Jonathan Tarbatt: The Urban Block

Jonathan Tarbatt is a practising urban designer, architect, and town planner. He has published extensively on the subject of urban design including ‘The Plot’ (National Urban Design Awards Finalist, 2013), and ‘The Urban Block’, RIBA Publishing, 2020 (National Urban Design Awards Winner, 2021). Jonathan specialises in masterplanning, with extensive experience of new urban extensions, and new settlements as well as the regeneration of urban brownfield sites, acting on behalf of a wide range of private and public sector clients.

Drawing on his recent award-winning book ‘The Urban Block’, Jonathan will explain the relevance of the block – in its many forms and guises - to urban design and masterplanning practice. He will challenge the received wisdom that the only ‘good’ block is a perimeter block, arguing instead for choice, and the potential for innovative design to create successful hybrid block typologies. However, in order to ‘bend’ the rules, one must first understand them. He will illustrate his approach to masterplanning the block with reference to three projects currently on his drawing board: one small, one medium, and one large.

This lecture is kindly supported by Henry J Lyons and hosted in conjunction with the Urban Design programme at the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy.