ABSTRACT
Private social agencies that are engaged with the provocative design of social spaces are filling the voids in the city – subsidised housing, students, young people, temporary occupation, pop-ups. These are people and activities for whom the historic urban environment is valuable; it is interesting, full of character and provides a direct link to their own personal and to the collective memory. They feel that they can make a difference, not through the traditional craft of architecture but through non-antagonistic, small, local interventions, whether they be social, physical and/or temporal. As custodians of the built environment they use non-traditional models of practice to generate a feeling of civic responsibility within the local population of urban users and dwellers.
