Grow Places

GP 19: Truman Brewery 02: How Research Can Help Foster Community: with Anna Mansfield of Publica

• Grow Places • Season 1 • Episode 19

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What if we could help grow a neighbourhood while preserving its cultural roots? 

Join us on a journey through East London's Truman Brewery with our guest Anna Mansfield from Publica. Anna shares her team's extensive research and the invaluable data they've gathered on the wider areas of Brick Lane, Spitalfields, and Banglatown to inform our current project. You'll gain insights into how this information shapes urban design, ensuring spaces remain relevant and beneficial to the local community, and hear about the critical role research plays in making informed decisions for authentic projects.

Explore the contrasting worlds of daytime and nighttime economies in Tower Hamlets and the unique challenges each presents. We discuss the critical need for safety measures for women working night shifts and highlight the historical and cultural significance of the Bangladeshi community to this place particularly. Discover how thoughtful urban development of the Truman Brewery aims to foster a more interconnected and vibrant community, leveraging data-driven insights to support the needs of a young, multicultural population.

Understand the complexities of maintaining the Truman Brewery's organic roots while planning for future growth. Anna explains the importance of balancing commercial, residential, and community spaces through both qualitative and quantitative analyses, and the importance of creating spaces that naturally encourage community interactions. 

This episode promises a deep dive into the long-term vision for creating a vibrant, inclusive addition to the neighbourhood that bridges the gap between creative industries and local people and business.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the People Grow Places podcast where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth and place Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, tom Larson. Today we have a special episode recorded on site at the Truman Brewery in East London where we are excited to work in partnership with the Truman Brewery and local people in Brick Lane, spitalfields and Banglatown.

Speaker 2:

Truman Brewery and local people in Brick Lane, spitalfields and Banglatown. Okay, so here we are at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. We're joined by Anna from Publica. Anna, hi, how are you? Good thanks. And what are you doing here? Who are you? How are you involved?

Speaker 3:

I'm a director of Publica and we've been working with Tom and the team since the beginning of the project looking at studies of the wider area and how Truman works in the wider area.

Speaker 2:

And what kind of result does that sort of give Tom or the team? What happens with the work that you're doing?

Speaker 3:

So we bring lots of evidence and intelligence to the whole process and then we sit alongside the design team all the way through in the design meetings thinking about the use of the spaces, how it feels, the character, how it will work, and continually testing the ideas. They emerge.

Speaker 2:

Great and Tom welcome back.

Speaker 3:

Tom of Grow Places of course, Tom.

Speaker 2:

why do you need Publica to do that kind of research?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, well, for us at Grow Places, we think it's an integral role actually for a project of this scale.

Speaker 4:

Well, for us at Grow Places, we think it's an integral role actually for a project of this scale, complexity, where you're working not only over a big site within the project but you're fundamentally sort of engaging with and trying to work with a wider neighbourhood and a wider place.

Speaker 4:

So the project has very much been about what we're doing at Truman, but how can that positively impact the place, the neighbourhood, spitalfields, banglatown more broadly?

Speaker 4:

And so the role that Anna and the public have done here isn't kind of an essential role in the project in the same way like your architect or your planning consultant are in a true sense. But for us it is really essential because at the early stages of the project trying to map, trying to use data and analytics, to map the place in a quantitative but also quantitative way to understand that place is really important and that allows better designs to come forward, better decisions to be made and hopefully the projects that the architects and the team are working on to feel more grounded in the place, more authentic, more relevant to what this place kind of already exists as and what it maybe needs going forward. So it's quite interesting because we're still on this corner here, buxton Street, brick Lane. Behind us is the site, but instead of walking into the site, we're actually going to walk away from the site today. So why don't we do that?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so tell me a bit about what happens. So you do the research, anna, and then you and your team, presumably, and then so that really gives every consultant a sort of foundation on which they can work from and they can apply the needs of their designs through. Is that is that sort of how it works?

Speaker 3:

yeah, yeah, broadly design team and client as well. I think it's fair to say most projects we work on and if you're building anything at scale and this kind of scale is really, really important to know what's around and what's without, because otherwise, otherwise you can't bring new uses specifically community uses that are actually appropriate and useful for people in the wider area, and if you don't, then you're not giving anything to the area, you're just taking from it. So if you don't take the time to really understand what works and what doesn't and, as Tom says, what the gaps are, then it doesn't give you the tools to make something that can be well integrated and useful for people living locally.

Speaker 2:

And so you're capturing existing data on people who are here already. And what about on the future? Are you looking ahead at all?

Speaker 3:

Sure, sure. So a lot is mapping what happens at the moment and one of the things that's really interesting is how quickly this area changes. So in the process of the time that we were mapping it was becoming out of date very quickly the uses, particularly around retail, but also how it looks. You can see everything around us. It physically changes and is changing right now, all the time, and probably more than any other area that we've worked in London. It's really notable. But of course then you need to look into the future and what's coming and there are other big developments around. So we look at what's in the development pipeline but also the projected changes in the population and how it will be looking in the next 10, 15, 20 years.

Speaker 4:

Sorry to interrupt, but it's a really good example what you see here. We've just walked past this wall and this bit of brick lane is so vibrant and creative. You can see all these glue marks on the wall where plug sockets were stuck a few weeks ago, um, and I've noticed that over the course of being here for a year or so, so those, those weren't here when we started. There's then been an installation where a series of plug sockets were glued all over the wall. Now they've gone and and you can just see the remnants of the glue and the graffiti and the graffiti which is this like constant layering, yeah, and I've been amazed at how, how quick that changes here and it's really vibrant.

Speaker 4:

um, things uses change, um, artwork changes. You know, there's a guy over there right now who's spraying a new piece of art and just that, that speed of change here here is something that's really quite unique. Sorry to interrupt, I thought that was quite an interesting example, ok.

Speaker 2:

Well, so, anna, just to get back to your point, you're measuring not just on the Truman site. It sounds like You're kind of getting a sense of the wider neighbourhood?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, much wider yeah.

Speaker 2:

So where does that end? Sounds like you're kind of getting a sense of the yeah much wider yeah. So what, what? What happened? Where does that end?

Speaker 3:

you know well, usually we have a. Well, it's on two scales, so one which is slightly tighter because it's a lot of detail, actually every and it's done, uh is so it's what's called primary mapping, but it's done through us walking around and looking, uh, about 100 hours we spent a bit more actually wandering looking all times of day and night, because it's also really important to understand what's happening evening and night time, that's particular. And then a little bit wider to pick up the broader, more towards, for example, liverpool Street, to understand the broader patterns of movement and where people are going from and when. But still quite wide, it's really quite a wide area of understanding everything that's here at the moment and what's proposed to becoming there.

Speaker 2:

So that was going to be. My next question is what are you discovering? I mean, I know it changes all the time so it's hard to sort of, you know, get a sense of it overall, but maybe at this point in time now, what are you noticing? What are you capturing what? What are you capturing? What are people doing here and who's doing it?

Speaker 3:

yeah, yeah. So one of the things is, you know we've already described it's really dynamic place in terms of how much change in area, but actually the patterns of use change a huge amount monday to friday and every different seasons of the year. So that's where we come back at all different times and a lot of the work we've been doing is understanding. Obviously it's it's peak intensity on a Sunday afternoon, but it's equally more important to understand what happens at 11am on a Tuesday, to see what it's like in all these different conditions, because what you know, the mass plan has to work in all of those and has to anticipate all of them and be well designed for all of those different conditions.

Speaker 3:

So, looking at where people are coming from and what they're doing, understanding the rhythm of the school day there's lots of schools around here, particularly in the direction we're walking in now Understanding how different it is at night evening and night time it's part of one of Tower Hamlet's main night time economies, so people are coming for lots of different reasons and we its main nighttime economies, so people are coming for lots of different reasons and we set all of that out and, as tom said, so you've got the quantitative. We can understand where and why and who people are from a demographic point of view, and also the qualitative. So looking, spending time understanding, trying to unpick what's happening what about safety for women?

Speaker 3:

it's really important. So it's something at publica we also lead on my colleague, dr ellie posgrave, and we have a really important program thinking about that and that underpins everything that we do. It's really important here and it's come out a lot in talking to people and thinking what it'd be like to move through. But the really important thing about nighttime economy and safety is not just thinking. It's not only people going out. You think how many people in this area in london work at night. It's a really big percentage population and that's often women because a lot of people working in care sector. There's a lot of people working in health care. So it's people yes, lots of people coming out and going out in brick lane and it's a really fun place to be, but it's also everyone living locally moving through and getting home safely and and the existing Muslim community.

