♥ Client: Mountford Growing Community
♥ Collaboration: Rose Gibbs
♥ Year: 2021
♥ Location: London
♥ Collaboration: Rose Gibbs
♥ Year: 2021
♥ Location: London
Mountford Community Hall is an ongoing self-build project on the Mountford Estate in Hackney, initiated by artist Rose Gibbs and co-led with Sahra Hersi, developed with Mountford Growing Community. The project focuses on underrepresented young people within the built environment, including those from global majority and working-class backgrounds.
The work began with a Summer School and Autumn School in 2021, each running for five days on-site at Mountford Community Hall. Through these architecture schools for local young people, alongside consultations with residents, a design for the new hall was developed. The schools were shortlisted for the Thornton Education Trust's Inspiring Future Generations Award 2021. The project has been funded through crowdfunding backed by the Mayor of London, whose Crowdfund London programme pledged £32,000 to the campaign.
Across the project, the question of how space is used in London is held at the centre. The city is in the middle of a housing crisis, with homes unaffordable for many. While government and developers focus on building new housing, these efforts often overlook the need for community provision alongside new homes. Mountford Community Hall critiques this approach and argues for the importance of spaces like community halls as part of how a city houses its people.
Community halls function as living rooms for the public. They are shared spaces where people gather, host events, participate in programmes, and socialise. They make room for after-school clubs, exercise classes, study spaces, coffee mornings, and the slow work of meeting your neighbours. They extend domestic space into the public realm and offer something that small living rooms cannot.
The design process and the thinking behind it are documented in a publication produced by Mountford Growing Community, bringing the project into dialogue with a wider ecology of researchers and practitioners, with contributions from Rose Gibbs, a conversation between Sahra Hersi and Neba Sere, and texts by Melissa Haniff, Arman Nouri and Kwame Lowe, alongside reflections from the schools' students and tutors. Copies are available through Mountford Growing Community.
The project's ambition is to ensure that the new Mountford Community Hall offers a high-quality, inclusive space for everyone, and that community infrastructure is recognised as essential alongside housing.
The work began with a Summer School and Autumn School in 2021, each running for five days on-site at Mountford Community Hall. Through these architecture schools for local young people, alongside consultations with residents, a design for the new hall was developed. The schools were shortlisted for the Thornton Education Trust's Inspiring Future Generations Award 2021. The project has been funded through crowdfunding backed by the Mayor of London, whose Crowdfund London programme pledged £32,000 to the campaign.
Across the project, the question of how space is used in London is held at the centre. The city is in the middle of a housing crisis, with homes unaffordable for many. While government and developers focus on building new housing, these efforts often overlook the need for community provision alongside new homes. Mountford Community Hall critiques this approach and argues for the importance of spaces like community halls as part of how a city houses its people.
Community halls function as living rooms for the public. They are shared spaces where people gather, host events, participate in programmes, and socialise. They make room for after-school clubs, exercise classes, study spaces, coffee mornings, and the slow work of meeting your neighbours. They extend domestic space into the public realm and offer something that small living rooms cannot.
The design process and the thinking behind it are documented in a publication produced by Mountford Growing Community, bringing the project into dialogue with a wider ecology of researchers and practitioners, with contributions from Rose Gibbs, a conversation between Sahra Hersi and Neba Sere, and texts by Melissa Haniff, Arman Nouri and Kwame Lowe, alongside reflections from the schools' students and tutors. Copies are available through Mountford Growing Community.
The project's ambition is to ensure that the new Mountford Community Hall offers a high-quality, inclusive space for everyone, and that community infrastructure is recognised as essential alongside housing.