A pioneering new toolkit, ‘Spaceshaper 9-14’, will be launched 11 December 2009 by CABE to capture young peoples’ views about their local parks, streets and squares.
Young people investigating Hackney, London © Alys Tomlinson
Young people are often excluded from the consultation process about spaces that matter to them. The Spaceshaper 9-14 activity-based toolkit is designed to give them the skills, knowledge and confidence to get more actively involved in shaping the public spaces where they live and play. Developed by and Beam, with The Architecture Centre, Bristol and Kent Architecture Centre, it explores what young people think about how local places are used and how they can be improved.
Spaceshaper 9-4 aims to raise national awareness of the meaningful role young people to have to play in regeneration. Young people are often overlooked in community consultation when it is vital to get young people involved in improving their local parks, streets, playgrounds and other local spaces, as they are their community’s future.
Spaceshaper 9-14 activities are based around eight themes for young people to assess a local space, these include:
- Access – finding your way and getting about
- Use – what activities and opportunities the space has to offer
- Other people – how the space caters for different needs
- Maintenance – how clean and cared for is the space
- Environment – how safe and comfortable is the space
- Design – what the space looks like and from what materials it is made
- Community – how valued the space is by local people
- You – how the space makes you feel
Workshops are led by a trained facilitator and are adapted to each individual site. During the workshop participants engage in a site visit to the space being developed and participate in voting on each of the eight themes. The votes are transferred into a diagram which is then used as the basis of discussion on how the space can be improved.
Workshop activities also include map and photo work, role-play and writing, to give young people the opportunity to communicate how the space makes them feel, or how it could be improved.
During 2008/09 Spaceshaper 9-14 was piloted in different scenarios with a diverse range of groups, including:
- Building Schools for the Future/Primary Capital Programme landscaping projects
- Play spaces
- Community regeneration areas
- Urban and rural settings
- Youth groups and centres
- Children and young people with special educational needs
- Children and young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds
- Children and young people with differing levels of physical mobility
A student looking at a map © Alys Tomlinson
In Southampton, nine and ten year olds said they wanted their local park in the Thornhill estate to feel wilder and have more plants and flowers. Their views have been fed into a funding bid to improve the park.
Year 5 students from St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Wakefield are using Spaceshaper 9-14 to help them improve a park a few hundred yards from their school, and will be part of the Spaceshaper 9-14 launch event.
Are you interested in becoming a facilitator?
Trained facilitators have a crucial role in managing Spaceshaper 9-14 events so that everyone has a fair say and to ensure that young people’s views are heard. Training is now available on the following dates for those wanting to become a facilitator:
London - 1 July 2010
Wakefield – Oct/Nov (tbc)
We are looking for people who have experience of working with young people on built environment issues. Costs for the training range from £50 to £250.
Visit the CABE website for an application form and for more information. Alternatively, call 01924 215 550 or email spaceshaper9-14@cabe.org.uk.
Get your students involved
The next phase of the project is to train and support groups of young people to be Spaceshaper co-facilitators and become part of the professional teams who consult communities on the development of public space.
We are currently looking for suitable groups of young people who are interested in participating in training and supporting Spaceshaper 9-14 in their local area. If you’re interested, please make contact via the details above.
Interested in a Spaceshaper 9-14 workshop?
By inviting a Spaceshaper facilitator to run a Spaceshaper workshop you will be taking part in a process that allows your organisation to assess how well a particular space responds to the needs of children and young people.
CABE recommends that Spaceshaper is used at the beginning of a development project to gather views of the local community and assess the strengths and weaknesses of that space. This information can then be used to inform improvements. Spaceshaper could also be used afterwards as an evaluation tool to track how people’s perceptions have changed over time.
Spaceshaper 9-14 project partners
Beam, CABE, Architecture Centre, Bristol, Kent Architecture Centre
