The Built Environment
His Royal Highness’s desire to protect and sustain the natural environment is matched by his interest in the built environment and how it affects the quality of people’s lives.
The Prince believes more can be done to create urban areas that encourage a sense of community and pride of place, and which foster the well-being of those who live there and alleviate social problems.
The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment
The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment seeks to put people at the centre of the design process.
It teaches - by demonstration and through strategic partnerships - that the timeless principles of traditional urban design are key to creating healthy and prosperous communities in a way compatible with people's needs and aspirations for their homes, streets and neighbourhoods.
The Foundation is involved in approximately 20 projects ranging from regeneration to urban extensions and brownfield developments.
The Foundation, which is based in a converted warehouse in Shoreditch, London, engages in projects to create living examples of sustainable communities and to educate professionals through practice-based learning. Click here to visit The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment website.
The Prince’s Regeneration Trust
The Prince's Regeneration Trust delivers heritage-led regeneration across the United Kingdom, through the conservation and re-use of redundant historical buildings, primarily in areas of social and economic deprivation.
Founded by The Prince of Wales, the Trust works in partnership with the public, private, community and charitable sectors as a facilitator, consultant, partner or principal.
The Prince's Regeneration Trust, at any one time, is involved with about 20 projects across the United Kingdom. Click here to visit The Prince's Regeneration Trust website
The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust
Dumfries House is one of Britain’s most beautiful stately homes and best kept heritage secrets.
Built between 1754 and 1760 by the Adam brothers for the 5th Earl of Dumfries, with a unique collection of Chippendale furniture, the House has been described as an 18th Century time-capsule since the building and its contents have remained virtually unchanged for 250 years.
In June 2007, The Prince of Wales headed a consortium of charities and heritage bodies to purchase this unique house, its contents and adjoining land, in order to keep this historical jewel intact and accessible to the public.
A charitable trust was formed and named after one of His Royal Highness’s titles: The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries House Trust to take forward the important work of preserving this cultural treasure for future generations.
The House, which is renowned as one of the UK’s most important 18th Century classical houses, will open its doors to visitors in the summer of 2008.
The Prince of Wales said: “I am thrilled that this 18th Century treasure has been preserved for the 21st Century and beyond.
“This unique house and its exceptional collection of furniture represents a very special part of Scotland’s heritage and the United Kingdom’s and I am grateful to all the organisations that have helped to make it possible to keep the collection together in one place.”
Click here to visit the Dumfries House website.
The Turquoise Mountain Foundation
The Prince of Wales and H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, founded the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in June 2006 to help to preserve some of Afghanistan’s rich architectural and cultural heritage for future generations.
The project aims to conserve and restore a section of medieval Kabul in recognition of the vital role that the country’s rich heritage is likely to play in laying the foundations for future tourism.
The traditional Islamic Cities of Kabul, Herat, Ghazni and Balkh have been inhabited for thousands of years and have layers of Persian, Hellenic, Central Asian and Islamic architecture.
At the heart of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation is the creation of a new training centre to teach traditional building skills such as tile-work, incised and lattice wood-work, masonry and plasterwork.
The School of Traditional Art and Craft will also offer training in other Afghan traditions, such as pottery, carpet-weaving and embroidery.
Click here to visit the Turquoise Mountain Foundation website.
Poundbury
Although not one of The Prince's Charities, Poundbury, the urban extension to Dorchester in Dorset is a development inspired by The Prince of Wales. Today it is home to over 1,200 people and 40 businesses.
Poundbury was intended to challenge some of the planning assumptions of the latter part of the Twentieth Century with its ghettoised and run down social housing estates and out of town shopping centres, forcing ever greater reliance on the car.
Poundbury is instead based on some of the timeless principles, set out by The Prince in his 1987 book A Vision of Britain, that have enabled many places around Britain to endure and thrive over the centuries.
It is a high-density urban quarter of Dorchester which gives priority to people, rather than cars, and where commercial buildings are mixed with residential areas, shops and leisure facilities to create a walkable community and where high quality social and private housing sit side by side.
The result is an attractive and pleasing place, in keeping with the character of Dorchester, in which people can live, work, shop and play.
Over the past decade, as Poundbury has developed, it has demonstrated that there is a genuine alternative to the way in which we build new communities in this country.
According to a survey in September 2003, 86 per cent of Poundbury residents were pleased to have moved there and a similar number believe that Poundbury has broken the mould of characterless modern development.
Poundbury has proved increasingly influential, attracting international interest and generating hundreds of organised tours every year from architects, town planners and others.
The success of Poundbury has now been recognised far beyond Dorset and many of the principles have been incorporated into the Government’s Planning Guidance Note (PPG3). To find out more about Poundbury click here to visit the Duchy of Cornwall website or click here to download the Poundbury Media Pack as a pdf document. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the files.