A landmark new pavilion and performance space has arrived on Hampstead Road in Camden. Co-designed by local children and young people with the guidance of social enterprise MATT+FIONA and local youth action charity Fitzrovia Youth in Action, the six-metre ‘Reflect’ is the centrepiece of a meanwhile garden established on a former HS2 construction compound.
Occupying the site where the National Temperance Hospital once stood, the site is one of several empty plots in the Euston area to be transformed by HS2 into a meanwhile garden for public use, and the only one in the series to be co-designed with a local youth group and the community that will use it.
Major infrastructure projects often involve stop-start progress. The HS2 team has turned the paused works and project hiatus into an opportunity, transforming what would have become a redundant parcel of the city into a welcoming public space and a valuable neighbourhood resource, co-created with the local residents who will benefit from it.
Consultation and community co-design
The project was inspired by a programme of community engagement on the Regent’s Park Estate, which identified the need for recreational and safe green spaces for young people living in the area, close to Euston Station.
Working with the Camden-based charity Fitzrovia Youth in Action, social enterprise MATT+FIONA gathered ideas in the form of large-scale ink drawings and sketches. These developed into a plan. Forty-eight young people took part in this initial consultation, and a core group of 18 Young Placemakers came together over 12 weeks to develop the multifunctional pavilion, which would be the focal point of a garden designed by LDA Design. They developed the design and learned valuable skills fabricating the non-structural elements in a practical workshop at the Euston Skills Centre.
Build workshop. Courtesy of Jon Shmulevitch.
“It has been really exciting to see a renewed commitment to youth-led decision
making and co-production, in not only planning and design, but also in the physical creation of this meanwhile-use space. Young people came up with the ideas and vision for the core elements of this project, helped build the structure, and were able to develop so many skills in the process, including being able to saw, drill, hammer and paint.
The Young Placemakers are thrilled to see the community now being able to use this space. This programme has been exemplary of how young people can be engaged to draw on their knowledge and experiences to design better spaces for their peers and the wider community.”
– Ellie Rudd, Youth Leadership and Regent’s Park Community Champions Manager, Fitzrovia Youth in Action
‘Reflect’, a beacon for assembly
Reflect structure. Courtesy of Nick Turpin.
Rising six metres high, with a blue timber stage and seating area, the structure is an assembly and performance space designed to be experienced by as many people as possible, including wheelchair users, whose access needs were considered throughout the design process. It is constructed from robust materials: steel, timber and stainless steel.
The structure is defined by a series of shaped panels fabricated by the Young Placemakers, creating a striking silhouette. Mirrored surfaces dramatically catch the south-facing sun, elevating the pavilion to the status of landmark. Above the stage, the array of overhead mirrors creates intriguing and unusual visual effects, reflecting performers onstage back to the audience – earning the structure its title, ‘Reflect’, which was chosen by the team of Young Placemakers that conceived it.
“The youth-led co-design process for this project brought the design ideas and vision for a new playable landscape to the fore. This unique project demonstrates the true value that comes from trusting young people to contribute to the shaping of the public spaces that we all share. We are proud of the Young Placemakers whom we have worked with on this project. We have seen at recent public events the power that their ongoing advocacy for this type of work can have.”
– Matthew Springett, director, MATT+FIONA
The National Temperance Hospital Garden
LDA Design have created the wider public realm, the National Temperance Hospital Garden, It features a maze of long grasses at the northern end and parterre gardens leading to the stage and seating area. Naturalistic planting, incorporating small trees and drought-tolerant species, maximises the garden’s ecological value in a heavily built-up urban setting. The design reuses material on site, integrating the concrete foundation slabs of the former HS2 construction compound as a central feature and using the footing strips for the previous site cabins to define the maze and parterre gardens.
“It has been great working with the young people of Fitzrovia Youth in Action, MATT+FIONA and the local community to make sure the gardens benefit the people using them. We wanted to create a fun but also high-quality space, reusing and recycling wherever possible. Ultimately, we want people, especially our brilliant Young Placemakers, to enjoy the space and to feel proud of what they have achieved.”
– Dafydd Warburton, design director and project lead, LDA Design
