ABSTRACT
Communities need support now more than ever to build resilience within their neighbourhoods. The UK government’s austerity cuts have not only made communities more vulnerable in the short term, they are also slicing away the support required to enable communities to weather challenges in the long term. To face the challenges of shifting demographics, funding cuts and the alienating processes of development requires a strong sense of community identity and agency. A community’s ability to exercise control over its built environment plays a key role in this and its capacity to build resilience in face of an uncertain future.
In this interview, Carolyn Butterworth explores the development of a new relationship between Sheffield City Council and Sheffield University School of Architecture (SSoA). In a neglected area of Sheffield city centre called Castlegate, SSoA is brokering a dialogue between fragmented communities and the council. Opportunities and tensions inherent in this role are manifested through questions about the role a university can and should play in building community resilience. The aim is to explore how work produced in academia can maintain its critical pedagogical position while still fulfilling a useful role in facilitating co-production in local communities with, and even on behalf of, local authorities.
