Scheme

Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has submitted a planning application for two new office buildings and landscaping in central Bristol. These will complement the existing building, known as Distillery 1 & 2, that are already occupied on site.

As part of our engagement, Meeting Place is supporting RLAM in ensuring the whole site leaves a positive legacy. This includes amplifying opportunities for the tenants and operators or Distillery 1&2 to work with local partners, as well as articulating the impact 3&4 will have on the city and building in networks of support through the planning process.

Strategy

A key part of this has been delivering a workshop with Ashton Park School across two interactive workshops, engaging 60 pupils. During this the Y9 pupils tackled a real-world brief, asked to design a hotel, office, open public space and commercial opportunities across the site plan, with focused on both the completed scheme and new proposals at Distillery.

The students explored what makes a place work, considering how people move through it, what makes them stay, what makes them feel safe or welcomed. Working in teams, they drew their final design and pitched their proposals to the client team, giving opportunity to build confidence in public speaking and presenting.

As part of our engagement for Distillery 3&4, we also ran a city design session with pupils at Knowle DGE School, a special education needs provision, in south Bristol.

Outcome

The ideas of young people have been shared with the project and client team, inspiring ideas around meanwhile uses and helping to deliver on wider social impact commitments to work with young people across the city.