What has grass got to do with Local Neighbourhood recovery?
April 2021
By Mellis Haward
Did you know that the term "grass roots" comes from the fact that grass grows from its base, rather than from the tips of the leaves like most plants? Grass is adaptable as pasture because, when its tips are eaten by livestock, it doubles down and pushes out more growth.
As we slowly emerge from Lockdown and our high streets and cafes once again open their doors, we know that there's a need to ‘build back better' post-Covid. This recovery will face many challenges, and at neighbourhood scale there will sadly be some local and high-street business that will never reopen. We want to ask how the new hyper-locality enforced by Covid might help build grass-roots and community-led resilience in local neighbourhoods?
This question will be posed in Archio's second in a series of talks for The London Society, on the theme of ‘Changing Ways of Living’. Please join us THIS THURSDAY 22nd April with a panel discussion titled “Hyper Local London”.
We are delighted to have three brilliant speakers, each with a unique angle on the topics:
Vlad Bodogan of Architecture 00 who will introduce their study of 'Flexible Workspaces on Our High Streets'
Cristina Monteiro, Director of DK-CM, on themes of activity and connectedness as outlined in their report 'Expanding London’s Public Realm'
William Chamberlain, Founding Director of Creative Wick, who will introduce their Living Lab research
Image Credit: Agnese Sanvito from her Queue Series
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Queue outside The Cookery, a butchers on Stoke Newington High Street.