Making Places

I spent two months over the summer pounding the streets of New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong with the aim of understanding approaches to community driven public realm.

The idea was to uncover strategies from these dense commercial cities that could be applicable to London, though I returned to capital to discover a similarly aimed initiative taking place under my nose - or at least north-eastwards of my nose - in my neighbouring borough of Waltham Forest.

Under the banner Making Places, and in partnership with arts organisation Create London, the borough asked residents to nominate sites that they felt were unloved and could be transformed through arts projects. From this initial canvassing 20 sites were selected - one in each ward - with designers then invited to submit proposals.

A smart initiative I thought, one that supports improvements in public realm in the places they are really wanted. I hope it's a success because it seems to me the kind of procurement route for community amenities that could be replicated in other boroughs. I visited the sites on a sunny day, they ranged from spaces within large parks to alleys, verges and the side of a building.

Regardless of any physical variance, the projects will be delivered for 40k each, not a huge amount, though it implies a scale and approach that is more local and will naturally draw in younger and perhaps less established designers.  Which is another way of saying that I have entered along with fellow public realm enthusiast Beni Rogers. We chose a few sites, and we hope we are successful.

Making Places sites (5 more still TBC)