Project Contributors

Metropolitan Workshop lead

Ava Lynam Researcher in Residence, Metropolitan Workshop TU Berlin

Ava is the Researcher in Residence at Metropolitan Workshop. She works as a researcher in the Urban Rural Assembly project at the China Centre and is PhD candidate at Habitat Unit, both at Technische Universität Berlin. Her research interests focus on the fields of urban sociology, coproductive planning, land dynamics, and urban-rural transformation.

Dhruv Adam Sookhoo Researcher, Newcastle University

Dhruv led practice-based research projects that promoted innovation and dissemination. Previously, he was Head of Design at Home Group, responsible for championing better residential design quality across a national housing and regeneration programme. He is currently undertaking ESRC-funded doctoral research at Newcastle University, exploring the interprofessional perspectives and practices of architects and planners working to deliver residential design quality.

Tom Mitchell Partner and Studio Leader Metropolitan Workshop

Tom has worked for 20 years with founding partner Neil Deely and led a large number of residential projects and mixed use masterplans, many of which have won regional or national design awards.

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Sophia de Sousa Chief Executive The Glass-House Community Led Design

Sophia is an impassioned champion of design quality and an enabler of design practices that empower people and organisations and that help communities thrive. She is also a leader in the field of research on community-led, participatory and co-design practices. Sophia plays an active role in designing and delivering support to communities and practitioners, events and in codesigning research, innovation and resources.

Elly Mead Design Champion The Glass-House Community Led Design

Elly is an architectural designer who values and embeds collaborative design into the heart of her practice. She is passionate about producing systematic approaches to issues of access to food, land ownership and community engagement with built projects. As well as engaging and accessible resources, opening up architectural and design narratives to enrich the places in which we live, work and play.

Jake Stephenson-Bartley Design Champion The Glass-House Community Led Design

Jake’s creative practice draws on the powerful tradition of storytelling to inspire empathetic, sympathetic, and adventurous attitudes towards city-making, connecting realities, and collective creation of worlds for living. Jake has a particular interest in investigating and provoking new strategies for maintenance and “care”, focusing on places sheltering humans, wildlife, and ecosystems.

Community Representatives Invited Experts and Practitioners

Angela Moore Manager, Tabot Centre

Angela is a wife, mother of six, grandmother of three, a resident of South Kilburn for over 40 years and manager of Tabot Centre, a community facility set up herself and her husband over 30 years ago. Angela gained extensive experience of community engagement as part of the Granville New Homes housing project. This brought her into contact with the Glass-House through their iconic training programmes at Trafford Hall. She is in semi-retirement now but keeps a keen eye on the regeneration programme that is unfolding in South Kilburn.

Toni Dyer Miller Communications Executive, Planning Potential

Toni has an in-depth understanding of community engagement and its importance - established from her previous professional roles in community engagement and her own lived experience being a local resident of a site set to be redeveloped.

Dr. Andy Inch Sheffield University

Andy is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. His research interests include the politics of planning, public participation and how planning enables society to care for the future (or not). He is currently involved in an AHRC-funded research project on the hidden histories of community-led planning in the UK.

Chris Stewart Director, Collective Architecture

Chris is a Director at Collective Architecture, an employee owned company. Their work has been widely published and exhibited. Chris is the inaugural chair of the RIAS Sustainable Working Group and a director of the Scottish Ecological Design Association. He leads a design unit at Strathclyde University, and has lectured at several schools of architecture.

Dinah Bornat Co-director of ZCD Architects

Dinah is an expert in child friendly cities and urban design. She has published research, contributing to books and journals and advising local authorities and developers. Dinah is a Mayor’s Design Advocate for the Mayor of London. Other roles include; Design Review Panel member for Harrow and Hounslow councils, Wise Friend for Urban Design London, member of the Hackney Regeneration Design Advice Group and an advisor to A New Direction Challenge London.

Gemma Holyoak MEAD Fellow

Gemma is a Development Manager at TOWN, a UK developer of housing and mixed use neighbourhoods. She is currently working on community-led and custom build projects in Norwich and Newcastle. Gemma previously worked at Community Led Housing London as a Senior Project Adviser, as well as the LB Southwark and in architecture practice.

Keith Brown independent community organiser

Keith was Nationwide Building Society’s first Community Organiser. Community Organisers reach out and listen, connect and motivate people to build their collective power. Keith supported the neighbourhoods surrounding the Oakfield project, a not for profit eco-friendly housing development located in Swindon. Portrait image provided by John Boal

Kyle Buchanan, Director, Archio

Kyle is a Director at Archio, and has a passion for promoting outstanding design through Design Review Panels. He has pursued his interest in working with communities by volunteering on boards of community led-housing groups and local charities in London and is a member of the Housing Ombudsman’s Resident Panel.

Mellis Haward Director, Archio

Mellis is a Director at Archio, an architecture practice with a reputation for community-led housing. She has a particular interest in community engagement and an expertise in running participatory design workshops.

Michael Kennedy MEAD Fellow

Michael is a Principal Urban Designer at Enfield Council joining as a Public Practice Associate. He previously worked at SODA, a multidisciplinary studio of architects & designers as well as London Community Land Trust to help guide community groups through the planning process.

Nicola Bacon Founding Director, Social Life

Nicola co-founded Social Life in 2012, a centre for expertise in innovative placemaking and social sustainability. She advises central and local governments, foundations and third sector agencies, embedding fresh approaches to public policy and service delivery tackling inequality and disadvantage. Nicola has worked across sectors for the Home Office and homelessness charities. She is an Academy of Urbanism fellow, a Design Council BEE, a Brent Design Advice Panel member, and a mentor for Bethnal Green Ventures.

Catherine Greig Founder and Director, make:good

Catherine is the founder of make:good, a London-based architecture and design studio. Born out of her passion for people-centred design, make:good uses meaningful processes of participation to involve people in shaping neighbourhood change.

Dick Gleeson

Dick was Dublin City Planner 200414 and had overall responsibility for strategic/forward planning and development management in the city. A committed urbanist, Dick championed the development of the “6 themes”, a systems-type framework, embedded in the City Plan.

Ciron Edwards Director of Engagement, Iceni Projects

Ciron delivers the stakeholder engagement of some of London’s largest projects, and has had longterm involvement with New Deal for Communities and Housing Market Renewal initiatives across the UK. He has extensive experience delivering urban regeneration and public realm projects.

Lesley Johnson Director of Property and New Business, Phoenix Community Housing

Lesley has led on the set up of several successful stock transfers and delivered significant refurbishment and redevelopment programmes. She previously acted as a Neighbourhood Renewal Advisor to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Lev Kerimol Project Director, Community Led Housing London

Lev previously worked at the GLA where he was involved in establishing the Small Sites x Small Builders programme and contributed to the London Plan, among other projects. He also worked with the LB Lewisham on the early stages of the RUSS (Rural Urban Synthesis Society) community land trust project.

Helen Wallis-Dowling co-founder, Ansuz Action

Helen has many years experience working alongside communities, facilitating youth-led social action, and community organising projects. She has led the curriculum development and training for two national government funded community organising programmes. Helen is a director of Ansuz Action, who support organisations to make ultra-inclusive engagement the norm.

Dr. Michael LaFond Community developer, Spreefeld Cooperative and Statbodenstiftung

Michael is a cohousing expert, activist, and professor of urban planning. He is deeply involved in local grassroots activities relating to alternative models of housing and land management. Michael is the founder of id22: Institute for Creative Sustainability, a nonprofit civil society organisation that supports participatory initiatives in Berlin. He is on the advisory board of Berlin’s community land trust Stadtbodenstiftung.

Naomi Murphy Co-founder, Connect the Dots

Naomi is co-founder of stakeholder engagement practice Connect the Dots. Based in both Dublin and Philadelphia, they develop tailored strategies and expert insights to help build cities, regions, and entities focused on the health and happiness of all citizens. Portrait image provided by Alex Foster

Nick Woodford Co-founder, Mesh Workshop and Peckham Coal Line

While studying Architecture at Central Saint Martins, Nick launched the Peckham Coal Line, bringing local residents together to adopt and connect unused open spaces along a Peckham railway line to form a public linear park. Previously, Nick was a travel writer and photographer.

Stephen Hill Founding Director, C20 futureplanners

Stephen is a planning and development surveyor, and has been a long-time practitioner and advocate of co-production in the building of new settlements, the regeneration of urban housing estates and neighbourhoods, as well individual community-led housing developments. He is founder and director at C2O Futureplanners.

Metropolitan Workshop Focus Group

Alexandra Bullen Metropolitan Workshop

Fundamentally buildings are for people. Ally believes in the important of community engagement as an integral part of the design process. It is also vital for ensuring that buildings and public spaces meet the end user’s needs. Having work on numerous housing project Ally has first hand knowledge of the positive impact an integrated community engagement approach can have on the quality of new developments and how it can empower residents during the design process.

Cathal Cocoman Metropolitan Workshop

Cathal assisted with the delivery of the launch event, including the creation of the timeline and the boards.

Denise Murray Metropolitan Workshop

Denise is the studio llead in the Dublin studio. She has nearly 20 years experience as an architect working in Ireland, France and the UK on all project stages with specialist knowledge of urban design, regeneration and housing.

Denise is on the RIAI Housing Commitee and a design fellow at UCD Scholl of Architecture specialising in urban design, housing and community regeneration

Ethan Medd Metropolitan Workshop

Ethan is a part 1 who has recently joined for his year’s work experience. His enthusiasm for any task makes him a valuable addition to the team. He worked initially on the graphic.

Michelle Tomlinson, Metropolitan Workshop

Michelle is a Design Panel Member and a Design Tutor. She has several years of experience designing and delivering award-winning residential and educational schemes, as well as masterplans. She is a member of the Design South East Review Panel, Ebbsfleet Design Forum and Guildford Strategic Sites Panel, where she reviews the quality of places and buildings.

Kruti Patel Metropolitan Workshop

Kruti has a passion for community engagement as she believes that it is of utmost importance, at the beginning of a project, to facilitate listening, encourage collaboration and hear from as many diverse voices from within the community as possible. Where possible, Kruti ensures that this kind of engagement is considered and implemented, early on in the design development of projects to promote empowerment and enhance the cohesion and resilience of an existing community. Kruti believes designers have the ability to influence change, and by utilising the wealth of knowledge and insight within communities, can only be to the betterment of a development.

Richard Robinson Metropolitan Workshop

Richard has a background in architecture and has helped architects with submissions, comms, and PR/marketing activities for over 20 years. He coordinated the production of the documents.

Ozan Balcik Metropolitan Workshop

Ozan graduated from University College Dublin with first class Honours. His thesis investigated community engagement and empowerment in terms of ‘Playful Resilience’. Ozan has continued his research into practice assisting in the preparation of the PPP exhibtion and also with projects outside of practice with A Playful City in Ireland. Ozan was part of the team delivering the Kildare Town Renewal Plan while also working on the town renewal plans for neighbouring Newbridge, which successfully received funding from the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund for further research and development in 2019.