Hello, Dieter. How are you? 

 

David, I'm good; thank you. 

 

Good. I wanted to talk to you about a fascinating project of yours that has just opened, in February, on an estate in Hammersmith - Nourish Hub, which I think is a kind of community kitchen with some other spaces. Could you tell us a little bit about that for people who don't know the project?

 

Absolutely. Nourish is a fantastic example of a partnership between a really ambitious charity… 

 

…that's UK Harvest, is it?

 

…UK Harvest, that's right, who don't have a permanent home; a local authority, who have some high street that's difficult to let out, and in a problematic area. And I suppose the GLA in their forward-thinking and funding – that architects can be appointed to help bring this partnership together to realize a real resource for the local community, do some real meaningful regeneration that responds to local need, and captures the opportunity of the area and of the community. And this is really at the heart of what we do at RCKa – bringing this partnership of people and organizations together to help make stuff happen. To realize opportunities. We're really proud to do stuff that sits outside of the standard role of the architect. And the final point on this I suppose is that I think the role of the architect as ‘professional generalists’ – I think is the phrase we use - it just has so much more to give. And so, this is a great example of where architects can add their skills to help make something meaningful happen.

 

And this essentially is about food poverty, isn't it? It's meeting a need for food banks, which is shockingly high in London - I read that it's an estimated 8.4 million people having insufficient food across the UK. But that's essentially part of this, the mission of Nourish Hub, is it?

 

That's absolutely correct. Added to that, the ridiculous amount of food waste that goes to landfill - and organizations who are fully aware of that. UK Harvest is based in Chichester and have made some partnerships with local farms and supermarkets on the back of this seemingly obvious solution, partnering food waste, and distributing food waste and surplus foods to people in need - people who need food. That's borne out of a very simple idea, really. But why didn't someone do something about it? That was what Yvonne, CEO of UK Harvest - identified as an issue and an opportunity. She's got such drive, and she just kept pushing the thing: ‘let's make this happen’. ‘Let's resolve let’s address this issue’. But it is such a rich project - there's lots of other layers to it as well, along a similar vein.

 

There's an educational side as well, isn't there, in terms of teaching cooking?

 

Yes. So, alongside food poverty there is also nutrition, and educational elements. And also, again, it is more generally about wellbeing, social isolation, and also about employment and skills and vocational opportunities; to bring the community into a space, give them a sense of ownership and give them meaningful roles. They're really keen that, after some of the revenue funding was also identified alongside the capital funding for the project, and three years after we open, that, by that point, they would have identified local people who will be the chefs and the managers of the facility, and they'll basically hand it over for the community to run. So, you're creating real local jobs and a lot of stakeholder buy-in, because they're from the area and they do things for the local people in the area, which is a truly sustainable model. 

It's got incredible social buy-in as well as economic buy-in. And it makes perfect sense. And that's kind of what we've been talking about for a long time about engagement. Engagement is not just a kind of a tick-box. Engagement is very much an end in itself; it's not just a means to an end, it's an end, such that it encourages that buy-in. It allows you to identify latent potential, and to capture and harness that. And you get that buy-in at the beginning. So, before the project even opened, you've got people really keen to get involved and contribute their time and resource. And that's what I've seen at Nourish. 

And what's fantastic about Nourish also, I suppose, is where it sits on this fault line between the existing housing estates, which is in the shadow of Grenfell, and then Holland Park opposite with these incredibly valuable homes, is that we managed to, with the local community, design a facility that encourages everybody to attend, everybody to be involved, and everybody to participate and give their time and feel comfortable and welcome. That was really at the heart of the traditional role of the architect, for us; when we designed it, we wanted to make sure it was attractive and welcoming to everybody. So that is where, I suppose, we used our more traditional architectural skills to the sort of flavour and character of the space, to be really welcoming for everyone.

 

Have you been down since it's opened? 

 

I've been three times actually…

 

What's it been like? What's the atmosphere like?

 

It's fantastic. I mean, a couple of times I was there it was for a more formal event. We had the Duchess of Kent come down and she opened it for the royal opening. And that was lovely. I mean, just to see the smiles on all the volunteers faces. Just to see how proud people were of it. So the people have already kind of bought into it. But just to see that – that was really lovely. And then I've been on a more normal day where we had an educational session going on for young people. They have people who identify children with additional needs within schools. They brought this particular group in and a kind of a common thing of food and eating food and preparing food was a real way of bringing them out of their shell. And it was great to see and hear their kids and young people just having a lot of fun.  So that was going on on one side of the facility. And on the other side, we'd gathered a few people together who are interested from local authorities and public practice. They're interested in the model. So, we were doing a very quiet little presentation on the other side, while you've also got the commercial kitchen humming away to the other side of us, knocking out hundreds of meals with some of their volunteers – there is a guy who’s got an incredible bike and distributes in the local area. So, it's just great to see so much going on. And I would encourage anyone who doesn't know the project to look on Nourish's Instagram feed, because that's the real buzz you get after a project like this completes. You just see that it's producing such positive outcomes all the time.

 

Yeah. That's what it's all about, isn't it, for you guys?

 

Yeah, absolutely. It is a great little example.

 

And lastly, I mean, just on that replicability of the project - a sort of sad in a sense replicability because it's so needed - is the GLA talking to other areas, other local authorities that may have similar sites available for similar projects?

 

I'm not sure how active the GLA are. They're incredibly supportive. And the Good Growth and similar funds are fantastic. You know, the mayoral schemes are really to be applauded. Much needed. But I think that the action, in, some of these grassroots organizations, and local authorities or other organizations, I think they have to apply for these things. And they have to have a little bit of, I don't know if ‘traction’ is the right word, but momentum to demonstrate support, so they can apply for this sort of funding. So, I don't know. We are having that discussion. I'm aware of other opportunities and other organizations. There's loads of amazing organizations looking at things through food, and I'm also aware of various conversations that can come out of this project where other local authorities are talking to other groups. But it really is about that partnership. It can't be done by any one individual. It's not a simple matter of throwing money at something. It needs that local group and that energy - it needs that energy, actually, and drive of an individual or a group, 

 

But the architect is good and central in that process?  

 

Yeah, we find we find the architect's role can be incredibly important to help bring people together, both having a common understanding. And also, you know, we are eternal optimists, generally, architects. So that helps in what can seem a bureaucratic, opaque kind of financial, structured environment where it just seems an impossibility for things to happen. You know, we go through this every day, and we understand things can happen, and a lot of that is will and determination to make things happen as well. So, I think an architect is well placed alongside the professional skills, obviously; knowing the technical things that you need to resolve. So, we have that in our armoury; that confidence that, that side of it, that is “don't worry about, we've got that, let's get you in the same room with this person and understand what they need to demonstrate, to be able to help fund this and what you can do to contribute and where that common ground is”. And let's shape both an economic and an architectural and a social opportunity, together. And that's certainly what we did at the Nourish Hub. It was as much about shaping a building around a business plan. So, we did it all together. And we did work with Inner Circle Consulting - ICC - was on the business planning side of things as well, so that they're great. And I think we've got a great pairing there – we’re very strategic in our thinking and well aligned in that sense. So, they supported on working with us with the spaces in the business plan to make sure that what we came up with had the best chance of success. And it could tick as many boxes as possible

 

Well, It's fantastic. Massive congratulations. It's a sort of synthesis of so much that good architecture is about, isn't it? And sort of nourishing everybody concerned, by the looks of things, in every sense.

 

It is Indeed. 

 

Thanks for your time and for explaining the project and yeah, congratulations again. 

 

You're more than welcome. 

 

Thanks Dieter

 

Bye, bye.