Socially Engaged Practice

Project Name: Fenham Pocket Park
Project Dates: Officially opened 21 May 2016
Funder: UK Government grant 
School Contact: Armelle Tardiveau, Daniel Mallo, 
Partner(s): Fenham Association of Residents (FAR); Newcastle City Council; Sustrans North East; Fenham Community Pool; Your Homes Newcastle; Fenham Library; Fenham Model Allotment
How APL got involved: Continued collaboration with local community

Building on the success of the DIY Streets project, Fenham Pocket Park was the result of Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo working with the community and Fenham Association of Residents to successfully bid for government funding.

The design is the result of a co-production process with the community and partners.  Situated between Fenham Library and Fenham Community Pool, the Pocket Park will provide a space for people to spend time in the outdoor area and connect with nature, in an otherwise harsh urban environment.

Comprising planters, a play space and seating and with trees providing homes for wildlife the project had a positive impact in engaging the local school, allotment holders and local residents in looking after the area.  Volunteers from the allotments and the local school will support the park to create wider educational activities.

Fenham Pocket Park was officially opened on 21 May 2016 by Sherrif and Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Councillor Hazel Stephenson at a public event.

Read Cllr Marion Talbot's blog about her experience of working with us on the project.

Project Name:  DIY Streets (Fenham) Creating and Evaluating Inspirational Participation
Project Dates: January – December 2015
Funder and amount: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) IAA Co-Production Fund £9,930
School Contact: Armelle Tardiveau, Daniel Mallo, Professor Geoff Vigar
Partner(s): Sustrans North EastHow APL got involved: Networking event organised by the Faculty Impact Officer.

In this project Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo worked with Geoff Vigar, Professor of Urban Planning, PhD candidates Rorie Parsons (APL) and Clara Crivellaro (Open Lab), architecture student Bryony Simcox and Sustrans on a DIY Streets project in Fenham, an area in the west end of Newcastle. Their work sought to deepen the engagement with the community in a specific part of the DIY Streets study area and will later broaden the evaluation of the project to assess whether interventions of the type used by the team can contribute to the development of social and community capital.

DIY Streets is a well-established programme that seeks to work closely with local communities to help them re-design their neighbourhoods affordably, making them safer, more attractive, and more conducive to active, healthy travel such as walking and cycling. The project focused on a specific street and used ‘inspirational’ participation practices that can harness the capital that exists within a community, enabling them to reach their own decisions. 

A conversation has been facilitated between residents and representatives of the community such as Councillors and managers of local facilities such as the allotments and the library.

This research project was led by architects Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo and sociologist / ethnographer Dr Abigail Schoneboom, with the support of research assistant Sophie Baldwin. It was funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Grant and the Social Renewal Institute at Newcastle University.

The project was undertaken by garden volunteers, youth group and school participants, trustees, and staff, supported by an interdisciplinary research team from Newcastle University. Utilising innovative engagement and design methods, it attended to the diverse aspirations of project participants while respecting the permaculture ethos of the garden. These methods included Sensory Mapping of the garden through activities such as pinhole photography, texture drawing and collecting materials as well as model making and ‘framing’ activities that encouraged playful and imaginative envisioning of future possibilities.

The Scotswood Natural Community Garden focused on:

• understanding the value and meanings that are attached to the garden;
• identifying desires that, if met, will better serve current and potential garden users;
• developing a vision and design brief for the future development of the garden.

The project would not have been possible without the keen enthusiasm of all users of the garden, staff, volunteers, and trustees.

The research started as a one-week intensive project, whose objective was to reveal if the residents of three social housing blocks in Gateshead would come outside and enjoy their apparently normally unused grassed outdoor space. The space was transformed one afternoon in an outdoor living room where tea and cake could be enjoyed. The space had been identified with the support of the council as the research intended to address unused or disused space and its relation to the nearby and potential users of the space. This project was facilitated and carried out by a collective of four postgraduate architecture students at Newcastle University : Mark Greenhalgh, Amy Linford, Cara Lund, and Michael Simpson, together with Daniel Mallo and Armelle Tardiveau, practitioners in architecture and urban design (SPINDUS stakeholders) and lecturers in architecture at Newcastle University.