The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
The practice succinctly captured an identifiable spirit of place in one of London’s newest neighbourhoods through the eyes of its residents. Purposeful post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is notoriously hard to achieve and communicate. However, judges of the new award considered Village Stories – a portrait of life in Greenwich Millennium Village, to be a highly compelling and sophisticated project that elevated and enriched the POE process.
Conceived as a showpiece of regeneration to a masterplan originally devised by Swedish architect Ralph Erskine, Millennium Village is a riverside community extending along the eastern edge of the Greenwich Peninsula. In 2010, Jestico + Whiles, along with Peter Barber Architects and Studio 54, were selected to design and implement the final phases of Erskine’s masterplan. Former industrial brownfield land has been transformed into a residential district comprising nearly 1,800 homes, with a strong emphasis on street life and public space to encourage interaction between residents and cultivate a sense of community.
Over three months in 2023, Jestico + Whiles documented the thoughts and experiences of current residents and people working in the area. They were interviewed about family, friends and community, and asked to describe the visual and sensory characteristics of the neighbourhood, as well as their circumstances during lockdown and the post-pandemic opening-up.
This fieldwork culminated in an exhibition staged at Jestico + Whiles’ studio in October 2023. At its heart was a series of intimate portraits and interviews with six residents conducted by radio producer Flo Lines, accompanied by a captivating short film made by architect and filmmaker Dion Barrett, which poetically reflected on the relationship between people and place. ‘I think only after I’ve lived here, have I understood the meaning of community,’ commented Marija Fleurus, a resident of three years.
The short film drew special plaudits for its fluidly elegant construction and sympathetic treatment of its subjects. By encouraging people to speak for themselves and valorising real lives and experiences, it persuasively showed how communities are more than an assortment of buildings.
The exhibition was reinstalled in March 2024 as the inaugural display in the new community centre at the heart of the Millennium Village masterplan.
Ambitious in scope and sensitive in execution, Village Stories clearly stood out as an exemplary and transformative study in communicating the fundamental social purpose of architecture.
Shortlisted
- Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios for its new branding and website
- Foster + Partners for video series In the studio with…
- Howells for its rebranding
- Levitt Bernstein for The White Flats Peter Tábori film (a collaboration with David Miller Architects)
- Morris+Company for the Emergency Accommodation Campaign
- Stride Treglown for the Stand Tall with Rachel Bell podcast
Judges
- Wolfgang Buttress, artist, Wolfgang Buttress Studio
- Robert Fiehn, director, Robert Fiehn
- Laura Mark, university teacher, Sheffield School of Architecture
- Vanessa Norwood, architectural curator and consultant, Vanessa Norwood
- Jim Stephenson, architectural photographer and filmmaker, Jim Stephenson Photography & Films
