Human Nature, ECD Architects, White Arkitekter, and Sheppard Robson, are among the practices whose projects demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users.
White Arkitekter worked with Stockholm-based theatre company UngaTur, teenage girls from the youth council of Skarpnack municipality, and local authority learning facilitators to devise and deliver Places for Girls. The research-led project addressed the fact that public spaces are not used equally by girls and boys and gave girls an opportunity to design their ideal public space. The project used a piece of theatre to communicate the results (photo: White Arkitekter).
Creating a just space for people
Part 3 of the Regenerative Architecture Index is concerned with providing social connection, economic opportunity and wellbeing for all. Our design processes should foster a shared sense of stewardship where neighbourhoods can self-organise and build their resilience. This requires ethical, inclusive and participative approaches. Responses in this section were assessed by Architects Declare steering group members Mandy Franz, Michael Pawlyn, Tom Greenall, Alasdair Ben Dixon and Mark Goldthorpe, with expert input from Regenerative Architecture Index ambassador Immy Kaur – social and civil activist, businesswoman and co-founder and director of CIVIC SQUARE. Read more about Part 3 of the RAI here.Â
Projects Question 1
Do the projects demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users? For example, is there evidence that your project engagement goes beyond consultation towards co-design?
Answers breakdown
Front-runner
White Arkitekter
Our Gascoigne project recently won a ‘best place’ pineapple award. We put this down to our deep community engagement at an early stage including schools workshops with design review panels with local people on the Gascoigne estate.
Our Places for Girls research project aimed to develop practical methods for equitable architecture by giving girls an opportunity to design their ideal public space, recognising them as a group often excluded from the urban realm. The project group comprised architects and social sustainability specialists from White, Stockholm-based theatre company UngaTur, teenage girls from the youth council of Skarpnack municipality, and local authority learning facilitators.
The outset was an art project; a piece of theatre featuring two teenage girls who are simultaneously constricted and set free by their urban environment to open up a dialogue with local politicians, planners and other stakeholders on public places from girls’ perspective. Moving from dialogue to creation during a workshop held at White Arkitekter, the teenage participants had the opportunity to construct 1:50 models to represent a public space – by and for girls. We used this work sequence to inform engagement with young people in our urban design projects and developed a means of communication through theatre and festivals to engage the community. Another relevant example of a community involvement-lead project looked at lighting in the urban realm to deal with issues of safety.
Ones to watch
JTP
JTP has pioneered and honed participatory techniques and co-design processes for 30 years, with a dedicated Community Planning team, who successfully engage communities, stakeholders, and local authorities in our projects.
Throughout the years our engagement process has evolved and we use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods which utilise best practice principles, including IAP2 Seven Core Values for Public Participation, to bring the knowledge and creativity of local communities and stakeholders, including hard-to-reach groups, into the heart of the design process.
At JTP, we champion a multi-day Community Planning Weekend (CPW) or Charrette inviting local people to share their views on the design process. The events are open and inclusive, intensive and iterative, building on work already done with the community and moving the concepts forward through co-design to create a consensual vision. These events can be extremely adaptable and be programmed to suit different contexts.
ECD Architects
We start our engagement with local stakeholders and end users at the outset of our projects. Thanks to that initial connection we are able to develop the brief in a collaborative way. This was the case in a large-scale retrofit project we did with RB Kensington & Chelsea, where residents were involved in a co-design process that included numerous in-person and online events, such as consultation sessions, door-knocking, family days and presentations. We also produced videos on site for their social media channels, to educate residents on the options available and the benefits of doing the retrofit. Another example is our Cambridge Retrofit scheme, where the early discussions with residents influenced the methodology and scope, in terms of how disruption could be managed throughout the deep retrofit process. For example, the decisions on locating MEP equipment without occupying much of the storage space in the house came through these discussions.
Sheppard Robson
Engagement and co-creation are fundamental attributes of our work, and our projects have allowed us to push forward best practices.
At the youth-led Contact Theatre, Manchester, we helped create Con:Struct, a team of young people associated with the theatre who played a pivotal role in ensuring that the developing design reflected not just the needs but also the ‘attitude’ of its members, staff, and community. This co-creation approach contributed to many aspects of the project, including sustainability strategy.
When designing BBC Wales, we used co-creation to create inclusive workplaces that catered to neurodiversity. In the early design phases, we worked with the BBC’s diversity group and wore virtual reality headsets that simulated how a neurodivergent person might experience a typical office space. This insight and empathy impacted the design of the floorplate, as well as many of the surfaces and wayfinding.
Architype
Our earliest projects were self-build co- designed housing carrying on Walter Segal’s legacy. Architype’s involvement assisted the development of 200+ properties, helping transform self-build and community co- design in the 1990s. The Diggers community self-build in Brighton was famously shown on Channel 4’s Grand Designs and remains one of the host’s all-time favourite projects.
These skills continue throughout our work, realising the UK’s first co-housing development, Springhill in Stroud, and in assisting with RUSS (Rural Urban Synthesis Society) co-design and engagement workshops of its new volunteer-led Community Land Trust.
In our community and education projects we strive to incorporate their artwork into the final building, and create eco-champions for life. During a current project for Fircroft College’s Net Zero Classroom, learners and staff were involved in co-visioning exercises, identifying learning opportunities during its realisation.
Increasingly Architype’s larger work is co-designed with other architectural practices generating better design through collective thought.
Worldchanging Institute
We are part of a collective design initiative in the Kwajalein Atoll, co-designed and developed by indigenous leaders and community activists. In the past year our group have developed, designed and built collectively. This coalition goes beyond the physical and we are also looking at processes and policies that will amplify regenerative design principles.
Studio 8Fold
We are a process-focused practice, where we engage without a pre-determined outcome. A deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users is fundamental to our design approach.
We worked together with Architekturbuero Lindstedt on a project in Nettlestedt called ‘Dorf im Dorf’ (Village within a Village), proposing an intergenerational co-living project, deeply embedded in a small-town community. We had community-wide workshops and presentations, along with smaller focus-groups, looking at exactly what ‘co-living’ and ‘intergenerational’ really meant to them, and understanding both long-term views, budgetary constraints, and greatest concerns. One outcome was a request for a training session on how to do co-living, explaining how the community garden and workshop should be used and engaged with.
Various iterations of the design were presented and shared with not only the client but the whole community, which was crucial in making sure it was accepted by the community, and suited future users.
Studio 8FOLD at work on a children’s library in a rural area of Sri Lanka. The builders are members of the local community and, in many cases, former pupils of the school. The practice holds the view that direct engagement with local stakeholders and end users – without a pre-determined outcome – is key to delivering projects that are fully embedded in their own ecosystem and cherished by their users (photo: Aleksandar Stojakovic).
Human Nature
We have established a system of continuous public engagement, first deployed at the Phoenix. In this ‘Circular Engagement System’ consultation with the local community and other stakeholders alongside specialist practitioners informs our designs, which are communicated and iterated through exhibitions, newsletters and social media, where feedback informs further designs and further communications. At The Phoenix this included a total of more than 100 engagement meetings held between January 2021 and January 2023; engaging with more than 60 local community organisations, groups and businesses. There were more than 3,000 visits to the Phoenix Design Festival in 2021. We used illustrative material, workshops, models and talks to present our ideas to the public and receive feedback on our plans. Three working groups with members of the local community set up to provide detailed discussion on particular elements of our proposal – helping us shape and refine our designs and strategies.