Speaker 2:

I mean there's a huge sort of Muslim community and contingency here. What consideration has been given for them and for the businesses that they're running and the lives that they're leading here on Brick Lane and around the area?

Speaker 3:

So it's a really. It's such a rich history so we've been looking at the site for a very long. You know this whole history and then a really, really important Bangladeshi community here and particularly economy on Brick Lane itself, which has been suffering in recent years for many, many reasons, and the same reasons that lots of restaurants and others. So one of the things that we're really given thought to and we know the client and Tom can speak to this more as well is how Truman can make that much more of an ecosystem, that economy, work better for both. So historically Truman's been really important to the Banglatown economy and also brings a lot of people into the area. So you don't want to pick everyone in, keep everyone in. It's about also bringing people back out.

Speaker 3:

It's really important making it more porous yeah, but the whole point is that basically, truman Brewery has loads of great. It's developed really slowly over time and it has loads of really great things. It's developed really slowly over time and it has loads of really great things and particularly really really important cultural employ employment base. This whole area does. But there's loads there and one of the really great things this can do is open that out, as it opens out networks, it opens up opportunities and opens out spaces for people more locally. This is a young, this is a young ward in a young borough. It it's also a place of really high deprivation. It's a place of high overcrowding, and so new development has opportunities to really make impact in those kinds of ways if done really thoughtfully, and I think that's why we're here.

Speaker 2:

What kind of advice or what kind of discoveries that Anna and the team have made are you implementing, tom, in the development and in your brief to all the various architects and urban designers and landscape architects, et cetera?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, well, I think it is a fundamental thread which runs through every decision, from the outset of the brief, through every design decision that we've made, and that's why, as Anna said, it was really refreshing but also really impactful to have public a role at the right at the start, so that we weren't post-rationalizing this, we weren't trying to, you know, fit a square peg into a round hole in terms of a narrative. What we were actually doing is just objectively trying to understand, um, what actually goes on here and, as I say, a lot of that is experiential, a lot of that is um learned through time in the area. But there's actually other um methods and metrics and and ways of mapping that anna and her team have brought to the process that add that layer of of data over the top that have allowed us all to to make decisions. So, as Anna pointed out, you know the fact that this is a really young ward in in a young borough, the fact that it's very multicultural, there's big swathes of migration that have come into this area. So the vibrancy that we talk about you know the vibrancy I pointed out back there on the bridge about the artwork is is not just in the physical place it's, it's cultural vibrancy, and with that comes a massive amount of interest and a massive amount of opportunity.

Speaker 4:

But equally there's there's there's lots of things to kind of try to understand and to feel as a design team, like we are, you know, trying to understand those things but equally not trying to walk in other people's shoes and feel like we can just kind of come in and make these big decisions about the place. It's about trying to sort of help bring as much light as we can to maybe the reasons why and how some of the things are happening here, and then try to be optimistic and propositional about how we can hopefully provide some new frameworks moving forward so that you know, long after we as a project team are kind of moved on, luckily Truman will still be here, because they're very much long term, but obviously the local communities will as well and trying to enable some of the things to happen without trying to define them too tightly. I think it's a really key part of it. So you know, as we walk here sort of we're on the eastern edge now of of allen gardens with the truman site to the sort of southwest of us, but here, compared to where we were on brick lane is totally different feel. You know it's much more um residential. You know you've got children playing on play equipment in the park, you've got the community farm, you've got schools around here.

Speaker 4:

So how does how does the truman perceived, how does it then respond and hopefully improve the quality of life for the people who are operating, living in these parts of the the neighborhood is a and a really interesting but slightly different challenge to some of the creative businesses or some of the the arts, leisure, cultural, um activities that go on on other parts of the site so, tom, you mentioned about giving a kind of loose framework, that kind of and and correct me if I'm I'm wrong but you're looking to impact outcomes or results that happen in a certain amount of time and therefore you don't want to keep the brief too constrained.

