Dan Jones

Organisation:

Civic London

High street you call home?

Peckham

What made you passionate about place?

I co-designed my first building - a community centre - with the people it was actually for, and this led me to an in-depth appreciation of how community infrastructure can really work. I have continued designing community buildings and places this way since, and my experience continues to be formulated in response to the day-to-day requirements of specific community groups in different parts of the country. I like the idea that this can offer applications on a wider, joined-up scale. Recognising what is special about individual neighbourhood environments by engaging people, before proposing place-specific visions, I think is key to protecting and enhancing social value in different places.

I am passionate about re-inventing places like high streets as a social landscape. High streets have a hugely important role to play in asserting – and post-pandemic re-establishing - the link between local community activity and a collective understanding of what ‘place’ and ‘Community’ means. High streets offer a range of experiences that are cultural and economic, but these experiences are also social. Designing for social sustainability then, is crucial.

Example of a past project(s) that helped create positive change on a high street?

Rainham ROYALS Youth Centre – for London Borough of Havering and Greater London Authority, part funded by the Mayor of London. The project refurbishes and extends a functional but very generic, two-storey, high street youth centre to create aspirational new facilities for the Royals youth service. The Royals is an eye-catching redevelopment that sets out to achieve a lot on a limited budget. The most recognizable part of the remodelled building is the new enterprise space, which occupies the front-facing half of the new roof extension, cantilevering over the building’s original main entrance at high street level. This overhang engages the new extension with the approach routes from the village shops and from the supermarket. A generously glazed corner gives the young users a vantage point from which to see and be seen, controlling their environment, while at the same time displaying youth activities centre-stage in a positive and inspiring way. The extension provides space for a new youth programme for 16 year olds offering educational training to School Leavers.

What type of high street user are you?

A nearly 50, father of two teenagers. I look for vibrancy and an inventive streak as a social destination, as much as quirky canteens and tap rooms. For me, it is not so much about shopping. It is about experiencing other people’s ideas and collaborations, just getting on and implementing creative projects and enterprises.