CLEAR VILLAGE Organisation & Projects

ORGANISATION PROJECTS

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Delivery / Tools for Implementation

OBSERVATORY

Vision Implementation

WHO WE ARE

WHAT WE DO

CLEAR VILLAGE is a UK-based charity which supports communities in need of new solutions to overcome their social, economic and environmental challenges. As a design-driven organisation focused on alternative place-making, we create community development tools, design change processes and ignite resilience in order to help communities identify their needs and build capacities to meet them.

Design Residency Community engagement lies at the heart of our work and the design residency is therefore the point of departure of most of our projects. The design residency is all about reaching out to local people. It is supported by research into the community as well as other places that have faced and addressed similar challenges in order to build best-practice intelligence; yet above all it is about engaging with people to understand their needs and problems and gather their aspirations and dreams.

Wellbeing Analysis Depending on client wishes, the design residency can be used to conduct a CLEAR VILLAGE Wellbeing Analysis. The Wellbeing Analysis is a process to aggregate quantitative and qualitative data on a community and brings with it two key benefits. Firstly, it provides insight into essential community wellbeing factors such as architecture and infrastructure; social and community aspects; economy and governance; and the natural environment.

And secondly, it helps to engage local people by demonstrating that their opinions and aspirations are valued and form an integral part of the overall process.

CLEAR VILLAGE is funded by donations and project income. Our main donors from 2011 have already agreed to donate £100k in 2012 and an additional fundraising event will be held by our board of trustees in the middle of the year. Project income is also expected to rise thanks to a growing pipeline, increased outreach activities, and new partnerships with cutting-edge organisations such as Demos Helsinki, Finland’s leading think tank, and Space Makers Agency, a UK-based agency with a focus on rebooting high streets through storytelling.

Our own experience and that of other similar organisations has convinced us that more and more decision makers are starting to appreciate the value of applying design thinking to tackle complex problems and involving people from the outset through participatory techniques. In a world context where large-scale and capital-intensive solutions are difficult to implement, we look forward to supporting more and more communities by enabling them to build on what they have and unleash their embedded potential.

© clear-village.org 2012

Research

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CLEAR VILLAGE NETWORK

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HELSINGBORGS

KULTURTING ?

Dynamisk medborgardialog på Helsingborgs stadsteater En handledd process för att skapa förutsättningar för att få olika målgrupper i högre grad involverade i det lokala kulturlivet och eget skapande

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1. Verktyg -Två dagars lab process

- Handledare - Verktyg för stimulering och dokumentering

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2. Nätverk - Engagerade i det lokala samhället - Medborgare - Kulturaktörer - Områdesexperter - Representanter från olika grupperingar

WWW.KULTURTING.SE!

3. Underlag - Inspirerande exempel från nätverk - Bakgrundsinformation - Handlingsplan för fortsatt arbete

4. Vision och implementering - Kärnan i processen fungerar som underlag för att driva förändringsarbetet

ACT 1 & 2: KULTURTING VISION

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ACT 3: REALITETS-TJEK

+ Niklas Uhrberg fortalte om sin förening „Jazz i Hbg“ + Albin Ganovics „Cabaret Candy Club“ blev presenteret + H+ presenterede planerne för regenering i Helsingborg + Robert Lillhonga främställede sit nya filmkoncept „weekendfilm“ och öppnade för deltagelse + Birgitta Killander klargjorde Kulturförvaltningens mål & drift + Gustav Högmo berättede om sit musikalprojekt + Jennifer Rahfeldt sång från sin nya skiva

CLEAR VILLAGE Lab affärsplan beroende Building on the findings from the design residency and the ledarskap värdegrund Wellbeing Analysis, the CLEAR VILLAGE Lab brings together samhälls internationell stakeholders and community members for a collaborative förankring relevans experience spread over a number of days. Supported by expert facilitators, Lab participants are guided through a rhythm of exercises that include action-learning, rapid prototyping and other participatory design techniques to co-develop solutions for the community. The process is assisted by cherry-picked professionals from the CLEAR VILLAGE network, which includes leading experts from more than twenty countries in fields ranging from architecture to technology, anthropology to communications, and community engagement to permaculture and environmental science.

