EDP Live: celebrating community-led design in historic places of worship
post by Sophia de Sousa and Katerina Alexiou
On 12 February, 2020, The Empowering Design Practices research team gathered with partners and community collaborators, colleagues, funders and friends to celebrate five years of research exploring community leadership in design within the context of historic places of worship. This was a day to share learning and the resources produced by the research team, to celebrate community achievements and to explore the potential, opportunities and challenges that these buildings, and their custodians, face in providing welcoming spaces for their whole community.
The project's celebratory conference and exhibition, Empowering Design Practices LIVE was held at St Paul's in Hammersmith, a wonderful example of a church that has reinvented itself and transformed its building and offer to the community. The event was a wonderful opportunity to bring together the wide range of people and organisations that engaged with the project to reflect on work we have done together and to generate ideas and propositions for the future.
The day kicked off with an overview of the project and our key learning points and recommendations, based on our experience of collaborating with over 50 places of worship around the country, as well as professionals and support bodies that work with them. This was a moment to reflect on the specialness of historic places of worship as buildings, and on the custodians tasked with looking after and unleashing the potential in these buildings. Through a design lens, we explored how community leadership, partnership working and effective community engagement can help ensure the long-term sustainability of these buildings, and help support local networks, community development and the life and vibrancy of these much-valued sacred heritage buildings.
The morning also included a panel discussion of various partners briefly sharing their key reflections and learning points, from the perspective of the organisations and sectors they represent. A key message that came through, articulated brilliantly by Historic England’s Head of Places of Worship and Owners Advice, Diana Evans, was that engagement in design is important, it requires support and capacity building, but it can also be great fun, a space to build confidence and a frame in which important connections, friendships and partnerships can be formed.
The rest of the day included both panel discussions and interactive workshop sessions.
Our first panel of invited speakers was made up of representatives of community-led design projects at various points on their journey. Revd Canon Caroline Dick and Churchwarden David Wilcox from St Michael and All Angels, Whitton Gilbert spoke about their Breathing Space project, and the importance of a vision being greater than simply the reordering of the church. They stressed the importance of talking to people, and bringing them with you on a journey to which each person and organisation can contribute in their own way.
Revd Simon Lockett from St Peter’s Church, Peterchurch spoke of the need to form partnerships, and the importance of being willing to experiment and if necessary, to change direction of travel in response to changing circumstances. He stressed the importance of high quality and values-driven design, and that this can be achieved with varying budgets.
Revd Geoffrey Eze from All Saints Church, Hanley spoke of the creation of a new enclosed space within their church, and the importance of changes to a building being catalytic, enabling new partnerships and new ways to serve the community as well as the congregation.
And finally, Adam Yusuf, Chair of Israac Somali Community Association in Sheffield, spoke of the group’s collaboration with the EDP research project, and with The University of Sheffield. These helped grow the e group’s awareness and appreciation for their building as an entity with its own history and identity, and realise the role that design can play in creating opportunities for the building to serve their community objectives. He also spoke of the importance of connecting with other groups taking on similar projects to transform their buildings, and how much they could learn from each other.
Our panel of professional speakers was tasked with presenting brief provocations from the perspective of an architect, a support officer and a researcher, which then led us into a plenary discussion with the room.
Some challenging questions and propositions were put to the room: Aidan Potter, Partner at John McAslan Architects quoted Jane Jacobs’ famous words, “Old buildings need new ideas” and challenged the room to be bold in our thinking about what is possible in places of worship. He also reminded us that the design for these buildings has to be a collective endeavour, with the architect simply one element of a complex and collaborative design process. Architect and researcher Nevine Nasser spoke of the relationship between sacred space and sacred experience, and reminded us that faith buildings must integrate into the society that surrounds them. Perhaps the most challenging provocation came from Wendy Coombey, Community Partnership & Development Officer at the Diocese of Hereford, who reminded us that these buildings must be at the service of people, and not the other way around. She asked what would happen if the custodians of these complex listed buildings facing the challenge of innovation and sustainability, simply decided to give the buildings back and opt for alternative spaces to gather and worship.
EDP Live Exhibition
The exhibition offered a snapshot of the project, with key information and statistics about the activities and groups with which we have collaborated. It also included a section which introduced the wide spectrum of practical resources developed throughout the project and artefacts from public engagement activities and live student projects. The resources on offer for people to explore and take away included interactive websites Explore Design: community buildings, A Design Thinking Guide, as well as freely downloadable materials such as our Design Project Stories and our series of Designing Places with People booklets, on engaging communities in the design process. The exhibition also introduced emerging resources on working with architects, key topics for consideration when setting off on a project to transform a place of worship, and an online course on community leadership in design.
We also shared a series of films produced within the project, which include inspiring stories of community engagement in design, a practical resource on using digital media as a design engagement tool, and films capturing our Design Training, a workshop on developing a shared purpose, and related projects Prototyping Utopias and Tate Exchange.
Finally, the exhibition space included a policy corner which invited participants to record thoughts and recommendations about four key questions. Here is a small taster of the ideas that emerged:
How do we connect heritage buildings with the broader context of placemaking?
Build links with wider, existing place making strategies locally and nationally to create a cohesive approach.
Identify within local planning policy that S106 (CIL) can go towards the reuse of heritage buildings for community/ services/ etc.
How do we champion and enable community engagement in design decision-making?
By showing the local community that changing our buildings will lead to more meaningful resources for the community.
By funders encouraging this approach as a precursor to investment, to secure more sustainable projects. A release of funds for project development?
By ensuring that they are engaged in the process from the start and listening to them. Solutions shouldn’t be imposed in a top-down approach. ​
How do we raise awareness of the value of historic places of worship in the local economy/ society?
Collect feedback from community users and congregations, encourage councils to read it!
By not holding up historic places simply as places of beauty but also as useful spaces that can benefit the local community. ​
How do we build capacity for community leadership in the design and adaptation of places of worship?
Partnerships with local government and councils for voluntary services.
Training faith leaders. Central web-based resources, including a list of faith leaders willing to advise others.
If owners + funders realised a vital first step was capacity building (if assets are to be protected) they would prioritise this as a first step. You wouldn’t build a house without paying for a land survey first.
The event offered opportunities for people to engage practically with some of the project’s methods aiming to facilitate collaborative exploration of issues and ideas and the generation of ideas for future actions.
The first workshop of the day (which ran in parallel to the community presentations) brought people together to explore the challenges, assets and opportunities that arise in the efforts to unlock and enhance the potential of historic religious buildings as places of community value. Participants worked in groups to map and connect their ideas about the barriers they face, but also the assets they have (their skills, resources, support) and to collectively come up with suggestions for future actions or processes. Here are some of their suggestions:
Feeding grassroots knowledge (and longevity and connections) of faith buildings to governance - spreading awareness of Taylor Report
Creatively connecting communities to construct and share knowledge and ownership
Investigate partnerships with local agencies, local councillors, voluntary organisations, local groups and local activities
Challenge the church establishment to be more radical about what churches can be
The final activity of the day brought everybody together to co-create ideas for possible future collaborations, actions, projects or networks. This ‘cross-pollination’ workshop focused in particular on exploring ways to enable custodians of places of worship to shape the future of their buildings, and the suggestions generated during the morning workshop were brought to bear on people’s thinking. Participants put on the table their resources, current projects and aspirations and explored synergies, connections and new ideas. A champion from each table then moved around to other tables to pitch their ideas and garner further support. At the end of a long day, it was heartening to see the unwilting enthusiasm with which everyone continued to share their knowledge, experience and goodwill to help build capacity in community-led design and support and strengthen communities around historic places of worship.
We would like to thank everyone who attended the day, and shared their stories, reflections and ideas for the future. It is clear that there was fantastic energy and momentum in the room, and that there is much we can do together looking forward.
Sophia de Sousa is the Chief Executive of The Glass-House Community Led Design. Katerina Alexiou is a Senior Lecturer in Design at the Open University. Photos by Jonny Bowsworth.
Places of worship in Britain and Ireland 1929-1990
post by Matthew Steele, The Open University
This is a report from an event organised at the University of Oxford 27-29 January 2016. The event brought together speakers from academia, the heritage sector, and the architectural profession. After an introductory talk by Mark Chapman (University of Oxford), which outlined the main themes to be explored over the weekend, the first speaker was John Harper (Bangor University) whose paper focussed on the Roman Catholic Church and the impact of the Second Vatican Council. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963) is generally considered to the most significant change to the liturgy since the Council of Trent (1545-1563). New churches were needed which reflected the new liturgy, whilst existing churches had to be adapted.
In addition to liturgical reorderings, Richard Halsey (Friends of Friendless Churches) highlighted the creation of new Anglican and Roman Catholic diocese in the 20th century as another influence on church adaptation: certain parish churches were expanded to reflect their elevated status as cathedrals. Examples include Bradford Cathedral, extended by Edward Maufe (1940-65), and Blackburn Cathedral enlarged by W.A. Forsyth (1938-60) and Lawrence King (1962-77). With costs typically borne by local parishioners, not the diocese, it is perhaps understandable that the huge crypt of Blackburn Cathedral incorporated community facilities.
The evolution of religion and religious architecture has run parallel and, on occasion, become intertwined. Kate Jordan’s (University of Westminster) research on monastic buildings tackles the problem of how to study different religious groups with varying traditions using theological change as the underlying theme. It was at the Benedictine Christ the King, Cockfosters (1939-40), designed by Dom Constantine Bosschaerts, for example, that the first Catholic mass spoken directly to the congregation took place in Britain. In recent years, the pressure to adapt monastic buildings has stemmed from the aging and numerically declining religious communities who occupy them. This suggests a new era of smaller abbeys and convents beckons: see Stanbrook Abbey, North Yorkshire (2015) Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios.
The theme of religious communities was continued by Robert Proctor (University of Bath) who suggested that the Second Vatican Council was, perhaps, not as central to change within the Roman Catholic Church as is typically held, and that other factors were operative throughout the 20th century. Finances for church building were provided by parishioners, which impacted upon their character. Occasions such as the laying of a foundation stone were a cause for community celebration, and often accompanied by public processions. Once building works were complete, it was common for fitting and fixtures to be donated by parishioners.