Speaker 2:

You want to make sure that that you know there's room to kind of design and play within that. Can you give a couple of examples with the work that public has, you know, with the things that public has discovered that translate into you know what's going to happen here?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah. So I think absolutely, I think fundamentally. You know places, neighbourhoods, cities, they live and breathe and they change over time and that is to be embraced and to be celebrated and planned for. And some of it you can plan for, but some of it just has to happen naturally, in the same way that you know, what was a brewery is now a thriving cultural and employment and arts hub. But in terms of the specifics, I would think there's some kind of urban planning moves that, along with Space Hub and Dr Graham and the wider team, the work has helped to inform.

Speaker 4:

So whether that's key connections across the site, key connections through the site, and then how does that kind of translate into how people actually inhabit the space? You know we're on a beautiful sunny day here today, so you can see behind us there's people out sunbathing, enjoying the space in the park. So you can see behind us there's people out sunbathing, enjoying the space in the park. But some of the public work brought to light that you come here, as Anna said, on a school day. You've actually got schoolchildren sat here having their lunch as part of their routine as well. So trying to sort of uncover some of the urban things. But then actually lot of how. What does that mean for people? How does how do people actually inhabit these spaces and how does that translate? So I think that's just one example, but anna probably got some.

Speaker 3:

got some more I think one of the really important things coming back to what tom said before is that whenever we go to project and also actually about who's living here it's not about coming and having all the right answers and knowing exactly how this is going to be. It's about keeping open that flexibility and taking that conversation to people living locally through consultation, how things develop and are built out. And the reason that you go with that background knowledge is that it's much more respectful to go and understand the basic. Not everyone doesn't have to tell you the basic things about where they're living, but what they really want and and having really studied and understood what exists at the moment, so you already go knowing where all the community centers are. You already know, you already go understanding all of these things and then you have the next level of conversation about how could this community space be used, how should this be, and then that's a much better conversation and everyone already knowing these things and us not trying to replicate things that already exist.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and I'll give one example specific to that. So you know we talk about community use is a very broad term, isn't it that's implied in our industry? Isn't it that's implied in our industry? And it's quite rightly seen that development should contribute to other uses and activities that aren't purely commercial and that's widely recognized. You know, successful places, successful cities, are a mixture of commercial, residential and community type uses. But what does that actually mean? What does community use mean for a specific site?

Speaker 4:

Maybe the knee-jerk reaction would be to say, ok, well, write a youth centre, write a community centre of this nature. But there are examples, both locally here, there are examples across London and other cities, of where those facilities maybe don't survive, maybe they last for a few years and fall away. And what are some of the reasons behind that? Is it because actually there's an oversupply of those types of facilities in a given local area? Or is it because maybe the outreach or programming of those spaces wasn't quite right? So, trying to kind of be quite critical and understand, okay, well, when we talk about community use, yes, we all agree that that's the right thing to do, but what does that actually mean for this place?

Speaker 4:

And it may be that it's youth centre. It may be that it's not. It's something else, and and I think the again, we're not necessarily trying to decide that today, because this is a project that's going to have a long lifespan, but what we're trying to do is to put some kind of qualitative, quantitative, analytical kind of studies around that so that we're all making informed decisions. And that's really helpful for the council as well, because we take some of this data that we've done to Tower Hamlets and we say, well, look, let's have a conversation between us about what we think is going to be the right thing for this place, and that allows the conversation to move beyond a sort of are we having community space, yes or no? Into. Well, what does that look like? What's the model, what's appropriate for this area to have the most impact, or what's appropriate for this area to have the most impact?

Speaker 2:

And how long in the future are you sort of looking into? Is it for the duration of the development or is it beyond the use?

Speaker 3:

Both so I mean, obviously it's quite unusual actually the idea of how this I mean it's built up so slowly and that's allowed a certain way of thinking, and that was what was so interesting. We met the client for the first time, understanding the organic nature of it. Now, how do you recreate that all in one go? It's tricky. It's also a really interesting idea. So, yeah, everything I'd say we've looked at as a team has been thinking from the really near future.

Speaker 3:

So what could you test in mean more uses, those kinds of things, to how it's developed over time, and then the much longer future and allowing it Space to grow and change, because it's going to change and everyone living around will change. So what do you do that keeps it flexible and open enough and exciting enough? And that those Say that the community uses and all the uses are inflected with that Truman character, that creativity, that sense of trying new stuff, with that Truman character, that creativity, that sense of trying new stuff, trying something else and seeing what works, and it would be really great if that comes through in the uses, which would be really different, I think, to other developments.

Speaker 2:

Anna, what kind of space do you want this to be, you know, after the end of the development? I mean, you know all the research you've got now and, gosh, there's potential for this, this and this. What does that look like and do you think we'll be able to get there?

Speaker 3:

you hope so yeah, I mean in in terms of what it feels like. I think we all share this sense that it it should feel open and free and integrated and dynamic, so not shiny, and you're actually not shiny and new and we're not really as a team. I say setting out to do. That's something that we discuss a lot is how it doesn't feel, you know, alien and other, that that same sense of something coming slowly and then lots of different people feeling they can use it. And we had a really, really we had a really good conversation recently with the people who run absalon in copenhagen, which is a really interesting community center model that we started looking into and spoke to them through working on this project and it's a really, really good project and they've spoken to us about.

Speaker 3:

You can make the conditions for people to meet. We're losing that a lot actually in cities in particular. You make the conditions for people to meet. You can't force it because everyone will run the other way. What are those conditions of bringing people or making things that people want to you, on the other way, what are those conditions of bringing people or making things that people want to? You know they want to go to and I think that's what we're really all striving for, is that it's an extension of places that people really want to be in and they want to be in together and lots of different people all different times of day.

Speaker 3:

So it'll be really hard working spaces, really hard working buildings, because that's what it feels like in the area at the moment and what are those conditions?

Speaker 2:

do you know? Is it quiet places? Is it places you don't have to pay for, or yeah, all of those so yeah because it's got a yes, but all at all different times.

Speaker 3:

So it does have different types of spaces and variety is really important. But also recognizing and thinking about improving other space, so that you know what will it be like here, opposite allen gardens, which is a really great and really valued space, and obviously everything built this side is going to have a really big impact, but the gardens is going to have a really big impact on the, on development too. So it's uh, yeah, lots of different types of space, spaces and things you don't have to pay for, things that you feel welcomed into, spaces that people recognise themselves in, and things at all different times of day and night. I mean one of the things when we were looking into it, we knew it was a really important night-time economy. But the more we've looked into it and understood, you know really great things like Bubble Club, which is part of Trumanbury Estate.

Speaker 3:

So that's London's only night for people with learning disabilities, run by people. So that's London's only night for people with learning disabilities, run by people. It's a really, really, really good night. And so a lot of the work that we do at night sort of night time studies across London we look to places like this. So how do you keep that and that that actually comes from the character of Truman and what they want to do? So it's to keep all of those things and make the right spaces and conditions for them to flourish.

Speaker 2:

And surely that means that there's an economic impact as well, because if you've got a community running something like Bubble Club, you know we need to talk about rent and you know what that looks like for people to use that space when it is paid for, Sure. So what's going to be the impact on the rental spaces at the Truman Brewery? Do we know that already? Has that sort of financial forecasting happened, and is the client happy to keep spaces available for?

Speaker 3:

Well, bubble Club runs out of the existing nightclub 9230 East, so model already works within. But then on the other half, I think that's probably more of a Tom question than a me question.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, no, I think that's probably more of a Tom question than a me question. Yeah, yeah, no, I think, absolutely Really, the, the ethos of Truman, is very, very long term. You know, we, as Grow Places, have been brought in by Truman because they want to make this once in a generation project as good as it can be. But the reason they want to do that is because they're here for the long term. You know they've they've been owners and stewards of this place for 30 odd years since the brewery was decommissioned, and they have a super long-term lens going forwards. And that's really important when you you think about the, the community, the types of operators, the, the feel of the place that they're looking to create, you know, for them it's not necessarily about going to who's going to pay the highest rent on any one occasion. It's much more about how do we maintain and grow and celebrate what we've got here in the place and that may involve, you know, a true mix of types of tenants, some who you know probably are here because they are able to bring in and attract other types of tenants as part of a broader ecosystem, and some of it will be community spaces and community programs that working with local authority and working with local stakeholder groups, um are are priced accordingly. So I think it's it's never kind of a one answer and successful places never are just one thing, um, whether that's a mix of uses or whether that's a mix of um tenants, tenants and people operating on different models, and that's really important for the vibrancy of this town centre.

