The power of insider - outside collaboration
We asked Nathan, our young farmer engagement & outreach team member to share with us some insights around working on our recent listening project with farmers and landowners across West Yorkshire. Joining our team for the duration of the project he generously guided our engagement approach, strengthening and connecting opportunities to build relationships across the farming community as well as being a fantastic team member. Read on for his perspective on the whole process:
“You hired someone from the local area? That’s nice”
In all our projects when we’re working in a neighbourhood or with a community we don’t know or have established links in, we start by hiring a local producer to join our engagement team. This means the creation of a flexible job role which allows someone to shape where they live and help connect our engagement to established local networks they may be a part of…
What does a genuinely collaborative street naming process look like?
In recent years, the calls across the globe for renaming streets and removing statues can be heard more loudly and passionately than ever. Aided hugely by the Black Lives Matter movement, citizens are more commonly and more loudly calling out…
Want people to feel safe in your town centre? Activate it!
Street Space are excited to share results from our latest action research study outside one of London’s top ten busiest stations. The research found that by encouraging and enabling ‘activation’ such as busking and performance by local artists and…
What does a street designed by 3 year olds look like?
Throughout our community engagement process we seek out diverse perspectives and voices. Working in partnership with PJA on the development of a permanent design for a traffic filter along Windmill Drive in Clapham Common we wanted…
Is it time to get rid of the ‘master’ plan & embrace The People’s Plan?
What’s the problem?
Masterplanning shapes the future of our neighbourhoods and communities, deciding what kind of enterprises there will be space for, how many homes, community amenities and who…
Who makes a real local?
Over the last few years in community engagement there’s been a real sway (which we’ve largely been pushing for) towards authentic conversations with ‘local people’ in order to identify meaningful ways for people to shape their area…
10 things we’ve learnt about online co-design
We’ve all been busy adapting, rethinking and shifting as we learn to live in a new way of doing things. It’s been painful at times, disappointing. I’ve definitely found myself grieving for what might have been…
Deeds not Words
As part of our journey to develop our North Star, our collaborative vision looking forward into the future we wanted to create a Manifesto. A manifesto is defined in the dictionary as “intentions, motives and views you want to publicly declare”…