December 2015

Welcome to the December 2015 BEPE Update 
Celebrating two years of BEPE!
The Built Environment Professional Education Project marked its second birthday with an evening of networking and celebration at City Hall on 2 December 2015. The Deputy Mayor of London, Munira Mirza, hosted the event, which brought together over 75 people connected with the project from across the built environment and education sectors. The Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP, spoke via video link of his continued support for the project and his appreciation of the efforts of everyone involved.

Paul Morrell speaking at the BEPE reception December 2015

Also speaking on the evening were Rebecca Ford from the Royal Society for the Arts, who told us of the interest from students and educators for the new Inclusive Cities Student Design Award - see RSA Inclusive Cities Award and Gavin Brooks, Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Reading, who provided an update of progress with their Breaking down Barriers project - see UoR Breaking down Barriers project. Updates were also given by Janet Askew President of the Royal Town Planning Institute and Virginia Newman Diversity Champion at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Paul Morrell, chair of the BEPE Project Board concluded with an optimistic view of how the industry can take the project forward next year. As Paul said, “This is not about design with a few things added, and still less about design with a few compromises: it is just about good design.” The film and transcript of the speeches will be uploaded onto the GOV.UK website shortly.  

Engineering Council
The Engineering Council is the latest organisation to publicly pledge its support for the BEPE project. This brings the number of built environment institutions involved in the project up to 18. You can read the Engineering Council’s statement, and all the others, on the BEPE section of the GOV.UK website. 

Network Rail
Network Rail has demonstrated its commitment to embedding inclusive design into their stations and services, with the development of their new Inclusive Design Strategy. This strategy, spearheaded by Network Rail’s Access & Inclusion Manager and BEPE Board Member Margaret Hickish and their Programme Manager Frances McAndrew, sets out the approach Network Rail will take to access and inclusion at its stations and in training its staff.  The strategy will shortly be available on Network Rail’s website. 

Association of Civil Engineering Departments (ACED) 
BEPE featured at the Association of Civil Engineering Departments (ACED) annual conference in Nottingham University in November. ACED promotes excellence in the teaching of Civil Engineering students and in the activity of Civil Engineering research, and provides a forum for debate about important issues. Margaret Hickish presented the BEPE Project and so was able to use the development of Network Rail’s Inclusive Design Strategy and how NR is now training its engineers in inclusive design, as an example of the need and importance of embedding inclusive design into engineering education from the outset.

BEPE goes global 

Margaret Hickish and Julie Fleck with colleagues at the ABX conference 

This autumn has seen BEPE stretch its influence across the pond to the ABX Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. ABX (Architecture Boston Expo) is the leading building industry event in the Northeast USA. One of the large exhibition halls at Boston Convention and Exhibition Centre was full of stalls, exhibits and information for architects about the latest trends in the construction industry. As a guest of the Institute for Human Centred Design (Human Centred Design) along with other colleagues from the UK, I spoke about the BEPE project and how the UK is building on the legacy from London 2012 - one of nearly 200 conference sessions - see ABX socially sustainable design symposium. 

Webinar / journal article / blog 
Closer to home, I recorded a webinar for the Landscape Institute which you can view at Landscape Institute BEPE Webinar and the Association of Architectural Educators (AAE) have published an article on BEPE in their journal ‘Charrette’ - see volume 2 issue 1 Charrette AAE Journal. 
On International Day of Disabled People last week, the Construction Industry Council published a blog about the BEPE project - see CIC BEPE Blog.

The next BEPE Update will be in 2016 so have a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!

As always, if you’d like to lend support contact me at julie.fleck@dwp.gsi.gov.uk and don’t forget you can also keep up to date with all things legacy-related via @2012govuk.