This idea of the Roman Catholic churches as an expression of its worshipping community contrasts sharply with early 20th century Anglican attitudes as described by Alan Doig (University of Oxford). Nicholson and Spooner’s book Recent English Ecclesiastical Architecture (1910) was illustrative of a prevalent attitude that the problem of church design lay with style only. For the Anglicans that meant Gothic. The Byzantine-styled Great Chapel at Kelham Hall (1928) by P.H. Currey and C.C. Thompson was a departure from this convention, whilst St Nicholas, Burnage (1932) and St Michael and All Angels, Northern Moor (1937) by N.F. Cachemaille-Day were not only stylistically different, but also liturgically radical.
St Michael and All Angels, Northern Moor
Amongst nonconformist denominations, according to Chris Wakeling (University of Keele), fundraising for church building promoted a degree of local competitiveness. Despite dwindling membership, nonconformist church building continued apace into the late-1920s. Uttoxeter Road Junction Baptist Church (1928) was erected in the Gothic style with pitch pine furnishings whilst, in an act of one-upmanship, the nearby Hancock Memorial Church (1930) built by the Primitive Methodists had oak fitting and fixtures throughout. In the 1930s, further nonconformist church building resulted from the drift to the suburbs, although the Methodists did not entirely give up on city centre sites: see Coventry Central Hall (1932) by Claude Redgrave.
In Scotland too, denominational identities were expressed through architecture. Following the 1929 unification of the Church of Scotland and the Free Churches, Simon Green (Historic Environment Scotland) described how new churches remained fairly traditional: see Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Rothiemurchus (1929) by Ninian Comper, and Reid Memorial Church of Scotland, Edinburgh (1929-33) by L.G. Thomson. In the same period, the Roman Catholic churches of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, such as St Peter in Chains, Ardrossan (1938), were more innovative stylistically, if not liturgically. It was not until 1960 that the Church of Scotland went truly modern with St Columba, Glenrothes (1960) by Wheeler and Sproson; Kildrum Parish Church, Cumbernauld (1962) by Alan Reiach; and Brucefield Church, Whitburn (1966) by Rowand Anderson Kininmonth.
Image left: Reid Memorial Church of Scotland, Image right: St Columba, Glenrothes
Although the identity of the Orthodox church in Britain has typically sought to revive the memory of Byzantium, drawing inspiration from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, national identity has also been a factor. Robin Gibbons (University of Oxford) explained that the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example, is one dictated by geopolitical circumstance, and the style of their churches can vary depending upon the country in which it has sought cover: see the Chapel for the Russian Embassy, 32 Welbeck Street, London (1866) by James Thomson.
Like the Russian Orthodox Church, the Jewish Synagogue has also, at times, had to operate covertly. However, the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century saw the synagogue move from the back streets to more prominent city centre locations across Europe. In Britain, this move coincided with the period of the 19th century known in architecture for the ‘Battle of the Styles’. The dominant style for synagogues in Britain was called ‘oriental’ and, according to Sharman Kadish (Jewish Heritage UK), this was encouraged by civic authorities keen to emphasise the ‘otherness’ of its Jewish population and to ensure synagogues were not confused with churches. Exemplar of the style was Brondesbury Park Synagogue, Kensal Rise (1905), now a mosque. See also Leicester Synagogue by (1898) by Arthur Wakerley; Bournemouth Synagogue (1911) by Lawson and Reynolds; and Blackpool Synagogue (1916) by R.B. Mather. Note, in all three latter cases, the architect was also mayor of their respective town.
Image left: Blackpool Synagogue and Image right: Fazl Mosque
As has historically been the case with other minority faith groups in Britain, Shaheed Saleem (Makespace Architecture) explained that Islamic worship today often takes place within a house. These so-called ‘house mosques’ account for around 45 per cent of Islamic places of worship in Britain: of the remaining, 39 per cent occupy converted premises, with just 16 per cent being purpose built. Early examples of purpose built mosques include Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking (1889) by W Chamber, and Fazl Mosque, London (1926) by Thomas Mawson; both in a style which could be described as ‘oriental’ after the 19th century synagogues mentioned above. Architects were not always used, however. Indeed, mosques were often self-designed and funded by local businessmen: East London Mosque (1940), for example, combined three existing terraced houses. This tradition continued at Kingston Mosque (1980-2000); an incremental conversion of terraced housing with a recently added minaret.
Overall the conference made it clear that, both within and between the Christian denominations and other faith groups of Britain, there has been a great deal of stylistic and functional variation over time. Geographical location, such as city centre versus suburb, has been a factor, whilst the role of the architect in relationship to a given worshipping community has also varied. Therefore, our understanding of what a places of worship is, or could be, should never be fixed; a pertinent point in this present period of church adaptation for wider community use.
St Michael and All Angels, Northern Moor: Author's own image
Reid Memorial Church, Edinburgh: Image by Jamesx12345 [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia Commons
St Columba, Glenrothes: Image by Mcwesty [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Blackpool Synagogue: Image by Belovedfreak [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Fazl Mosque, London: Image by Ceddyfresse [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
​Matthew Steele is a PhD candidate at The Open University. His research, being conducted as part of the AHRC-funded Empowering Design Practices project, is concerned with architectural practices in relation to historic places of worship in the post-1945 period
﻿'Shared spaces: the modern place of worship' - a debate
Post by Theodore Zamenopoulos
Here is a question: How could we design places of worship that are shared by different faith groups and/or other secular groups? This is a question relevant to historic places of worship - which is the focus of the Empowering Design Project - but also new religious buildings and spaces. Behind this question lies perhaps a more interesting question: Why should we create new or adapt existing and often historical religious buildings into shared spaces?
