Story

MAKE Evaluation showcases novel approaches to design and value

People in front of a shipping container with the letters MAKE in green caps and there is a trellis with hanging sheets of A4 and they are writing on some of them

Written byCat Cooper
Published date 16 February 2022

Launched in 2019, MAKE at Story Garden is a ground-breaking public studio for creative activity and collaboration in Somers Town and St Pancras in London’s Camden.

An evaluation report and summary published today by the UAL Social Design Institute spanning the first 2 years of the project demonstrates how MAKE opened up lasting opportunities for residents to participate in arts and making activities - giving them agency in addressing local goals and challenges.

Using a value co-creation framework alongside standard monitoring data and KPIs to evaluate impact, the report describes a role for design in configuring people and resources for long-term impact. It presents new narratives on measuring the value of community-led and place-based initiatives and offers a framework for the sector to better capture and articulate impact.

A flagship project in UAL’s placemaking and community engagement activity, MAKE is a partnership project founded by UAL’s Central Saint Martins (CSM), Somers Town Community Association (STCA)/The Living Centre, Camden Council, and the developer Lendlease. It was managed by CSM from its launch to Summer 2021, when it transferred to full community management, led by STCA/The Living Centre.

Using design approaches pioneered by the Public Collaboration Lab at Central Saint Martins and Camden Council, MAKE prototyped a model of equitable cross sector collaboration. It built enduring relationships between individuals and organisations that have catalysed further projects and impacts. For example, initial workshops developed by the MAKE team and Lendlease’s Loneliness Lab, led to other projects focused on changes to public spaces around Camden; including the design and implementation of parklets and public art in the borough.

Monitoring data in the report shows how MAKE performed against pre-set objectives focused on shared endeavour, community resilience and wellbeing, despite operating a place-based project through Covid-19 lockdowns. Between July 2019 and January 2021, the space attracted nearly 1700 participants: Camden residents of diverse ethnicities, occupations and backgrounds, in many instances working alongside CSM students and graduates. MAKE users reported multiple benefits around wellbeing and enjoyment, positive mental health and relating to other people.

Identifying that change can happen beyond traditional measures and time-specific outcomes, the research framework describes the project as an ongoing platform which allows value to build over time. It reports that MAKE’s purpose - and source of value – consisted in building relations and ‘enabling conditions’ for future opportunities, some of which could not be predicted at the outset. As a result, value was co-created through the network of relationships and resources produced when people came together to use the space.

Showing the potential to recognise benefit beyond the scope of predicted KPIs, this work opens up new ways of capturing impact and value, defined in terms of long-term stakeholder capacity building, instead of short-term efficiencies. For policymakers, charities and organisations looking for ways of working more equitably with communities, it demonstrates a way of working that creates capacity for future endeavours and opportunities; and introduces a methodology that can articulate this contribution.

Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of CSM
Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of CSM
Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of CSM
Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of Central Saint Martins, UAL
Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of Central Saint Martins, UAL
Photograph by Adam Razvi, courtesy of CSM

MAKE has demonstrated that through engaging and listening to your stakeholders and freely exchanging ideas and learnings, you can create something with an enduring legacy. Now run by the community it was designed to serve, we should see this as a model for how organisations can collaborate to create a positive impact. Through the innovative evaluative work, we also have a deeper understanding of the value of this project – one that has not always been captured through traditional evaluative tools. We hope this project and report can inspire many others

— James Purnell, UAL President and Vice-Chancellor

This evaluation report from UAL highlights the power of community-driven projects to build relationships between individuals and institutions, improve wellbeing and empower residents. MAKE at Story Garden has provided a valuable collaborative space where residents can come together to address social challenges, develop new skills and access arts and culture. Based in the heart of the Knowledge Quarter, MAKE is a prime example of how institutions can create opportunities for local people and help to build a more inclusive economy.

— Councillor Danny Beales, Cabinet Member for Investing in Communities, Culture and an Inclusive Economy, Camden Council

This project has provided incredible opportunities for learning and exchange by all involved and a valuable lesson in the transformative power of creativity and making. The networks, projects, and partnerships that evolved from the workshops to tackle loneliness, for example, are a great testament to MAKE and the positive impact that can be made by delivering physical space that puts purpose and people first

— Phil Gould, Euston Project Director, Lendlease

Occasionally projects come along and you just know that there is more here than the fabric that creates the structures and the words that give it a face, because the structures and words are nothing without the residents that have taken it into their community and made it their space. MAKE is such a project and for that all the hard work was worth it

— Mrs Sarah Elie, MBE, Executive Director, Somers Town Community Association

This study explores the ongoing process of value co-creation and how the people involved in this project interpret opportunities and both experience and influence change over time. The value of MAKE evolves through the life trajectories of those involved and the wider communal, organisational and institutional networks generated. This makes (e)valuating MAKE both exciting and challenging. What we can see is the need to innovate in evaluation approaches to go beyond outcomes and outputs-based models, to account for the fact that value is co-created beyond fixed boundaries

— Dr Patrycja Kaszynska, Senior Research Fellow, Social Design Institute

The MAKE (e)valuation report is led by Dr Patrycja Kaszynska, Senior Research Fellow, UAL Social Design Institute, and co-authored with MAKE’s project leads: Adam Thorpe, Professor of Socially Responsive Design at Central Saint Martins, UAL and Samuel Mitchell, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Central Saint Martins Innovation and Business. It aligns for the first time Central Saint Martins’ design strengths in ‘infrastructuring’ through participatory arts and design and The Social Design Institute’s novel approaches to (e)valuation.

CSM and Camden Council share a longstanding collaborative relationship, with several design-based public initiatives in the past 10 years supported by the Public Collaboration Lab; a platform for teaching & learning, knowledge exchange and research focused on social, service and policy innovation. The Social Design Institute’s core interest areas include value and valuation through design; and policymaking, design and public policy.

MAKE is located within the Story Garden behind the British Library in King's Cross and is managed by educational charity Global Generation, working in partnership with the British Library, Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan.