Tollington Initiative
1997–1998

Date
1997–1998

Name Of Project
Tollington Initiative

Client’s Name
LMU

Category
Urban

A report by the University of North London for the London Borough of Islington and the residents of the Tollington Estate. The ‘Physical Environment’ team (including community engagement and consultation) was led by Steven McAdam & Christina Norton with post grad students from the School of Architecture & Interior Design

The Tollington Initiative represents the first attempt to set out a multi-stranded approach to the regeneration of a neighbourhood – integrating social, economic and physical transformation within a coherent framework.

It involved a committed attempt to construct a community-led regeneration strategy for 5 council estates covering the largest concentration of social housing in the London Borough of Islington.

Our approach for the physical aspects of the project concentrated on establishing a process of design and procurement using new planning tools and systems of measurement which would be able to properly involve all participants.

There was therefore ‘no master plan’, but rather a series of inter related and interlocking projects, each of which would be able to evolve to fulfill its own particular requirements, guided by a shared vision of what Tollington could become.

The project set a benchmark for meaningful consultation. Public reviews and events held on site and at the university created a true exchange and enabled sophisticated dialogue, capacity building and empowerment.

The vision agreed with the community laid down socio-spatial structures that could over time develop into solid action plans.

The constructs included strategies and principals for re-claiming space, building for individuation, piloting projects, re-skinning blocks, de-paternalising and re-urbanising and the estate, blurring the edges, repolarizing the public realm, reprogramming the buildings to move beyond a monoculture and reconnecting and estate back into the city.