This Is For The Majority: Creating a welcoming, restorative and inclusive borough.
Project Title: Gender Inclusive Design
Role: Lead Researcher, Designer and Author
Local Authority: London Borough Tower Hamlets, through Public Practice
Gender Inclusive Design evidence js
Working in London Borough Tower Hamlets Plan Making team I used partcipatory engagament and research methods to co-design an evidence base with over 500 women and girls from the borough.
This document supports one of the first UK design policies reflecting the experience of women and girls and has been adopted by Tower Hamlets through Reg 18 and 19 of the local plan engagement. The work has shaped a specific inclusive design policy and I have worked collaboratively with other officers to aggregate through each of the policies in the Local Plan.
Summary of key findings:
The evidence shows that when considering gendered expererience we must challenge the limiting belief that design is a defensive strategy to protect women from violent men. The evidence shows we must adopt an expanded vision that considers the language of the built environment. Currently that design language perpetuates gender inequality, which is why it feels ‘unsafe’. A design language that embeds equity, focuses on regenerative approaches, access to nature, play, and social prosperity to create spaces that feel welcoming to all, will create an urban context that is inclusive to all.
Excerpt from ‘This is for the majority’:
Historically towns, cities and public spaces have been planned and designed by and for a small
cohort of able bodied, white men. This fact does not undermine or judge their contribution, it is
merely a statement of fact that provides insight into the shape of built world we have inherited.
Cities are an ongoing human project to co-create, make and re-make spaces that both speak of who
we want to be ‘now’, and how we wish to be perceived in the future.
To live here is to navigate a patchwork of histories and the legacy of structures, systems and
institutions that had limiting views of women and girls, disability and neurodiversity, race and
ethnicity and sexual and gender identity. This perspective has shaped a city that favours and
celebrates the lives of ‘successful’ men from the fine detail to the big picture. From street names and
public sculptures through to a skyline of blocks and towers that replicate male power, to a transport
system designed for a smooth daily commute ‘into’ town. We live amongst and navigate a built
environment that is out of step with a contemporary culture which explicitly values plurality,
inclusivity and diversity.
Architecture makes our culture legible. It communicates the aspirations and values of the dominant
culture (i.e. those with capital). Planning shapes this language, providing the grammar and the
structure but also holding space for conversation, collaboration or indeed robust push and pull
between the will of the market and the needs of the community.
Cities play a vital role in production, consumption and reproduction of gendered norms and biases
and are themselves shaped by gender embodiment and the experiences of its inhabitants. Gender
and feminist studies show that women and men experience the built environment differently, and
insufficient attention to women’s needs within planning processes reproduces gender inequality
Street Interviews:
I used street interviews as an initial scoping exercise to determine the key themes the evidence needed to address. Typically women and girls are not consulted and it was important that the shape of the work was informed by lived experience.
Story Map created for REG 18 community engagement on the Local Plan, summerises the audio research.
A huge thank you to Public Practice for this valuable oportunity
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Tower Hamlets Plan Making Team & to the inspiring women who are already working in this field.