Residents Advisory Board

The third workshop with Barking and Dagenham's newly formed Residents' Advisory Board (RAB) took place on Wednesday 16 February. This week’s interactive and dynamic session, led by Alistair Bance, Stephanie Edwards and James Stewart from Urban Symbiotics, and Amandeep Singh Kalra and Betty Owoo from Be First, was all about co-creating the ideal home with the RAB. The session involved capacity building the RAB members on the design process, discussing and affirming priorities around the function of our homes, and finally commenting on and analysing flat layouts designed with insights collected from the RAB in mind.

The session kicked off with an overview into the design process of creating housing, led by Stephanie Edwards. Presenting the design process as an approach for breaking down a project into manageable chunks, Stephanie introduced the RAB to the numerous standards and regulations involved in delivering housing to ensure the quality and sustainability of our homes. She then took everyone through an example Be First floorplan to give an insight into how these considerations work in practice, showing how access, furniture placement, height, aspect, and amenity space are accounted for in the design of homes. She also discussed how the RAB Residents Charter would feed into the design process and have an impact on the design of housing, slotting in around the issuing of the design brief and beginning of concept design.

The RAB members then moved on to discuss the homework task for this session, which required them to find rental properties that would fit their needs for a set budget. A diverse range of properties were selected, but they all shared key characteristics around space provision, neutral colours and materials, and high amounts of natural light. It was interesting to note that these emerging priorities built on insights gathered in previous sessions – most important is space, neutral colours and materials, and natural light.

To finish up the session, we explored what a new layout for homes might looked like based on insights from the RAB. In breakout rooms, we showed the RAB four home layouts that were optimised for socialising, family life, flexibility and home working. These layouts corresponded to profiles created in response to their insights. Residents then commented on the spaces and inserted their adaptations to the layouts to show how they could work for them. By going through this interactive exercise, we were able to build our understanding of what an ideal home could look like to the RAB and residents in the borough. The key insight that came forward was that people valued flexibility and being able to adapt their homes to their changing needs.

Make sure to check back in with our news updates to follow the progress as we continue to work with the RAB to co-create a Residents’ Charter!

Wednesday 2 February saw the second workshop with Barking and Dagenham's newly formed Residents Advisory Board. This week's session, led by Alistair Bance and James Stewart from Urban Symbiotics, and Amandeep Singh Kalra and Betty Owoo from Be First, saw the RAB engage in a range of activities that explored the nature of our homes from the neighbourhood through to our front doors. The session queried which aspects of our homes should be designed together with all residents in mind, versus which aspects should allow residents to have more individual choice over how their homes look.

Using the Becontree Estate as an example, we took residents through the different considerations when designing collectively with strict controls on changes, and when individual freedom of expression is allowed for. Highlighting changing attitudes over the hundred years the estate has existed, we shared how over the years Becontree residents have expressed more of their individuality on the outside of their homes. Different paint colours, façade materials, elaborate gardens and ad-hoc extensions now characterise the estate. However, at the estate’s inception, Becontree residents had to adhere to strict rules that dictated how their homes appeared.

We then gave residents a whistle-stop tour of “Housing Through the Ages”, looking at hallmarks of housing through history, and showing residents how they could identify housing stock in their neighbourhoods. The Victorian and Edwardian styles of housing were overwhelmingly popular, with residents charmed by their unique detailing, and distinct character that their warm bricks provide. High density postwar blocks of flats were less favoured by the RAB, with people disliking the stark and brutal materials used, and expressing concerns about maintenance.

To round off the session, residents looked at contemporary housing examples and chose their preferred materials, colours and shapes on both blocks of flats and houses. Tying back to the beginning of the session, we explored which specific elements along the journey from the street into our homes should be designed collectively with all residents in mind, and which elements in that journey are good opportunities for residents to express their individuality.

Make sure to check back in with our news updates to follow the progress as we continue to work with the RAB to co-create a Residents’ Charter!

On Wednesday 19 January we held our first workshop with Be First’s brand-new Residents Advisory Board (RAB) made up of local Barking and Dagenham residents. Along with Alistair Bance, Stephanie Edwards and James Stewart from Urban Symbiotics, Amandeep Singh Kalra, Betty Owoo, Sadia Ur- Rehman and Kate Hogarth from Be First led an energetic online session exploring how best we can design the homes, spaces and places of the future. This first workshop focused on what home means to residents, and how they live in their homes as a result.

The RAB is made up of a diverse group of residents of different ages from a wide range of backgrounds, representing the multicultural nature of Barking and Dagenham’s population. To ensure that each of the 17 wards has representation, members have been selected from across the borough. Each member brings a unique set of experiences, and individual enthusiasm and passion for change, and will help Be First set new standards for high quality, affordable housing.

In this initial online session, we all got to know each other a little better, and the RAB was introduced to some of Be First’s portfolio of projects and their aim of building healthy and sustainable neighbourhoods where people thrive. We then split into breakout rooms to dive into the detail of how members of the RAB live. We discussed activities such as home working, entertaining, and sleeping – and started to think about what kind of spaces we would like to do those activities in.

Make sure to check back in with this website to see how the workshops progress and to follow our progress as we work with the RAB to co-create a Residents’ Charter!

Ever wanted to design the ideal home? Or perhaps the perfect neighbourhood?

We’re looking for local people to help us design the homes, spaces and places of the future.

We believe that engaging with residents is the key to designing better homes and future spaces, in our aim to develop an environment that nurtures community and wellbeing for all. We’re seeking to set up a Residents Advisory Board to give a voice to residents who are interested in shaping the future development of the borough, through a programme of exciting co-design activities and workshops.

You’ll work with a range of industry experts to explore what 21^st century living looks like, and how it will be affected by our changing patterns of living, working, and socialising, in the delivery of the Baking and Dagenham Ideal Home Design Guide.

Together we’ll set new standards for high quality, affordable housing and exciting, active and sustainable neighbourhoods.

For this to work, we need you!

We’re seeking to recruit 20 local residents from across the borough, who best represent the culture, diversity and vibrancy of Barking and Dagenham to join the board. You don’t need any previous experience, just a passion for change, enjoy developing ideas with others and willing to get stuck in!

Initially, were seeking to run 5 x 2 hour online workshops between January and March 2022 focused on the design of the “ideal home” culminating in a physical workshop where we’ll get together to celebrate your development of the Barking and Dagenham Ideal Home Design Guide.

We appreciate the fact that you’ll be giving up time to take part so for each session you attended you’ll receive a £20 voucher!

If you’re interested in getting involved please register your interest at https://urbansymbiotics.com/hello.html or email hello@urbansymbiotics.com by Wednesday 15 December 2021.

Start the new year by taking part in something new and exciting!