Those planning to attend are encouraged to register promptly, as the small but beautiful venue could fill before the end of the registration period.
ABOVE: The beautiful Corn Exchange in Dorchester, UK, adjacent to the Poundbury locale of a number of tours and breakouts. The main plenary hall is limited to 150 seats.
DORCHESTER (UK) - The 59th International Making Cities Livable conference has received an overwhelming response of 94 submitted abstracts, as well as 32 Early Bird registrations. In addition, 25 plenary speakers and staff members are expected, according to conference manager Leslie Barrett.
"We accepted 74 of the abstracts, and while not all of those will likely come, we have already heard from many of them that they do plan to come," Barrett says. "We typically see more than half of the accepted abstracts at the conferences, and sometimes more than one presenter will come too -- so if we get, say, 40 presenters, plus the Early Bird registrations and plenary speakers and staff, that means we already have around 100 out of our maximum of 150 seats, with four months to go before the conference," she says.
Those who are planning to attend should also book rooms and/or flights soon, as those may be harder to find as well as more expensive, she notes.
The conference, on "The Ecology of Place: From Understanding to ACTION," will have in-depth case studies of Poundbury and other pilot urban developments, as well as new research, and lessons and tools from mayors, senior officials, developers and others who are working to build a new generation of more livable, more durable, more sustainable cities, towns and suburbs. The conference website lists plenary speakers as well as themes: https://www.imcl.online/2023-poundbury
Partners and other participating organizations include the Prince's Foundation, the Duchy of Cornwall, the International Network for Traditional Building Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU), the Congress for the New Urbanism, UN-Habitat, SALUS/Healthy City Design, HealthBridge, National Capital Commission of Canada, and others to be announced.
Michael Mehaffy, Executive Director of the IMCL's organizer, the Lennard Institute, has also recorded a short video tour of Poundbury and Dorchester with information about the venue, logistics, hotels, and other details (link below). The conference website also has information on practicalities (travel options, logistics, hotels, etc): https://www.imcl.online/practicalities-2023.
We hope to see many old friends and new in Poundbury and Dorchester!