Your Orangery

The ‘Your Orangery’ live project team worked over a 6 week period to engage with the local community of Clapham and develop proposals in order to spark a discussion as to how the grade II listed Orangery could be developed.

The project began with an open brief from our client, Lambeth Living, to engage with the surrounding community, local business groups and organisations to gauge opinion on how the building could be developed for future use.

The team worked remotely to explore different methods of engagement with all interested parties. The team gained valuable experience in consultation and networking, and each method built on the lessons and feedback gathered as the process developed and the team became more experienced.

Following initial site exploration, research and an introductory meeting with the Tenant’s and Resident’s Association (TRA) we held a community public consultation event within the Orangery, to get local feedback on initial sketch collages and generate an interest and awareness of the building. This included various engagement ‘hubs’, enabling participants to ‘draw’, ‘model’, ‘write’ and ‘chat’. The event inhabited the Orangery with a band and a bouncy castle, drawing families to the event and bringing the Orangery to life!

The brief developed further throughout the consultation process to include the design and launch of a web-resource, www.yourorangery.com, a platform designed for continued engagement between Lambeth Living and the Clapham community. This website provides a resource which presents the historical, social and site analysis, sketch proposals for the site (organised A-D), potential funding streams for the project and a place where locals can sign up to be part of the ‘Friends of the Orangery’ group moving forward. This ensured the consultation process was transparent and was not just an academic exercise. Holistic proposals creating a vision for the site grew from initial feedback, and focused on four alternative strategies for the site; the schemes comprised initial short term proposals to begin the process (A) and further long term developments (B,C,D)

A document was produced, detailing the process and results to date, and further suggesting potential future steps in the form of provocative visualizations and installations which would provoke and inspire a wider audience of residents to take action. Potential funding streams were also researched to help realise each of the proposals, including Grant Funding and Commercial Funding. This enables the client to take a phased approach from this point.

The project culminated in a handover meeting, which formed a key stage of the project. This brought together the client, stakeholders and community in active discussion to create a vision for the future of the Orangery and to form a collective ‘Friends of Your Orangery’ group to take the project forward.