These questions have become relevant to an increasingly large number of people, at least in the UK, for ostensibly different reasons, relating to issues of social cohesion and inter-cultural communication, theological reasons, or reasons relating to the preservation of heritage and the efficient use of existing resources and spaces. The questions formed the topic of a debate that was organised by the Baroness Warsi Foundation in collaboration with the Empowering Design Practices project (EDP) on the 25th of November 2016 at Liverpool School of Architecture. Chaired by Lord Alton of Liverpool, the debate included a series of provocations from a panel of speakers that brought a diverse range of experience and insights into the topic:
Dr. Andrew Crompton, Head of the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool
Daniel Leon and Matthew Lloyd, two of the architects behind the tri-faith prayer space, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday project
The Most Revd Malcolm McMahon OP, Archbishop of Liverpool
Sophia de Sousa, member of the Empowering Design Practices project research team & Chief Executive, The Glass-House Community Led Design.
Public debates can some times be a disconnected assembly of different points of view. This was certainly not the case with this one. It felt to me that the discussion between the speakers and the audience evolved as a passionate, but also intimate conversation in which a large number of people had the chance to talk and share their views.
But let’s see some of the arguments and points that were made.
At first the audience was asked to consider "a windowless, white room with a chair and a mat" and maybe a sign that indicates that this is a room where anyone can pray. How useful and meaningful will this be for people who want to pray? Indeed, a large number of public buildings (such as airport, hospitals or schools) have these ‘multi-faith rooms’ – although no legal obligation is currently in place to require the inclusion of these places within public buildings. Dr. Andrew Crompton, the Head of the School of Architecture at University of Liverpool started the debate with this provocation for the audience but also for architecture more generally: can we create places that are sacred for all, discarding all the symbols and features that carry meaning to different faith groups? Or is this is 'a no-mans land’?
Whatever our position to the above challenge is, the existence of these places is essentially a "statement about the strength of our faith" as Most Revd Malcolm McMahon OP recognised at the beginning of his speech. But then he added that "these spaces belong to nobody". Places of worship are buildings that are entrenched with meaning. The architectural features, the organisation of space or the orientation of space has a theological meaning which directly speaks to the spiritual needs of people. If we reduce the architecture into a blank (neutral) space then something is lost.
Daniel Leon and Matthew Lloyd, two of the architects behind the tri-faith prayer space, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday project brought a different dimension to the conversation. Their project explores the very question of shared spaces through architecture, experimenting with how the orientation of the spaces will be tackled, how worshipping spaces could be overlaid so as to allow different faiths to witness the practices of each other without compromising their spiritual needs, and how these practices could be wrapped up in a built form able to express meanings relevant to three different faith groups. More recently, they have also started working on the possibility of a more temporal multi-faith structure where some common activities (e.g. cooking) can happen. As Matthew said, “it is difficult to create a meaningful shared space”, but certainly architecture can explore these boundaries.
The final provocation came from Sophia de Sousa, Chief Executive of The Glass-House Community Led Design who represented our EDP project. The provocation started with a series of questions to the audience about the relationship of people with religious buildings which brought to the fore another dimension of the discussion. This is the challenge, not (only) to define the architectural features of a building inhabited by different faith groups, but to understand the meaning that these buildings and places acquire when they accommodate secular activities and wider community uses. In the context of adapting historic places of worship particularly, there are so many different ‘red lines’ for these adaptations depending on the faith group, denomination, but also locality, that the task defies universal design solutions. Ultimately it is the local group that looks after these buildings that determines what is needed and what is meaningful for that particular place.
Reflecting back on the debate, I would argue that at the very heart of these conversations were the tensions that arise around the meaning and identity of a building that is shared by different communities, as well as tensions that arise around the identity of the community that uses (or will use) the building. Although, the term ‘identity’ was mentioned only a few times, the discussion brought to the fore various tensions around this notion. Religious buildings acquire their meaning and identity because of their history, their religious features, but also their relationship with the place within which they are situated. There are many identities that people within these communities want to protect or reinforce within these buildings.
Some contradictions were also noted during this debate: a member of the audience said, “a lot of people within congregations would know very little about the theological meaning of their buildings”. For them, meaning is embedded in their personal relationship with the building and in some cases the building may be irrelevant to the purpose and identity of a congregation. But it was also argued that for some people the experience of entering into a place of worship is very complex: that it is not only about the perception of archetypical religious features, but it is also about all the sensory information that comes with it (i.e. the distinctive smells and sounds). This sensory environment shapes the important spiritual connections that otherwise can be diluted into nothing.
But again, people and communities also want to ‘build bridges with others’ and shape an identity that is open and inclusive to people from different faiths or cultures. Indeed, tackling social issues or sharing ‘food’ were extensively discussed as common practices that connect people in places of worship. So maybe what this all points to is the need to rethink how we design or adapt places of worship. And understand why or whether different communities (faith or secular) can come together under the same roof. Well, it seems to me the answer is blowing in the wind.
Debate on Shared Spaces with Baroness Warsi Foundation
In the last few months we have been in contact with the Baroness Warsi Foundation to explore synergies between our projects and the potential to share and disseminate learning.