Community RECODEs The results from each Lab are collated in a RECODE report which provides communities not only with a detailed overview of the Lab findings but also with a strategic roadmap to implement the solutions that have been developed in the most effective manner so as to maximize embedded capacities to address needs.

ACT 4: SCENARIE PLANERING

ACT 5: ANSVAR & BESLUT

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+ Om ja, vem skulle da Kulturtinget udgöres av?

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RECENT WORKarbets

Our recentutbildning projectsaffärsplan include developing avillong-term + Om ja, vem ta ansvar för den community första drift, det första möte? engagement programme for the City Theatre of Helsingborg samhälls ledarskap + Om ja, vad för nogen initativer skal förankring (Sweden) to overcome urban segregation; tages och nar? working with an AngloGerman asset management company to revitalise a neglected neighbourhood in Kiel (Germany); supporting the municipality of Atina (Italy) to identify a path towards community regeneration; as well as a variety of UK projects such as collaborating on a regeneration drive to ignite Crystal Palace and working with the London Borough of Havering, Friends of Bedfords Park and other stakeholders to revitalise a Walled Kitchen Garden. &

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In addition we have expanded our network of experts to enhance the overall skill-set we can offer communities; developed new partnerships and strengthened existing ones; and mobilised a growing pool of volunteers in the places where we have worked to ensure that communities have the ongoing capacities they need to build the transformation they desire.

REPAIRING BROKEN COMMUNITIES CONTEXT Gaarden-Ost in Kiel is a typical example of a marginalised urban community. With a high proportion of immigrant, unemployed and single households, the neighbourhood runs the risk of degenerating into a ghetto. After acquiring a large number of properties in Gaarden-Ost which were previously social housing, an Anglo-German asset management company found itself under increasing pressure to achieve its bottom-line goals of raising rents, reducing vacancies and lowering tenant turnover.

The company initially called in CLEAR VILLAGE working in partnership with Etikstudio to assist with the refurbishment of a number of vacant apartments in Gaarden-Ost. However, given the challenges but also the opportunities in the neighbourhood, it was soon decided to move from a refurbishment to a regeneration project.

WHAT WE DID

Š clear-village.org 2012

Design residency A CLEAR VILLAGE team of German-speaking design analysts engaged in a 4-day on-site residency to conduct qualitative interviews with tenants. Information brochures were developed and sent to tenants in advance; a meeting space was established on the premises where tenants could speak to CLEAR VILLAGE at all times; and further outreach took place by carrying out interviews in the streets and open spaces as well as by knocking on doors and following referrals. In total, 10% of all households that lived in the asset management’s Gaarden-Ost properties were interviewed, resulting in a wealth of data on how people viewed the neighbourhood, what they perceived as the strengths and weaknesses, and what their hopes and dreams were for the future. These findings were collated in a Wellbeing Analysis report which served as the foundation for all further activities.

Scenario planning for vacant apartments One of the key findings of the Wellbeing Analysis was the need to diversify the composition of the neighbourhood and bring in under-represented groups such as students and families with children to introduce a new element of dynamism. Based on a study of the rental market in Kiel in general and Gaarden-Ost in particular, typologies for potential new tenant groups were developed. With its inhouse expertise and also drawing on its network of architects and placemakers in Germany, CLEAR VILLAGE and Etikstudio then determined three levels of refurbishment interventionssimple, medium and large- incorporating spatial, aesthetic and sustainable improvements in order to attract different typologies whilst at the same respecting and bolstering the values identified in the neighbourhood.

