Was honoured to be asked to facilitate a discussion with some very clever women (Fjorn Butler from Future Tense and Ria Pillai from Grassroots Gatherings) for Twosixty’s first public event.
The topic was around community-led civic spaces:
We know that civic spaces often reflect aspects of a city’s history, its people and can be spaces of important community connection. But who influences how these spaces are designed, what they say about their local community and how they are used? What would a community-led approach to creating a new civic space look like?
It was a fantastic conversation where we talked about the commercialisation of public space and how that can create exclusion, pondered how to get people to talk to strangers more, and the importance of not ‘over-designing’ how people have to behave in public spaces. Set amongst the rattling of trams, people rushing past and an impromptu car parking in the middle of our space, it was informal yet profound and gave me plenty of food for thought. You can see the whole discussion HERE.
Thank you Twosixty for inviting me to this event!
Twosixty have a whole lot more planned for this space which I know will be brilliant. The program will remain responsive to communities’ need and use so if you have an idea you want to discuss get in touch with them HERE.