The Baroness Warsi Foundation’s ‘Modern Places of Worship’ project, explores the interplay between architecture, faith and identity from both an historic and a modern perspective. The Foundation is hosting a series of ten UK-wide debates, and aims to publish a report and launch an architectural design competition.
Drawing on our common interest on exploring the relationship between places of worship and local communities we decided to partner on a debate on “Shared spaces: the modern place of worship”. The debate is focussed on exploring the potential for places of worship to be shared, by different faith groups, by the wider community, and for mixed uses. It is held on the 25th of November, 3:00-5:00 at Liverpool School of Architecture.
The connection between people and their place of worship, and between a place of worship and the wider community around it, is layered with complex connotations, interpretations and feelings. Places of worship are fundamental to faith communities, providing a physical space to practice their faith and to come together. Bricks and mortar take on spiritual and faith values. For others, a place of worship may feel out of their reach or disconnected from their local community. What happens when those places of worship become shared spaces?
Is the form, feeling and function of a building defined by the particular faith practiced there?
How do different faith groups perceive other places of worship and can different faiths come together in shared buildings?
Can a faith building accommodate local community activities and services while maintaining its integrity and function as a place of worship?
This free debate will consider these questions starting with a series of provocations from a panel of speakers that bring a diverse range of experience and insights into the topic:
Daniel Leon & Matthew Lloyd, two of the architects behind the tri-faith prayer space, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday project
The Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Revd Malcolm McMahon OP
Sophia de Sousa, Empowering Design Practices project research team & Chief Executive, The Glass-House Community Led Design.
The debate will be chaired by Lord Alton of Liverpool.
The event is open to anyone interested in exploring the future of places of worship and their place in our communities.
Helping groups to rediscover their buildings through design training
post by Sophia de Sousa, The Glass-House Community Led Design
Sometimes, when a community-based organisation is looking after a building, the challenges of the everyday can be overwhelming. This is particularly true when the building must cater to a variety of different needs and users and when it is in need of refurbishment. When the heritage of the building is significant as well, this adds another layer of complexity. For those looking after historic places of worship, all of these considerations must be managed, while respecting the needs and practices of their faith community.
Last month, as part of the ﻿Empowering Design Practices (EDP) research project, we invited three community-based groups to take part in our Design Training course, to help them build skills and confidence in design, and to do some practical work exploring how design could help them make the most of the specific buildings they manage.
The groups who took part look after buildings that are home to both faith-based and community activities and services. These groups, the United Reformed Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, St. Mary’s Church, Bow in east London, and the ISRAAC Somali Community and Cultural Association in Sheffield, are all at a moment where they are looking at the potential of their building, and how it can support their vision for the future.
At the Glass-House, we have seen that exploring the design of a building, both in its present form and in imagining its future, can be a powerful tool for looking past those everyday challenges and unlocking its potential as a place that helps people thrive. The process of rediscovering what the building has to offer can also be hugely empowering for the people involved.
Within the EDP research team, we were keen to explore whether getting back to the basics of how buildings work and the design of their buildings could help groups looking after historic places of worship to think differently about them. To do this, we used our Glass-House Buildings by Design training programme, with the support of our long-time Enabler and EDP consultant, Leo Care, who hosted us at the University of Sheffield Arts Tower.
Learning from and through design
The training took the groups through an intensive hands-on series of steps, which included an introduction to design principles and processes, mapping, visioning and model-making. The training also included site visits to three local buildings that have been transformed, which were hosted by the groups that had led the refurbishment process and who now manage those buildings.
The design training offered an important space for our groups to look at their buildings through a new lens. Meeting other groups and projects faced with similar issues and challenges, and learning about some of the solutions they had found, was both encouraging and inspiring. The groups also looked at completed refurbishments with a critical eye, considering the aspects they found more or less relevant and applicable to their own buildings and communities.
Making models of their own buildings also revealed a great deal. Our groups started to look at their buildings as a living thing. They looked at how the spaces fit together, at the different qualities of the various parts of the buildings. They considered our journey through buildings and how design can shape our experience of a place.
We tested various ideas for how they could use design to help transform their buildings. The groups found that small changes could potentially make a big difference to how a space is used, and how people relate to it. Working with the models helped the groups take a more holistic look at their buildings, and clearer visions for the future began to emerge.
At the end of the two intensive days, the groups felt buoyed by the qualities of their buildings and the potential that they could now see in them. One participant admitted that she had felt anxious and a bit reluctant to build a scale model of her church, but that doing it had helped her understand the building differently, and in a strange way, to fall back in love with it.
We look forward to seeing how these groups further develop their ideas and how design can help empower them to enhance their buildings.
Reposted from the Glass-House blog (13 October 2016)
Report from focus group with architects and support officers
In the first year of the EDP project we focussed on understanding and collecting examples of good practice in the development of historic places of worship to meet wider community needs. Much of our activity was focussed on visiting past projects and reflecting on the process with those that saw projects through. In November 2015 we also held a focus group with people who provide professional advice and support, particularly officers working for Historic England and project architects. We wanted to get their perspective on the challenges in current practice and examine existing as well new resources and ways in which these challenges can be overcome.
We were fortunate to have 15 participants, with a variety of educational and professional backgrounds and an admirable insight and willingness to share their experiences.
