ABSTRACT
Over a number of years the practice has invested in ‘design for change’, an engagement methodology aimed at allowing tenants to actively and meaningfully engage, communicate and co-design with architects. This chapter presents a case study on URBanism, Environment and Design (URBED), which is a small employee-owned cooperative. It shows a strong interest in engaging local people in the design process, which has led to the development of techniques such as ‘design for change’, used for the Brentford Lock West project. Brentford Lock West is situated on the edge of Brentford town centre. The area is currently in a state of transition spearheaded by the local community, who vigorously and successfully campaigned against a previous high-density residential development on the site back in 2004. The practice undertakes research activities for two main reasons: first because of the pleasure that research – learning new things – brings and second because it has a history of bringing new work to the office.
