Ebbsfleet Design Group builds on our pioneering three-year creative placemaking programme This Must Be The Place to continue our work collaborating with local young people on the development of the new Ebbsfleet Garden City, supported by artists, academics and designers.
For the first year of the programme researcher Rana Khazbak and interdisciplinary design studio RESOLVE Collective led a series of sessions, including a one week lab, with young people aged 15-21 living in or near Ebbsfleet. These explorative workshops asked the group to consider creative and novel ways of responding to their environment, and facilitated them becoming ‘community researchers’ – working to re-imagine the built environment as it’s being developed in Ebbsfleet.
“A primary goal of RESOLVE’s is to work in ways that value and celebrate local knowledge. Co-creating with young people as community designers and researchers is an integral part of how design can speak to power; radically affecting the environments in which they often have the largest stake but the most suppressed voice.” – RESOLVE Collective
Led by artists Flimsy Works, this year’s programme will enable the Design Group to take a leading role in trialling a ‘circular economy’ in Ebbsfleet: engaging with the developers (EDC) to explore what waste materials could be redirected back to the local community. As defined by the UK Green Building Council, the circular economy “prioritises the reuse of materials, preventing the over extraction of natural resources and the number of usable materials that end up in landfill”.
As part of this exploration, the Design Group will meet over the course of three ‘labs’ throughout the 25/26 programme: in the October half term, the February half term, and April Easter holidays. The programme is free to attend, with travel expenses for the programme paid at £10 per session.
Ebbsfleet Design Group is delivered in partnership with the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation.
If you’re aged 15–21 and live in or near Ebbsfleet (including Dartford, Greenhithe, Swanscombe, Northfleet & Gravesend), you can join Ebbsfleet Design Group.
As part of the group, local young people will:
- Learn new design and practical skills using recycled and re-purposed materials
- Take part in creative workshops with professional artists and designers who put sustainability at the heart of their practice
- Meet and collaborate with other young people interested in sustainable art and design
- Help design the new garden city in Ebbsfleet
The full dates and times of the programme are as follows:
October Half Term Lab
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- Tuesday 21st October, 11am-4pm
- Wednesday 22nd October, 9am-4pm
- Thursday 23rd October, 11am-4pm
February Half Term Lab
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- Tuesday 17th February, 11am-4pm
- Wednesday 18th February, 11am-4pm
- Thursday 19th February, 11am-4pm
April Lab
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- Tuesday 14th April, 11am-4pm
- Wednesday 15th April, 11am-4pm
- Thursday 16th April, 11am-4pm
- Friday 17th April, 11am-4pm
They are free to attend with refreshments and travel costs provided.
Sign up here – no experience necessary! We will continue to accept new sign ups after sessions have begun.
Rana Khazbak
Rana’s research focuses on understanding young people’s experiences of inequalities and the policy, social, place, and institutional factors that produce these inequalities. She uses youth-centred participatory methodologies aimed at amplifying youth voices in research and policymaking. She is particularly interested in collaborating with community groups and using research findings to advocate for policy and practice changes.
Rana is a Departmental Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy at the University of Oxford and hold a PhD in Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). They also hold an MSc in Public Policy from UCL and an MSc in Social Policy Research from LSE.
Find out more here.
RESOLVE Collective
RESOLVE work between architecture, engineering, technology and art, using interactive community programmes and the creation of public works as a means of addressing social challenges. They’re behind numerous projects, workshops, publications, exhibitions and panels that have taken place in the UK and across the world, all seeking to realise more just and equitable futures for the built environments we live in.
Find out more here.
Flimsy Works
Flimsy make spaces that connect communities to the natural environment, developing designs closely with end-users and for self-builders. Their projects make the most of existing or readily-available materials, arranging these with care to make playful structures that touch the earth lightly and tell stories about places and the people who use them.
Find our more here.