Speaker 4:

You know we are in a town centre location here, obviously we're in central London, but within the borough itself. You know, brick Lane, smithfields, bangor Town is designated as a town centre and that brings with it the need for mixed uses, for vibrancy, for things that function at different times of the day, different times of the week, as Anna was saying, and we've been very mindful to try and preserve and enhance what is good about this place and not lose it. So you've mentioned some of the night-time economy and and those things are not complementary with all uses. For example, you don't see too many people wanting to live on top of a nightclub, and so how, how do we kind of look to create a vibrant, mixed place which does include new homes, which does include new family and affordable homes, but doesn't do it at the detriment of some of the existing valuable cultural and sort of socially important uses, like we've discussed.

Speaker 2:

Because we're off the back of the mayoral elections. You know we've had Sadiq Khan appointed for the third time as London mayor. Do you think this is the kind of development that London will see more of under his sort of jurisdiction, that London will see more of under his jurisdiction? Is this exemplar for how developers need to be considering development, away from that traditional value or money cost? You know, at all costs, rather, anna, do you think that this is where we're headed? Is it a better, is it a better way to create development? Or yeah, but I still think it's fairly.

Speaker 3:

It's. I feel like it's atypical, this project in lots of ways, because it's not like. You know, we do a lot of work for great estates and it's quite similar in that very long-term view and holding all the assets and thinking about how something will be, and it's quite a different. It's quite different when you can make those decisions more. You know it's a smaller decision making group and can really try and do all these great things like bring so many different great design voices in to a relatively compact site. There's so many unusual and good things here. So, yes, there are lots of things that I wish we saw more often and I think, uh, it's really great that Sadiq is back and doing loads of great things for London. So, yeah, there's lots to learn from this project and lots of things I think that can happen here because of the way the estate is and the way it's owned and, as Tom said, the things that it's trying to do.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. I think that you know I don't know his written purpose statement, but if you were to have a purpose statement for the Mayor of London, it's to see a successful London, isn't it? To see a vibrant, sustainable London. And I think you know Truman, and what they already do. This neighbourhood and also the project is project kind of fits that brief.

Speaker 4:

There's always going to be different perspectives on whether a given site this one, for example should include predominantly a lot more housing or it should include no housing at all, and there's different schools of thought on that.

Speaker 4:

But what we're trying to do here is to create something, as I say, that enhances, celebrates what's really unique about this place, like the mapping that Anne has done.

Speaker 4:

The work that Anne has done is broad insofar as it's a bigger extent than just a site, but it's still a kind of hyper-local detailed analysis about this neighbourhood and how does this neighborhood function and how can this neighborhood be the best it can can be, um, as I say, growing from from where it is now and um, trying to support that, that sustainable growth long term. But equally, it's worth saying that you know this is a a big site and Truman are a big landowner within this neighbourhood. But you know there's a glass ceiling as well on how much any one project or any one landowner can actually do in that neighbourhood. So we're doing what we can. Truman are doing a really good job, at least in my opinion, of putting the right pieces in place to have a successful project and hopefully a successful addition to this neighbourhood. But time will tell about how far that goes and how the programming works and how these other things operate and how actually people in the neighborhood take it on, because we're only ever providing the framework.

Speaker 2:

We're not actually the ones who are creating the bus, that's the people who live here and work here so, anna, we've learned from various podcast guests that there's going to be a reinstated brewery, that there there'll be more open space, that the Coop Ridge, you know, there'll be room for office space as well as more sort of cultural elements as well, and closer to Brick Lane. So what kind of impact are you projecting into the future? You know, who are we going to see more of as a result of those design briefs?

Speaker 3:

um, I think one of the well, it's a little bit like one of the. The first parts of our brief was uh, everything that's working really well now, and more of it. It's the kind of so again, that not kind of oh, we want it, or something all very new and very alien, that feeling of, uh, an like a continuation and an extension of what's here, but with new things that bring people in and make it feel more integrated. So, going back to your question, one of the key things that he's done his first two terms is talk about good growth by design. What is good growth?

Speaker 3:

So good growth is including everybody within it, so it's economically impactful and it really benefits the people living locally, but also they feel part of it. So it's really, then. That's why we've spoken a lot to the team about community uses and use of the buildings and the things that here for people around, but also extending the things, the creativity, all the creative businesses that can be moved into those new offices, opening them out, opening their networks and sharing, because there's a big gap between people working in creative industries and the built environment and people living in the high deprivation wards to the east of here. So what can we do that bridges those things, and building is going to do so much, but it's a mindset and that's what we really aim for so the brief is a mindset.

