Representation in practice - actions speak louder than words

URBED is an urban design company based in Manchester, working across the UK. Senior Consultant Vicky Payne reflects on how the practice tries to operate with representation in mind and the next steps they are planning to take.

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and the resulting resurgence of interest in the Black Lives Matter movement, many of us have reflected on what more we could be doing to fight for an equal and fair society. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. Everyone has different levels of influence, different spaces in which they can affect change and different resources (money, energy, time) to contribute. As individuals I think everyone at URBED is personally reflecting on what role they can play, but we are also examining what more we can do as a business.

It shouldn’t be necessary to explain why representation in the built environment profession is important. We all live in this world, and the groups of people designing places should reflect the people living in them. As Jane Jacobs said:

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody”

It also makes sense for us commercially. Statistically speaking it’s not possible that the ‘best people’ for jobs in the industry are those that carry the same characteristics as the people currently dominating our profession. If you’re not recruiting from all available candidates you are limiting the potential of your business. It should not be framed as being ‘nice’ or offering special treatment, it’s about clearing the way so that everyone has equal access and opportunity. This is not going “above and beyond” it’s working towards what should be a baseline level of justice.

It’s worth addressing language briefy. When I wrote the first draft of this I talked about “diversity” and “inclusion”. I felt the need to explain that I meant “diversity” in the broadest sense, incorporating race, class, gender, sexuality, ability etc. Discussing this with colleagues highlighted that focusing on such cataegories and classifications in the first place is “looking down the wrong end of the telescope”. The word “inclusion” also implies that there is someone doing the “including”- a gatekeeper granting access. We’re working to dismantle gates that should never have been erected in the first place. I have used the word “representation” as an alternative where I wasn’t able to rephrase the sentence completely.

Hulme consultation event

URBED’s Manchester office grew out of the tenant’s movement in Hulme in the 90’s and right from the start integrated issues of social justice and sustainability into urban design. In that respect, our heart has always been in the right place. However, it would be foolhardy as a business to assume that a) just because you have good intentions you are doing the right thing and b) that there is an “end point” to becoming an ethical business. It is important that we continually challenge ourselves to do better.

In this blog post I want to set out some of the ways we currently try to operate and provide an idea about the next steps we’re looking to take following this recent period of reflection.

It is worth explaining that URBED is a limited company operating under cooperative rules. This means that almost all of our employees are also directors and we run the business collectively through monthly meetings. This business model has boosted our ability to develop the approaches below; a flat structure creates a safe space to challenge each other’s thinking, and as a smaller company we’re able to make changes in an agile way.

What We’re Doing

Open Minded Hiring

Although for technical roles we tend to request a certain level of academic qualification, we are careful to include the phrase “or equivalent” and focus more on the competencies and skills that we want to see from an applicant than specific academic attainment. We’re always open to interviewing people who have had non-linear or non- traditional routes into the profession, and we take seriously any skills gained in roles outside of the industry. For design roles our selection for interview is based heavily on the submitted portfolio – so applicants are judged on the quality of their work.

In our job descriptions we ensure that information is provided about our enhanced policies for parental leave and time off to care for dependents as well as a highlighting our Mental Health and Wellbeing, Flexible Working and Equal Opportunities policies. Generally, we’re trying to create a situation where no one is deterred from applying.

At interview stage we have a set of questions to guide the conversation and make sure we are finding out what we need to know, but we try to make the tone of the interview as informal as possible. There are no questions designed to catch anyone out and we go into it with the intention of trying to get the best out of the applicant; we’ll ask follow up questions and dig deeper if we sense that there are relevant experiences or skills they haven’t shared with us.

We always try to provide clear and constructive feedback to unsuccessful applicants, letting them know where we thought they did well and areas they could improve. This hopefully increases their chances of getting the next role they interview for.

Flexible Working

Even prior to COVID we had an increasingly flexible approach to working. Over the last couple of years, we have invested in equipment and software to ensure that every employee can work remotely. It really hit home when lockdown came into force how much progress we had made, as everyone transitioned fairly seamlessly into a new way of working.

