HACK ME Project
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RECODE REGENT’S ESTATE HACK ME Project HACK ME Well-Being Analysis CLEAR VILLAGE Report date: July 2012 © clear-village.org 2012 4 CONTENTS PART 1: INTRODUCTION PAGE 6 PART 2: FINDINGS OF THE WELLBEING INTERVIEWS PAGE 12 Positive findings Mixed findings Negative findings PART 3: A GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE OF REGENT'S ESTATE PAGE 34 Workshop 44 What people would like to see in the public space How people would like to contribute themselves Conclusions RECODE PART 1 ABOUT HACK ME HACK ME is a Clear Village initiative in collaboration with Rolemop, Workshop 44 and CIVA. The first HACK ME is an initiative that aims to tell the good project phase consisted of carrying out a Well- stories of Regent’s Estate in Hackney and enable Being Analysis, which is summarized in this report. local people to turn their estate into a better place Building on the findings of the Well-Being Analysis, to live. The ‘ME’ in the project name emphasises the second phase of HACK ME will see a number of the idea of focusing on individual people who make public space interventions being carried out hand up the social fabric of the area. ‘HACK’ draws in the in hand with local residents in the second half of notion of digital hacking of complex systems and in 2012 in order to increase the vitality of Regent’s this case stands for the growing benefits of a self- Estate and bring it to the attention of local decision- organising and volunteer-based DIY culture. makers. There has been a great deal of discussion in recent times about the Big Society, Neighbourhood Plans, Localism, social investments and entrepreneurial support to address the complex societal challenges facing us. HACK ME wants to focus on the other side of the equation: namely, how do local people (in this case the residents of Regent’s Estate) experience their neighbourhood and what would they like to see happening in future? © clear-village.org 2012 © clear-village.org 6 HACKNEY IS READY! IS READY TO ROCK! NOW WE GOT THE RHYTHM, WE’RE NEVER GONNA STOP WE DON’T NEED NO TRENDY STUFF WE WANT SUBSTANCE AND HEART BABY THAT’S ENOUGH FROM THE HEART, THAT’S WHERE IT STARTS PULSING THROUGH MY BODY AND I’M FEELING THE PART! SWEET COMBINATION MUSIC JAM IN WORKSHOP 44 7 RECODE PART 1 ABOUT THE WELL-BEING ANALYSIS Secondly, the Well-Being Analysis helps to engage the community around the transition process. For The Clear Village Well-Being Analysis is a process any such process to be successful, it is essential to to aggregate quantitative and qualitative data ensure community buy-in. Change that is driven on a community and to provide insight into key top-down is often perceived in negative terms and parameters of well-being. The Well-Being Analysis local people who have invested their lives in the is supported by research, yet above all it is about community will understandably feel that decision- reaching out to the community, engaging its making over their heads is disrespectful. The Well- members, and collating their feedback and views. Being Analysis counteracts this by taking a bottom- up approach and demonstrating to local people that The Well-Being Analysis is usually conducted their opinions and aspirations are valued and form within communities that are undergoing or an integral component of the overall process. about to undergo transition. For instance, it was recently carried out in Atina, Italy, to support the Thirdly, the Well-Being Analysis provides a structural municipality’s efforts to regenerate a struggling yet intuitive insight for design briefs, communication village and in Kiel, Germany, to help an asset briefs, and any work that may be carried out in the management company to increase tenant place by Clear Village or others. As such, it is a key satisfaction in a deprived neighbourhood. In such pre-intervention tool that generates empathy for contexts the Well-Being Analysis serves three local transition and ensures higher relevancy in purposes: tackling problem-solving from the outside. Firstly, it provides an overview of a community’s At the heart of the Well-Being Analysis lies the strengths and weaknesses as perceived by local conviction that local people are not an obstacle to be people. The Wellbeing Analysis gathers feedback overcome, but an asset to draw upon. Local people on essential community well-being factors such as should be viewed as experts on their community Architecture & Infrastructure; Social & Community with a vast reservoir of embedded knowledge on aspects; Economy & Governance; and the Natural the weaknesses, strengths and opportunities of Environment. Furthermore, each of these larger the place. Any transition process that does not categories contains within it a number of sub- adequately solicit their views and ensure their categories, so that a large-scale Well-Being Analysis engagement is therefore negligent of one of its most results in a breadth of findings as illustrated by the valuable assets. Well-Being Wheel. © clear-village.org 2012 © clear-village.org 8 % ! % !! % ! # THE REGENT’S ESTATE PROCESS ! !