Festival of Place 2025
Wongani was a main speaker at this year’s Festival of Place, happening at BoxPark, Wembley on Wednesday 2nd July. He presented the work that we completed as part of the community engagement for the Blackbird Leys Community Centre together with Karoline Sioisalo de Mendonca from Oxford City Council.
Festival of Place is an annual one-day multi-track conference for those seeking to make a positive impact on people and places through property development and architecture. You can find out more about Festival of Place and the speakers here.
Building for Change: Footwork Trust
On Tuesday 24th June, Wongani spoke at the Footwork Trust’s event on ‘Building for Change’, where we explored the role of an architect and the community in redevelopment as well as building for real, genuine & inclusive change. Wongani spoke about the work completed at Transition by Design, and the need for us to move from communities being reactive to being proactive about development. Taking agency where they are able to, and being supported by professionals to the point that they are able to sustain projects themselves as a community.
There will be more to share about this in due course, and we’re thankful for the opportunity to speak at this event along side Sarah Castle (IF_DO), Paul Clarke (Stories), James Turner, James Binning, Paulette Singer and it was great to hear from Tim Oshodi again who we had as one of our speakers for Marmalade Festival earlier this year.
We are the first accredited living hours architecture practice in England!
We’re proud to announce that Transition by Design is now accredited as a Living Hours Employer—the first architecture practice in England to receive this recognition.
As a workers’ co-operative, we’ve always believed that good design starts with fair working conditions. That’s why we’ve joined this national initiative from the Living Wage Foundation, which goes beyond paying the Real Living Wage to also guarantee secure and predictable working hours.
This means:
- At least four weeks’ notice for shift
- Pay for cancelled work
- A minimum of 16 hours a week for those who want it
- Contracts that reflect actual hours worked
Too many in our industry face long hours, low pay, and precarious contracts. Many of us at Transition by Design have experienced this first-hand. Becoming a Living Hours Employer is our way of saying: it doesn’t have to be this way.
Transforming Garage Sites into Housing!
We’re working on sketch models, together with Oxfordshire Community Land Trust, to explore transforming
underused garage sites into housing. These small, awkward plots are tricky but full of potential. We test massing, light, access, and shared spaces physically. More to come as the designs evolve!
Conflict and Sociocracy Training
Workers in our coop all receive training in conflict resolution and sociocracy and this year our training was delivered by Cait Crosse. It was great to make time to remind ourselves of the value in transforming conflict to understand one another better and ensure that our processes work smoothly, contributing to a caring, just and democratic working culture.
Things we find interesting
To Kill A War Machine: Documentary on Palestine Action
Liv recently watched the award-winning documentary about Palestine Action. This has been released early after it emerged that the Home Office was going to proscribe the protest group, which takes direct action against Israeli arms companies in the UK. It is well worth watching, the documentary shows the full extent of the ongoing genocide in Palestine but it also shows the dedication of Palestine Action activists systematically targeting UK based arms manufacturers. It is incredibly hopeful and demonstrates the power of collective action.
