The Apprenticeship Programme in City Design responds to a profound level of democratic deficit in UK cities, where the next generation of urban dwellers are excluded from the process of ‘making space’ in the city. London is now growing at a faster rate than ever before with at least one million more residents expected by 2030. 15,000 new homes are planned for Brent, one of London’s boroughs with a significant increase in density and housing provision, approximately half of it centred on the substantial 85-acre Wembley Park project, led by developer Quintain. The programme enables young people to be involved in the process of urban transformation before designs are developed and construction commences. It is a new model of citizen participation and collaboration for Brent and for London.

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The LSE Cities Apprenticeship Programme, in its first pilot, has engaged with five young adults from the borough to learn through practice at LSE. They were hired as researchers at LSE Cities on hourly paid contracts offering a form of work experience rarely offered to teenagers and young adults within a research centre such as LSE Cities. The apprentices undertook a 26-month period of online and in person learning which started with participating in a curated curriculum on design, development and planning relevant to the context of Brent and Wembley Park. They were trained to apply methodologies and tools – including social science-based ethnographic survey and mapping - to understand the potential and imagine the future of new public spaces in the Wembley Park development. The apprentices then set a brief for four sites within the public realm of the Wembley Park development. Before moving on to develope the first of those sites which they saw through from concept to design and build. The resulting new public space, Samovar Space, was officially launched on 22 October 2022.

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The apprentices ranged in age from 16 to 24 when they started the programme. This is a demographic which often falls through the gap in terms of the typical kinds of provisions found in the public realm. Too old for playparks but too young for restaurants and bars. Although the aim of the initiative was to design something for this demographic, we found that rather than designing other people out they ended up designing themselves in. Mindful that they didn’t want to design for themselves the group came up with the ambition to design ‘Brent in Brent’. To bring in the diverse cultures and people that made up their borough.

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The intention was not for this programme to prime young adults for a career in the built environment but to rather acknowledge we are all city makers and offers a method by which those often not included in design and planning can do so in such a way that is sustainable over the long life-cycle of a project.

 

The long-term aspiration of the project is to improve the quality and sense of ownership of public space deepening LSE’s relations with key stakeholders in the capital. By connecting a higher education institution with a group of young adults, public officials and a major property company, the project is creating opportunities for young residents in London, offering them a voice in the process of making new public spaces for the city. Work on other sites remains on-going.

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Uniquely for an academic research project, the process has influenced the real-time design development and realisation of a prominent piece of realm on the Wembley Park site. 

 

The Apprenticeship Programme in City Design is an ongoing collaboration between LSE Cities, and the Blueprint Collective and Brent Youth Parliament a network of young people closely involved with Brent 2020. It is a legacy project of Seen and Heard  commissioned by the London Borough of Culture and has been supported by Quintain and the LSE Department of Sociology.