Architecture for Everyone
Throughout October and November 2010, Voice Your View will be working with Architecture For Everyone and their workshops in the North West.
Architecture For Everyone is a nationwide project that encourages young people from Britain’s inner-cities to consider careers in architecture and urban planning. The organisation is a partnership between the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and the architecture firm RMJM. Places Matter! leads the Architecture for Everyone programme in the North West.
From 26 October to 25 November a series of architecture workshops will be taking place in Liverpool and Manchester. The purpose of the workshops is to encourage young adults to learn about the city in which they live and work to develop proposals that would improve it in the future. A wide range of activities will be undertaken, from city tours to pakour; interviewing designers and residents to taking part in hands-on design workshops led by architects. The workshops in each city will focus on a specific area of the city. In Manchester the focus will be on the St. George’s Island development in Castlefield. The themes of design and neighbourhood and design and community will be explored in relation to the new development.
The Architecture For Everyone workshops are unique in that they involve a specific demographic within the public; young adults (16 -19) with a significant representation from BME communities. The 2009 Architecture For Everyone programme resulted in participants spontaneously and organically using social networking sites to discuss the workshops. With Voice Your View, the 2010 workshops aim to build on this by coordinating and encouraging comments and discussion about Neighbourhood, Community and Design through the Architecture for Everyone Facebook group and blog. The discussions will be themed on the thoughts and comments emerging out of the Manchester workshops. However as the Facebook group and blog are national, there is the possibility of online discussions and topics have national input.
The aims are:
- To investigate whether social networking can be a popular and viable platform to discuss themes of built environment, design and neighbourhood and design and community.
- The workshops will involve discussion and communication between participants and architects. The research aims to investigate whether discussions through real-time and/or Web 2.0 platforms can enhance these discussions.
- To investigate if the comments and discussions that emerge can be considered “actionable” in the context of design and the built environment.
