Ham Youth Centre wins award

Achieving for Children's Ham Youth Centre has won a prestigious urban development and architecture award for their work in involving young people in the design of a new youth centre.

We won the youth category of the Inspire Future Generations Award run by Thornton Education Trust.

A group of young people have been meeting regularly with Wr_ap Architects, members of the Council's regeneration team and our own youth participation team.

Young people visited other developments for inspiration and had detailed discussions with the architects about the layout of the building, colour schemes and other practicalities. From this innovative work the professionals involved have formed a working group to look at embedding youth involvement in future development and regeneration schemes.

Young volunteer and Ham Youth Centre member Giorgio who was involved in the project said, "I feel honoured that our hard work has been recognised. However it's important we continue with the engagement of young people in the building of the new centre and also the regeneration of Ham Close as a whole."

The judges commented: "The power of this project was that it was based on a responsiveness by the council and the architects to feedback from the community and end-user group. This resulted in a more intensive and meaningful engagement journey for the internal design of the building that more closely reflected the requirements of the cohort."