Written by:
Guest Author
In this piece, UCL Bartlett student Xavier Jude Ong, shares his experience of facilitating conversations and making activities at The Glass-House WEdesign event Multigenerational Places: London.
On 25 February 2026 I had the privilege of co-facilitating the Multigenerational Places: London event as part of The Glass-House Community Led Design’s 2025/26 WEdesign programme. Held at the Alan Baxter Gallery in Clerkenwell, the evening brought together people from all walks of life to explore how the places we live in can do more to connect people across generations.
As a first-year Urban Planning student at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning, this was a chance to step out of the lecture room and into the kind of participatory work that made me want to study planning in the first place. Organised by Sophia de Sousa and The Glass-House team in collaboration with the Bartlett, the event invited UCL students to co-facilitate discussion and making activities alongside attendees. Five themes guided the evening: neighbourhoods, spaces, high streets, homes and buildings. Each one offered a different way of thinking about how our built environment either brings generations together or keeps them apart.
Before the Event: Nerves and Uncertainty
I’ll be real. In the days leading up to the event I was nervous. I kept thinking about how many people would actually show up on a cold February evening in London. Would the room feel empty or would it be packed with energy? Beyond attendance I also had questions about the facilitation itself. As a student facilitator I wasn’t entirely sure how the format would play out, how conversations would be steered or whether I’d be able to keep things productive and inclusive. There’s always a gap between reading about community engagement in a textbook and actually standing in a room trying to make it happen. That gap felt very real.
During the Event: Listening, Learning and Connecting
Whatever nerves I had faded pretty quickly once the evening kicked off. The room filled up with a genuinely diverse mix of practitioners, residents, designers, students and community members of different ages and backgrounds. After some light refreshments and informal introductions we moved into the co-design activities, splitting into groups around the five themes.
I won’t sugarcoat it. At times, certain voices dominated the conversation and it took conscious effort to create space for quieter participants to share their thoughts. That’s something I’ve been sitting with since. Good facilitation isn’t just about getting people to talk. It’s about making room for those who need a bit more time to feel comfortable speaking up.
What made the evening genuinely special though was the range of perspectives I got to hear. Growing up in Singapore, I’m used to a very different relationship with public space and community. Back home the HDB (government housing) void deck is one of those rare multigenerational spaces where you’ll find elderly residents playing chess next to kids cycling around and families gathering for events. It’s not perfect but there’s a casualness to intergenerational mixing that I sometimes feel is missing here in the UK. So hearing Londoners talk about their high streets, their estates and their own experiences of belonging and isolation was really eye-opening. Hearing about the lived realities hits differently when you’re hearing them firsthand rather than reading about them in a journal article.
I also just had a really good time meeting new people. Swapping ideas with fellow students and professionals and making connections I didn’t expect. There’s something powerful about a room where everyone regardless of background or expertise is treated as having something valuable to say. That ethos sits at the heart of how The Glass-House works and it showed throughout the evening.
After the Event: Gratitude and Looking Forward
Walking out of the Alan Baxter Gallery that night the strongest feeling I had was gratitude. Grateful to Sophia and The Glass-House team for putting together such a thoughtful space for dialogue. Grateful to the Bartlett for giving students the chance to be part of real community engagement and grateful to every person who turned up and shared a piece of their story.
The WEdesign programme is building towards a national Multigenerational Places Manifesto and being even a small part of that process felt meaningful. The conversations from London along with those from events in Glasgow, Sheffield, Newcastle and beyond are feeding into something bigger. A collective push for places that bring generations together rather than separate them.
If there’s a chance to be involved in future WEdesign events I wouldn’t think twice. Nights like this remind me why I chose urban planning. Not just to design better buildings or write better policies but to listen to people and help shape places that actually work for everyone.
Xavier Jude Ong is a first-year BSc Urban Planning, Design and Management student at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning. Originally from Singapore, he has a background in architecture and a passion for inclusive, community-centred design. He is particularly interested in how cities can create spaces that genuinely improve everyday life for everyone.