Visitors from the University of Waterloo (Canada)

The School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University has a link with the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo (Canada) that was first established 38 years ago. This link supports an academic study tour and student exchange program.

In April/May 2019 a group of final year undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo visited the UK (including Oxford) to take part in a series of short projects...a number of practitioners gave their time and helped run some of the projects - including:

• Savills (Manchester)
• Avison Young (London)
• The Townscape Heritage Initiative (Birmingham Jewellery Quarter)
• Broad Street Trust (Oxford)
• Transport for Greater Manchester
• The National Trust (Cliveden)
• Barton Willmore Planning
• Jones Lang Lasalle
• The Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

The photos below show the students (from Waterloo) giving their final presentations (at Oxford Brookes) - which were attended by students and staff from the School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes:

The Manchester project...

...and a bit of history.

The audience...including Mike Stubbs and Karen Hughes who helped organise the UK tour

We would like to encourage students from Oxford Brookes to take part in the exchange and visit the University of Waterloo - students are expected to self-fund these trips and to maintain and reinvigorate the exchange from Oxford Brookes to the University of Waterloo, we are always looking for sponsorship to promote and reduce the student cost. It is valuable and highly engaging and hopefully a very positive link for the students just before they go into practice. Please get in touch if you are interested in offering sponsorship!

Brookes Planning Society

September saw the official launch of the Brookes Planning Society. The first event was a very successful welcome dinner with undergraduate, postgraduate students and staff sharing their experiences and expectations for the courses and their future careers.

Linh Pham, Alex Higgins, Freddy Hedberg, Swara Shah

Staff and Students interacting at the Welcome Dinner

Under the president Linh Trinh Pham Hai and the secretaries Alex Higgins, Swara Shah and Freddy Hedberg the society has a busy schedule of talks and support activities (module hacks and advice on jobs) for current students. 

Students teaching Students as part of the Module Hacks.

Their second activity involved a Sunday afternoon visit to the Natural History and Pitt Rivers museums with the aim of promoting social interaction amongst members of the society.

Getting out of the classroom: Planning at the Natural History.

The trip to the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford was so much fun and really interesting. It was great meeting other planners from various stages of the course and getting to know where they come from, what areas of planning they are interested in, and why they decided to come to Oxford Brooke's University (Freddy Hedberg, MPlan). 

A big part of learning in Planning and Urban Design takes place in co-curricular activities and the society is a big partner in delivering an exciting learning environment. Check the Facebook group for more details and to keep informed about the activities.