Buildings, emotions and belonging: a workshop with UCL

How can our feelings about a place help shape the buildings and communities around us? In collaboration with our partners, UCL’s Institute of Global Prosperity, we brought together citizens, developers, designers and researchers for an inspiring, interactive workshop exploring just that!

Using the London Plan as a starting point, we shared ideas about how colour, character, storytelling and community pride can shape the places we call home. Together, we explored fresh ways to bring people’s lived experiences and emotional connections into the design process, helping make planning more open, inclusive and people-centred.

We’ve produced two reports summarising the day, now available to read and share.

This was just the beginning. The workshop sparked conversations and ideas that will help us develop new ways to bring citizen voices into building design and planning, with the potential to take these learnings to cities far beyond London.

WATCH: Professor Dame Henrietta Moore, the IGP’s Founder and Director, explains more about the partnership here.