Revitalising and igniting the neighbourhood Going beyond refurbishment, a variety of initiatives were developed to address key areas of dissatisfaction amongst tenants, including uninviting interiors, ill-kept open spaces and insufficient opportunities for community building. Initiatives were inspired by best-practice innovation from around the world collated by CLEAR VILLAGE’s Observatory and were designed to ignite community spirit and wellbeing whilst accommodating the asset manager’s time and budgetary restrictions. Particular emphasis was paid to improving service levels; given that this was a particularly strong source of tenant dissatisfaction yet also a point that the asset manager wished to establish as a USP, a comprehensive programme was developed to bridge the gap between actual and desired service levels.

Rebranding and story-telling Finally, a communications plan was developed to shift the narrative about Gaarden-Ost. The current neighbourhood brand was analysed, a new brand identity was defined, and a graphic identity was provided to support outreach efforts to key stakeholders such as the city and desired tenant groups and underline the message of change.

OUTCOMES All the initiatives were collated in a comprehensive Neighbourhood Identity Guide which provided the asset manager with a roadmap to increase tenant wellbeing, attract new tenant groups, ignite and rebrand the neighbourhood, and establish superior service levels as a USP on the German property market. The client was thus enabled to embrace an innovative approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, in which tenant wellbeing is not a soft extra but a strategic goal that directly impacts bottom-line performance. Moreover, the individual initiatives were designed for maximum replicability to enable the asset manager to pilot them in Gaarden-Ost, roll them out to its 3k other properties in Germany, and scale them up to the 30-40k additional properties that will be acquired in coming years.

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ATINA

CONTEXT Atina is a small town in Italy which faces many of the typical challenges of a rural location. It suffers from an ageing population and an economy that is overly dependent on seasonal tourism, leading to a lack of dynamism in general. In addition it is a fractured community, divided into an old core which is a place of agriculture, heritage and culture and a more recent part which is industrial but has been declining for decades. Set against the backdrop of the financial crisis, this makes for a difficult (though by no means unusual) cocktail of problems.

Working together with the Municipality of Atina and a number of other partners, CLEAR VILLAGE conducted a week of street interventions as a first step in the process to re-ignite Atina and break down the invisible border between its two parts.

WHAT WE DID

© clear-village.org 2012

Design residency An Italian-speaking team of design analysts, comprising CLEAR VILLAGE as well as partners Fabiana Panetta and Angela Koch of ImaginePlaces, engaged in a week-long residency in Atina during the annual jazz festival, the most vibrant time of the year. ‘Discovery Week’, as it was termed, was well publicized in advance. Invitations were sent to the community via the mailing list of Atina’s main library; postcards were distributed around town; local Facebook groups supported the communications drive; and a project site was established online. During Discovery Week, the design team had a dedicated stand on one of Atina’s busiest squares and also conducted outreach in other parts of town to ensure that as many members of the community as possible were engaged.

Participatory exercises The team developed and facilitated an intense array of participatory exercises including “What I love about Atina”, “If I was the mayor”, “Public realm improvements”, “My project for Atina”, “Children’s dreams”, “Retailers’ future”, and others.

The goal was to cater for different people by means of various forms of engagement and thus to enable everyone to contribute their thoughts, suggestions and aspirations for the future of Atina, from the young to the old and from locals to decision-makers and visitors.

Wellbeing analysis In addition, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted to feed into a tailored version of the CLEAR VILLAGE Wellbeing Analysis. To obtain further data, condensed versions of the interviews were carried out through a postcard survey, an online questionnaire and a poster poll at the stand. The initial findings of ‘Discovery Week’ were presented at a public exhibition in Atina at the end of the week and were subsequently analysed and collated in a CLEAR VILLAGE Wellbeing Analysis report.

