How can writers work with architects, designers and planners to engage people in the regeneration of their places and communities?
This was the question posed at Writers Shaping Places, an event organised by literature and regeneration consultancy, UrbanWords, in partnership with Architects in Residence, literature development organisation Spread the Word, and community cinema space Shortwave, with funding from Arts Council England.
Writers, architects, developers and other interested people gathered at Shortwave on Tuesday 30th June. A community cinema space at the heart of Igloo’s Bermondsey Square regeneration project, Shortwave provided the perfect location to discuss the relationship between stories and place.
UrbanWords had commissioned the writer Chris Meade to write a paper about his experiences working with the designers and public artists, Snug and Outdoor, who specialise in creating innovative playgrounds. Chris started the event by presenting his paper (which is free to download from www.urbanwords.org.uk/aplaceforwords).
Chris described how he works, as part of the design team, to creatively consult with communities about their aspirations for a new space. He unpicked how, through a playful use of language, he not only creates powerful and portable pieces of writing that can be performed, published, or physically embedded in the playgrounds, but manages to reach past what people can already imagine to people’s emotional and psychological response to place. Hattie Coppard from Snug and Outdoor was in the audience and described how, as designers, they find working with Chris gives them another way of looking at projects and responding to their end-users’ needs and aspirations.
Chris is currently director of if:book, the think and do tank exploring the future of the book in the digital age and the potential of new media for creative reading and writing. He opened up a conversation about how digital technologies might provide tools and platforms for ongoing community conversations about place and regeneration, something picked up on by Chris Brown from Igloo Regeneration in the subsequent discussion.
Kate Cheyne, from Architects in Residence, made an initial response to Chris’s paper. Casting herself as the ‘voice of reason’, she acknowledged the restrictions placed on regeneration projects by funding, health and safety, politics etc. but expressed her belief that there could be a really exciting role for writers to play in the context of regeneration. She was interested in how writers can facilitate creative consultation, unpicking the aspirations, needs, objections etc. of a project’s end user group. She was also interested in how writers might be able to ‘translate back’, from architect to community, to find a way to bridge the gap between an architect’s images and the people inhabiting the place undergoing change.
The event opened out into a wider conversation with the audience members, touching on issues including:
• How creatively engaging with a place can affect people’s relationship with it
• How this work might take place on digital platforms
• How to engage with reluctant participants
• What the end product of this kind of creative work could and/or should be
• How creating a space for new narratives of a place can open up the potential for people to change their perceptions of that place
• How this kind of creative work can and should happen after a new place has been created as well as before
Continuing the Conversation
UrbanWords has established an online discussion forum to continue and broaden out the conversation started at Writers Shaping Places. It is free for anyone to join in, at www.shapingplace.ning.com. New users will need to briefly register to access the site, which aims:
- To provide a contained online space for interested people to discuss issues, share best practice, and test out ideas relating to how writers and urban design professionals can work together.
- To create a space for writers and urban design professionals to profile their work and interests.
- To enable people to get in touch with each other to take forward individual projects and conversations.
Audience comments about Writers Shaping Places
‘The event was really thought provoking and created a number of new ideas for using writing and digital media to enhance our regeneration projects. Places, particularly changing places, need to communicate to people and vice versa. Writers can make this happen.’
Chris Brown, Chief Executive, Igloo Regeneration
‘Writers Shaping Places is interesting because it reminds you that places are shaped by people, how they use it, their memories and stories. Writers can help reveal this, and help make people aware of their neighbourhood, what is special about it and why they care for it. This is very important in a process of change.’
Dann Jessen, Architect, East
‘Writers Shaping Places showed me clearly what UrbanWords exists to do: to create a dialogue between those who engage imaginatively with place, and those who engage with it practically. Of course, architects and writers do both, but in very different ways. I left feeling excited to find out how each person in the room ‘imagines the unimaginable’ and even more excited about how this might translate into the shape of our city.’
Miriam Nash, poet
