Westway Community Street: the co-design project
Lugadero was appointed as the Co-Design Team to facilitate the co-design process for the Westway Truts’s Community Street project.
Community Street is a project to restore and rehabilitate the public realm, green infrastructure and some buildings on the Westway Trust’s land. The project is co-funded by the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund and the Westway Trust.
The intended outcomes are to create good quality public spaces by meeting the six key themes set out in the project brief: clean air, placemaking, movement, eyes on the street, art in space and the improvement of some buildings.
To deliver the Community Street project, the Westway Trust appointed one team to facilitate an initial co-design process (Lugadero) for three months, and a team of lead designers (DK-CM) to turn the outcomes of the co-design process into architectural proposals with potential for co-delivery.
Lugadero, in collaboration with local enterprise The Grove Think Tank CIC, facilitated the co-design process between August and October 2021 through a wide variety of events, workshops, and meetings with local stakeholders. At the end of the process, Lugadero and The Grove Think Tank presented the results of the co-design process through a report that explains the results of the co-design phase and introduces recommendations that the design team will take into architectural proposals during the next stages of the process.
Local knowledge at the heart of our co-design approach
Local people should not just be ‘consultees’, but should actively lead the process. North Kensington exemplifies the relevance of community-led initiatives. Many of the area’s most valuable pieces of community infrastructure are a result of grassroots activities, for
example: the Notting Hill Carnival, Meanwhile Gardens and the Westway Trust itself. For this reason, a process led by local people contributes to enhancing and improving the existing community infrastructure.
Our team combined embedded local knowledge with expertise in facilitating co-design processes. Our team included four local people that live or have lived in the area for a long time, who have worked with diverse communities in the area, and who have actively participated to different degrees and with diverse roles in community engagement processes, community-led initiatives and grassroots campaigns. The team reflected the diversity of the area and builds on local knowledge.
Inclusive co-design approach: multiple forms of engagement
One of the key challenges of any co-design process is reaching the diverse communities in an area. We addressed this challenge by providing a great diversity of engagement formats
and opportunities. The co-design process was centred on openness and flexibility. It sought to provide a diversity and plurality of opportunities for people to contribute meaningfully in a way that best suits each individual’s and group’s needs. With these objectives in mind, the project enabled a multitude of interactions, including co-design workshops, drop-in sessions, having a permanent site office in one of the pods in Thorpe Close, community walks, activities for children, attendance to events, as well as one-to-one meetings with individuals and organisations.
A co-design process facilitated by Lugadero.
With The Grove Think Tank CIC.
Project team
Dr Pablo Sendra ARB
Dayo Gilmour (The Grove Think Tank)
Andreia Oliveira-Miguel (The Grove Think Tank)
Amal Bider (The Grove Think Tank)
Marco Picardi MRTPI
Graphic design
Javier Martínez
Marco Picardi
Pablo Sendra
Children’s Workshop
Lydia Gandaa
J King
During the co-design process, we have collaborated with the appointed lead designers DK-CM, who have worked on the communication of the events, attended and supported the co-design events.
