Can buildings bring people together?
Design for Social Cohesion
2019
Commission: Academic, Calthorpe Park Community Group
Type: Research, Design guidance
Audience: Developer, Architect, Local Authorities
Team: Ankita Dwivedi, Bethania Lanzaro, Marie De Poncins, Kate Dotsikas
Special thanks: Gemma Moore, Mark Salter
Location: UK
New buildings typically focus on meeting the needs of its inhabitants and not on lives beyond its walls.
In deprived neighbourhoods the focus remains on what they lack, rather than preserve and nurture positive elements that support social cohesion. This is not entirely the fault of the architect or client because they have no framework for ‘designing in’ social cohesion, or asking how a new building may reduce it.
Perceived social cohesion plays a pivotal role in tackling deprivation, social exclusion and population health. We systematically combined multiple procedures, tools and methods to create an asset-based Social Cohesion Health Impact Assessment framework for the Kings Cross neighbourhood as a case study, and then tested a new Dementia Research Institutes’ design proposal against it. We were able to provide guidance on how the new development’s design could increase social cohesion.
This work will create impact by:
Helping stakeholders understand the long and short term impact of buildings on populations.
Providing a tool for social cohesion evaluation for new developments.
Connecting building design features to a communal sense of security, belonging and trust.
Offering a transdisciplinary-data driven methodology for evaluating what needs changing and what needs preserving in neighbourhoods.
Highlighting the need to include social cohesion as a dimension of health and wellbeing in buildings and neighbourhood planning schemes.