The pictures speak for themselves: they show the transformation of a bleak, unloved, uncared for, flat tarmac area within council housing into a pleasant ‘village green’.
The significance here is the values and commitments that inform every stage of this project.
Those values and commitments include creating places where people can be ‘in sight of one another’ – reading the context for day-to-day, unremarkable but vital, unplanned, informal, cross-generational contact.
Every detail of this scheme is of significance, carries meaning:
- the choice of site – it ran alongside a well-used route in and out of the estate;
- the seat;
- the pathway;
- the stones – ‘stepping stones’ if so used;
- the creation of low key play ‘affordances’ that symbolise a ‘culture of permission’, a ‘yes’ to children and teenagers’ right to be in shared, communal space.
