Innovative design course for residents to be launched at seminar

Published by Hannah Wooderson for 24dash.com in Housing

An innovative course to encourage residents across the country to design homes in the communities they live will be launched this week.

The newly accredited Community Design Course will be launched at Ashram Housing Association’s Dialogues in Community Cohesion Seminar in Birmingham.

The Dialogues in Community Cohesion seminar, to be held at The Studio, Cannon Street, on Thursday 26th February, will see Ashram share its approaches with housing and design professionals from across the country.

The event will also see the launch of the accredited Community Design Course, aimed at those wishing to pursue careers in housing and neighbourhood design. The course will be run through the Centre for Urban Design Outreach and Skills (CUDOS) at Birmingham City University.

Jas Bains, Chief Executive of Ashram, said: “It is important that local people should have the opportunity to influence the future places they will live in and have a chance to get a taster of life as a future architect, planner or urban designer. This initiative provides that important first step.”

The seminar is part of a year-long campaign to showcase the national award winning work of Birmingham-based Ashram Housing Association.

Ashram, which operates across the region, won the Housing Corporation’s highly prestigious Gold award for Excellence in Building Cohesive Communities.

The award includes a prize of £50,000 to fund a programme to disseminate Ashram’s work across the country.

The Gold award was established, by the Housing Corporation now the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), to identify and share the excellent practice of Housing Associations nationally and to help support improvements to the services provided to residents and tenants.

Ashram scooped the award for its approach in mainstreaming community cohesion, in areas such as sport, community design and advocacy in working with a diverse cross section of communities.