Identifying and dealing with challenges
In the first part of the workshop we started with mapping recurring challenges along a timeline, starting with the stages of exploration and visioning, through to development and delivery of plans for adapting historic places of worship. We asked participants to reflect on practical challenges from different perspectives (architectural, faith, heritage and community), always thinking about the particularities of engaging with and serving community needs. The emphasis in the discussion was on Church buildings due to the participants’ experiences, but most of the challenges and themes identified are relevant to different faith buildings and projects.
One of the key challenges identified, particularly important in the initial phases of design, was the relation between church and wider community, and the lack of engagement with one another. Local communities are often unaware of plans or activities carried out by local places of worship, or are reluctant to engage because of the faith element. Similarly, the worshipping community may find themselves divided between the mission of their faith (and building) and secular needs. In fact this challenge seems to be tightly associated with the existence of multiple attitudes relating to faith, heritage and community. Participants for example mentioned conflicts between heritage and conservation values and the values of a worshipping community, with cases were external communities are interested in preserving the building and historical fixtures and fittings more than the congregation. Similarly there were reported conflicts between ‘old’ and ‘new’ perceptions of spirituality, or ‘old’ and ‘new’ perceptions of heritage. However, lack of engagement may also come because of lack of knowledge of how to engage others in the process. Lack of capacity was another key grand challenge. This includes lack of knowledge of the planning process, terminology (jargon) and skills for project management. To lack of knowledge, it is important to also add lack of time, people resources (beyond the ‘usual suspects’) and lack of funding (especially for visioning and development). Returning to the issue of community engagement, participants also pointed out the lack of community auditing, understanding who the stakeholders are, what their needs are, and what their assets are. A lack of clear statement of need and shared vision is one of the key barriers many projects face and this is something we ourselves are discovering in the new projects we work with. In addition to these challenges, in the later phases of the process, many participants also mentioned the slow pace of the process and the difficulty of maintaining drive and commitment over a long period.
But we did not only stay at describing the challenges. Our participants suggested many useful ideas and strategies for overcoming those challenges. Some of the key suggestions were:
Provide support with the formation of statements of need and significance (e.g. through workshops or sharing of existing resources)
Develop a community engagement training exercise to identify and define stakeholders
Provide training on project management (managing budgets, people) and fundraising
Encourage networking and social events to learn together
Invert power of Dioceses to empower individual PCCs
Bring together client committee members, planning officers, DAC officers, architect to discuss ideas and plans
Develop materials to elucidate the process and jargon
Provide state funding for preventative maintenance
Provide funding to make a start
Identify knowledge, resources and training materials for professionals
The second part of the workshop focussed on the knowledge, resources and materials that would be useful for professionals working in the field. Our aim in the EDP project is not only to support groups to lead the development of their places, but also to support those who support them, and provide open training materials to budding architects, designers, and community and building development professionals. The responses can be sorted into two categories: domain specific/local knowledge and key generic skills. The table below summarises some of the key ideas.
Although there are differences between the architects and the support officers, we can identify some common themes. Domain-specific knowledge (e.g. liturgy, history of faiths and faith buildings, terminology, planning process, conservation etc) was seen as a great barrier, the discussion revealed the existence of a wealth of resources that can be consulted. This includes for example the websites of the Princes Regeneration Trust, the National Churches Trust, SPAB and the Maintenance Co-ops project, ChurchCare and ﻿Churches Conservation Trust﻿. The EDP team is in the process of collating existing resources together and making them available on the website. See our Resources page.
When it comes to skills, there was a significant emphasis on collaborative skills (motivating, engaging, working with, managing others) but critical skills were also important (e.g. researching the community and the history of the place). Creative skills were important too although more implicit perhaps in discussions about methods and processes to help engage with the community, and support collective visioning.
We are grateful for all these discussions and we are planning to carry out more focus groups with experts providing advice and support to places of worship.
All these ideas and observations are making their way into the development of our educational programme, which includes the delivery of a two-day training course for professionals next year, as well as the creation of resources to be delivered through an online open educational platform.
Visit to the Sheffield Buddhist Centre
post by Ruchit Purohit
​The EDP team visited the Sheffield Buddhist Centre (SBC) in August 2015. Tucked away in beautiful surroundings this historic building is an old Presbytery now converted into a Buddhist centre.
We were greeted by Achara, one of the leading members of the building committee, who showed us into a very welcoming and calm room where the meeting was to take place.
The visit to the Sheffield Buddhist Centre is part of our ‘learning from the past’ strand of research. Like we did with ﻿St Luke's﻿ the workshop included a walkabout where participants are divided in three groups to reflect on architecture, heritage, faith and community use of the building. This was followed by a round table with all stakeholders aimed to map out the timeline of the process and identify crucial moments. After a relatively slow start, the workshop evolved into a rich and vibrant discussion.
Some of the key learnings from the workshop are:
Leadership and decision-making – for this group one of the key aspects of success was assigning one person (Achara in this case) to take a key role in leading, negotiating and managing the project on behalf of the working committee:
It happened very consciously because one of the decisions that we made, and I am proud of, is we agreed on a design committee and we agreed the rest of the Sanga, the community, would keep out of it and wouldn’t comment
​​Other key aspects of the process were:
Building trust amongst the committee (putting complete trust on people you could rely on)
Volunteering was seen as a key to the process as each member devoted their time and committed to a common cause. A lot of commitment and generosity from the people that were involved.