Speaker 3:

It's a bit both yeah, then you have to have it to underpin everything. You have to have that beginning. So then they go back to community uses. Like tom says, it's not a kind of well, here's a space, who knows what happened in it. How do you get that to feel like truman and to have that the mindset that's made all of this happen, extend it to every aspect of that and to bring people closer. So that's why we feel it's a really special project and quite different, because they have the ability to do those things.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and I think a lot of the work that Publica have done, but also what it's done in terms of the thinking on the client side but also in the team side, is to provide some mapping and some analysis that then allows uses, that has abundant kind of creativity and artwork, and why is that important? Why do people value that? And then the question is OK, well, if we can work out well, why do people value that? Then the second following question to that is well, how do we broaden that out to a broader group of people who can maybe get some similar value from that?

Speaker 4:

So we've talked here, you know, within our team meetings, about, you know, how do we help people find purpose through the arts, through art, and when you think about the why to the arts as opposed to just, ok, well, it's visually interesting, it's creative.

Speaker 4:

In that sense it puts a completely different spin on it. So you think then about okay, well, you've got lots of school children around, you've got high percentage of of youth here you've got how do you maybe try to open up access through the arts to programs to school children? So that's just an example about how trying to think broader than simply the physical constraints of the place can can have really positive outcomes and I think that some of that kind of goes a little bit beyond planning in terms of the planning process, but actually the benefit of, as I say, tr Truman being a long-term steward of this place who are really interested in that. It allows us to have some of those conversations and without us being able to say definitely today, you know, in five years time there will be an arts program that addresses young people, at least we can set some of those intentions, to say that these will be good things that actually work with the spirit of what is unique about Truman but hopefully open it up to a broader spectrum of the local people, local area.

Speaker 2:

And hand it over spiritually, as it were. You know, so allow it to become, because I don't think anyone is under any illusion that an architect can just deliver this. This has to be an evolution of culture and of input and of trying and failing, and there's not a lot of room to do that in commercial development world and in cities these days. So long may it remain a space for a bit of experimentation, culturally as well. Yeah, exactly, and for people to input their part.

Speaker 3:

And to feel a bit of ownership over it that's right. Yeah, so it's not. Yeah, exactly that. That it has that freedom and flexibility and it feels loose, and that's the really tricky but exciting thing about this brief but this street epitomizes that, doesn't it?

Speaker 4:

on dray walk, some of your analysis that really stood out to me, anna, was how you'd you'd taken these units here. Obviously, these units on this side, which are very flexible, they change their layout to different companies, different organizations, and they change even two or three times in a week, let alone in a month, and then to more sort of institutions like rough trade, which have different programming inside them. And so how do we sort of think about this place as not just a set of fixed lines and colours on a plan that colour red is for a shop, that colour green is for an office. But actually even within those boundaries, any one thing can change. This is a record shop, this is a cafe, this is a bar, this is a place to, this is a cafe, this is a bar, this is a place to meet your friends, this is a gig venue, that kind of concept about how do we sort of think about the operational side of these spaces, not just the physical constraints of them?

Speaker 3:

yeah, exactly, and that that's a really unusual way to saying of thinking about, you know, an average mask. Man's like, well, here's the retail and he's like it's not like that and it changes so quickly and these things are some of them are really huge culture importance the whole of london so you'll see people queuing from there right down the other end for a gig and it has it's a really special place in people's hearts. So it's about making lots of those places, essentially and um, that speak to more and more people yeah.

Speaker 4:

And then you know, optimistically and aspirationally, wouldn't it be great if in 15 years time, a local band from one of the local estates 100 meters from here are having a gig in rough trade? And you know, that's how you can kind of think about okay, well, how do we kind of open this up? How do we try and um, through programming, through just time, um try to enable some of that to happen? But but that's an aspiration, but hopefully, if we come back here in 15 years time, hopefully that'll be the case excellent, let's see what happens.

Speaker 1:

Thanks both so much thanks. Thank you for listening to the Grow Places podcast. For more information, visit growplacescom and follow us at. We Grow Places across all social channels. See you next time.