ABSTRACT
The 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent dismantling of United Kingdom public investment under the guise of austerity continues to impact not-for-profit organizations’ ability to deliver services responding to societal inequalities. A strategy advocated by Project Office, a design and research collaboration of staff and students at Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, England), uses architecture to posit systemic change by embedding students, as part of their coursework, within communities to collaborate with not-for-profit organizations and support their challenge of inequality. An early vehicle to test and evaluate PO’s philosophy was a playground designed and constructed for a primary school. Initial concept designs by architecture students for a new community center formed the basis of a grant application process for capital funding. Designers are well-placed to challenge the contemporary paradigm of neoliberalism through their practice.