I think this building, the building and its size and its gardens, there are huge opportunities for people to get involved with this project at different levels so it is very very engaging, it is gorgeous, I love being here. Everybody loves being here . Personally it is always a pleasure to come here and be in this space, I think anybody, from the person just walking through the door for the first time can find something to contribute to the project because of the size and the nature of the property, which I think is very important at engaging people and creating unity and creating the sense of cohesion among our community because some centres in our movement have less cohesion than we have here.
Participants also talked about using spirituality as a tool for taking the process forward and achieving clarity. Mitra or friendship is a key element in Buddhist philosophy and this helped the team to develop deep bonds and a trusting relationship with each other.
Probably the most basic one is that we have a huge emphasis in what we call ‘building Sanga, which is kind of, forming a network of friendships which forms the way of the Buddhist community and there is a huge emphasis on Sanga participating in our project …
…As conscious practitioners there is a big emphasis with that in the Buddhist community and that will manifest not only as individual friendships but as kind of helping with the work of the centre; helping making the centre look beautiful, helping with whatever work there is at the centre so we not only have gardening volunteers but we… you saw the volunteer work that was done while the building project was under way. We had volunteers doing out book keeping and helping in the office. We had volunteers who helped with cleaning and so on and so on. The whole project is supported by a mixture of members of the community giving money and member of the community giving their time and their help and their expertise to keep the whole centre running
There was also a really poignant discussion about the different fears the team had when they started and how they dealt with it.
There were fears of
dealing with a space bigger than really required
Something that someone said that lodged in my brain at one of those meetings was he said it was like a toddler and you buy him or her new clothes a size too big because you know they are going to grow in to it and it is similar with this space, it might seem vast and huge but actually it is that analogy that lodged with me as a very helpful analogy as hopefully we will grow, we weren’t going to stay as we were with quite small classes and stuff so that was very helpful and practical.
entering in a space that previously belonged to a different faith group and thus incorporated different faith elements
the risks associated with taking a Grade II listed building and converting it – what will be allowed and what won’t be?
I think we also underestimated what we were doing in an architecturally sense; we had just bought a church and we were converting it to a Buddhist centre and I think we just underestimated that this was significant, this was part of Britain’s cultural history changing
Controversy – of risking to upset the non-Buddhist community by changing the heritage. This was a key moment as the Church bell had broken and came down during roof repairs. It was decided that this will be replaced by a Buddha statue. The architect suggested to apply for planning permission and necessary sanction was granted. But still the wider community was not happy.
We were accused of pulling strings behind the public’s back with planners. It hit the BBC news website.
​Achara, very wisely decided to go and meet the person who was leading this protest. A simple learning was that talking to the community before taking decisions really helps.
So I went down to see the person who was most upset and said ‘if you don’t want this to happen we won’t do it’ and at that point we came into a very different relationship, and she shared her fears… This might interest you. So first of all she was worried about the smell of curry when we arrived. Secondly they had assumed it was a 15 foot florescent Buddha and there would be parking jams all around Sheffield.
So actually it was a blessing in disguise because if, for me the big learning was it wasn’t just down to me but I feel responsible that there wasn’t enough care taken in informing local residents what we were doing. So we have a couple of minor tensions which we resolved very quickly but we could have done better.
​This links to a theme that commonly comes across in most of our workshops that of understanding what is community. The building committee had to be careful of the fact that they had to deal with a different set of users (the Buddhist congregation (mitras)) but also that there was a wider community out there.
We should have entered in a relationship and friendship faster with the local community, when I say local community I mean people who are looking onto the building
Immediate residents?
Yes because there was issues around parking
Yes, parking, suspicion of noise etc
Overall, the process proved to be very emotional for the team, throughout the different stages.
I mean this is personal too but there were three big moments for me, one was after that worst meeting I have ever been, I stopped and wondered what I had joined, and two weeks later one of the best meetings that I have ever been in where we said ‘OK, let’s go for this’. Then I just remember being very very emotional on the opening day.
The project in itself is indeed a great achievement. I left in awe that such a building had been transformed at such a scale and for a very different use still retaining a lot of its important elements. A great feat led by a humble community.
I think one of the things that I have become aware of fairly recently is that, and I think it is through this project that has taken so much of our energies and taken so much time, through this we have achieved a huge level of humility and that is born itself out on such things as electing a new chairman for the future and that sort of thing and that unity, I think, is continuing to grow and I think we should be very careful to preserve it.
Love in Action: Learning from St Luke’s Church Oxford
A central aim of the Empowering Design Practices project is to develop methods, tools, resources and mechanisms to support people embarking on projects for refurbishing and enhancing local places of worship. But before we can develop new things, we need to look at past practice: How did other people do it? How did their journey look like? What kind of places they created? What are the pitfalls of the process and how they can be overcome?
To inform our own practice, we therefore set up a strand of work called Learning from the Past. The research includes interviews, focus groups, workshops, and a number of visits to past projects. These site visits offer a way to experience the place and engage with the people who relate to it: those who were originally involved in envisioning a new future for their building and who saw it through, but also current users, worshipers, visitors, or people using its services.
In this blog, I would like to recount our first site visit to St. Luke’s Church in Oxford and share some thoughts and observations.
