban design and underground space utilization and infrastructure provision.

The workshop was targeted at junior British and international professionals (up to 35 years old) with various backgrounds such as spatial planning, architecture, civil engineering and real estate management.

There were 20 international participants with various professional backgrounds who attended this workshop. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to represent Singapore at this workshop. The theme chosen for this workshop was "Rethinking the Clyde Waterfront". The focus was on developing strategies for connecting the infrastructure development into underground urban design. This theme strongly connects with the Singapore city planning and I was very hopeful to get maximum out of this workshop.

Participants of YPTDP workshop in Glasgow, Scotland

At a moment when tunnels and underground infrastructure are playing a key role in replacing high-rise infrastructure and surface development to create open green public places, the development of underground space needs to be planned and needs to be seen as an integral part of the city fabric. Many mega-cities are looking at underground space as a last resort, as the spatial relief valve that can for one last time help to free space at the surface rather than planning underground space by choice. In order to create this vision on the use of underground space, this workshop attempted to make planners aware of the subsurface and its role in urban planning as well as to educate engineers the planner's perspective.

The workshop adopted the interactive method, facilitating the search for an "outside the box" approach for an unobvious answers. The group of young planners and engineers coming from 19 countries were asked to support the City of Glasgow with their objective, external view, and with “fresh” ideas for developing the area of the Clyde waterfront. The workshop itself is usually a series of brainstorming exercises, resulting in a vision of development for the area. The style of brainstorming depends on the experience and personality of the participants.

YPTDP Glasgow 2016 - Brainstorming session

My team at YPTDP Glasgow,2016.  Theme: Urban Garden
(from Left: Negar, Senthil, Fillipo, Rosanne, David)

Full report of the workshop and details of the brainstorming session is available at:  https://goo.gl/d1oPGm