NORMAN — Experts on designing livable and healthy communities, large and small, will headline the University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities’ first Placemaking Conference on April 3 at the OU Norman campus. 

The conference targets city planners and developers as well as mayors and city council members across the state to collaborate in an effort to enhance Oklahoma communities.

Featured speakers at the luncheon and dinner sessions, respectively, will be Jeff Speck, author of “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time” and a designer, consultant and thought leader in the areas of walkability and New Urbanism; and Hank Dittmar, chief executive of Prince Charles’ Foundation for Building Community in London, England, and an international expert in the fields of urban design, development, and urban and transportation policy.

Speck and Dittmar will be joined by 10 industry leaders from around the country who will share their perspectives on improving community planning, design and governance during the daylong conference.

The morning and afternoon sessions will be in the Paul F. Sharp Concert Hall in the Catlett Music Center. The lunch and dinner will be in the Oklahoma Memorial Union.

The Placemaking Conference will begin at 9 a.m. in Paul F. Sharp Concert Hall with a session titled “Toward a Sense of Place.”

A welcome will be offered by Blair Humphreys, director of the Institute for Quality Communities, who will introduce Charles Graham, dean of the OU College of Architecture.

Graham will offer opening remarks and introduce the first speaker of the session, Christopher Leinberger, a land use strategist, author and developer. Leinberger, who will discuss “State of Oklahoma Communities,” is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and directs the Graduate Real Estate Development Program at the University of Michigan.

The 10 a.m. session in the same location will feature three panelists. Donovan Rypkema — principal of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate and economic development consulting firm, and a leading voice in historic preservation — will discuss “Economic Benefits of Preservation.”

Ellen Dunham-Jones, who is known for her work in aging suburbs and is co-author of “Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs,” will speak on “Retrofitting Suburbia.”

The third speaker, Ethan Kent, the vice president of the Project for Public Spaces and an authority on placemaking, will discuss “Future of Place.”

Hans Butzer, director of the OU Division of  Architecture, will moderate a question-and-answer session following the presentations.

The luncheon featuring Speck, a city planner and architectural designer with Speck and Associates, Washington, D.C., will follow at noon in the union’s Molly Shi Boren Ballroom. His book, “Walkable City,” is the inspiration of his lecture of the same name. Speck advocates internationally for smart growth and sustainable design.

In addition to “Walkable City,” Speck is the author of “The Smart Growth Manual” and serves as a contributing editor to Metropolis Magazine.  He also serves on the Sustainability Task Force of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The conference will resume at 2 p.m. in Sharp Concert Hall for a session on “Creating More Livable Communities.” Dr. Richard Jackson, professor and chair of UCLA’s School of Environment and Public Health and host of the television series “Designing Healthy Communities,” will begin the session with a lecture titled “Healthy Communities.”

Following Jackson will be an address on “Pedaling Toward Healthy Communities” by John Cock, a principal of Alta Planning + Design, which helps communities increase cycling levels and implement bike-share programs.

Dan Burden — a national authority on walkability, street corridor and intersection design, traffic flow, road diets and other planning elements that affect America’s streets — will discuss “Livable Communities.”

The session will conclude with a panel discussion moderated by Dawn Jourdan, director of the OU Planning Department.

The final afternoon session, “Getting Engaged,” will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the same location. Jason Roberts, co-founder of The Better Block movement, will discuss his vision and success in “The Better Block Project” in a lecture of the same name.

“Tools of Engagement” is the topic to be addressed by Sid Burgess, director of government relations at DotGov Inc., a government application company connecting governments with technology.

Ron Frantz, an Oklahoma Main Street Program architect who currently serves as director of the Great Plains Studio for OU’s Institute for Quality Communities and an associate professor of architecture, will then discuss “IQC in Oklahoma.”

A panel discussion moderated by Humphreys will follow the addresses.

The event will conclude with a dinner in the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom featuring Dittmar’s keynote address. Dittmar is the author of “Transport and Neighbourhoods.”

Dittmar is a distinguished research associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment and was a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, he was honored with the Seaside Prize in recognition of his contributions to urban design around the world.

For reservations more information and accommodations on the basis of disability, call the OU Office of Public Affairs at 325-3784 or email specialevents@ou.edu.

For information on the Institute for Quality Communities and a schedule of events, visit www.iqc.ou.edu.

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