Community-Led Collaboration Shapes Vision for New Community Space at Hopton Court

The project aims to create a community space for use by tenants of Hopton Court, and older tenants from nearby tower blocks, in order to combat social isolation and to build on the community building work already being undertaken. Through an open and collaborative design process, working with tenants and users, the project has been co-created using our expertise to facilitate workshops around the needs and requirements of the end-user clients.

As part of our Stage 1 visioning phase we undertook a workshop, with approximately 15 members of the Aquarius Community Savers group and other interested parties, to establish priorities and requirements for the new community building. Based on the initial brief, we worked with residents to consider the following:

• The activities that will be accommodated within the building.
• The aims of the project.
• Facilities that are required vs. desirable.
• The qualities of the building, including environmental and accessibility.
• Initial spatial relationships.

From these workshops we explored two options to test particular items in the brief and ascertain priorities when the brief is realised. From these options, we will move forward to develop a “Concept Design”, which will synthesise the prioritised items and qualities into one final option which will be presented to interested parties for comment and approval.