Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard Ph.D.(Arch.) is Co-founder (1985) and Director of the International Making Cities Livable Conferences llc, and

Co-Founder & Director, Child-Friendly Communities Alliance (2010 - )

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard is available for

• Lectures/presentations (with PPT slides)
• Consultation
• Organizing Conferences & Workshops in your city

Area of expertise:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard’s work concerns the social, cultural and psychological aspects of architecture, urban design and city-making, clarifying how the built environment affects social interaction, health and quality of everyday life.  Her studies encompass making cities “livable” for children, youth and the elderly; relationship between physical health, social health and the built environment; walkability, bikeability and transit; small footprint mixed use urban fabric as essential for a livable city; the mixed use square as the “heart” of the city; the DNA of the city; city identity through regional architecture; balanced transportation planning to enhance health, social life and community.

Through intensive case studies of numerous European cities that since the 1970s have been implementing innovative approaches to land use planning, transportation planning, housing, architecture, urban space design and sustainability, she has identified strategies and successful solutions that contribute most to creating livable cities. 

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has co-authored the following books that summarize this work: Genius of the European Square (2008); The Forgotten Child (2000); Livable Cities Observed (1994); Livable Cities, People and Places (1987); and co-edited The Wisdom of Cities (2005); and Making Cities Livable (1997). She has published numerous articles in professional journals, e.g. Planning, Urban Land, The Mayor, Western City, Environment & Behavior and other journals for professionals and city officials.

Special focus: Child-Friendly Communities

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has focused special attention on the way the built environment affects the lives of children and youth. This was the topic of her Masters thesis (1969), early research on the child’s conception of built space (1978), and formed the foundation of her concern for making cities livable. She believes that we must first consider the needs of children and youth, and that if we make a city livable for them, it will be livable for all. This theme has been emphasized in numerous articles and chapters, and was the subject of her book, The Forgotten Child: Cities for the Well-Being of Children.

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard is Co-Founder & Executive Director, Child-Friendly Communities Alliance (2010 - ). CFCA’s mission is to ensure that natural and social places essential to children’s health will be included in new development and restored in existing neighborhoods and cities; and that barriers to children’s mobility will be removed so that children can independently access nature and community life on a daily basis.

Special focus: Design of Public Urban Places

Much of her work focuses on the design and functioning of public urban places.  The purpose of this work is to understand how public places (particularly urban squares, plazas and market places) can generate social life, community and participatory self-government, and contribute to social equity and health. This work combines the study of social interaction patterns, history of the square and of democracy, building use analysis, effects of the architectural frame, influence of the surrounding built urban fabric, transportation planning, streetscape and seating design, influence of public art, and management issues such as scheduled weekly events (farmers markets), street entertainment and community festivals in the space. 

This work was first summarized in the book Public Life in Urban Places (1984), about which Lewis Mumford commented: “Your Public Life in Urban Places is just the kind of book I have been impatiently waiting for: concise, penetrating, stimulating, revealing...” Dr. Crowhurst Lennard contributed chapters on “True Urbanism and the European Square: Catalyst for social engagement and Democratic dialogue” for New Urbanism and Beyond (Tigran Haas, Ed., Rizzoli 2008); “Urban Space Design” for the encyclopedia, The Companion to Contemporary Architectural Thought (Ben Farmer, Hentie Louw & Adrian Napper, Eds., Routledge Publ., London 1992); and provided invited testimony on “The Importance of Usable Public Space in Cities” to the Subcommittee of the House Interior Committee on Open Space and the Built Environment, US Congress (1990). Her book Genius of the European Square (2008) analyses elements that sustain social life and community spirit, and presents brief case studies of 17 European squares.

International Making Cities Livable Conferences:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard (with her husband, Henry L. Lennard, Chairman of the Board) co-founded the International Making Cities Livable Conferences in 1985. Since that time, she has directed the organization of these conferences that have been acclaimed as “…the best conference on cities” (Mayor Joseph P. Riley), “The most important continuous conference dialogue on making the world's cities and towns more livable for all of their inhabitants.” (Governor Dr. Sven von Ungern-Sternberg). For more comments, click here.

Since 1985 Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has been dedicated to fostering this international interdisciplinary dialogue among outstanding international practitioners, scholars and city officials on strategies and tools for increasing the livability of our cities. The IMCL Conferences draw architects, urban designers, planners, city officials, public health scientists, social scientists, artists, urban geographers, transportation planners and community representatives to share expertise and experience on such issues as “Reviving the Heart of the City”, “Planning Healthy Communities for All”, “Creating Community through Urban Design”, “Reshaping Suburbia into Healthy Communities”, etc. 