The site visit
We were all excited about visiting St. Luke’s. Becky Payne (our valued expert on sustaining historic places of worship) had already written a case study about the project. St. Luke’s is not a renovation project like the ones we intend to focus on for our support, but the church was rebuilt retaining to a great extend the footprint and character of the original building. A really inspiring example, from which we felt we can learn a lot, particularly about the way the steering team led the re-design process while creatively engaging with the wider community in one of the poorer parts of Oxford.
It helped that it was a glorious day when we visited, but the first impressions approaching the building were really positive. The entry to the building was smooth and the main hall looked big, bright and tidy. The space gave the impression of a well looked after community centre but it combined a sense of spirituality. In this minimalist space, a beautiful unconventional painting of the last supper drew our attention instantly conveying so much about the principles behind the creation of this space.
The main room has cupboards all around the periphery, which are used for storage, and there is a mezzanine level on its short side. Beside the main room there is a kitchen area, and beyond that a connecting space leading to the ‘Chill out’ room - a space mainly used by children and youth groups, with sofas, a second kitchen area, a standalone sink, a pool and a juke box.
The walkabout
Following a quick lunch and introductions to the project and to each other we divided in three groups to walk around the building. Each group was tasked with discussing a different topic: architecture, heritage, and community, particularly focussing on how changes in the building have affected people’s lives and perceptions.
Participants talked about a feeling of cosiness the Chill Out room has, welcoming different types of users and different types of uses, including art, dance (from ballroom to street dance), cooking, mother and toddler group activities and even just listening to music and playing pool. All these activities happen often alongside worshipping, and the Hungarian and occasionally also the Asian Church also rent the space out for their own service.
The building was designed to allow wheelchair access, which necessitated moving the entrance to the side. This was originally met with disapproval by the local authority planners, who expected to have an entrance to such a public building on the front and at a distance from the surrounding private flats. Indeed we found out that there were many negotiations between the architect, the steering committee and the council throughout the whole process, and people in the community also came in with their perceptions and requirements about the place, whether for a small thing like the sink in the Chill Out room or something bigger, like the façade of the building.
These negotiations extended to the perception of heritage different people had as this extract from the discussion shows:
‘Surprising some of the young people find it quite difficult to adjust to the new building as they so loved the old building even thought it was falling apart and everything, they had a very strong sense of ownership over it. I think they thought ‘this brand new building doesn’t feel like our yet’.
We did some art projects; they made a Celtic cross out of clay which is hanging in there, and (…) they have got their own chalk board thing and just things that make them feel it is their building as well.’
‘In some ways we have established a new heritage haven’t we?
Mapping milestones and assets
The second part of our visit focussed on mapping milestones in the process from the start of the project until now, but also the assets associated with key events: the people, skills, tools and resources that made things happen. We used a map with some key events pre-drawn, based on the interview we had already conducted with the church warden.
It was a lively discussion and bit more disordered than we had planned! Thinking about the key events and their succession, helped participants recall and reflect on the process. Doing this as a group helped create a more complete picture. The initial phases of the project drew most of their attention, as they were rightly the most intensive, the most difficult and the most defining. The process had its highs and lows, and there were many setbacks as well as achievements.
There were plans to replace St. Luke’s going back to the 1980’s. But the journey which kicked off the transformation of St. Luke’s into what it is now started in 2005 when the steering group formed. A first proposal was designed with the help of students from Oxford Brookes University. Then around 2007 come another design, which included private flats to help generate revenue to maintain the building, but the plan didn’t get permission due to requirements relating to an elevated flood risks in the area. This also started an on-going consultation with local residents, which revealed their will to maintain the church as a community landmark and resource.
Constant community engagement was one of the key characteristics of the project that made it so successful, and so was working in partnership with other local faith and secular organisations; engaging with local media; and combining multiple sources of funding.
A key point in the discussion was when we asked the team about their values and what made them persevere in the face of numerous difficulties over a long period of time:
‘Well, we haven’t touched on faith. For us, this project was part of the outworking of our faith, not just a kind of blind optimism, it was actually looking for guidance, trying to listen’
‘We also had a fundamental belief in St Luke’s for me. I knew there needed to be a St Luke’s here. It was unlike other churches, it served a need that could not be met in other ways’
‘It was meeting the people around here and realising that St Luke’s can help people get a sense of belonging and feel valued, things that other churches aren’t able to do’
St Luke’s moto is ‘love in action’. This was what drove the process and what drives the group’s everyday activities and use of the space now.
During the workshop a group of three youngsters appeared on the door. They hesitated a bit to get in when they saw us, but they were immediately welcomed in. We could see they felt at home and one was confident enough to share his view about the place. I thought, maybe that is where it all starts, in giving people voice and confidence.
I feel privileged to have met the people and I have learned a lot. Below I include a list of top tips that the team suggested to us, to help others embarking on a similar journey.
Watch this space for more blogs about our visits to past projects.
Top tips from St. Luke's, Oxford
Capturing imagination – visualising the project
Ensuring a mix of skills – getting people in early
Flexible design of project – contingency
Engage the community
Be clear about what you are/your values
Patience and insistence
Design to allow mix of as many groups/users as possible
See if you can phase the project
Lottery funding useful early on (but only early on)
Divide responsibilities and respect each other’s skills