Written by:
Guest Author
by Armelle Tardiveau
In this blog, Armelle Tardiveau, Senior Lecturer and Urban Planning Degree Programme Director at Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, reflects on the the University’s collaboration with The Glass-House on the 2025/26 WEdesign series, Multigenerational Places.
“Amazing”, “exciting”, “insightful”, and “educational” were just some of the words students used to describe this year’s WEdesign event. Indeed, it was another outstanding experience for Newcastle’s second-year students in Architecture and Urban Planning (AUP) and Urban Planning (UP). The programmes place strong emphasis on people and place through lived experience and live projects, and the WEdesign programme provides a unique space for students to trial and test ideas beyond the academic environment. It enables them to engage with a live audience, navigate issues central to civic life, and reflect on whose voices are absent or those needing greater support to play a meaningful role in shaping the built environment.
Over the past four years of working with The Glass-House Community Led Design, we have been consistently surprised by the ability of The Glass-House colleagues, led by Chief Executive Sophia de Sousa, to carefully adapt and fine-tune each event in response to student cohorts and learning outcomes. At Newcastle, it was essential that all students who chose the Participation optional module were able to take part in the event. As the Architecture and Urban Planning interdisciplinary programme has exponentially grown, student numbers have increased significantly—from 8 student participants in 2023 for the first WEdesign event at Newcastle, to 40, then 45, and this year, 55 students..
In response, and in close collaboration with Sophia de Sousa, this year’s WEdesign edition was adapted to a new format using “Multigenerational Places” as theme umbrella. Eleven student groups were tasked with designing and delivering a participatory prompt to support an engagement activity as part of the design of a wider participatory project. The aim was to engage community groups and stakeholders around an assigned matter of concern of the built environment.
Previous editions of the WEdesign event offered students the opportunity to explore the role of facilitator, supporting participatory and collective reflection through well-defined lenses including policy, practice, education, and community. This year, however, students did not engage in facilitation structured by The Glass House’s methodological framework. Instead, they were positioned at the forefront of the event, taking responsibility for leading engagement through their own designed prompts and activities. This shift placed greater responsibility on the students and resulted in a series of thoughtfully conceived and, more often than not, highly sophisticated engagement prompts.
As always, the event sparked moments of discovery for some students, revealing untapped skills and abilities that are rarely exercised within a traditional academic context. For others, the intensity and perceived chaos of the event proved challenging, yet equally valuable, enabling them to make informed and active decisions about their future practice as architects, planners, landscape architects, or urban designers and their role in the built environment industry.
You can read more about Multigenerational Places: Newcastle and the ideas that emerged here.
About the Author
Armelle Tardiveau is a design practitioner, educator and researcher in the disciplines of architecture and urban design. At Newcastle University, an intrinsically interdisciplinary approach to design has allowed her to teach design across the School of Architecture and Planning in graduating years of Part 1 and Part 2 in Architecture (BA and MArch) as well as in the MA in Urban Design (MAUD). Armelle steered the design curriculum for the pioneering programme Architecture and Urban Planning (BA AUP), introducing new modules such as creative practice dissertation and establishing a design studio bringing together community engagement and urban prototyping.
A French native, she speaks four languages which has allowed her to gain experience in architectural practices across Europe including the UK, Switzerland and Spain. In 2004 together with Daniel Mallo, she co-founded ec-architects, a socially engaged design practice.