Author Archives: Maud Alice

Fenham Parliament 1

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We ended the first phase of our design project by holding the first Fenham Parliament, a chance for residents to come and join, enjoy food and activities together and ultimately participate in a discussion about the future of the area. 

The event was held at the Fenham Pocket Park on the 14th May, 12pm-2pm., and we were exploring the different possibilities in creating a brighter and greener Fenham. We focused on three themes:

  1. Heritage and creative reuse: Focusing on Fenham Pool and thinking about grassroots initiatives
  2. Social economy: thinking about local business and also sharing practices (cooking and growing) and non-monetary exchanges
  3. Climate Futures: Considering low carbon transport and nature based solutions, looking at how we can contribute to greening and decarbonising Fenham.

We filmed and made a short ‘trailer’ for the day, which you can watch here:

We advertised the event using the poster below, which we distributed around the area by hand and also shared on the Fenham Pocket page instagram. We also got in touch with around thirty individuals working on projects in the area or on research related to our themes – a number attended the day but we also got six short interviews with people who couldn’t come along.

We’re currently collating a book to work as an account of the project overall but also be used as a guide moving forwards into Fenham Parliament 2.

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You can read an account of the day by Luke Leung (MA Urban Design), who attended on the day and wrote up his experiences for the NCL Urban Design blog – along with some lovely photos!  

ZeroMile @ Pocket Park Community Day (26/03/22)

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We used the community day as an three-fold opportunity to:

  • engage local people into thinking about where they shop / eat locally, and gathering recommendations for good local business people would want to see included in a pocket guide
  • see if there’s appetite for some sort of pocket guide
  • talk to local businesses to learn more about local eating and growing in Fenham
“TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE LOCAL BUSINESS”

We had a signpost that we recorded the different local businesses people said they enjoyed; we went around talking to the business owners and moving our signpost outside these shops and cafes. This was useful as we got feedback that a pocket guide would be welcomed, and might encourage more local business start ups once people notice gaps in the market (eg. a butchers and a deli were mentioned as missing).

  • Outside FAB Bakery
  • Outside Northern Slice
  • Outside Achellos
  • In the Pocket Park: “What’s your favourite Local Business?”

We also had ‘feedback forms’ we used to invite people to share recommendations as well as allow them to tear off our website url and QR code leading to our open-source local business map of Fenham and surrounding areas.

Our feedback forms to shape our pocket guide

Our next steps moving forwards are to:

  • Create a sample pocket guide we can use to consult people on design, more recommendations, etc.
  • Decide how the location and design of our physical, more permanent signposts might work.

UPDATE!

Following this intervention in March we curated this Fenham Pocket Guide, using the information residents had shared with us about their favourite places, and the open source map. We’ll distribute these to those who come along to our Fenham Parliament event in May!

What would you want to see in Volume 2?

Introducing ZeroMile

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We’re looking to implement an intervention in the Fenham area which encourages local residents to grow local, shop local, and eat local. We’re hoping to engage residents in a conversation about growing and eating seasonally, food miles, and how we can work together to make eating locally more affordable and easy.

We want to use a signposting approach to showing people places in their local area they may not have known about. We also want to draw on the pre-existing resources already in Fenham, such as allotments and parks, where there’s plenty of growing potential – and eventually use the disused pool in our endeavours.

Our poster shows our innovative signposting method which highlights excess food boxes, which will be strategically placed around Fenham.

How does it work? Each drop off point will include a QR code which can easily be scanned using mobile. This a similar concept to how Amazon lockers work.

Where will they be located? We aim to have drop off points strategically located around Fenham.

We’d love to have you contribute to the project! Suggest places and local businesses in the comment below that you think could fit well into our project.

ZeroMile: Poster vision for Fenham’s Future