Designing Spaces to be Welcoming and Safe for Women and Girls.
By Rebecca Nichols
As we approach International Women’s Day, Rebecca Nichols, junior researcher at Neighbourly Lab, reflects on one of her stand out projects from last year – one which focused on designing spaces to be welcoming and safe for women and girls. A topic close to her heart that she is passionate to drive change for. At Neighbourly Lab, we’re passionate that all spaces should be designed to be inclusive of and cater to diverse interests and needs.
The context
Living in London certainly has its benefits, with its job prospects, the beautiful amalgamation of cultures, and the public transport system to name a few. But one thing that does stand out as missing, is the infrastructure that feels designed for me, and particularly the spaces that feel safe as a young woman. This is certainly an issue not only in London, but across the UK and indeed world-wide.
When we talk about infrastructure, this can include anything from new flat complexes, schools and path networks, to parks, community hubs and public toilets. Up until now, most of our world has been designed by a small minority of men, creating infrastructure that does not always accurately reflect the needs of local communities, or serve them as they would like. In particular, our existing infrastructure is not designed for women or girls. According to Make Space For Girls, a charity that campaigns for girls and young women to be included in the design and development of parks and public spaces: there is “not one outdoor facility used predominantly by girls or designed with them in mind” 1 . This is a shocking statistic, and one we should be working hard to address.
This lack of provision for over half of the British population 2, has significant knock-on effects across our communities. For example, unequal use of green spaces and reaping the physical, emotional, and psychological benefits of being in nature. Similarly, feelings of unsafety have become a key reason for many people to avoid walking alone at night and can feel nervous at night in places like train stations and public toilets. With narrow pathways that have high fencing, or areas with dim or no lighting, spaces can feel uncomfortable and unsafe, not exclusively but especially for women and girls.
One need only look at the eye tracking data (below) from a recent study to understand the differences in how safe women and girls can feel when out at night time:
A Reflection of Lived Experience”
What can be done?
Well, we consider that too many of these designs have been made without women being involved. So one of the most impactful ways to solve these issues is by directly and meaningfully engaging with women and girls in future design and development of spaces. This is necessary throughout the development process, to help ensure that the new, or redesigned, spaces will feel both welcoming and safe for everyone in the local community. This is why co-design is a brilliant tool for developers, as it is a way to directly engage, and build connections, with members of the local community.
We view co-design as an ongoing, iterative process, which adapts to the specific local context, and ensures that design ideas are rooted in local knowledge and experience. In a recent co-design session that we facilitated on behalf of Hadley Property Group, a diverse group of women, of different ages and from different socioeconomic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, came up with creative design solutions to concerns they had around an upcoming mixed-use development in their local area. During this session, it was clear to both us and the developers that safety, accessibility and sustainability were key themes to focus on.
Within safety, the participants highlighted that lighting and the physical design of public spaces was crucial:
- Pathways should be open and not enclosed by narrow and tall fencing; this would ensure women don’t feel trapped in their environment.
- All paths and spaces should be well lit, allowing good visibility of their surroundings, and should encourage footfall, ensuring that other people are around and can see them should anything happen.
- Safety was also brought up within maintenance, as spaces that fall into disrepair and ruin are more likely to attract anti-social behaviour, and make people feel uncomfortable and unsafe to visit. Participants discussed this problem particularly with reference to toilets.
- They explored how accessible and culturally appropriate toilets are key to making an area welcoming, and should be designed in collaboration with women and girls. This would ensure that aspects such as having a baby-changing room separate to the toilets, or having a choice of toilets (e.g. male, female, gender-neutral, disabled), would be incorporated into the plans.
Making the development accessible to all was also discussed enthusiastically by the participants. This included:
- Ensuring pathways were wide and smooth, accommodating for both wheelchairs and buggies (including double-buggies). Making changes like this would ensure that everyone can use the same paths, something that is not the reality for many at the moment.
- Accessibility for these participants also meant making sure the site would be well connected with the surrounding local areas. This was presented as both a practical and an emotional challenge, as they talked about connection being both physical (i.e. pathways) and psychological (i.e. tying in with the culture and history of the area). The participants suggested that by embedding these connections within the new development, the site would allow everyone, but particularly women and girls, to feel welcome, and to know that they belong.
When exploring the site’s sustainability, the participants took this in very different ways. For some, it meant ensuring the environmental impact was minimal, and that nature was incorporated across the development, with community gardens or allotments being one of the many ideas that emerged. For others, the emphasis was on the sustainability and longevity of the site within the local area, and how this could be achieved through continued and active communication and engagement with the local community. Thinking long-term about not just the development but also the surrounding areas is the only way to ensure that new infrastructure complements what already exists
Where to go from here…
By addressing the physical problems that lead to women feeling unsafe and unwelcome, developments can pave the way for a new standard of working with and for communities. Currently only 31% of architects in the UK are female3. There is much work to be done to increase representation and ensure that gender-inclusivity is embedded throughout the design and creation of urban development. Spaces designed by, or in collaboration with, women, work better for everyone.4 If we move forward with a women-centred approach to development, we will also help our infrastructure to invite social connection, a key way for our communities to become more cohesive and happy.
- Walker & Clark, 2023, Make Space for Girls Research Report 2023 (p3)
↩︎ - ONS data https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/ethnicgroupbyageandsexenglandandwales/census2021#:~:text=Females%20make%20up%2051.0%25%20of,population%20of%20England%20and%20Wales. ↩︎
- Architects Registration Board https://arb.org.uk/new-data-from-arb-highlights-underrepresented-groups-in-the-architects-profession/ ↩︎
- Tracy Jooste https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/blogs/iwd-why-cities-designed-for-women-work-better-for-everyone ↩︎
To contact Rebecca email: rebecca@neighbourlylab.com