Infrastructuring Urban Regeneration. Reimagining regeneration practice for architects and community organisers

This practice-led research extends the concept of the embedded practitioner through proposing and developing a new role within the field of urban regeneration; the Architect_Organiser. The A_O is a new role that combines participatory practice and community organising, challenging the knowledge dichotomy of the professional versus the non-expert and demonstrating principles for a reconfiguration of urban regeneration.

Beginning from the premise that data and information form barriers to agency for non-experts in urban regeneration processes, the methodology of infrastructuring is used as a framework to incorporate the key concepts of participation and data and information infrastructures. Through critical reflection on a long-term relationship with local residents, the responsible local authority and external partners on a live regeneration project in east London, the research uses the concepts of working “within and against” to investigate conflicting relationships between participation, representative democracy and development finance.

Beginning from its geographical context in London, UK, the research demonstrates the need for the establishment of a critical and productive participatory regeneration infrastructure. Understanding that such a reconfiguration is not possible under the conditions of neoliberal capitalism, the Architect _Organiser demonstrates principles for the contemporary practitioner to bring about transformative change alongside community and non-expert groups through developing tools with which to evaluate their own practice.