London Festival of Architecture 2019: how to find out more about local community involvement in design and planning

Public engagement is good for design but in practice design often takes place away from the public eye. This is why it is crucial that the local community becomes involved in the design that grows up around them.

Planners cannot afford to disregard the people who understand their local economy best, who know its anecdotal history and who share daily experiences.

So why aren’t they involved more often in initial design work at the very point imaginative and collective thinking is most needed? This should be the norm, not the exception.

I agree with Clare Richards, director of ft’work (Footwork Architects), a practice focusing on communities, when she says: “Communities often experience development or regeneration as something ‘being done to them’.

"It’s short-sighted because evidence shows that the more people feel they have some control, the better the outcome. If designers have already put pen to paper, that opportunity has been lost.”

Enlightened planning and design does not happen often enough, but one rainy day last December it did.

We joined the London Festival of Architecture and the Royal Docks Team (an initiative between the Mayors of London and Newham) alongside architects, developers, landowners and — importantly — local people, to think about how the railway dividing ExCeL and the Royal Docks waterfront from the local community could become less of a physical boundary.

Casey Howard, a local community planner, described coming from the new station into Custom House as “like falling off a cliff”.

This was a light bulb moment. Why shouldn’t a new gently sloping boulevard reconnect the two sides of the railway, so that visitors to ExCeL could discover a vibrant neighbourhood, while local residents could enjoy the opportunities and facilities on offer around ExCeL?

Clare Richards argues that success depends on understanding what’s there already, addressing existing problems, then coming to a shared vision with the community.

She is right: everyone wins when physical boundaries are overcome before they become entrenched social and economic barriers.

Visit londonfestivalofarchitecture.org for more on these and all events during the festival, which runs throughout June.