Students to share city visions at Derby Property Summit

As well as showcasing the city’s development pipeline, this year’s Derby Property Summit will once again provide a platform for the talents of the University of Derby’s architecture students.

Each year, Marketing Derby, the award-winning investment promotion agency that organises the summit, collaborates with the university to challenge the students to come up with new ideas and visions for some key city centre sites.

The students have once again come up with a number of stunning designs, which will be on display at this year’s event, which is due to take place at Reach Events, on Pride Park, on Wednesday 12 July.

The designs, created by students from the university’s BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology and Practice, BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Venue Design, and MSc Sustainable Architecture and Healthy Buildings courses, focus on the North Riverside area of the city.

North Riverside is bounded by St Alkmund’s Way and the River Derwent, and includes Darwin Place, Derwent Street, Stuart Street and Phoenix Street.

It is part of the Derby Riverside character zone, included within the Derby City Masterplan.

Dr Boris Ceranic, senior lecturer and programme leader for MSc Architectural courses at the university, said: “The students were asked to come up with proposals for a sustainable, high-quality mixed-use development on brownfield land which will fully exploit the riverside setting.

“The students’ brief was to design a new riverside setting with a vibrant waterfront pedestrian area within the heart of the city.”

Their work will be on display inside the main auditorium, which will be filled with a sell-out audience of more than 250 delegates, including business leaders, key decision-makers and investors from across the region and beyond.

This year’s Derby Property Summit is entitled ‘From Customer to Citizen – The Collective Curation of Cities’.

Hosted by BBC and LBC business journalist Declan Curry, it will feature a top line-up of keynote speakers and panellists.

Among the speakers will be Melanie Leech CBE, chief executive of the British Property Federation, which represents UK companies involved in property ownership and investment.

Also speaking will be Professor Yolande Barnes, chair of the The Bartlett Real Estate Institute, which is based at University College London (UCL).

Another keynote speaker will be Robbie Jones, insights director at Derby-based themed attractions designer Katapult, which works with major theme parks across the world and advises on the customer experience.

And, in his first major public speech since becoming leader of Derby City Council, Councillor Baggy Shanker will be taking to the stage to set out his goals for the city over his next four years in office.

There will also be a panel debate featuring city council chief executive Paul Simpson, Alex Hudson, market senior partner for PwC East Midlands, Tom Ketteringham, chief of staff at the Great British Railways Transition Team and Donna Smith, sales director at Wavensmere Homes.

This year’s Derby Property Summit is kindly backed by main event partner Bowmer + Kirkland, along with brand partners AJS Structural Design, Faithful + Gould, Lovell and Willmott Dixon.

For more information about the Derby Property Summit visit https://www.marketingderby.co.uk/events/ .