Designing for community is hard. But it feels like a challenge that is unavoidable for any organization looking to create meaningful experiences for their customer - often, it serves as the beginning of the design brief for big retail flagships and hotel lobbies. Connect with the community! Create a warm community! And often what you wind up with is a big open space that's empty. Where did everybody go?
Well, a lot of them are here. At Maggie's Centre. Forgive the pretentious British spelling, but honestly, it's just how it's spelled.
Maggie's Centres are non-profit, community gathering places for people with problems large or small, related to cancer. The spaces are carefully designed. There are multiple locations, mostly in Scotland, and many are designed pro bono by big name architects, including Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. And this first center, the original one which was a renovation, is tiny. People bump into each other. They jostle each other to get to the coffee machine. They squeeze in to booths with support groups. And because of this, a patient finds herself going through life as usual, a normal person trying to maneouver through a crowded world - rather than an isolated cancer patient in an examination room all by herself.
A place designed for community that actually works. I know it's not a city or a large urban plaza, but it felt "right" enough to inspire learnings that might scale up:
1. Design for Community benefits from the unscripted. The agenda for your first-time visit is as follows:"You won’t have to fill out a form or book an appointment to come in. You can stay as long as you want. Wander from room to room. Read some of the literature. Talk to others who recognise how you’re feeing. Sit at the kitchen table and read your paper or write your shopping list. There are no rules or regulations as to what you have to do."
2. Design for Community builds on powerful, familiar rituals (rather than trying to start from scratch). We all have a collective set of shared experiences: walking in to someone's home and shaking their hand to say hello, leaning on the kitchen counter as you wait for your coffee. The center builds on these archetypal human experiences.
3. Design for Community creates opportunities to be on the outside looking in. What struck me about the Center was the multiple opportunities to be by yourself (not alone, but by yourself) and take it all in. Reflecting and spectating helps you fully appreciate participation.
4. Design for Community starts small and acts big. Fresh back from VeloCity, hosted by CEO for Cities, the importance of place and community is sitting heavy in my mind. What does it mean to effect change for something as big and complex as a city? I think we can learn from the small, nimble experimentation that is the Maggie Centre, maybe even more so than any best-in-class masterplan or urban policy. Human-scale consideration, design and participation is a powerful thing. And as we consider the future of our cities and communities, I sincerely hope it's the next big thing.
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