About this Event
How safe are our public spaces and who gets to feel safe within them?
This interactive 3-hour design charette explores the “paradox of fear” in urban environments: why women often report feeling significantly less safe in public space, even where crime rates may not reflect this perception. Drawing on research in urban design, environmental psychology, and feminist geography, the session will examine how spatial design influences confidence, comfort, and everyday mobility.
Participants will engage in collaborative mapping, discussion, and rapid design exercises to interrogate how gender shapes spatial experience. Together, we will question assumptions about surveillance, lighting, activation, and public realm design and explore how architects and urban designers can respond meaningfully.
The workshop will culminate in conceptual design responses to a real urban site, encouraging participants to rethink safety not as control or enforcement, but as inclusion, visibility, and belonging.
This session is open to architects, urban designers, planners, students, and anyone interested in how design can address gendered experiences of the city.
Join us in the SB0.17 Ground Floor Architecture and Design studio to rethink safety as a design responsibility.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Science, Engineering & Environment Building, University Road, Salford, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