# ! %&"! # ! % The Well-Being Analysis process involves Clear "!% # # $ # %" # " % Village’s design analysts taking part in an on-site # " #%! "%! !%! ! %! %! #%'% ! !% design residency and engaging local people in ! ! # ! ! " % # ! ! interviews and conversations in their own space. To ! % # % support the interview process, a semi-qualitative ! %" ! %! ! % ! ! ( ! %! ! !% interview grid is developed based on learnings from !""! % ! % % ! ! ! ! previous Well-Being Analyses in similar communities ! %! % ! %! % ! ! ! ! #" ! " and desk research on the specific community %! " % ' ! # in question. Interviews are underpinned by the '! % #! % ! # ' " grid structure, but they are allowed to flow and $ ! # "! interviewees have the opportunity to speak their % % ! " % ! ! % mind at any point. It may be said, then, that input "! " % " is allowed to override structure. What Clear Village # " % tries to innovate is a means to harness content from conversations, which can then be converted into CLEAR VILLAGE WELL-BEING ANALYSIS IN ATINA, strategic findings, supplemented with statistical data ITALY and other research, and translated into the different ‘languages’ spoken across the entire spectrum of stakeholders, ranging from local community groups to executive boardrooms. For the sake of interventional purposes in Regent’s Estate, Clear Village tailored the Well-Being Analysis methodology to a combination of (1) detailed Well- Being interviews and (2) a ‘lite’ street-style Well- Being interview. In the ‘lite’ version, 12 statements were provided to which interviewees could reply with ‘agree’, ‘neutral’, ‘disagree’ or ‘not important for me’. 10 of the statements related to the following topics of the Well-Being Wheel: mobility, public space, safety, housing, diversity, community comfort, personal development, employment and 9 RECODE PART 1 governance/empowerment. 2 further statements It goes without saying that this Well-Being were provided on Regent’s Estate-specific topics, report does not pretend to be an exhaustive and namely the growth of Broadway Market and the statistically valid examination of life in Regent’s relevance of Workshop 44 to the estate. And finally Estate. That would be presumptuous on the basis of 4 open questions were developed to elicit more 46 interviews. It does, however, provide a snapshot detailed responses and gauge what wishes people of concerns, issues, hopes, aspirations, suggestions had for the future of Regent’s Estate, what they and ideas among the people of Regent’s Estate that would like to see in the public space, and how they can serve as a foundation for further exploration and would like to contribute themselves. initial public space interventions. Over a period of 2 months from May to July 2012, As one of the interviewees of the Well-Being Clear Village design analyst Victoria van Wassenhove Analysis put it: spent most of her working time in Regent’s Estate, “THERE ARE SOME FUN FACES HERE IN REGENT’S. getting to know the local community, assisting WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR YEARS AND Workshop 44 with their activities, and conducting PEOPLE STOP AND TALK TO EACH OTHER. IT’S NOT both detailed and ‘lite’ Well-Being interviews. The PERFECT, BUT IT’S A FUNNY LITTLE OASIS. I THINK work was supported by process design developed by I’M LUCKY TO LIVE HERE AND I CAN WALK INTO A Thomas Ermacora, founder and strategic director of SHOP AND CHAT TO PEOPLE AND SAY HEY!” Clear Village, and Alice Holmberg, chief operations officer of Clear Village. Research assistance was We hope that this report gives something of a provided by Robin Houterman and Tom Cowan of the sense of the vibrancy, the challenges and also Clear Village Observatory. the opportunities of the ‘funny little oasis’ that is Regent’s Estate. In total, 46 members of the local community were interviewed. 12 participated in the long well- being interviews, while 34 participated in the ‘lite’ interviews. There was a satisfactory distribution of interviewees in terms of gender and age to ensure a variety of perspectives. In terms of gender: 54% of interviewees were male, while 46% were female. In terms of age: 24% of participants were <20 years old, 22% were 20-35 years old, 17% were 35-50 years old, 20% were 50-65 years old, and 17% were 65+ years old. © clear-village.org 2012 © clear-village.org 10 "IT’S A FUNNY LITTLE OASIS." A RESIDENT ABOUT THE REGENT'S ESTATE 11 © clear-village.org 2012 © clear-village.org 12 PART 2: FINDINGS OF THE WELLBEING INTERVIEWS 13 RECODE PART 2 POSITIVE FINDINGS DIVERSITY I ENJOY LIVING IN A DIVERSE CULTURAL Hackney has a proud tradition of diversity and NEIGHBOURHOOD tolerance and has long been a melting pot of cultures from all over the world. From the Vietnamese restaurants of Kingsland road, to the kosher butchers of Stamford Hill and the Caribbean grocers of Ridley Road Market, Hackney’s history of multiculturalism is deeply embedded in the social composition of the borough.