Name: Sophie Charlotte Spoor
Title: Promoting Diverse Community Engagement at Cruddas Park- Breaking down the physical and psychological barriers that people and municipalities build Description: The site for where we would start designing our own housing schemes was at Cruddas Park, Elswick Newcastle. It currently is home to a residential tower block and a shopping centre. The site has a negative reputation with crime and anti-social behaviour being terms firmly assigned to the area. My proposal for Cruddas Park comes from discovering these initial problems at the site visit. The entrances are very bleak, and the openings do not allow the wider community to be aware of anything going on internally as they are unappealing and uninviting. Secondly, the materiality and cladding were something I immediately disliked. The dull blue has municipal and clinical connotations. It is not enticing or charming and it is not encouraging anyone to make us of the facilities that it offers unless necessary. The vast green area is also very noticeable, and appears to be an enticing space, however when analysing the use and circulation of this space it was very idle and vacant. The community should be enjoying this space and experiencing the views that look out over the River Tyne. What I felt lacked most at Cruddas Park was interaction and community integration, which have become my key focuses throughout the project, therefore I proposed an intergenerational living scheme to combat these issues. By creating spaces to bring all ages together we can help break down the ageist stereotypes that drive us apart. The concern is that an ‘economics only’ approach, rather than a person-centred approach, risks further
isolation and stereotyping of older people by only identifying them as a generic age group rather than actively seeking to understand what people’s range of individual needs and preferences might be. When we consider older people as discerning individuals with different care, housing, and community preferences we will be better positioned to provide a greater choice of considered living environments that meet our unique needs and aspirations in later life, which leads to a more robust and sustainable market proposition in the long term. When thinking about an environment that works well for people of all ages and abilities, our scope should extend far beyond just housing to incorporate care, community, activity, engagement, and the choices available to individuals within and across those categories. Designers and developers alike should embrace the opportunity to design to a higher standard, better adapting and catering to the unique needs and desires of this wildly diverse group of people. A community is not something that can be forced, but by responding to resident’s priorities and creating places that they can call home is a start. Social housing sites usually are not cared for as the stigma in the UK teaches that they should not be. If people have a home that they love and a positive community it helps to begin to break the barriers down. Contact Details: Email- sophiecspoor@gmail.com Phone- 07932037127 CV and Portfolio available upon request.