What is Productive City: Stratford Civic Hub

Productive City: Stratford Civic Hub is a collaborative project, designed by Fernanda Palmieri and Carsten Jungfer, architects, researchers, and lecturers at University of East London.

Focusing on Stratford Civic Centre, the project engages with Newham’s wider ambition to place people and planet at the heart of Stratford Town Centre’s regeneration. The main premise was to invite BA Architecture Year 2 and 3 students to explore a vital question: What might Stratford be missing?

The project brings together researchers, lecturers, students, and collaborators from Grow Studios, Creative Land Trust, Purcell Architects, and the London Borough of Newham, to create a shared space for dialogue, learning, and exploration around Stratford’s civic future.

One of the key inspirations for the project came from Grow Studios’ site in Hackney Wick - a grassroots, self-organised space that weaves together creative practice, social connection, and ecological awareness. This model encouraged the team to explore how similar values and approaches might inform the future of civic space in Stratford, with Alice Billing House at its centre.

Rather than presenting fixed solutions, the project is framed as a social-spatial investigation. By learning from Grow Studios and other examples of creative reuse. Students and collaborators are working to understand how buildings and civic infrastructure can support local engagement, new social relationships, and emerging ecologies - with Alice Billing House as a starting point for reimagining public life in Stratford. Find out more about the researchers and this and other projects at: weareaboard.com/Stratford-Civic-Centre

Key Events

What: Knowledge Exchange with Key Stakeholders
When: April – July 2024
Where: Alice Billing House, Grow Studios, and Grow Hackney
Description: A series of gatherings were held to share perspectives on the historical, political, and cultural contexts surrounding the sites. Stakeholders came together to discuss the potential of Alice Billing House and its surrounding area, helping to shape the direction of the project through open dialogue and collaborative reflection.

What: Guided Tour – From Hackney to Stratford
When: 8 October 2024
Where: Grow Hackney, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Alice Billing House
Description: 35 architecture BA Architecture students from the University of East London and Central Saint Martins, along with project partners, took part in a guided walk led by walking artist Simon Coles. The journey began at Grow in Hackney Wick, where participants were introduced to the history and ethos of the Grow Studios ecosystem. From there, the group made their way through Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, reflecting on the area’s evolving landscape through the lenses of art, social history, industrial heritage, and regeneration.

The walk concluded at Alice Billing House, where Purcell Architects provided a tour and shared insights into the building’s history and ongoing refurbishment. The aim of the walk was to foster cultural reflection and awareness, and to position Alice Billing House within a wider narrative of civic regeneration and educational engagement.

Walking Artist and Founder of Hackney Tours, Simon Cole says:

“For me the walk was very interesting for several reasons. Even though Alice Billing House is a relatively short distance away, it feels like another world. I am reminded of the hyper-local nature of the “London's’; where we spend most of our time. It was good to see the challenges involved in regenerating the building and exciting to think about the impact it could have in the area and how it could make the high street more of a destination and even pull in people from outside the borough’

What: Productive City: Stratford Civic Hub – Round Table
When: Friday, 18 October 2024
Where: UEL University Square, Stratford
Description: On the morning of the 18th of October, UEL hosted a meeting for collaborators, academics and students to come together and listen to each other. The morning started with 3 presentations from Newham Council (Stratford Vision), the Creative Land Trust and Purcell Architects (Alice Billings House project) followed by questions and discussion. UEL Unit A and CSM Studio 2 students came to the ‘table’ equipped with their very first impressions of Stratford Town Center and the openness to see things from different and new perspectives. It was a critical, insightful and inspiring conversation.

What: Presentation of Outcomes by Students and Knowledge Exchange
When: Thursday, 5 June 2025
Where: UEL University Square, Docklands Campus
Description: Students from Unit A (University of East London) and Studio 2 (Central Saint Martins) presented their design proposals, models, and methodologies developed over the course of the project. The event created a space for in-depth knowledge exchange, allowing partners and guests to engage directly with the students, discuss their responses to the site, and offer feedback. It was an opportunity to reflect on the project’s themes—civic space, creative reuse, and community regeneration—and to explore how these ideas might inform the future of Alice Billing House and its wider context.

