New Typologies was a core part of the Architecture Fringe 2017 festival and set out “a provocative research and design project to imagine how our shared civic infrastructure will exist in the future, if at all.”

We were invited to consider a future hypothetical typology of the Community Centre through a model and elevation drawing. The following text was submitted to accompany the drawings and model which have been exhibited at Civic House and The Lighthouse.

Future community centres should look to remove organisational ideas which stifle the free use of space and instead introduce an architecture that can encourage a much wider range of users and uses.

A community centre that can remove concerns relating to the management, supervision and control by particular groups becomes a community centre that can truly express the diversity, interests and democracy of the area which it serves. A building not owned by the community - not owned by anyone. A building that, by its design, encourages activities that have not yet been conceived. A building that is occupied by a range of groups but not beholden to the requirements of any. 

Spaces are defined not by the activity that might take place there but by a series of environmental and climactic parameters. Volume, temperature, lighting, texture, shelter. The architecture exists; and groups then inhabit the space as they require. A building that opposes the idea of an affordable, standardised ‘community hall’ and instead creates a rough, robust, sculptural building that people can begin, and continue to, carve into.

We propose a non-planned approach, a building that pushes against against the common perception of flexibility that usually results in a space that is ‘okay’ for a handful of things. This building creates spaces with character. Not designed for any one thing but with spaces to inspire imaginative thinking and creative use.

This approach encourages a more transient use of the spaces – across days, weeks, months and years. It removes the rigidity of designing for a set brief and the limits to flexibility this can create. This approach improves the overall provision - and ultimately creates a much more dynamic programme of use. A programme that can actually allow groups to ‘migrate’ round the building to spaces that better suit their immediate needs; be they programmatic or climactic.

The building has no doors, only a series of interconnected spaces. No activity is off limits to any one from the community but groups can gather in more private spaces should privacy be required. Conflict and disagreement will likely develop during the buildings teething period but the building itself is designed to mediate between different users.

A public forum at the ground floor encourages ‘soapboxing’ and ‘heated exchanges’ but ultimately the architecture itself is able to accommodate compromised solutions. New users will come and find spaces and times into which their activities fit. More established groups may expand or contract into different spaces within the building.

The building generates its own heat and electricity – removing the ability and requirement of control – as this defeats the purpose. Groups co-ordinate between themselves – but what seems like a compromise in the first instance evolves into a sustainable process where users start to respond to their environment and neighbours. The building will long outlast any one need or user group but will always offer a sanctuary for any need or any group.