A scoping project to develop strategies to improve streets and houses in an area around Lewes Road named the 'Triangle'.

Background

Since 2006, the Triangle Community Group has independently and energetically pursued many small projects with the aim of enhancing the local environment, and building an increased sense of community, sometimes in collaboration with other active groups.

This was a scoping project that produced initial strategies and designs for improving the 'triangle' of streets and houses in Brighton for which the Triangle Community Group has taken responsibility. It was intended to be a collaboration between the Triangle community, members of the Office for Spatial Research at the University's School of Architecture and Design, and post-graduate architecture students, some of whom live in the area concerned.

Project aims

Prior to this project, the Triangle Community Group had identified various challenges and needs that they wanted addressed:

• Neglected and shabby streets and housing

• A lack of green space, trees and plants within the immediate vicinity

• The impact of noise and traffic pollution on health and well-being

• Ways to improve the spatial environment for diverse resident groups and local business while preserving a historically interesting and vibrant area

Working closely with the Triangle community, the Architecture programme was to offer trained designers to generate specific proposals for the physical improvement of the Triangle neighbourhood, packaged in such a way as to be suitable for presentation to the council and others, both in the form of a document and an exhibition. The project would give the School of Architecture and Design's Office for Spatial Research a chance to acquire in-depth understanding of community needs and problems in an area of Brighton representative of many others. The architecture students involved would have the opportunity to participate in a live project with real 'clients', and engage in a collaborative, rather than top-down, design relationship.

The relationship between Triangle and the Architecture Programme was one that architects are entirely accustomed to: a professional one in which a client gives the architect a brief, and the architect fulfils that brief. There wasn't so much a partnership between Architecture and the Triangle community as occasional meetings between Architecture and the Triangle Community executive group. This consisted of four people, all of whom were themselves professionals, working either at the University of Brighton or the University of Sussex, or at other institutions, whose jobs for the most part prevented them from meeting when students were available. As the Triangle executive group consists primarily of university employees, the project was much more one in which two sets of university employees talked to each other, than one in which a university entered a partnership with a community.

The knowledge exchanged was much more like that between architect and client: in this case, the client communicated knowledge about the area, and the architects communicated design solutions to some of that area's challenges. The process of arriving at these solutions was not shared. The products of that process will be very useful to Triangle, not only providing specific suggestions to create improvements, but demonstrating that a large proportion of what was suggested could be achieved by the community itself, with very little outlay, and with no need of formal approval.

On Our Doorsteps was the catalyst for this project, and its positive outcomes. The stakeholders would not have been brought together without it, and the support given was very helpful.

Challenges

The project suffered from a lack of time. As it involved Architecture students, it had to fit into an academic semester. It also had to fit into a pre-existing unit of study, in this case, Professional Studies. The requirements for the unit of study divided the students' time and attention between the course as it stood, and the Triangle project. A longer lead-in time would be necessary next time if students were to be part of the project.

Outcomes

The Architecture programme delivered specific proposals for the physical improvement of the Triangle neighbourhood. These proposals were delivered in the form of a report a report containing specific proposals for the physical improvement and upgrading of the Triangle area as well as a public exhibition of some the project work which went into the report.

The Triangle project has become one of a portfolio of projects in which Architecture has engaged with parts of the Brighton community. It was the first in partnership with CUPP, and therefore the first to be undertaken by Architecture with certain explicit social – as opposed to design – aims in mind. As such, and because of the work's warm reception by Triangle, the project is an exemplar of a new way of working with our neighbours, one in which the community's needs are as important as the design outcomes.

In the longer term Triangle will use the report produced by the Architecture programme to lobby Brighton and Hove City Council for improvements they themselves cannot bring about.