Post by Emma Newman.

​On Saturday May 12th, EDP supported Bow Church to host ‘Bow Moves’ – a community event exploring potential uses of their building. The afternoon explored the possibility of forming new connections with local organisations and businesses, prompting them with the question “What would you do with this space?”

The competition format helped test the appetite for Bow Church as a venue to hire, gain insight into the limitations of the space, and encourage groups to explore new activities that can serve the community. Once the applications came in, EDP helped Bow Church select two winners. In the end, Bow Church hosted Angelique Sinclaire’s Latin Dance and Vera’s Karate Academy for a day themed around fitness and physical activity. On top of that, an arts and crafts station was set up where participants could decorate images of the church.

As an intern at the Glass-House, this event was a great opportunity to experience what community engagement looks like. Over the past couple weeks of my internship, I have participated in conversations about the Bow Church project, and community engagement in general. I found that attending this event was an invaluable experience, allowing me to put faces to everyone involved in the project and have meaningful conversations with community members.

The event attracted churchgoers, regular Latin dance and karate club attendees as well as curious passers-by. It was thrilling to see all these groups come together, chat over tea and cake and share the space. All were enthusiastic to see the church being put to use in such novel ways.

The classes were a great success, and the event scaled up significantly throughout the day with a steady influx of people.

Thanks to movable chairs, it was possible to open a large open space in the centre of the nave. Both activities were easy to set up so the transition between the two classes happened seamlessly - a testament to the multi-use potential of the space.

Participants responded well to the day overall and gave constructive written feedback at the end of the event. These included: “Very enjoyable afternoon. Certainly would attend again”, “It was great having the arts and crafts as well as both classes. More please!.” These responses were very encouraging and confirmed that Bow Church’s efforts to put their space to new uses are headed in the right direction. A regular church goer commented that they never would have tried this sort of class anywhere else. Whilst we often consider how fresh uses can bring new people into a building, it’s worth contemplating how enabling a building to thrive with new activity can enable new opportunities for regular users of the space too.

Participants also suggested other activities that Bow Church could host. Art, music, pilates, reading groups, knitting and language classes were all brought up as activities they would like to see happen at the church. Some local residents were inspired by events at other churches they had attended and saw how those ideas could be translated to Bow Church.

Constructive criticism, such as “more open space to dance,” “café,” “another toilet,” “heating,” was invaluable feedback for the church’s ongoing renovation work. This was especially relevant to them when considering how to enable a variety of activities to ensure their church stays relevant and useful to the community.  

Overall, ‘Bow Moves’ was a heart-warming event, holding much promise for future use of Bow Church. It was fantastic to witness the connections people made to the church and to each other.

Emma Newman is a summer intern with the Glass-House Community Led Design.

post by Katerina Alexiou

The EDP team was recently in Birmingham delivering a workshop on engaging communities in design decision-making. The workshop aimed to explore what community engagement in design means and why it is important, but also share best practice tips and resources to support those working on design projects in historic places of worship. We were fortunate to have a rich mix of participants on the day, community members as well as professionals who support such projects: architects, development officers, members of dioceses and funders.

In the first part of the workshop, we had invited speakers from two projects who successfully and creatively engaged with their communities, to re-imagine and re-develop their buildings. Rev Jane Lees and Andrew Smith, from St Luke’s Church in Oxford, talked about the experience of their Big Project, completed in 2014, which saw their church transformed into a space that effectively serves worshiping needs alongside offering a variety of activities and services for the wider local community. Clare de Bathe, from Chichester Community Development Trust told the story of how the development of the Graylingwell Chapel started, and how the community engagement process was organised to ensure that the plans take into consideration the needs and aspirations of the local community. The two presentations gave an interesting perspective on the different starting points and different end points in terms of design decisions that projects can have, but also revealed many commonalities in terms of methods and approach to community engagement. Both made some important points about keeping engagement going throughout the life of a project and being open to the input of people in the community.

We also shared some of our own observations and research findings and facilitated a workshop session on developing an engagement strategy, as well as a number of taster sessions introducing resources and tools to help with different aspects of the process, from how to use digital media in your design project, to how to structure your thinking and how to collect evidence from community engagement activities.

The film created on the day, is an exploration of what community engagement means from the perspectives of the participants, and also gives a feel of the event and its impact.
Click here to view the film on our youtube channel.
 
The event was also an opportunity to share a set of new resources. The resources are meant primarily for groups looking after historic places of worship, but can indeed be useful for any group thinking to embark in a design project, as well as design professionals. More resources are under development. We invite everyone to have a look, try out the materials and tools offered, pick and choose, adapt or expand them and share them in their networks. Our only request is to come back and talk to us about your experiences! Check out http://www.empoweringdesign.net/edp-resources.html

A version of this blog was published in the Design@Open blog, available here.