The URBED office

The ability to work remotely combined with our policies around part time and flexible working hopefully mean that employees are able to integrate their role at URBED into their lives in a way that is manageable and balanced. This obviously makes things easier for people with caring responsibilities, commitments outside work or those with chronic illness, but as with all these measures it really benefits everyone at URBED.

Fair Internships

We believe that internships should be accessible, should be awarded on a fair basis, and should not be economically exploitative. We believe that properly structured and resourced internships make a positive contribution to our industry by helping to develop the skills of new urbanists and by giving access to the industry to people from a broad range of backgrounds.

We do not offer unstructured internships or placements, i.e. those not undertaken as part of a course of education, or work-based scheme supported by the EU, Universities or reputable charities. This is because we feel unpaid and unstructured internships and placements unfairly exclude those who do not have other forms of financial support, or the social networks that allow them to gain access to professional firms.

We will not use internships as a means of providing cheap labour. A reliance on unpaid internships to service fee-earning work is exploitative of the individuals involved and damaging to our industry. We believe that if we expect to be paid as a company for providing a professional service, we should expect the same for the individuals who carry out the work. URBED has a long track record of employing recent graduates and helping them to develop their career. If we need additional staff, we will take a suitable candidate on as an employee – either temporary or permanent - and pay them a reasonable salary.

Mentoring and Outreach

Alongside internships we also offer shorter placements for school and college students to get a feel for working in the urban design industry. We’ve hosted a number of students through the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s “Bright Green Future” initiative, a five- year leadership programme for young people aged between 14 and 17, intended to equip them to be the environmental decision makers of the future.

Last summer we hosted our first student through Arts Emergency, an award-winning mentoring charity and network helping marginalised young people to overcome barriers to participation and success in the creative and cultural industries. The tagline on their website is “the alternative old boy network”. They are a fantastic organisation and we’d encourage any business in the built environment to take a look at their website and get involved.

It is really important when hosting students to make sure you are providing financial support for any travel, food or equipment needs they might have – offering the placement itself is not enough if students can’t afford to get there!

Arts Emergency student Hannah’s urban greening project

A number of our senior staff are engaged in mentorship programmes, partnering with younger people and offering them support and advice about how to get into the industry. We have also participated in a number of outreach projects with schools. Two of our team ran a series of workshops through the RIBA Architecture Ambassadors scheme at a primary school in Oldham, investigating the local built heritage and working with them to design and construct their own buildings out of cardboard.

The “fun house” designed by a primary school student in Oldham

I think it’s common in any industry to get a little jaded or to lose passion for your chosen profession from time to time. Apart from the benefits to the students, working with younger people and welcoming them into your business is an incredible way to re-light that spark. They bring so much energy and curiosity and it’s always such a pleasure to see their work at the end.

Aside from the way we operate as a business, our work also has a significant role to play in working towards greater equality in the built environment.

Designing with Communities

URBED’s approach is to urban design is very focused around consultation and participation. We don’t tend to masterplan and then consult, but try to design in a collaborative way with our clients, stakeholders and communities. We believe the people of a place are its most valuable resource. It is fundamental for local people to be involved in decisions about their towns and neighbourhoods - their input is hugely enriching to the process.

Facilitating Glasshouse urban design training with residents of St Raphaels Wembley

We have refined and tested a number of processes over years through our design work and via training courses developed and run for The Glasshouse. We have developed a rich palette of tools that can be applied in a flexible way to all kinds of projects to allow meaningful collaboration and co-design. These include walkabouts, roundtable workshops, knowledge building presentations, mapping and sketching exercises, design sessions (often with plasticine!) and exhibitions. These techniques are supported by digital tools like websites and survey platforms. We’re currently exploring a wider range of digital, socially distant or time distant consultation techniques following COVID.

