Written by:
Louise Dennison
Last week, we launched our 2024/25 WEdesign series with Sharing Place: The Debate, which kick-started our national conversation on the series theme. We were joined by participants from across the UK, to propose more equitable ways of sharing our places and spaces, as well as creating places to share experiences, skills and other things we value through thoughtful placemaking.
What Does Sharing Place Mean?
Building on discussions from last year’s People, Place, Planet WEdesign series, the theme of sharing came up repeatedly in conversations about how we interact with each other and the places we inhabit. This year, we decided to dig deeper exploring what sharing really means and considering two key aspects of the theme:
1. Sharing Places with Each Other – Ensuring that spaces are welcoming, accessible, and equitable.
2. A Place to Share – Spaces designed for the exchange of skills, knowledge, and experiences.
With a growing awareness of social and environmental inequalities, exacerbated by statistics like the housing crisis and the disparity in green space access, we asked our panelists to explore how generosity, collaboration, and inclusivity can help us rethink how we share our spaces.
Sophia de Sousa opened the debate by highlighting pressing disparities in the UK around housing availability, affordability, and access to green spaces.
This theme evoked a personal and conversational contribution from our speakers, whose inspiring provocations offered their unique viewpoint on Sharing Place.
Re-imagining Streets and Spaces
Our first speaker, Zac Tudor, Associate Director for Place Resilience at Arup, encouraged us to rethink urban landscapes. He shared some examples of his work in Sheffield, where urban spaces can be transformed into vibrant, livable environments that prioritise people and nature over vehicles. Zac highlighted the evolution of our streets, from pedestrian pathways to car-dominated corridors, and questioned how we might reclaim these spaces for people and nature. By incorporating natural systems into urban environments, Zac demonstrated how these natural spaces can address flood mitigation, air quality, biodiversity, and improve human well-being.
In closing, Zac posed a question to the group asking them “How far can we push back on the spaces that cars have taken over?”
Building Places for Participation
Nana Biamah-Ofosu, architect, educator, and Director of YAA Projects, joined us from a study visit to Senegal and opened her presentation with reflections from her trip, where she and her students were learning to construct with earth materials. She observed how traditional construction embraces collective participation, with women, in particular, playing a crucial role in shaping domestic spaces, prompting Nana to question what contemporary architectural processes allow us to share and what they restrict.
She challenged us to consider the role of negotiation in sharing space:
Who decides how spaces are used? Who is in charge of what gets shared, and how do we ensure that power dynamics are equitable?
Nana reflected on her journey between Ghana and the UK how cultural heritage and diaspora communities shape urban environments. She highlighted Rye Lane in Peckham, South London as a place of negotiation, where changing cultural and social needs, constantly reshape the area. She emphasised that sharing space is about active engagement with the people who are using the space. Nana offered questions out around who gets to shape a place, and whose needs are prioritised.
Nana mentioned an award winning housing estate where a design failed to accommodate a West African resident’s cooking culture which inspired her to ask: who are our cities and homes designed for? Through these reflections, Nana called for a built environment sector that embraces different cultures and creates truly shared environments.
Creating Inclusive and Flexible Community Spaces
Yashmin Harun, founder of the Muslimah Sports Association, spoke about the challenges of accessing safe and inclusive sports spaces for Muslim women. She described the barriers such as inadequate privacy and cultural insensitivity in the design of sports facilities that prevent some communities participating in public sports and recreational activities.
Through her work, Yashmin has championed placemaking with purpose, ensuring that shared spaces are flexible and truly inclusive. She shared examples of how designing adaptable spaces such as community centres that can transition between sports use, social gatherings, and religious needs and how that could foster greater inclusivity and engagement.
She also spoke of her recent experience working alongside others to inform the regeneration of a local park. She described a conversation that revealed that people’s enjoyment of park and recreational spaces was often cut short by the need to pray, and there being no suitable facilities there to do so. This meant that people had to leave and more often than not, did not come back if they were drawn away for every prayer time. She stressed that to make a space truly inclusive, you have to be aware of design concepts that factor in different cultural needs. She was pleased to share that the council had listened, and were building prayer spaces into the new plans for the park, and that this would have a significant impact on use and enjoyment by local people.
The Power of Storytelling
Bringing an intergenerational perspective, Pat Scrutton, Coordinator of the Intergenerational National Network, spoke about the importance of cross-generational engagement in shared spaces. Drawing parallels between storytelling and placemaking, she reminded us that “places become meaningful through human connection and memory”.
Pat shared a personal story of visiting the Grand Canyon with her family when her children were little, and the shared sense of awe they experienced in the face of such exceptional natural beauty. She stressed that sharing place was also about shared experiences, stories and emotions and thought this quote that she had come across, expressed it beautifully: ‘Spaces become places when they are imbued with human emotion’. She also spoke of her time in New Zealand, and that she had learnt about the Maori culture’s deep-rooted belief that place, culture and story were inextricably bound.
Pat also shared examples of projects that bring people of all ages together, from intergenerational food initiatives to park consultations where young and older residents collaboratively shape their local environment. She inspired us to rethink urban and community design with a lifespan perspective, ensuring that spaces work for people at every stage of life.
Open Discussion
The conversation that followed picked up on the following themes:
– The need for better engagement processes to ensure that marginalised voices are heard in planning and design.
– The importance of challenging assumptions about who uses spaces and how they should be designed.
– The power of storytelling in creating and shaping more inclusive environments.
– The potential of shared community assets to empower local groups to take ownership of spaces.
Participants shared insights on overcoming barriers to inclusive design, the politics of public space ownership, and how to push back against car-dominated urban planning. One attendee reflected on the need for “negotiation in shared spaces”, not just between individuals, but between communities and institutions. Another questioned how we can encourage policymakers and developers to recognise the social value of shared spaces and look beyond just the financial implications.
What’s Next?
This conversation is just the beginning of this year’s WEdesign series. Moving forward, we aim to explore the theme of Sharing Place further, with in-person events, Think Pieces and online discussions that bring together diverse perspectives across communities, from within the built environment, and beyond.We look forward to continuing these conversations and hope you’ll join us at one of our upcoming in-person events.
Sharing Place: The Debate – Audio Recording
If you were unable to join us at Sharing Place: The Debate, or would like to listen again, we have included a recording of the event which we hope you will enjoy listening back to.
