Empowering Design Practices:
historic places of worship as catalyst for connecting communities
Empowering Design Practices is a research project (2014-2020) exploring historic places of worship, the people who manage them, and the potential of these buildings as community resources. The aim of the project is to explore how community-led design can help empower those who look after historic places of worship to create more open, vibrant and sustainable places that respect and enhance the heritage of their buildings.
Empowering Design Practices is a collaboration between a number of organisations and individuals including: The Open University, The Glass-House Community Led Design, Historic England (formerly English Heritage), National Lottery Heritage Fund (previously Heritage Lottery Fund) and the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance (see here for more information on the full team).
The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, under their Connected Communities and Design highlight notice.
Areas of investigation
Discovering: To understand the practice of community-led design in this context, we are examining the current landscape of historic places of worship and communities leading change within them. We are also investigating what values inspire and hinder the wider use of historic places of worship and what benefits and impacts community-led design practices can bring.
Developing: The project is building on existing practices and developing new practices that support communities to lead projects to transform their historic places of worship. We use a variety of design and other creative research methods to investigate how inclusive design processes can support a diverse spectrum of people, organisations and places.
Sharing: Empowering Design Practices aims to build national capacity for community-led design practice by developing open educational resources and training for design students, communities, as well as the professionals and support bodies who work with them.
The project began in October 2014 and will run through to October 2020.
Empowering Design Practices is a collaboration between a number of organisations and individuals including: The Open University, The Glass-House Community Led Design, Historic England (formerly English Heritage), National Lottery Heritage Fund (previously Heritage Lottery Fund) and the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance (see here for more information on the full team).
The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, under their Connected Communities and Design highlight notice.
Areas of investigation
Discovering: To understand the practice of community-led design in this context, we are examining the current landscape of historic places of worship and communities leading change within them. We are also investigating what values inspire and hinder the wider use of historic places of worship and what benefits and impacts community-led design practices can bring.
Developing: The project is building on existing practices and developing new practices that support communities to lead projects to transform their historic places of worship. We use a variety of design and other creative research methods to investigate how inclusive design processes can support a diverse spectrum of people, organisations and places.
Sharing: Empowering Design Practices aims to build national capacity for community-led design practice by developing open educational resources and training for design students, communities, as well as the professionals and support bodies who work with them.
The project began in October 2014 and will run through to October 2020.