The Public Realm Inclusivity Panel (PRIP) is an intergenerational group of 15 local residents, meeting monthly to provide design recommendations for the emerging masterplan. Formed after 13 workshops with youth, disability support, and older people’s groups, PRIP has conducted 24 co-design sessions so far. Through creative workshops, members actively contribute to ensure inclusive design and their time is well compensated. The panel fosters meaningful community engagement in the project development.

Who is on the project team? (designer, consultants, etc)

Landscape Architects, Architects, Masterplan - dRMM, ZCD Architects, Hawkins Brown, Studio Egret West and SLA

dRMM - Speirs Major

CGI and Visualisation - Cityscape 

Transport and Structural Engineers - WSP

Ground Floor Experience and Retail - JLL 

Accessibility - DBA 

 Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place?

At Earls Court, the ambition was set early for ruthlessly inclusive engagement and design. A key part of this is the Public Realm Inclusivity Panel (PRIP) facilitated by ZCD Architects. An intergenerational panel of 15 people from the local area, including young people, disabled people, carers and older people, bring together a range of lived experiences, requirements, and support needs through codesign to shape the future of the Earls Court development. Initial separate engagement streams with various organisations and community groups were combined to create a group entity of rich local knowledge and experience from both neighbouring boroughs. Validating lived experiences has resulted in personal and meaningful insights towards design decisions, and has enabled us to build trust with members through the process. Recognising the need for all community voices to be heard by the design team, ECDC and ZCD developed a uniquely inclusive method of co-design, drafting an inclusivity statement with the panel members at the very beginning to ensure this way of working was reflected throughout. 

Who did you engage with and how?

To begin with, ZCD ran 13 workshops with 3 local youth groups, 2 disability support groups, and 2 older people’s groups. The PRIP was recruited from these groups and other community workshops held by ECDC. Over the 24 PRIP sessions to date, the panel has maintained a diverse, locally-representative group, drawing from 5 members of local disability groups, with 12 members under 18 and 4 members over 60. The PRIP are compensated £20/hour for their time, attending sessions as well as carrying out paid independent research in between.  At monthly sessions we explore an aspect of the masterplan, inviting design consultants to present, listen and take part. Through creative tasks, members work in intergenerational pairs/threes and present back to the group, allowing everyone to be heard by design and development team members who regularly attended PRIP sessions. Participating in discussions and exercises with the PRIP has prompted them to consider a broader range of perspectives, embedding inclusive thinking within all their work at Earls Court and fundamentally changed the mindsets of those working on the project. So far, the PRIP have carried out over 570 hours of engagement, plus over 219 hours of independent research, covering a breadth of topics. From exploring levels across the public realm using a 1:100 working landscape model to conducting comparative Inclusive Safety assessments during a site visit to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, creative tasks are designed to share skills and knowledge of the built environment, using presentation to build confidence in panel members.

Have you continued the conversation? Will the community stay involved? 

A hybrid planning application was submitted to both boroughs in June 2024. Work for the panel continues, now focused on the Reserved Matters Applications for the landscape and Phase 1 design. Future input will include detailed landscape design, play space for all ages alongside ongoing work around safety, estate management, meanwhile projects, retail experiences and security. ECDC have made a strong commitment for ongoing co-design with RMAs in their Community Charter. Alongside this, the PRIP’s regular meetings and outputs allow the impact to extend beyond the project itself. Observers have been invited to witness first-hand the group’s inclusive approach feeding back their delight seeing authentic, intergenerational and intersectional thinking shaping such a large and complex project. This has included local authority officers, politicians, journalists and others working on engagement. ECDC has a commitment to keeping the PRIP involved, potentially for years ahead. With largely no member drop-off, their work goes from strength to strength. Careful management of membership changes means new members say they feel welcomed and included from the start.