Community engagement and co-design: it’s our duty, not a luxury

I believe that community engagement and co-design is of vital importance within the architectural and design industry. If we want to build strong, inclusive and sustainable communities, then adopting this approach is a duty, and not a luxury.

My company has always sought to involve the local community in the design process and prioritised transparency. I believe it’s the best way to future proof a design, and it also helps ensure that our clients’ money is being well spent. 

How could any single designer ever have a greater wealth of knowledge than the people who are located in the vicinity, and have lived and worked there for many years? Their insight is excellent and invaluable. It feeds into, and opens up, discourse for design considerations beyond that which one could ever imagine in isolation.

I grew up in the London Borough of Croydon and studied for all my architectural qualifications in London. Since 2012, I have lived in the country’s most affluent area, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; two completely different boroughs, but the answer is always the same — the community knows best.

This wealth of knowledge provides an invaluable insight into what does and does not work for their area

We designers are fortunate to have access to people within the boroughs that we design for. They are passionate, enthused and knowledgeable about their districts. This wealth of knowledge provides an invaluable insight into what does and does not work for their area: where there are issues of crime and politics; where architecture is of low quality, and ideas for improvement in urban planning. It is a real asset to be able to apply this resource to our designs.

I once interviewed the late Will Alsop OBE RA, who masterminded the 2007 £3.5bln Masterplan of Croydon Central, and his persistent advice to me was to “involve the community in every aspect of the project”. This gave me a strong foundation on which to develop my company’s architectural propositions.

Our first major masterplan project we worked on was a grass-roots project. Local residents of Hammersmith pushed an agenda relating to the issues around the A4, which passes through Hammersmith and into central London. To mobilise action, in 2014, a group of local architects, including my company, developed a collective ‘West London Link Design’ proposal. 

We suggested a concept named ‘Hammersmith Flyunder’, which would dismantle the elevated part of the A4 and construct a tunnel for road traffic. This would then free the surface ground for new buildings and public spaces and allow for the north side of Hammersmith to reconnect with the riverside.

The community involvement proved that not only can community have a say in regeneration projects, but it can also lead on regeneration

We conducted a series of community engagement events and activities, initially as part of London Festival of Architecture. The project then gained traction with Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) Council, which then commissioned a feasibility study into the tunnel options with CH2M Hill Engineers.

The Hammersmith Flyunder now forms part of H&F’s masterplan vision and is being used to develop the Supplementary Planning Framework (SPF) for Hammersmith Town Centre. The community involvement proved that not only can community have a say in regeneration projects, but it can also lead on regeneration.

Our next major masterplan project involvement was the Brixton Central Masterplan. In 2015, we worked with Fluid Architects to conduct a public consultation on the masterplan design with students of Evelyn Grace Academy, which was designed by Zaha Hadid.

Given the heritage and history of Brixton, it was important that its future would be shaped, in part, by those who were of a younger generation. The involvement of the school meant that we could gain a critical perspective of specific buildings and places which gave a sense of character and identity, and ideas on how the masterplan could retain these spaces or indeed, enhance its new environment.

After all, these are the people and families who will live, work, dwell and grow within our spaces once we have completed the project

There are excellent mechanisms of policy and legislation which require community engagement for regeneration. Yet we as designers — those who are trusted advisors for the built environment — can lead on community engagement within our core design considerations, in order for established communities to contribute towards shaping the designs.

After all, these are the people and families who will live, work, dwell and grow within our spaces once we have completed the project. It is not difficult, from my experience, to have our clients (developers) on side either. Community involvement, spaces designed to promote safety, and good robust materials palettes, save time, money, and provide a better return on investment for our clients and end users alike.

In 2017, we were commissioned as Lead Architect and Principal Designer to design the masterplan of north-west Tbilisi Georgia. Part of our programme sets meanwhile activities and events on the 16-hectare empty site for community engagement, in order to familiarise local residents with the project and to shape its development. The masterplan is for 3,000 homes, retail, commercial and leisure facilities, as well as an array of public spaces.

I believe nurturing communities is part of an organic approach to design. People will come together as and when they desire, and for particular purposes. Yet for us architects and designers, we can be attentive to communities within our design mandate. Then ‘tune into’ that existing wealth of knowledge and feed this into our designs, to enhance the integrity of our presentations to our clients, and to government authorities to smoothly transition from concept and design, through to the planning and construction phases of our projects.

I am enthused by what we can do when we give more agency to the communities that we are designing for. By adopting this approach more consistently across our industry, we will develop stronger skillsets and gain further recognition for the way in which we solve problems and implement enhanced infrastructure and regeneration programmes. And I strongly believe it will help us provide more robust solutions for both clients and end users.