Pidgin Perfect

We’d like to thank everyone who participated in the Future Forfar follow up event on the 28th of January. The event outlined the vision (see below) for Forfar Town Centre arrived at through the series of conversations activities and events undertaken in the form of a charrette between Sunday 22nd and Tuesday 24th November.

You can find a copy of the full presentation here documenting the vision.

The purpose of the lunchtime and evening meetings on the January 28th was to build on momentum generated during the charrette in November. There was a fantastic turnout over the two sessions held at the Canmore Rooms with plenty of new faces who weren’t able to attend the events back in November. It would also seem that there were lots of new connections made and from the people present there was a definite eagerness for community led action. In fact a petition started by locals for a new Community Council has already received the required signatures to trigger the next phase.  

Alongside the follow up event an action plan indicating the next steps was presented and received a huge amount of important and useful comments. Please do feel free to send your further comments to us over the next week at [email protected] (or comment directly on the Facebook post). The opportunity to comment further will be open till Friday 12 February, after which they will be incorporated into the final report which will be completed by the end of the month.

Please continue to follow the conversation and provide comment on the Future Forfar Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Visit our Storify for a full record of all the Future Forfar story so far!

@FutureForfar #FutureForfar

https://twitter.com/FutureForfar

https://facebook.com/FutureForfar

https://instagram.com/FutureForfar

Pidgin Perfect worked with North Ayrshire Council in partnership with Architecture + Design Scotland to develop a visual brief for an 80 unit, new supply affordable housing development in Irvine, Scotland. The project aims to be exemplary in terms of design quality and sustainable development at local and national levels, as well as in terms of urban extensions and new neighbourhoods. The visual brief, for the John Galt site, sets out a statement of the qualitative ambitions for the development and was comprised of three elements:

Project Mandate: developed by North Ayrshire Council, this establishes key project requirements and design ‘non- negotiables’;

Design Ambitions: a summary of a multidisciplinary planning workshop, including diagrammatic summaries of design principles discussed at a variety of scales: Neighbourhood, linking to planned strategic investments; Street organisation; and Home, the relationship between the house and its environs;

Day 8 of Advent is all about Helsinki and our ‘Gathering Wastelands: Going Further Than Ruin Porn’ project. 

Over the course EASA012 Pidgin Perfect delved into the reasons, both universal and unique, for the Wastelands of Europe, going further than obsessing over the superficial beauty of dereliction and ruin porn. The participants went ‘further than ruin porn’, discussing why architects, planners and communities should avoid clichéd responses and get people to think differently about their wastelands.

Pidgin Perfect worked with a select group of architecture students from across Europe examining wastelands, the effects they have on European cities and the impact of creative public engagement in the regeneration of wastelands. Following this, the participants experimented with creative engagement techniques, developing authentic responses to ‘stalled sites’ across the continent. Their activities involved mapping, dream collages and emotion masks as tools to generate an energy and excitement amongst the public for the future.

Gathering Wastelands culminated in two exhibition days at the World Design Capital 2012 Pavilion. Here, Pidgin Perfect, the participants, and guest lecturer, Jude Barber of Collective Architecture, collaborated with Demos Helsinki to present our compiled research, ideas and experiences of wastelands back to a global audience.

For the 7th day we’re looking back to Girl Walk // All Day during 2013.

Pidgin Perfect worked with Glasgow Youth Film Festival (GYFF) and Glasgow Film Festival to produce an interactive screening of Girl Walk // All Day, as part of their 2013 programme. This special collaboration culminated in an outdoor screening of the 90 minute music video, set in New York, which took place on a very wet and cold evening in February.

Pidgin Perfect worked with the GYFF Youth Team and two dance organisations based in Glasgow to produce a temporary outdoor dance cinema on an embankment of the River Clyde. DanceHQ and Dance House collaborated to organise a flash mob ‘Dance Walk’ which danced its way through the city centre from the Glasgow Film Theatre to the site of temporary outdoor dance cinema gathering a public audience along the way. DanceHQ then preformed a choreographed interactive dance routine to accompany the energy of Girl Walk // All Day and encouraged audience participation.

Next up is Forfar! 

In November 2015 we launched Future Forfar; a series of creative conversations, activities and events to explore the future of Forfar Town Centre.

Working across three days, the local community of Forfar collaborated with architects, planners, artists and other experts to explore how Forfar Town Centre can be improved and developed an action plan for a Future Forfar. 

On the 5th day of our Community Christmas, we are celebrating working in Easterhouse!

Pidgin Perfect were commissioned by Future City Glasgow to deliver a wide ranging digital literacy engagement programme, over June - September 2014, exploring the city through the eyes of enterprises, communities, and individuals. The Future Maps programme complements the Future City Data Team’s stakeholder engagement strategy to encourage more organisations, businesses and public services to open their data.

Future Maps was a a people-focused project. We worked closely with communities, organisations and individuals across the city. We invited people to map Glasgow and share their experiences of the city, using both digital and analogue tools. The workshops taught participants a variety of mapping techniques tailored to reflect the themes, locations and needs of each group. Some aspects of the workshops were left more open - allowing groups time to explore and experiment.Digital literacy and engagement was a key output, and building individuals confidence with digital resources has proved to be empowering for many participants and groups.

The programme was organised into a series of initiatives which focussed on themes and locations across the city: Citizen Mapping in the North East, #SocEntMap Glasgow, Young City Mapping, Mapping Parties, Dear Green Network and Heritage Mapping. Pidgin Perfect and Citizen Mappers across the city have uncovered unrecorded information, mapped neighbourhoods, citizen experiences and green networks, and shared this unique data on open source online maps for everyone to use.

Next up is Dailly, Visioning for Brechin!

Pidgin Perfect worked in conjunction with Angus Council and Gingko Projects to develop a Visual Brief for the proposed Brechin Community Campus, which will replace the existing Brechin High School, due for completion by the end of 2015.

The visual brief brought together the aspirations and values important to both the school and community users of the new Community Campus to create a wide reaching illustrated brief for the building. Pidgin Perfect reviewed and analysed the engagement outcomes to produce  creative visuals, to express clearly and concisely the values, aspirations and ideals outlined by the Project Blueprint consultation and engagement program to date.

The Visual Brief is a creative and imaginative document designed for use by the design team to inform the design process for this new community resource.

On the third day of Christmas, we are celebrating working in Cumbernauld.

As part of the #LivingWindow project in 2014, six green spaces within the Cumbernauld Living Landscape area were chosen to be celebrated in contemporary artworks created by three talented young artists in Scotland. They were installed in the Antonine Centre and Cumbernauld Centre ; bringing the outside into big indoor public spaces.

More recently, we have been working on #GreenRoutes project in working with Collective Architecture to look at the transformation of the centre of Cumbernauld and its links to surrounding communities by creating green routes which are accessible, safe and enjoyable. 

On the second day of our advent calendar, we are looking back on the Barras Banchetto, and the Banchetto before that in 2012!

‘Barras Banchetto’ was a project by Pidgin Perfect commissioned by Merchant City Festival 2015 and VELOCITY - a cultural response to the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The ‘Barras Banchetto’ was an event which highlighted the shifting culture of the Barras Calton and how this is impacting on the local population that lives around and trades within the historic Barras Market.

The ‘Barras Banchetto’ follows on from Banchetto: A Play in Three Acts which was delivered by Pidgin Perfect at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.

It’s December, and officially the countdown to Christmas.

For advent this year, we are counting down an A-Z of just a selection of the communities we have worked with since 2011. In 2016 we will be turning five, and moving to the Barras in the East End of Glasgow, so we’re looking back on the wonderful projects and communities we have worked with, far and wide! 

First up is Angus. 

In May 2013, Pidgin Perfect worked in conjunction with Angus Council and Gingko Projects to develop a Visual Brief for the proposed Brechin Community Campus, which will replace the existing Brechin High School, due for completion by the end of 2015.The visual brief brought together the aspirations and values important to both the school and community users of the new Community Campus to create a wide reaching illustrated brief for the building. 

Over the past couple of months we have been working with Angus Council towards launching Future Forfar, a series of creative conversations, activities and events to explore the future of Forfar Town Centre.

Throughout Sunday 22nd, Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th November 2015, there will be lots going on to celebrate the launch of Future Forfar. Across these three days, the local community of Forfar will collaborate with architects, planners, artists and other experts to explore how Forfar Town Centre can be improved and develop an action plan for a Future Forfar. 

Pidgin Perfect warmly welcome all to participate in the discussions, bringing your local perspective along to any of the activities. There will always be someone around during the Drop In Times at the Future Forfar Cafe to welcome you, listen and record your comments. 

Here is a run down of just some of the exciting programme!

Sunday 22nd November 12 - 2pm, Future Forfar Cafe at 3 East High Street - We’re kicking off Future Forfar by bringing the local community together and we want you to join us! Please note in particular the opening event, ‘A Taste of Forfar’ Official launch Event with food by Forfar Cooking Club and special entertainment by DD8 Music.

Tuesday 24th November 4 - 6.30pm, A vision for Future Forfar? in the Drama Society, 132 East High Street  - Closing with presentations, storytelling and imagining Future Forfar. Followed by an Open Mic Night at the Future Forfar Cafe on the 3 East High Street

Monday 23rd November 10.00 - 12.30 How can we attract more visitors investors and business to Forfar?- How can we create more opportunities for business and enterprise? - How can we attract more visitors to the Town Centre? - How can we make more of Forfar’s heritage and culture? - What should we do about vacant buildings?

If you are a business owner, run a social enterprise and are passionate about culture, heritage and tourism this will be of interest!

Monday 23rd November 16.00 - 18.30 How do we make the Town Centre better for the people of Forfar?- How can the Town Centre work better as the heart of the local community? - How could it more welcoming for people of all ages? - How can Forfar offer a better experience of leisure, culture and entertainment in the evenings? - How can the local communities of Forfar work together to create positive change in the Town Centre and in Forfar? - How can Forfar be a more attractive place for people to live and raise their families? If you are a resident or an active member of community groups supporting health and wellbeing in Forfar then this will be of interest!

Tuesday 24th November 10.00 - 12.30 How can we improve the Town Centre, streets and outdoor spaces?- What should the balance be between people and vehicles? - How could we make streets and spaces more enjoyable to spend time in? - Which spaces and places that should be a focus? - What are the opportunities and challenges to the Town Centre brought by the Community Campus? - What type of activities and events would you like to take place at The Cross?

This will interest residents, community groups, businesses and those with ideas about green space, outdoor events, transport, traffic, parking,walking and cycling.

Events will take place at the Future Forfar Cafe, located in the former ‘Treasured Gifts’ shop at 3 East High Street. The Future Forfar Workshop is located behind the red door at 132 High Street at the Forfar Dramatic Society. 

No booking for any of the events is required. Light catering from local businesses will be provided, as well as a creche facilities available. 

Pidgin Perfect are excited to be shortlisted as part of a design team which includes Stallan-Brand and Glasgow Science Festival, for the Land Art Generation Initiative in Glasgow.

The aim of LAGI Glasgow is to demonstrate the potential for artists, designers and architects to contribute to renewable energy infrastructure and integrated it in to a place-making approach. The project will undertake research and development integrating art and interdisciplinary creative processes into the conception of site-specific, solution-based public art interventions which also function as innovative renewable energy power plants. The project has arisen out of a shared interest amongst the collaborators—BIGG, Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Life/Velocity, Land Art Generator Initiative, Scottish Canals as well as Creative Carbon Scotland and ecoartscotland—in the potential for creative practice to address renewable energy as a social and cultural as well as built environment issue and energy policy issue.

The brief that the team will address will highlight the Canal Partnership’s  ambitions for the Dundas Hill site to be a landmark development, raising ‘place awareness’. The Dundas Hill is currently brownfield site (a former distillery) and BIGG Regeneration aims to deliver a creative, low energy, custom build and mixed use development. The LAGI Project perfectly augment this change to the area and become a city-wide landmark for this new type of place, linking sustainability and social justice aspects related to district energy.

The LAGI Glasgow project also meets wider city ambitions for a more sustainable future reflecting the transformation from an industrial city to a sustainable leader – ‘Steam to Green story’. The project speaks to the ambitions for Glasgow to engage in a new green industrial economy; develop a strong growth in green jobs including the creative, science and engineering sectors, apprenticeships and employment; and develop public engagement and participation with renewables.

Each of the invited LAGI Glasgow teams includes an interdisciplinary venture of Glasgow-based practices paired with one past LAGI competition team.

Local knowledge and outside perspective will come together in the three paired teams, including ours, who will each present their proposal that benefits both conceptually and technically from this variety of professional backgrounds.

Pidgin Perfect have been mapping crucial creative spaces across Lagos as part of the British Council's UK / Nigeria Season 2015-2016

Lagos, the vast city of 21 million people and counting has been undergoing a creative revolution with in recent new creative spaces emerging all the time. Pidgin Perfect in collaboration with the designer Andy Young, previously a part of Culture Shift Lagos, have been working to map these crucial creative spaces across the city as part of the British Council’s UK / Nigeria Season 2015 - 16.

We are excited to launch www.CreativeLagos.com which will help creative citizens, spaces and organisations to build up a collective picture of their creative activity. Understanding this picture will be crucial to understanding the evolving identity of the city and enabling the broader population to participate in the creative revolution. CreativeLagos.com will be mapping the important and emerging creative spaces in Lagos, and charting their impact on cultural development in the process documenting how creativity is helping shape this rapidly expanding city.

CreativeLagos.com seeks engagement from creative spaces and organisations across Lagos asking three key questions, how has your creative activity impacted cultural development in Lagos?; what are the greatest challenges to the development of your creative activity in Lagos? and what are the greatest opportunities for your creative organisation? The website as it builds will be a visual network of people, places and platforms with a live dynamic social media feed of what is happening creatively in Lagos as well as an open source digital magazine to be published later in the year highlighting Lagos, not just one as of the greatest cultural producers in Nigeria, but as an artistic forerunner in West Africa and across the continent.

The website and map are intended as an open source platform that is designed to foster new relationships and collaborations between the UK and Nigerian Creatives. 
In addition to this CreativeLagos.com will be populated with content from a series of events held in the UK and Nigeria encompassing performance, discussion, and the mapping of creative networks and hubs in Lagos, exploring creative people, their important locations, informal support networks, projects and festivals that breed a creative culture within the city at this pivitol moment in time.

Cumbernauld Green Routes is a feasibility project part of the Cumbernauld Living Landscape program . It is looking to transform the centre of Cumbernauld and its links to surrounding communities by creating green routes which are accessible, safe and enjoyable. The feasibility project is investigating at the quality of the existing routes and how they could be improved for people and wildlife.

We are excited to be working with Collective Architecture, Scottish Wildlife Trust, and AECOM on the project.

Collective Architecture was established to pursue themes of participation and sustainability in architecture. Our output is highly varied, ranging from intimate community installations to large scale urban regeneration. Over the past 18 years we have successfully delivered a series of important projects spread across the UK.

For 50 years, the Scottish Wildlife Trust has worked with its members, partners and supporters in pursuit of its vision of healthy, resilient ecosystems across Scotland’s land and seas.The Trust successfully champions the cause of wildlife through policy and campaigning work, demonstrates best practice through practical conservation and innovative partnerships, and inspires people to take positive action through its education and engagement activities.The Trust manages a network of 120 wildlife reserves across Scotland and is a member of the UK-wide Wildlife Trusts movement.

AECOM apply creative vision, technical expertise, interdisciplinary insight, and local experience to address complex challenges in new and better ways.They help clients deliver critical resources and services, improve the places where people live and work, and sustain a world in which we can all flourish. They are the ecologists on the project.

Our research into Cumbernauld’s Green Routes began on the ground. Earlier this week, we accompanied local walking groups along three key routes, using their knowledge and experience to gain an understanding of how the Green Routes are used currently.

Through October and November there will be several wee green boxes around the town just waiting to hear your views.  

Get your hands on one of our postcards and tell us about your green routes alternatively download the post card and send it to [email protected] 

Next week, on Tuesday 27th October, we will also be holding a launch event. Come join us at the launch event in Cumbernauld Town Hall between 5-8 pm on Tuesday 27th October and get the conversation started. There will be a number of creative workshops for you to get involved in and fun games for the kids. 

Following on the launch event, we will be working with several community groups to explore in more detail the key themes raised by the local people of Cumbernauld about the Green Routes.  If your or your group would like to be involved contact [email protected].

Rounding up the consultation process, the charrette will involve local stakeholders and members of community in a series of design-led workshops. Held on the 1st December this collaborative process is an opportunity to visualise what Green Routes might look like in the future.

Pidgin Perfect are excited to announce the launch of Future Forfar: a series of creative conversations, activities & events to explore the future of Forfar Town Centre.

The charette is a collaborative process which asks the public, local partners and professionals, ‘How do we make the town centre even better?’ leading to further actions for Forfar Town Centre.

We’ll be in Forfar on the following dates and would love to meet with anyone who would live to get involved in the project. If you would like to join the conversation please do contact us at [email protected] 

Whilst we can not release any more details about the content of the program, we are pleased to announce more about the fantastic team collaborating on the project as well as some initial site visit photographs.

Pidgin Perfect will be leading on the delivery of the project with Professor Leigh Sparks, Nick Wright Planning and Willie Miller Urban Design. Pidgin Perfect are a creative studio working to place the community at the heart of our projects; combining research, participation & design. 

Professor Leigh Sparks is Professor of Retail Studies at the Institute for Retail Studies, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK. His research concentrates on aspects of the broad areas of structural and spatial change in retailing. 

Nick Wright is a chartered town planner, a qualified mediator and a trained facilitator. Nick views planning as being about shaping our environment for the future. That needs imagination, creativity and a desire to positively embrace change and risk. Nick works with young people, businesses, artists, civil servants, community groups, architects, other planners, Councillors and all the other people who create places and make them tick.My role is to make things happen: to bring people together, bring their ideas together, and translate aspirations into action

Willie Miller Urban Design is a design practice based in the West End of Glasgow. WMUD promotes a collaborative, contextual and research-based approach to urban and strategic design – working across disciplines, in liaison with local communities, businesses and organisational stakeholders, and respecting local context and heritage.

The following blog was written by Becca Thomas from Pidgin Perfect for The Glasshouse and can be found here

A place for everyone: socially engaged design and spaces

“The true purpose of architecture is to help make human existence meaningful” Keith Bradley, The Happiness Inbetween, essay in Building Happiness.

The creation of places for everyone, socially engaged spaces and the people to inhabit them is something that has had somewhat of a revival recently – a renewed interest and growth in different ways of thinking and creating urban areas has developed new ways of improving and building neighbourhoods which rely on less.

Building socially sustainable places relies on environments that make us smile, that engage and encourage the acts of gathering and conversation. Driven by crisis, the trends towards openness and ownership: community led, open source, and co-creation; have not escaped the architectural profession. New approaches are redefining our roles and forcing everyone to think creatively about the way we work.

One of the most visible problems in the urban realm has been the inexorable rise in vacant land, which has the opportunity to allow imagination and creativity to explode. Derelict spaces offer unique moments for participatory urbanism, helping to support and grow socially sustainable approaches to the urban renewal process.

Producing projects within “stalled” sites has led to interesting outcomes, including a pop-up cinema with Glasgow Film Festival on the banks of the River Clyde, the development of permanent and temporary artworks along London Road for underused public realms; researching “Wastelands” with students across Europe; and, the development and build of a community garden in Glasgow with Maryhill Integration Network (mIN).

The ‘Many Hands Community Garden’ was developed with a core group formed of mIN service users and other local communities. The vision was to create an aesthetically pleasing, ambitious and aspirational garden space designed through conversation with the end users, including those who use the neighbouring Maryhill Community Centre as a base. The strategic design was developed as a masterplan for the community garden to be grown over phases in line with funding access, ensuring continual community involvement in the process of design and production.

Through workshops and direct contact with the gardeners, Pidgin Perfect allowed the community to visualise their ideas for a new external gardening area and generated designs. Our approach used a design-thinking approach to gather aspirations, from the practical to the wishful – including the hope for more tropical weather to grow dates and pineapples! Whilst not all of the outcomes of these workshops could be incorporated into the final designs, they were vital in the development of the core needs: variety of growing space, storage, shelter, flexibility and performance space.

The space was designed to be flexible and adapt to changing needs, in this vein since “completion” the community has been experimenting with the space and developing new areas within the wider strategy, this includes murals, an outdoor “xylophone” for use by the crèche and musical therapy groups, and additional planting areas as the skills of the gardeners has grown.

The finished garden creates a high quality permanent, mobile and adaptable planting, seating and storage elements that have a clear and simple aesthetic drawn from, and clearly identifiable as Maryhill. Planting includes a wide variety of flora, including sensory elements: smell, taste, sight and touch. The garden introduces seasonal and year round planting elements, enabling an annual programme of workshops and skill sharing as well as an interesting and pleasant outdoor space all year round. The space helps to promote local urban ecology including birds, urban animals and a wide variety of insects and other creepy crawlies, as well as providing a pleasant and relaxing, learning space for gardeners of all ages and needs.