July 2026
Placing the Community at the Centre of Church Street
We are leading the architectural design for Church Street Sites B and C in Westminster, where an exceptionally early approach to community involvement is reshaping the design brief and the future outcome of the project.
Working closely with Westminster City Council and its Regeneration and Development Team, Hunters has placed local knowledge and lived experience at the centre of RIBA Stage 1. The process has been supported by Angela Koch of ImaginePlaces, who has led the co-design work as an embedded specialist within Hunters’ direct team, helping to create the structure, discipline and transparency needed to turn community insight into usable design intelligence.
Church Street is one of Westminster’s most diverse and densely populated neighbourhoods, with a strong identity, a long-established market and a community that has lived with the prospect of regeneration for many years. For Hunters, this meant that the design process could not begin with propositions. It had to begin with trust, openness and a willingness to test assumptions before they became fixed.
Sites B and C previously received outline planning consent in 2023. Hunters was appointed to revisit the brief and therefore the design, with proposals expected to deliver around 700 homes, new shops and services, community facilities, improved market infrastructure and new green and public spaces.
Rather than treating RIBA Stage 1 as a technical exercise undertaken behind closed doors, Hunters has approached it as a shared process of brief writing. Residents, traders, businesses, young people and local organisations have been invited to help define the priorities that should shape the next stage of design.
For that to work, the architectural team and the local authority were totally transparent about the realities that shape regeneration, including construction costs, land value, funding, tenure mix, cross subsidy, long term rental income and the relationship between design ambition and viability. This has allowed local people to engage not only with what they would like to see, but with the trade-offs involved in delivering change at this scale.
Mark Baines, Managing Director at Hunters, explains: “What has been most valuable is that we have been able to test architectural assumptions before they harden into fixed proposals. We have looked at height, massing, open space, servicing, movement and ground floor uses with the people who understand the neighbourhood in the most practical way. That has developed the brief, and it is informing the architecture. It feels like all parties want this to work, and Westminster Council have really helped this language and course develop.”
The group carried out a community survey with more than 850 local participants. It highlighted consistent concerns around height, light, density, access to open space, the quality of public realm, community infrastructure, the market and the impact of new development on existing community life.
Hunters have used these concerns as design drivers rather than constraints. They have informed the evolution of massing with a focus on daylight, spacing, character, identity and the comfort and usability of homes, streets and communal spaces.
The direction has also expanded the scope of architectural research. Conversations with traders and businesses have informed more grounded thinking around storage, welfare and servicing. They found that through the engagement with younger residents their interests lay in public realm, safety, social space and opportunities to connect with nature. Priorities have crystallised around inclusive streets, comfortable homes and well managed buildings that support day-to-day life in a culturally and socio economically diverse community.
This work has been underpinned by the Quality of Life Code of Practice, co-authored by ImaginePlaces and embedded from the outset. The framework has provided a consistent method for community involvement and a benchmark for assessing how engagement informs design. It will continue to support the project as it moves towards planning and delivery.
Angela Koch, Founding Director at ImaginePlaces, said: “Collaborative Community Brief writing is still uncommon at this stage of major regeneration, but when it is done well it creates the groundwork for better design outcomes and more locally attuned placemaking. At Church Street, the process has worked because local knowledge has been taken seriously alongside design, cost, viability and delivery challenges. That honesty is what allows co-design to become useful, not just aspirational.”
Through workshops, community design panels and neighbourhood discussions, including engagement at Church Street Market, the design team has worked with more than 300 participants in a short period to co-create an RIBA Stage 1 Community Brief. That brief is now carrying through into RIBA Stage 2.
Mark Baines added: “Local communities are far more willing to engage with complexity than is sometimes assumed. When the design process is clear, honest and well managed, people respond with insight rather than opposition. That has allowed us to develop proposals with greater confidence, because they are informed by the people who know Church Street best.”
As the project moves towards a planning application submission later in 2027, the approach being tested at Church Street offers a model for how high-density regeneration can come from the heart of the residents while still navigating complex technical, policy and commercial requirements.
For Hunters, Church Street has reinforced a simple but important direction: better architecture starts with a better brief. When local knowledge, technical expertise and honest discussion about delivery are brought together early enough, co-design becomes more than consultation. It becomes a design tool.
