Marginalized communities are often relegated to living, working, and gathering in the urban fringes. Social media and the digital realm serve as important gathering spaces for communities who find themselves unwelcome, uninvited, and unsafe in physical spaces. With this in mind, The [204] Design Collective aims to explore the potential of digital media as sites for communal exchange, collective practice, and solidarity: transversing the physical into the digital, using it as a tool to change our physical realities while breaking free from the rigidity and confinements often imposed by Architecture. 

Engaging with the 2019 LFA theme of Boundaries, The [204] Design Collective will host an online design charrette, live streaming the workshop for public participation. This heuristic approach of live streaming a charrette/workshop uses digital space to interrogate institutional boundaries that exist in practicing and studying architecture. The [204] Design Collective will further explore ‘Boundaries’ within the design brief itself, which will be shared in advance with the participants. 

#cybercharrette is a call to log in to our online studio, using digital space to gather, design, discuss, and empower communities who seek to design more inclusive and diverse spaces in our cities, creating a digital seat at the table.

Tickets

The [204] Design Collective in collaboration with The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) are curating this years Stephen Lawrence Memorial Lecture, helping to raise vital funds for the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. This year’s lecture is particularly significant as 2018 marks both the 25th anniversary since his murder and 20 years since the founding of the Trust, which works to inspire and support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed in the career of their choice.

Stephen had a passion for architecture and was already on the path to pursuing his dream, and the Trust reflects his love for architecture in its work to support young and aspiring architects from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds to study and qualify. This year alone the Trust’s Building Futures programme is supporting over 250 young people through bursaries, work placements, industry workshops and mentoring.

The panel of speakers will be discussing the impact of the voice of youth in redefining alternative methods of architectural practice, and will be sharing thoughts on identity, diversity, equality of opportunities, and their relationship to architecture and the city.

Speakers include:

• Akil Scafe-Smith and Gameli Ladzekpo, founders of RESOLVE, an interdisciplinary design collective that looks towards the synthesis of architecture, engineering, technology and art to address multi-scalar social challenges.

• Abigail Patel and Selasi Setufe, from the Future Architects Network. Abigail is RIBA National Council Student Representative and an outspoken advocate for the need for young people to have a strong voice within the architectural community. Selasi is founder of creative start-up Crystal Design Studies and Co-Vice President of Students and Associates at RIBA.

• Ahnansé, founder of music collective Steam Down. Ahnanse’s musical development has been tied in with questions of how creativity contributes to the world and society.

Chair: Kieran Yates, Journalist and Broadcaster reporting on culture, news and politics. She currently has a column at Vice called ‘British Values’ and writes regularly for The Guardian, Fader, Dazed, broadcasts on BBC Asian Network and was nominated for Culture Writer of the Year in 2016.

Following the panel discussion, Brother Portrait + Nadeem from the music collective Steam Down will perform live with stage design provided by The [204] Design Collective. 

All money raised will go to support the work of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.

TICKETS

The Panel // Resistance in the City
Chair: Léopold Lambert

Panellists:
Rosa-Johan Uddoh
Jamal Mehmood
Ahnanse
Brother Portrait

This panel is an opportunity to converse with creatives whose disciplines are engaged with identity and space. We will explore the intimate relationships various members of the community have with the city and its architecture by looking at how their work challenges existing conditions.

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Talk // Narrative and Architecture - Part I
Kieran Yates
How can literary tools be used to challenge the current urban fabric of the city? How can narration and storytelling help in the struggle to overcome colonial domination? This talk will explore the intersection of narrative, identity and architecture as an interdisciplinary interrogation and exploration of Architecture.

Tickets Part I

Workshop // Narrative and Architecture - Part II
Kieran Yates
This workshop will engage with narration and storytelling as a tool to overcome colonial domination. Using literary tools to challenge the current urban fabric of the city, existing physical conditions set the stage for the act of exploratory design in an effort to dismantle and decolonize. Participants will be taken through a workshop that will include conversation, exploratory writing, mapping, and designing.

Tickets Part II
 

Talk // World Building and Smashing - Part I
Speaker One: Cheyenne and David Thomas
This talk is an opportunity to discuss the lasting and generational effects of European colonization in Canada. A conversation about cultural preservation, identity and truth and reconciliation through professional practice will be held. This talk will explore how a Country’s inability to face the power dynamics created by colonial pasts are reflected in urban spaces today.

Speaker Two: Akil Scafe-Smith and Gameli Ladzekpo
This talk is intended to shed light on the creation of inequalities stemming from ideas of nationhood in colonial and postcolonial societies in the UK. The role of race and identity in creating ‘ethnic’ spaces in cities will be discussed, as well as the impact of urban regeneration/revitalization on immigrant and marginalized communities.

Tickets Part I

Workshop // World Building and Smashing - Part II
Cheyenne and David Thomas
Inspired by the genres of: Fantasy, Magical Realism and Afrofuturism, participants will be guided through a workshop on creating alternate realities/worlds that critique present-day urban inequalities. It is intended that this exercise inspires creativity as the public identifies new potentials for our built environment.

Tickets Part II