Architecture Open Lecture: Creating Liveable Cities - From Macro to Mental

The event is titled Creating Liveable Cities: From Macro to Mental as part of the Open Lecture Series Fortuitous Encounters from the Leeds School of Architecture. The event will feature presentations by Garuth Chalfont (Lancaster University) and Alan Simson (Emeritus Professor, Leeds Beckett University.)

Wednesday 24 February 2021, 17:00 – 18:00.

The event will take place online via MS Teams and is open to the public.

Programme:

17:00 – Garuth Chalfont (Lancaster University)

17:30 – Alan Simson (Emeritus Professor, Leeds Beckett University)

Biography:

Garuth Chalfont, PhD ASLA designed and built residential landscapes in the USA for 25 years focusing on therapeutic benefits for mental health. Having seen first-hand the devastation of dementia in families including his own, he began an Architecture PhD at Sheffield, UK on dementia care environments in 2002. His work continued with a renewed focus on designing outdoor spaces in dementia care environments, and providing hands-on training to facilitate active and enjoyable use of the gardens by residents, staff and families www.chalfontdesign.com. In 2015 at Lancaster, Faculty of Health and Medicine he began researching non-drug treatments, specifically the benefits people gain by activating electromagnetic frequencies from the sun and earth to regenerate their cellular bioenergetics. He now translates scientific evidence into empowered self-care for holistic (mind-body-soul) health, and therefore to prevent, delay the onset and slow the decline of dementia.

Alan Simson is a landscape architect, an urban forester and a landscape urbanist. Currently, he is Emeritus Professor of Landscape Architecture + Urban Forestry at Leeds Beckett University. Prior to working in academia, he worked in the UK New Towns, particularly Telford, where he ran the Urban Forestry Programme for over eleven years. Telford was the first town in the UK to be granted Forestry Stewardship Certification. He has also worked in public and private practices, including his own, both in the UK and abroad. He is a member of the International Committee of the European Forum on Urban Forestry and has been involved in a number of EU-funded research projects, some of which he has led on behalf of the UK. In the UK, he a Director/Trustee of both the Arboricultural Association and the Community Forest Trust, and is Chair of the White Rose Community Forest. He has been engaged in planning and designing urban forestry and associated urbanism for many years, enthusiastically working and promoting in some 32 different countries to date the concept that a successful urban forest will be the prime choreographer of our viable, resilient urban futures.