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I arrived in Oxford in 2009 to pursue a diploma in architecture and sustainable building design. By 2010/2011 we were in the midst of a recession with no jobs to be found almost anywhere, including architectural practices. Together with a group of upstarts and idealists and against the advice of some, but with the support of many others, we founded Transition by Design Co-operative CIC, as one of the first worker cooperatives in participative design and zero carbon architecture. Our mission was to democratise urban development.
Alongside a number of other cooperatives, nonprofits and small creative enterprises, we quickly found we could not afford the space we needed for our practice in one of the least affordable cities in the country
This awareness of both need and the prevalent and growing number of empty buildings in the high streets eventually led us to develop the idea behind Makespace Oxford and prototype this via our first building on Aristotle lane, North Oxford.
Makespace grew out of a project led by Transition by Design together with a non-exec board of 3 or 4 individuals from organisations that shared our values. Through dogged work, determination and a good dose of luck we secured funding for a project coordinator and a 2 year ‘meanwhile space’ lease on the building in Aristotle Lane which had been empty for a long time. We are still there today. 6+ years on.
Over the last 6 or 7 years we have been through several phases from start up, to prototyping, rapid growth, and now a focus on supporting community cohesion and sustainability at a neighbourhood scale. Our purpose is to support our residents to access resources and the support they need and consider how best to pass the buildings on.
Shortly after Covid hit the demand for our spaces surged. There was an opportunity to bid for £1.69 million in COVID recovery capital funding to adapt and develop our model across the county via the ‘Meanwhile in Oxfordshire…’ programme. We grew very quickly from 3 part time to 14 staff. We went from managing 2 spaces to unlocking 30 spaces in 18-months: bringing back into use over 44,000 square feet of previously unused space. We have supported over 230 organisations with affordable community or work spaces, enabling them collectively to create over 350 jobs. We have a big focus on equity and opening up opportunities for groups that are historically and systematically excluded.
Makespace was founded with others such as Cultivate, Broken Spoke Bike Co-op, Agile Collective and CAG. We were brought together in response to a shared need to unlock assets and resources and develop mechanisms for mutual support. We are currently re-founding our organisation turning it from a CIC to Community Benefit Society to strengthen our partnerships, deepen membership buy-in and increase the level of ambition around the change we want to make.
We operate in a liminal space between grassroots groups and larger institutions. We act as interlocutors - translating the different languages used by landlords and anchor organisations, (who are mostly mandated to generate best value for their assets), and communities (who are doing the work and solving the problems but often lack the tools and language to access the resources to thrive).
We need to be respectable enough to be in boardrooms and hold enough integrity to be in the field, the street, the yurt with the activists, squatters, resisters and community organisers. It's a delicate balance! I am sure we get that wrong all the time.
In 2020 when we got the funding we had grown in size and reputation to suddenly become respectable with councils and getting meetings and offered spaces and at the same time we need to do more work with the communities - particularly the global majority and diaspora communities which have been shattered by austerity. We work alongside others who share this mission such as Owned by Oxford and CAG and many of our residents.
Reframing the idea of property
It's not possible to live a happy, healthy, thriving life without access to space and land. It is fundamental to human flourishing. The lack of it is at the root of most local and international conflicts. Climate justice, economic justice and social justice are contingent on spatial justice. At its core the very idea of ‘property’ is extractive. Land is the lifeblood of existence. We need to change the whole framing around property and land to focus it on human (and more-than-human) flourishing. Public institutions need to lead the way towards total transparency about ownership - who owns what and how it's used.
Solidarity and collaboration
The voluntary sector is at risk of cannibalising in a desperate struggle for survival amid dwindling resources. Every single voluntary group is being asked to fight harder for survival with diminishing resources. We need to realise that the system we are fighting against is the extreme wealth hoarders and asset accumulators. We need to unite and collaborate to find better ways of doing things, developing a shared understanding of the true nature of the system challenges we face. Across the voluntary, social and charitable sectors we must work together to generate common demands and frameworks which address the big systemic problems head on.
Get better at describing social value
One of the key issues with trying to quantify social value in purely monetary terms is that it often leads to reductionist thinking. We must value human flourishing, in which social and climate justice and spatial justice are essential. To quote Kate Raworth: “What we do over the next ten years, will affect the next 10,000 years”. What we measure matters, and this needs to be more than a financial capital receipt from the sale of a public asset or the rent value. We need to work together towards defining a ‘multi-capital’ approach, (re)valuing social, human, natural, physical, intellectual and spiritual capital also.
Shifting the Economic Paradigm
We need to break down models that pit one sector against another. Years of austerity have done untold damage to our social fabric. We have been told to recalibrate our expectations. As Michelangelo said "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
We must call on funders including philanthropists to support us to develop shared narratives of ambition that match the scale of the problems we face. We need massive investment in new approaches that support human flourishing on a scale we have never seen before. To echo an older but still relevant narrative: “We are all in this together, we need to roll our sleeves up and dig for victory.”
This case study is part of the 'Community wealth building: big conversations' project. These case studies are in the voice of the people who gave them. They seek to honestly present their successes, as well as the challenges of trying to build a more just, sustainable economy and community. We encourage conversation - so if you want to get in touch and talk more to any of the groups, please do.
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