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Creatively Connected


Creatively Connected is a meanwhile use and public realm strategy for Clapham Junction, which was commissioned by The Junction Business Improvement District for Wandsworth Council and the GLA, as part of a successful High Streets for All fund bid. 



Office S&M teamed up with McCloy + Muchemwa to bring a range of experience together to develop a detailed strategy, which built on public engagement delivered by The Glasshouse. The project was complemented with documentary photographs by local resident Anthony Coleman who we commissioned to record the high streets as they are today, as added Social Value delivered by our process.





To form the strategy, we mapped vacant units, footfall, key stakeholders, and the five disjointed high streets of Clapham Junction. These maps were iteratively developed, and then shared using digital mapping to enable the client team to make use of them in the future. We created a clear framework from this research, explained through diagrams rather than text, forming a basis for our proposals. Our final strategy proposes “urban acupuncture” of non-physical and physical interventions which stitch and glue the town centre back together.




‘Office S&M and McCloy + Muchemwa created an innovative place-responsive strategy to support The Junction. Their collaborative process and genuinely open dialogue helped to unlock creative opportunities and knit together ambitions for the area .‘ 


Kathryn Timmins, Principal Policy Officer, GLA





This includes a series of creative meanwhile uses, which plug into the existing cultural infrastructure of the area, in order to deliver greater connection between the retail and social areas of the town centre. Each of these uses was clearly costed, backed up by a precedent, and mapped back onto the high street. A key part of the strategy proposed support for the Night Time Economy and delivering safety improvements for women, from men, because embedding these approaches within the strategy makes it robust and able to tackle contemporary issues. 

This work gives us up-to-date experience of delivering meanwhile use strategies based on the GLA’s High Streets for All Possibilities Playbook and was part of a successful High Streets for All funding bid to the GLA.

To learn more about the services we provide to obtain the best outcomes for our local authority clients, click here.










Detail

Location: Clapham Junction
Project: Creatively Connected
Client: The Junction
Completed: 2022

Team

Architect: Office S&M and McCloy + Muchemwa
Photography: Anthony Coleman