OUTCOMES ‘Discovery Week’ helped to bring together all segments of the local community around a branded conversation which ran under the motto of ‘I Love Atina’ to boost local pride and overcome internal fragmentation. The Wellbeing Analysis that was conducted provided the Municipality and other key stakeholders with a reflective portrait of the strengths and weaknesses of the place, giving a clear indication on what areas need to be prioritized and addressed. Building on these foundations, CLEAR VILLAGE and its partners now have a roadmap in place to the second phase of the project: a CLEAR VILLAGE Lab which will take place in the course of 2012 and bring together locals and experts to co-design solutions to some of Atina’s most pressing challenges such as service decline, economic seasonality, moving beyond culture as the primary driver of dynamism, and establishing a stronger relationship between the inhabitants and assets of Upper and Lower Atina.

vision SUGGESTION TO IMPROVE THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT:

“NARROW THE GAP AND ELIMINATE THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN PONTE MELFA & ATINA CENTRO STORICO, TO TRANSFORM THE LOVE FOR ATINA INTO SOMETHING TANGIBLE”

OPENING THE WALLED GARDEN CONTEXT

WHAT WE DID

The London Borough of Havering, an urban-rural gateway on the fringe of the capital, faced the challenge of restoring a piece of neglected heritage: a Walled Garden in Bedfords Park. Dating from the 1770s, the Walled Garden was a symbol of horticultural innovation in its heyday and operated as a nursery and community food-growing site until it was forced to close in 1999.

Subsequently, efforts were made by the Council and community groups such as the Friends of Bedfords Park (FOBP) to revitalise the Walled Garden, both on account of its heritage value and its potential to contribute to Havering’s broader regeneration agenda. However, the challenges were manifold and CLEAR VILLAGE was called in to contribute to the revitalisation drive and take it to a new level.

Wellbeing inquiry CLEAR VILLAGE conducted a spontaneous wellbeing inquiry in Havering-atte-Bower, the nearest settlement to the garden.

The inquiry, which involved 14% of all local households, identified a strong desire to see the Walled Garden restored and also indicated a variety of ways in which it could contribute to general community wellbeing.

Stakeholder mobilisation CLEAR VILLAGE brought together local stakeholders (such as the Council, FOBP, Essex Wildlife Trust and the Havering-atteBower Conservation Society) as well as external knowledge partners (such as the Eden Project) to engage in collective dreaming and vision-building. Through opportunity design that took into consideration the needs and agendas of different stakeholders, the vision was created of a restored Walled Garden that would serve as a community foodgrowing and educational space, provide an activity hub especially for Havering’s ageing population and members of nearby neighbourhoods that suffered from deprivation, and add an attractive destination to a fringe location.

© clear-village.org 2012

Incremental regeneration As well as leading the second stage grant application for the National Lottery’s Local Food programme, CLEAR VILLAGE organised an open-air Lab in the Walled Garden. A team of ‘Garden Angels’- a diverse group of volunteers made up of locals, members of FOBP, representatives from the Council, and supporters from as far off as the United States, Slovakia and Cyprus- spent six days bringing change to the Walled Garden. They weeded, raked and tilled; harvested and planted; and co-designed and built a bamboo pavilion for winter vegetables.

Artistic collaboration and branding Additionally, the Garden Angels Lab was enhanced by an artistic collaboration with Grammy winner Imogen Heap, who not only called on her fan base for support but also contributed a moving “Heapsong” about neglected space. “Heapsong” incorporates concepts, people and sounds from the Lab and thus constitutes an innovative step to change the narrative about the Walled Garden and create an appealing new brand.

OUTCOMES The activities thus far have created a platform for regeneration of the walled garden. The local community has been deeply engaged and has experienced that change is possible through collective dreams and actions. As one person put it: “this is the most exciting thing that has happened in the community in the last thirty years.” Relevant stakeholders have been brought together in a partnership constellation with a shared vision that is fully aligned with their individual agendas. The likelihood of funding has been increased thanks to the detailed strategy and implementation plan that was developed for Local Food.

And the rebranding of the Walled Garden has started so as to enable everyone to tell a different and inspirational story about the Walled Garden. Building on these initial achievements, CLEAR VILLAGE will host a Walled Garden Lab in the course of 2012 which will bring together locals, stakeholders, and experts in a facilitated process to co-design and co-vision the next phase of the Walled Garden regeneration drive.

