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Young people and their community lead on informing regeneration
Themes:
Regeneration
Young People and Communities
Sustainable Communities and Place Making
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Focus:
Young people and their community lead on informing regeneration |
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Background:
The London Borough of Newham is on the edge of experiencing massive regeneration as the site of the 2012 Olympics, yet local people were largely unaware of the proposed changes, potential consequences, and there were no clear opportunities for getting involved. Underlying tensions and misunderstandings existed between young people and adult residents. |
What happened:
Fundamental Architectural Inclusion devised a year long Neighbourhood Renewal Funded Programme ‘Open Your Eyes’ - series of participatory events to engage the local community and help young people (future residents and employees), better understand the changes proposed for their local surroundings. The multi-disciplinary approach involved design and creative professionals. One outcome was a series of animated films that provided a means of exploring the environment, investigating issues such as identity, density, user-needs, safety, visualising future design possibilities, and revealing personal and community mappings of the local urban environment. The Programme culminated in a Community Celebration Event. A group of 14 year old school students expressed a strong desire to do more. Fundamental worked with this group to initiate, devise, and develop funding for a programme and pilot Britain’s first Youth Architecture Forum, the ‘Architecture Crew’, a continually expanding youth led membership forum (aged 13-19 years) who meet monthly to continue their involvement. |
Who was involved:
Fundamental Architectural Inclusion
Funders
New Deal for Communities Local Network Fund
London Borough of Newham
Big Lottery Young People’s Fund
Jack Petchey Foundation |
The difference it made:
This intensive process has generated an understanding of and ongoing involvement in the regeneration process by the local community on a local and national scale. It has improved cross-generational community relations. ‘Architecture Crew’ have become an expert advisory and advocacy group and are regularly consulted on regeneration issues and projects for clients such as the Greater London Authority and the London International Festival of Theatre. They contributed to the UK’s national Olympic bid as well as the master-planning of new housing schemes in Newham. |
What they said:
“It’s a great experience, it’s not just finding out about the architectural side of things, it’s actually having great experiences like going to places you never thought you would travel to, seeing things you never thought you would see, and doing things you never thought you would do.”
(17 year old girl, member of Architecture Crew)
“It’s essentially just a group of young people coming together and having a good time but they are also having their eyes opened to a lot of things that they would not be aware of… they would have no idea about the things that are going on around them.”
(Youth worker)
“He kept coming out with all these facts, did you know this, did you know that. I could see that he really did learn a lot, that he took in quite a lot.”
(Parent) |
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Architecture Crew Sessions November 2006
London Plan/GLA Young-London Website & Summer Gallery Visits August 2006
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Themes
regeneration
design quality and innovation
planning
sustainable communities and place making
young people and communities
climate change
housing |
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