Sustainability

We have always tried to achieve environmental and social sustainability in our projects, whether they are at the scale of an individual building or a strategy for a whole region. We take a holistic approach which considers energy and resource use, climate, and transport, but also design quality and economics. We see sustainability not just as an environmental issue but as an economic and social issue that can help create healthy, safe and cohesive communities. The next step in this thinking is the concept of “climate justice”, which I will touch on in the next section.

A home retrofit workshop for householders

We have developed expertise in low-carbon architectural design, particularly in the retrofit of existing buildings. We see this as integral to the environmental sustainability and the long-term success of urban areas, improving health and well-being as well as climate and wider environmental outcomes. Again, this has a strong social and economic aspect and some of our recent work has looked at low-carbon interventions in the context of fuel poverty, health and quality of life. We collaborate frequently with Carbon Coop, an an energy services and advocacy co-operative that helps people and communities to make the radical reductions in home carbon emissions necessary to avoid runaway climate change.

Representative Events

As part of our work we put together events. For the last few years we have run a Manchester based event series called “4x4”, a set of fun, challenging talks about cities and urban issues. In putting together these events we work hard to make sure that we do not create the all-white, all-male panels that crop up so often in the industry. Largely we are able to do this through our own networks and contacts, but we have also found it really helpful to work with organisations like BAME in Property to find great speakers outside our networks. We don’t do this to be worthy – we want to create the most interesting events that we can for our attendees, and having a variety of different voices on our panels is part of that.

2018 Marked the centenary of votes for (some) women and we celebrated with a non-male identifying 4x4.

What We’d Like to Do Next

There’s a lot that we want to do, and recent events have galvanised us towards a more concerted effort.

In terms of our business practices we are currently looking to undertake a series of internal training and education sessions to examine our structures and processes, rebuilding them where necessary. We go into this with an awareness that such training is important, but on it’s own isn’t suffiecient to create lasting, meaningful change. It would be very easy to undertake training and then unconcioulsy revert to type, thinking we have “done our bit”. We’d like any training we undertake to be the start of a much longer process.

We would like to expand awareness about mentoring opportunities in the office, so that all staff are aware that they can provide a beneficial role as a mentor. This might mean an internal skill share, where staff who have worked with mentees talk about their experience and explain how the mentorship was arranged.

We are looking to consciously expand our networks and amplify voices within the industry. So far this has meant looking at who we follow on Twitter and making a concerted effort to follow a wider range of accounts and organisations with a broader range or perspectives on urban issues. Going forward we would like to expand the networking and CPD events that we attend, whether they are in person or online. Ultimately, we’d love to get to a point where we are working with a broader range of clients and collaborators.

We are looking at mental health. Last year we shared our Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy and signed up to the “Where’s your Head At?” workplace manifesto. Part of the manifesto talks about building a diverse and inclusive worksplace, leading to a happier and healthier environment where people feel free to bring their whole selves to work. We are in the process of organising for two members of staff to become Mental Health First Aiders and we are keen to make sure that this training intersects with the work we are doing on diversity and inclusion.

In terms of our project work and research we would like to more deeply integrate issues of social justice into our approach to sustainability. In September 2019 we started a live internal project on the Climate Emergency. We are currently exploring how an awareness of the Climate Emergency can be integrated into everything we do. We have developed a plan for knowledge building, agreeing values and setting objectives. We then intend to develop an approach to the Climate Emergency in all areas of our work (spatial planning, masterplanning, architecture and landscape architecture), ultimately producing guidance and tools. Our intention as we embark on this plan is to focus on the concept of “Climate Justice” which frames global warming as a political and ethical issue. Climate Justice acknowledges that the impacts of climate change will not be borne equally or fairly.

Final Thoughts

I reflected at the start of this post on how everyone has different levels of influence and varying abilities to affect change. The fact that this has turned into such a long blog post illustrates just how much power we have as businesses. Urban design practitioners tend to be a utopian bunch, we talk a great deal about community, placemaking and sustainability - we want to create a better world. I think it’s important in the coming decades that we don’t allow ourselves to be lured into complacency by our own good intentions.

We have power, we have influence and we need to continually challenge ourselves to use it in the best way possible.