Cardiff’s Local Development Plan (LDP) represents the city’s strategies for the next 20 years. Radically different proposals are considered, prioritising the redevelopment of existing brownfield sites. The Year 5, Masters’ 2023-24 Value Unit, at Cardiff University/School of Architecture, are working with the community within Grangetown, to unravel and influence the plan at local level. Having navigated complexities of redeveloping a civic space, a network of resident, university, architectural, local authority and charity partners are considering how the Grange Pavilion’s redevelopment might catalyse similar partnership development of undervalued civic spaces across Cardiff. This wonderful and culturally rich area will be building on 11 years of dialogue and conversations with Cardiff University’s flagship engagement project, Community Gateway, which has seen the community-led design and creation of this award-winning pavilion, set at the heart of Grange Gardens. Within this space, the Value Unit, will aim to address and identify inequalities across the ‘Southern Arc’. Using Appreciative Enquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987), local businesses, residents and faith groups are encouraged to discover, dream, design and deliver. Many innovate methods are to be implemented, including collectively creating a ‘values-based salad’. This opportunity for community engagement, enables everyone to cultivate a voice, unlock civic action and prioritise quality, within thoroughly considered responses. Close attention is given to identify sites of engagement, developing a constant respectful and open-minded thought process. The aim is to identify value, within this area, before the destruction of such objects and create opportunities for the growth of spaces of citizenship.
Daniel Benham – Part of Benham Architects, who have recently completed Grange Pavilion, alongside the IBI Group, Dan believes in people being central to all places we create and aims to create strong design ethos for practice, working on many key projects, with people, community and place at the heart of the process and final resolutions. As the RSAW President, tutor & visiting lecturer of the Value Unit, at Cardiff University/Welsh School of Architecture, Dan has a passion to understand what it means to build and create a sense of ‘home’ within a Welsh context that is rich in heritage, culture and tectonics.
Professor Mhairi McVicar
Elinor Weekley