Benefits of the project

By connecting academic researchers, students, local authorities, architects, and cultural organisations like Grow Studios and Creative Land Trust, the project has created a platform for cross- sector exchange. It offered students from UEL and Central Saint Martins the chance to engage with real sites and real challenges, learning through place-based enquiry rooted in Stratford’s evolving civic landscape.

Inspired by Grow Studios’ grassroots model in Hackney Wick and other sites, including in Porto, Portugal, participants explored how creative reuse, heritage buildings, and community values can come together to shape more inclusive and imaginative urban futures.

The project also helped bridge cultural and geographical divides, exemplified by a walking tour from Hackney to Stratford that encouraged reflection on the contrasts and possibilities - between neighbourhoods. The initiative positions Alice Billing House not simply as a heritage asset, but as a living site of potential: a place to test how public buildings might be reactivated as civic infrastructure in support of people, planet, and place.

Jordanna Greaves (Grow Studios) says:

“We were so impressed and inspired by the freedom with which students explored real challenges - and proposed innovative, responsive, and more hopeful futures. It was exciting to see familiar places reflected back through fresh perspectives and imaginative thinking. It reminded us of the value of civic spaces and what they could become. Although Grow Studios wasn’t built through an architect’s lens, the concepts align, creating space for people, culture and nature to come together in the city is vital for its civic wellbeing. Seeing how other cities have developed their civic infrastructure was equally inspiring, and we’ll definitely be carrying some of these ideas forward into our future cultural programming.”
We extend our sincere thanks to the academics and students. Your insightful feedback, bold ideas, and fresh perspectives have already shaped our thinking and will continue to guide us as the Alice Billing House project evolves!”

Fernanda Palmieri (UEL and CSM) says:

“London reinvent itself as a creative capital through the actions of pioneering creative organisations and people who took over vacant industrial spaces to make art, build businesses, creative communities and relationships, and over the past 5 decades created a cultural, creative and productive ecosystem that shaped the city. Grow Studios is one of these urban pioneers, whose activities produce social, cultural and economic value, and create spaces with and for people. As a case study and partner, Grow studios offers meaningful lenses through which the wider impact of artists, makers and productive spaces and communities can be understood, lenses through it we questioned and reimagined urban life in Stratford Town Center.”

Researchers:

Carsten Jungfer - Aboard and UEL
Fernanda Palmieri - Aboard, UEL and CSM
Oscar Brito-Gonzalez - CSM

Collaborators:

Jordana Greaves - Grow Studios
Margherite Metz - Grow Studios
Yves Blais - Creative Land Trust
Simon Cole - Hackney Tours
Alex Peacock - Purcell Architects
João Mendes - Purcell Architects
Shabana Qadir - London Borough of Newham

Students

Unit A - UEL BA Architecture design studio - academic year 2024-2025: Tutors: Carsten Jungfer and Fernanda Palmieri

Year 3: Baris Freed, Elizabeth Johns, Emanuelly Cardoso Santos, Katarzyna Szczegielniak, Marwah Ali, Amiran Khan, Sunamita Russu, Yogesh Mall.

Year 2: Azra Tamer, Ahab Nawab, Ismail Bendaba, Madihah Hajar, Neusa Nancassa, Rohan Robinson,Yasmin Reames, Zaynab Ahmed.

Studio 2 - CSM BA Architecture design studio - academic year 2024-2025:

Tutors: Fernanda Palmieri and Oscar Brito-Gonzalez

Year 3: Brandon Yi-ming Chang, Farida Doss, Lara Balkas, Lucy Fallon, Chelsea Huang, Blessing Kabengele, Sanjana Narayanan, Hiten Odedra, Max Tickner, Vicky Wang, Zhiye Yao.

Year 2: Stella Al-Azawy, Syed Alam, Celine Dastori, Cindy He, Abigail Holland, Yunxi Liu, David Liu, Jaycee Matunog, Liya Nachmias, Silvia Rana.