SHAPE OUR CITY

RESEARCH AIM: CREATING A TOOLKIT TO LOCALISE EXISTING HEALTHY URBAN DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH TO PROVIDE AN ACCESSIBLE PLATFORM FOR COMMUNITIES TO INSTIGATE CHANGE

THE CLIENTS: Blaise Weston Court Extra Care Estate & Hanover StreT, Barton Hill

The aim of this project is to engage with communities as a means to inspire individuals to engage with the shaping of their own neighbourhood. A bottom up approach designates residents as the key leaders of change within their surroundings and hopes to encourage a desire to better environments through ownership and responsibility. 

This was tested via working closely with two communities within Bristol; Hanover Street in Barton Hill and Blaise Weston Court Extra Care Estate in Lawrence Weston. Various consultations were completed to investigate what the key issues are within each site, the extent of awareness towards healthy urban development and how residents would like to engage with the project. Collaboration between these findings and the existing research from ‘Shape Our City’, led to the development of unique events for each site. These events pushed residents to think creatively about how they can shape their city as an individual and a collective. 

The larger responsibility of this project is too instigate a catalyst of change throughout the city. To assist the progressive nature of this project, a toolkit was developed as a supplementary guide towards healthy urban development. This guide seeks to simplify our findings and present them on a platform that allows communities to engage with change outside of academic, organisational or council input.