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard and her husband created an International Advisory Board of world renowned Mayors, Deans of Architecture, Planning and Medicine, Professors of Urban Geography, Transportation Planning and Psychology, Directors of Planning and Restoration, and a State Governor. They obtained foundation grants to support the IMCL Conferences, and sponsorship from firms and host cities that participate with workshops on local issues. Since 1985 forty-nine conferences have been held in cities such as Portland, OR (3), Charleston, SC (7), San Francisco (6), Santa Fe (4), Savannah, in the US, as well as Venice and Siena, Italy, London, Freiburg and Lindau, Germany, and Salzburg and Vienna, Austria.

A special concern of these conferences has been the effect of the built environment on our most vulnerable populations, especially children and youth. IMCL believes that if you make a city livable for children, it will be livable for all. Under the auspices of the Mayors of the cities of Charleston, SC (2010, 1997), Tübingen, Germany (1994), and Ravensburg, Germany (1996) special IMCL Conferences and Seminars were organized on this topic. The issues around growing up in cities have also been summarized in The Forgotten Child: Cities for the Well-Being of Children, (2000).

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard is available to work with you and your city to organize a conference or seminar in your city. For more information, please contact Suzanne.Lennard@LivableCities.org.

Consultation:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has been a Consultant to the Ministry of Cultural Heritage in Ecuador, and to cities in the US, Canada, Austria and Germany. Her consultation focuses on:

• Child-Friendly Communities
• Design of Public Urban Places
• Social and Health Impact Assessment

For more information on Dr. Crowhurst Lennard’s consultation services, please contact Consultation@LivableCities.org.

Lectures/presentations:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has given invited keynote presentations and talks internationally on a variety of subjects related to making cities healthy and livable. She was an invited speaker on “Urban Places for Social Sustainability” at the World Cities Summit in Singapore (2010); gave the “Governor’s Address” at California League of Cities Conference;  and was invited to speak at numerous academic institutions, cities and professional associations in the US, Canada and Europe.   

Her many invited presentations at city councils, etc. have been broadcast by educational and public television stations and involved media interviews.

She is available to talk on the following topics:

• True Urbanism: Principles for Healthy, Livable Cities
• Child-Friendly Communities
• Designing Successful Urban Plazas
• Social and Health Impacts of the Built Environment

For more information about topics, please click here. to invite Dr. Crowhurst Lennard to speak, please contact Suzanne.Lennard@LivableCities.org.

Related research areas:

An early focus of Dr. Crowhurst Lennard’s work was on architecture as a medium for expressing values and ideas. This study formed the basis for courses, as well as for numerous invited lectures at architecture schools across the US, in England and Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. She published a monograph, Explorations in the Meaning of Architecture, (1980) and “Architecture as Autobiography: the meaning of Wittgenstein’s architecture” in The Humanist (1983).

A related research area has been a concern with the influence of architectural design in therapeutic settings. These findings were published in “Parallel Concerns in Health Care and Architecture” in Ethics of Health Care (1980), and in the chapter on “Physical Setting as Therapeutic Modality” in The Psychiatric Hospital (Human Sciences Press, NY 1986),  and in Das psychiatrische Krankenhaus (Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 1988.)

This work grew out of her early studies of the influence of architecture on family interaction. Studies of family environment were summarized in her Ph.D. thesis (1974), and articles in Journal of Architectural Education (1974), and Family Process (1977). In this capacity she consulted for The Family Study Station, UC Medical Center, San Francisco.

Teaching experience:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard has held Professorships and other academic positions at the University of California, Berkeley; Brookes University Oxford; Harvard University (Summer School); and the Universities of Ulm, Germany and Venice, Italy. She taught studios as well as lecture and seminar courses on “Human Factors in Architecture and Urban Design” and introduced graduate seminar courses on “The Meaning of Architecture”, “Indigenous Architecture: Values, Beliefs and Cultural Patterns”, “Family Interaction and Architectural Design”, and “The Design of Public Space”.

Honors & Awards:

She was honored by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (1979), the Royal Institute of British Architects (1977), New York State Council on the Arts (1981), Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation (1985), and the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts (1985).  She is listed in Marquis’s Who’sWho in America and Who’sWho in the World.

Education:

Dr. Crowhurst Lennard received a professional degree in Architecture, B.Arch.(Hons.) from Bristol University, England (1968); and an M.Arch. and Ph.D.(Arch.) in “Human Aspects of Architecture and Urban Design” from the University of California, Berkeley (1974).

To review Dr. Crowhurst Lennard's Curriculum Vitae please click here.