Bringing Skills to Market


Veronica Simpson hangs out with The Decorators – agents of change and placemaking – and finds inventiveness by the fistful.


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The Decorators are not, as their name would imply, the kind of people who are obsessed with surface gloss and pattern. They may paint walls and design or rearrange furniture when the occasion requires, but they are most definitely not interior designers. The Decorators is a young consultancy, emerging from Central Saint Martins' intriguing MA 'Creative Practice for Narrative Environments' - thankfully abbreviated these days to Narrative Environments - which encourages multidisciplinary collaboration across any and every creative discipline, from brand experiences to film making and museum curation.

The Decorators is a team of four - architect, artist/ designer, landscape architect and psychologist - who decided to team up on leaving CSM to 'work with space' and design 'experiences that invite people to engage with objects and architecture'. At the heart of the practice is a generosity and inclusivity that is heartening to discuss - even more inspiring to experience.

The Chrisp Street market in Tower Hamlets.
The Chrisp Street market in Tower Hamlets.

Markets are something of an ongoing preoccupation for the four. Far more than simply a commercial vehicle for the selling and acquisition of fresh produce, they feel that markets are a vital community resource, animating and occupying public space as well as bringing customers to surrounding businesses. And it's this territory that is proving fertile ground for experimentation, as local governments attempt to wrestle with declining high streets, boarded up shops and the bitter-sweet delights of the Mary Portas effect.

Their first major public project, in September 2011, in collaboration with Atelier Chan Chan, involved funding and creating an innovative pop-up 'food for food' exchange in Dalston Market, intended to make shopping and eating at the market more of a compelling experience. A temporary restaurant, Ridley's, was constructed, with a unique and self-sustaining approach to sourcing both food and diners.

Seating was provided so that food bought from market stalls or the surrounding take aways could be eaten, helping to foster a sense of community.
Seating was provided so that food bought from market stalls or the surrounding take aways could be eaten, helping to foster a sense of community.

Would-be customers were asked to bring back an item from the chefs' shopping list from elsewhere within the market (£3 of food would get you the dish of the day) or they could pay £15 for an evening meal and get a £5 voucher back to spend in the market. Diners sat down together around a large communal table, thereby creating opportunities for spontaneous encounters. 'It was about a shared collective experience, testing possible alternatives for markets,' says the softly spoken Mariana Pestana, the architect of the foursome.

More recently, The Decorators was asked by Tower Hamlets to find a way to revive the flagging fortunes - albeit temporarily - of Chrisp Street market, with various events and interventions staged over a six month period while the area was undergoing a 'Portas Pilot' scheme. Says Pestana: 'The brief was to increase footfall. But we weren't interested in importing entertainment. We wanted to unveil things that were already there but not necessarily visible or accessible to the public.'

Through conversations with stallholders, neighbouring businesses, institutions and shops, The Decorators developed a variety of collaborative tools. It sourced a few domestic-style tables and chairs and placed them so that people can sit down to eat food from surrounding takeaways or from market vendors, thereby transforming the market into more of a community 'hub'. It created a new 'typology' for the market stall - a steel-framed 'stage stall', on wheels, to which curtains could be added and stalls combined to create a mini auditorium, screening room or event space. It also created a 'radio show' stall. Says Pestana: 'It has all the necessary equipment to make an online radio show. This was our main engagement tool. We used it as a mechanism to get to know people in the area and we involved them through the radio - like an art Trojan Horse.'

The Decorators set up a radio show stall in the market.
The Decorators set up a radio show stall in the market.

In this way, it found out about a local boxing club that had a dedicated fan base but which had no public profile. It persuaded the boxers and trainers to bring their skills out into the market for a day of live sparring.

They also tagged on to a film festival celebrating the life and work of Angela Lansbury - Hollywood actress and something of a local heroine, who was born in the borough and whose father founded the Lansbury Estate.

Finally, it invited a live karaoke band to come and entertain the market visitors, with anyone welcome to step up and sing along with the band.

'The boxing was a huge success,' says Pestana. 'To have local boxers there with local people participating and watching - it was dignifying, for the boxing club, to be seen as someone who's responsible for such a big event. They are thinking of raising funds to do another one.'

Overall, Pestana regretfully observes that the market's future is still uncertain, and hampered by a high degree of cynicism among stallholders caused by the knowledge that they will be cleared away soon (allegedly only temporarily) to make way for developers to build large residential blocks around the site. Says Pestana:'The whole scenario is not great. I think the activities that we did changed the atmosphere of the market while we were there but once we were gone, it's gone back. We think [our intervention] is a very small part of what needs to be done. There needs to be a continuous programme or series of physical works in the market. Not only with new developers but in the meanwhile period.' Having taken the pulse of the community, Pestana feels strongly that 'the market is the heart of that place'.

Some stalls had curtains hung around to create a mini auditorium
Some stalls had curtains hung around to create a mini auditorium.

What's needed now is for new models to be developed, she says, that don't simply rely on the commercial imperative but see markets and their communities as an asset to be nurtured and supported for the good of the wider neighbourhood.

The deployment of multidisciplinary design talents in the cause of community enrichment is heartening indeed, and a step in the right direction for our urban troublespots and the current 'placemaking' agenda. What they reveal is insightful and inspirational.

But to prompt real change, such interventions need to be part of a long-term design and programmatic strategy, with involvement and coordination across all the various council and stakeholder groups.

Otherwise it's the civic equivalent of sticking a sticking plaster (however colourful) on a broken leg - entertaining but structurally unhelpful. Such inventiveness and engagement, harnessed to some real institutional and governmental clout, would be a wonderful, transformational thing to witness!








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