Sendra, Pablo;
Fitzpatrick, Daniel;
Short, Michael;
Livingstone, Nicola;
Nava, Sahar;
Manzini Ceinar, Irene;
Goldzweig, Sarah;
... ., .; + view all
(2025)
Contesting social housing demolition through community co-design: The Alton Estate’s People’s Plan.
Urban Design International
10.1057/s41289-025-00278-3.
(In press).
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Abstract
In recent decades, many social housing estates in London have been demolished and replaced by mixed-tenure developments. These schemes have been strongly contested by residents and campaigns, who argue the schemes produce displacement, loss of social connections, and loss of socially rented homes. These alliances of residents and campaigners occasionally include researchers. This paper explores how co-design and participatory action research approaches can contest top-down demolition and redevelopment of social housing estates. It uses Alton Estate, in South-West London, which Wandsworth council planned to demolish and redevelop, as a case study. Through a partnership with resident-led group Alton Action, a team of researchers co-designed an alternative approach to regeneration with local communities, building on collectively produced evidence and focusing on improving the neighbourhood using the existing built environment. Through a series of knowledge exchanges and co-design workshops, communities and researchers co-produced the Alton Estate People’s Plan, a community vision to improve the neighbourhood. This process empowered residents to participate in decision-making regarding the future of their neighbourhood.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Contesting social housing demolition through community co-design: The Alton Estate’s People’s Plan |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1057/s41289-025-00278-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-025-00278-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Co-design, social housing, London, regeneration, People's Plan, communities |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Planning |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10211505 |
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