Sophia de Sousa

Chief Executive

, The Glass-House Community Led Design

What happens when people have the chance to be involved in shaping the design of their built environment ?

Some pretty great things, according to Sophia de Sousa of The Glass-House, a UK-based charity promoting community-led design.

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The Glass-House Community Led Design is a charity that works to connect people with the design of their places and to make sure that design connects back with people. Our mission is really to ensure that everyone has access to great places around them,’ explains de Sousa.

The work of The Glass-House focuses on community design. But how do you define that? ‘When we started the charity, we defined it as design that is led by communities or in which communities play a role in decision making,’ says de Sousa. ‘But really what we’re interested in is placing communities at the heart of shaping where they live, work and play.’

De Sousa and her team work across areas of regeneration, housing renewal, new community buildings, gardens and public spaces. ‘We work with members of the community and build their confidence and understanding of the design process so they can be more confident and more demanding, whether they’re leading the project or whether they are stakeholders.’

The Glass-House recently worked with the Somali Community Association in Sheffield when it decided to purchase a building they had been renting from the local authority. ‘They took over a large heritage building full of delightful spaces, but also certain challenges,’ says de Sousa. ‘Some of them attended a design training course with us where they did a thorough analysis of their building but they also built a model. Giving them that sense of playing with their building with a model was really significant because it revealed spaces they hadn’t really thought about and allowed them to think about them in different ways.’

The Somali Community Association now collaborates with The Glass-House, co-hosting public meetings to talk about cooperative design. ‘For me, the work is so wonderful because the people we work with and the groups we work with are impacted by the journey,’ says de Sousa. ‘It’s not just the built outcomes, it’s the growing confidence, it’s the relationships that are created. It’s the profound impact on the individuals who, through taking part in something like this, actually go on to do different things, whether it’s a change in employment, or just having the confidence to do things they might not have done before. It’s about the potential for social impact, social capital, of that creative process of doing something together.’

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