This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG) is an organisation which aims to have an impact on the way people think about cities. This is of growing importance as 2007 was the first year that more people across the globe lived in cities than in rural areas and it is estimated that sixty per cent of the global population will live in urban areas by 2030.
Judges' comment: "A highly innovative and creative project which is quite literally reaching parts of the city, the professionals and the community which are often hardest to engage. Has developed a real sense of common purpose and passion for learning about urban development."
This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG) is an organisation which aims to have an impact on the way people think about cities. This is of growing importance as 2007 was the first year that more people across the globe lived in cities than in rural areas and it is estimated that sixty per cent of the global population will live in urban areas by 2030.
Judges' comment: "A highly innovative and creative project which is quite literally reaching parts of the city, the professionals and the community which are often hardest to engage. Has developed a real sense of common purpose and passion for learning about urban development."
TINAG recognises that for those who have innovative ideas on regeneration but who are not yet established, it is difficult to find a platform on which to express your voice. They believe that those who live in cities should be given opportunities to participate in decisions about the development of a city. The organisation is dedicated to enabling and fostering active participation in cities in informal, non-institutional settings, sidestepping existing conferences and regeneration events. In those informal settings, collaboration is encouraged across disciplines and cultures, prioritising learning and skills development.
“The most productive aspect of any group gathering is when people are given room to network and socialise”
A festival on cities is planned for October 2008, offering a platform and cross-discipline networking for academics, artists, regeneration professionals, politicians and human rights activists. Workshops, round table debates and film screenings will be held across London, in non-traditional spaces like cafes after opening hours, community buildings, colleges and parks.
TINAG also organises innovative bi-monthly salons, which are aimed at a wide audience across disciplines and cultures to include those who would not normally attend formal sessions. Jaffer Kolb, Features Editor, Architectural Journal comments on their approach, "TINAG provides a desperately needed level of creative curation regarding urban discourse, which is undeniably dull/stagnant/politically-entangled."
The most productive aspect of any group gathering is when people are given room to network and socialise, for example during coffee breaks. What this organisation does is to make networking the priority, therefore limiting salon presentations to ten minutes and focusing instead on audience participation. Everyone is given opportunity to voice opinions, contribute to discussions, allowing for learning and knowledge to increase across sectors.
Other projects include the production of publications, including texts from; speakers at the salons; post-event commissioned essays; and coverage of the festival.. There is also a growing online mailing list and newsletter, with subscribers from Europe, Asia and North America. An interdisciplinary online library and archive related to all aspects of cities, covering policy, photography, literature and art is currently being developed. When describing the archive, TINAG coordinators Trenton Oldfield and Deepa Naik, state, "There is no library or archive solely dedicated to urban issues, that is inter-disciplinary in nature and is focused on the knowledge of those outside of the established circuits... TINAG's major innovation is that the search engine being designed will provide inter-disciplinary results"
The demonstration of passion and dedication for this project is shown through the fact that TINAG is run on a solely voluntary basis, which for the coordinators means "bloody hard work". However, the results demonstrate a successful, innovative organisation that is leading the thinking on sustainability in communities.
Project highlights
To ensure wide-ranging access, we need to find new and innovative methods of gathering and disseminating information, such as TINAG's informal salons and festival.
In order to move forward, there is a need to break down traditions on how practitioners are reached within the regeneration sector.
By focusing on emerging practitioners and drawing from on-the-ground experience, new ideas can be highlighted which may otherwise not be heard.
Everybody who lives in cities, regardless of how they got their and what their experiences are, should be allowed a platform to voice their opinion on how changes to policy are made.
This Is Not A Gateway (TINAG) is an organisation which aims to have an impact on the way people think about cities. This is of growing importance as 2007 was the first year that more people across the globe lived in cities than in rural areas and it is estimated that sixty per cent of the global population will live in urban areas by 2030.
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