CABE Design Skills Scholarship Programme

CABE Space has announced that applications are now open for its annual design skills scholarship programme offering up to six people who work in the public realm the opportunity to travel abroad to learn from fellow professionals how a well-designed space can benefit the community it serves.

Designed to inject design awareness and good practice into the professions that create and manage urban public space, the scholarships target people without design training whose work has an impact on the public realm and who want to learn more about the effect good design can have on our streets and highways, parks and green spaces and public squares and neighborhoods.

Successful scholars will travel to places all over the world and within the UK to visit examples of well-designed spaces, gain an understanding of their delivery and management, and learn how similar ideas can be developed through their work.

The latest round of scholarships comes hot on the heels of the 2008 scholarships, completed earlier this month. Eight scholars visited Canada, the USA Japan, Scandinavia and Europe to study subjects such as how better designed parks and public squares can help solve crime and antisocial behaviour, how parks can be designed to integrate young people into the community and how new technology can help designers and town planners to create lively public spaces for disabled people.

Applications are invited in six areas: urban streets; highways and public squares; urban parks and green spaces; public space design for disabled people and those with other access issues; public space projects delivered by or working with local communities, and public spaces in social housing developments.

Scholarships will be made in the form of grants designed to cover travel and living expenses for a period of approximately six weeks. Applicants will propose their own study programme which they will then be able to develop with the help of a CABE Space mentor.

Applications can be made online by visiting www.cabe.org.uk/scholarships from October 30. The closing date is December 19th 2008 at 5pm. Selected candidates will be called for interview in January and successful applicants will be notified by the end of February 2009.