© clear-village.org 2012

DYNAMIC DIALOGUES CONTEXT

WHAT WE DID

Like many other similar-sized cities around Europe, Helsingborg suffers from segregation. A socio-economic rift cuts the city in two and separates the more affluent segment of the population from the more deprived one. In recent years an extensive programme of regeneration has been initiated to improve the harbour area, which is located in the more challenged part of the city. But rather than bringing the two Helsingborgs together, it appears only to have highlighted and widened the divide between them. In the midst of this, Helsingborg’s City Theatre wished to enhance its relevance and impact and made a strategic decision to focus on outreach. CLEAR VILLAGE was asked to be the process and methodology partner, entering into a multi-year collaboration with the Theatre to gain a foothold throughout the whole of Helsingborg and use culture as a way to build bridges across the urban divide.

Design residency Prior to each Dynamic Dialogues Lab, a CLEAR VILLAGE design analyst spent a week on site to understand the dynamics of the city and connect with inhabitants. Under the project header ‘What’s your Helsingborg?’, local people were engaged in an array of interviews and walks to share their narrative of the city. Thanks to the support of local community leaders, many members of the more deprived part of Helsingborg took part in the project and also volunteered for the Dynamic Dialogues Labs.

Dynamic Dialogues series Two Dynamic Dialogues Labs have been held to date and further Labs will be organised in the course of 2012 and 2013. Each Lab was preceded by a substantial communications drive involving direct outreach to potential participants as well as promotion through social media, press material and a dedicated web presence. At the Labs, key stakeholders and members of the local community were brought together for an intensive two-day collaborative experience. Supported by expert facilitators and cherrypicked professionals with relevant expertise, the Lab participants were guided through a rhythm of exercises that included action-learning, rapid prototyping and other participatory techniques to work towards the outcome aims.

The first Lab scoped out a variety of ways in which different groups within the city could be connected through culture, whilst the second one built on one of the proposed ideas and developed an innovative alternative governance model to take the relationship between the cultural sector and the local community to a new level.

RECODE reports A RECODE report was written after each Lab in Swedish and English. The RECODES collated the findings and learnings from the Labs, provided recommendations for new initiatives, offered a roadmap to the next Lab in the series, and also served as a communications document that could be shared with participants, stakeholders and the wider community in Helsingborg as well as with a variety of interested parties on a regional and national level.

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OUTCOMES Having listened to its users in a wider sense, the Theatre decided on a radical curatorial redefinition. Within months of the Labs, a range of recommendations were implemented including opening the Theatre’s stages to local performers, partnering with the Integration Council to produce conversation pieces for immigrant groups, and launching a project to bring together schoolchildren with different socio-economic backgrounds to write and perform their own musical. In addition, a pioneering cultural cabinet (‘kulturting’) was trialled and incubated at the second Lab. Incorporating a broad spectrum of local stakeholders and community members, the cabinet will advise organisations and other parties in the cultural realm on their activities to ensure that cultural capacities are matched with the needs and desires of targeted audiences. Finally, the Dynamic

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Dialogues series has enabled the Theatre to enhance its brand significantly. Rather than being perceived as just one of the many players on the cultural scene, the Theatre is now seen as a driver of cultural change and has managed to bring a host of new partners into the Dynamic Dialogues process including the Open University, Helsingborg’s Development Committee, the Council for Cultural Services, the Urban Planning Department, the Regeneration Agency (H+), and the prestigious University of Lund.

The third Dynamic Dialogues Lab will be held in close collaboration with Helsingborg’s city authorities and will focus on developing a collective cultural vision for the city for the next 10-20 years. The process will also be rolled out to other cultural organisations in Sweden in 2012 to create and support a nation-wide network of best practice.

CLEAR VILLAGE is a community regeneration and participatory urbanism organisation designing change processes and staging interventions to build local resilience

CLEAR VILLAGE Charitable Trust

Lime Wharf, Vyner Street LONDON E2 9DJ United Kingdom

T +44 (0) 20 8980 9019 E info@clear-village.org W www.clear-village.org