After Saturday’s intervention of having wrapped the pergola we decided to leave it up for a 48 hour period and to periodically return documenting any changes or uses it might encourage. It was a decision that led to a crucial discovery.Since having starting the Re:Thinking Endcliffe Park Project one issue has repeatedly cropped up, that being the Police’s request for a ‘Youth Shelter’ in the park.
We have questioned the idea of having a specific shelter for ’youths’ mainly because there is no accurate understanding of what is wanted in the form of such a shelter by whom it is being asked to be provided for, and in any definate terms, the very nature of shelters are to sit out of the direct affects of weather and climate but are often very inactive places, ensuing acts of boredom. Our thoughts are to encourage activity, movement and participation in the community as supposed to separation.
With this in mind we have seen least of on our numerous days spent in the park are ‘youths’ or young adults. There has been the odd one or two just walking through, however we have been unable to speak to in great detail regarding ideas of having a defined place in the park for them and they have been reluctant to speak to us.
This is where the wrapped pergola comes back into the story.
After Saturdays very successful consultation we returned to see what was happening at the pergola.
As we approached we could see that a few of the sheets of fabric had been unfastened at the bottom and where gently blowing in the breeze. As we got closer we caught a glimpse of some activity in the pergola. There appeared to be some bikes standing up against a wall and also sitting around and within the pergola were a number of teenagers.
It appears at some point after we left on Saturday afternoon the teenagers had begun to use/appropriate the pergola as their own and alter it to suit their use including the addition of numberous doors to ride ther bikes through by unfastening the material where it had been fixed at the base. The Fabric was now free to blow in the wind but more importantly allowed movement through the pergola from almost any direction. The loose fabric also created the ability to have privacy and protection from the wider outside world, something that they couldn’t have when there was no cover in the park. One teenager was sitting quietly on one of the benches inside the pergola enjoying a snack while others were chatting and cycling around it.
By making it possible for these young people to use this space they inadvertently have shown that if they had a shelter of some form that it would be used, but also if the shelter was multipurpose then activity and protection from the elements could be combined to create a space that would be popular with this sometimes overlooked, but important part of our community.
