Glimpses of a Possible Future

We catch up with Jo Harvey (Sustainable Wantage) to talk about climate action and community support. From food projects to high street spaces, we discuss making a more sustainable future, one town at a time. 

A talk with Natty Mark Samuels (The African School) on education, astronomy, and community in The Leys. We discuss representation and the value of access to local spaces.

Adrian Sell (Oxford Wood Recycling) on tackling wood waste and building skills. We touch on sustainability, local community, and creating pathways into work.

We speak with Marta Lomza (CAG Oxfordshire) and Paula Fontaine (Body Mind Soul) on the power of community gardens. We explore how community gardens promote wellbeing and the need for long-term access to land.

We hear from Yasmin Sidhwa (Mandala Theatre Company) on storytelling for social justice. We get into why representation matters and how the organisation makes space for unheard voices.

Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani and Lauren Corona (YWMP) on creating safer music spaces and holding space for young people to create and grow in confidence. We discuss misogyny in music and why dedicated music spaces matter.

We’re in conversation with Micaela Tuckwell (Ultimate Picture Palace) on saving Oxford’s community cinema. We discuss the importance of the UPP in the East Oxford community and how listening to multiple voices has made the cinema stronger.

We chat with Laura Harte (The Berin Centre) on building a community hub for all in Berinsfield. We explore social infrastructure, local growing, and designing spaces that truly respond to community needs.

We're back for a second season of Glimpses of a Possible Future, talking to local people doing important work around Oxfordshire. People bringing communities together and tackling some of the biggest issues of our time, rooted in place and stewarding or reanimating space.

We spoke with Alex Towler and Sammy-Jo Hagan, Co-founder and Architect at Transition by Design, about their role in incubating Makespace Oxford, and building a co-operative architecture practice that operates at the intersection between architecture, design and social change practice.

Sammy-Jo and Alex shared the value of ‘walking the talk’ when it comes to democratising design and development. As a Worker Cooperative, Transition by Design’s members take decisions collectively through a Consent process, which creates a sense of shared ownership and develops the tools and skills needed to democratise how our towns and cities can be developed.

During the conversation we touched on TbD’s wide ranging portfolio of work from community led housing, action research and meaningful community engagement to the low carbon retrofit of existing building stock at both a local as well as a national and strategic scale.

Sammy-Jo and Alex offered up the ingredients of a people-centred approach to design, using the tool of a Community Design Review Panel, which prioritises local needs and the accountability of design teams: