Might Urban Rooms in Dudley support local people to shape possible futures?
Urban Rooms are spaces where people can go to understand, debate and get involved in the past, present and future of where they live, work and play.
Image above from work developed by students involved in an Extinction Rebellion Architecture Studio at Birmingham City University in collaboration with CoLab Dudley in 2022.
Urban Rooms have popped up in 27 places across the UK, with 12 more in the pipeline. They are an idea that was recommended in a national review of architecture and the built environment undertaken in 2013, led by Sir Terry Farrell.
CoLab Dudley, the social lab which convenes the network behind Dudley Creates, uses many of the same tools as Urban Rooms. The West Midlands Combined Authority is keen to test out an Urban Room in Dudley. We’ve decided to experiment with two!
Urban Room Dudley will be located in Provision House on Dudley High Street, stewarded by the staff and volunteers there. It will be open 2 days a week, on weekdays in the daytime.
Urban Room Unbound will be located in the CoLab Dudley space on Dudley High Street, stewarded by CoLab Dudley team members. It will be open on occasional weekdays, and host Urban Room activities which take place on evenings and at weekends.
We aim to work with 12 or more local creatives who will lead open, free Urban Room activities designed to nurture our relationship with place. Activities might include walks, tours, collective drawings, What If? drawings, urban sketching, mapping with our senses, photography, model making, experimentation, storytelling, poetry or play.
Between October 2024 and March 2025 we’ll host a collective enquiry asking: how might Urban Rooms in Dudley support wider and deeper participation in the shaping of possible futures for our town and neighbourhoods?
There will be 6 enquiry sessions (see below).
An Urban Rooms Dudley stewardship group is being convened by Time Rebel Lorna Prescott, who is also a member of the CoLab Dudley team. It is funded in part by the West Midlands Combined Authority, and also through the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Emerging Futures programme.
How you can join in
There are various ways to join in, you can choose one, two or more!
Visit an Urban Room. Pop in to one of the Urban Rooms in Dudley to explore exhibitions and ideas in your own time. There will be Urban Room hosts around who you can talk to. Opening times will be added to the Dudley Creates calendar and the Urban Rooms page when we have the spaces ready.
Create or discover: Take part in an Urban Rooms activity. These are being shared on the Urban Rooms page, Dudley Creates calendar, Eventbrite and social media. There will be at least 10 different activities between November 2024 and March 2025.
Host a creative activity or exploration: Submit an idea to host an Urban Rooms activity. A £9,5000 budget is available to share between creatives who would like to host activities. This will be allocated in November 2024. See this post for more information.
But anytime between now and March 2025 you may offer to host an activity as part of your job, your research or studies, or as a volunteer. We’d really love to hear from you and can chat about your idea with you. Contact Lorna Prescott by email: Lorna@dudleycvs.org.ukDive deeper: become an Urban Rooms detectorist and join monthly shared explorations and experiences. These activities will be designed to cultivate an appreciation of the value of all kinds of knowledges and perspectives in relation to possible futures for our communities, habitats and built environments. Each session will be different, though each will invite observation and reflection of different kinds, to open out the enquiry. In taking part you will be expected to learn by doing and reflect upon the process, emerging patterns and potential. The dates are as follows:
Thur 31 October 2024, 6pm-8pm at CoLab Dudley: Opening the Enquiry
Wed 13 November 2024, 6pm-8pm at CoLab Dudley: Long Term Thinking for Dudley’s Long Term Plan
Tues 3 December 2024, 6pm-8pm at CoLab Dudley: 100 Ways to be a Good Ancestor
Wed 15 January 2024, 6pm-8pm at CoLab Dudley: Who gets to imagine and create?
Thur 27 February 2025, 6pm-8pm at CoLab Dudley: Shared learning and sense making
Wed 26 March 2025, 6pm-8pm @ CoLab Dudley: What Is More Possible Now?
You don’t have to come to every session. We simply ask that if you do come along to any session, you share your learning and reflections to the collective enquiry. Sign up here.