Bartlett Associate Professors Lead Project to Create Space for Young Women at Olympic Park

The new Waterden Green Space for Teenage Girls will be sited near the Copper Box Arena and Here East, as part of the new East Wick residential development on the Olympic Park. Studio Gil was selected by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) to take on the project. 

The design brief for the space included consultation with teenage girls and young women from Elevate Youth Voice, with particular attention paid to flexibility, inclusivity and female-centred design.

Black Females in Architecture, co-directed by Bartlett Associate Professor and Director of Decolonising and Decarbonising, Neba Sere, will act as Engagement Lead on the project. The project team as a whole is majority-led by women and people from the global majority; landscape architect Untitled Practice, structural engineer Simple Works and lighting designer Light Follows Behaviour make up the rest of the project team.

Pedro Gil said:

“We are thrilled to lead such an impactful project with an amazing team at every level. It is rare to be given such an opportunity to help shape public space in a way that will prioritise the voices of teenage girls. We must set a new standard for female-centred design that could affect communities around the country and perhaps the world."

The project takes place in an area that has undergone extensive and rapid change in recent years, with the development of the Olympic Park, the migration of creative and educational organisations to the area, including UCL, and the rapid development of residential housing. Neba Sere commented,

“The project is sited in a highly contested area of London, where there has been a lot of change due to regeneration and gentrification. As a result, many young Black women feel disenfranchised and unwelcome in their local spaces. The process is just as important as the outcome, built on co-production and design, with the team facilitating a vision shaped by young women from the onset of defining and writing the brief to design and delivery of the project."

Pedro Gil is a registered architect and Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and leads design studio UG10 on the school’s Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1) programme with Neba Sere. He is the founder and director of Studio Gil, a London-based architecture studio. He was appointed by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm, as well as a member of Architects for Change, the RIBA Expert Advisory Group which advises on matters relating to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. 

Neba Sere is a spatial practitioner, Associate Professor, and Director of Decolonising and Decarbonising at The Bartlett School for Architecture. She leads UG10 with Pedro Gil. She is co-director of Black Females in Architecture, a social enterprise and membership network founded to advocate for better diversity, race, and gender equity in the built environment. She is also co-lead of decosm collective, working to decolonise city-making through collaborations that aim to respond to the widespread concerns around social, environmental and spatial inequalities in the built environment.

More information

• Read more about the project at Architect's Journal
• Visit Studio Gil's website
• Visit Black Females in Architecture's website
• Visit Neba Sere's UCL profile
• Learn more about Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1)

Image: Drawing by Studio Gil