Finding radiance

Seeing Foyer as an approach, rather than bricks and mortar, has been a consistent message from Foyer Federation over the years.  It is a focus that helps unpick the stereotype of ‘youth homelessness’ to reveal the more complex mix of social and personal challenges that require better offers than just a bed for the night.  More than a place to stay, Foyers were always about communities of learning to connect and find one’s place in the world. 

In my time at Foyer Federation, when I worked on the Foyer Accreditation framework, it was the staff and young people in projects I remembered more than the buildings they worked and lived in.  Yet, the buildings left their mark.  Thankfully, few were places that were unfit for young people. Most gave glimpses of design innovations to accommodate the Foyer ethos as a living community – creating a sense of space, energy, interaction and progression. A running joke over the years was to have the architects over for the night, so they could live with the good and bad they left behind. New Foyers did not always learn from the past – and while great ideas got handed down through the Accreditation framework, design errors were sometimes replicated by those who didn't listen to learn. 

The origins of Foyer as a concept comes from France.  Over the years the Federation always kept cordial relations with Paris, with a few shared visits.  Ironically, though, it was travel to USA which brought back more ideas in my work as Director of Innovation. Visits to New York and Philadelphia led to a focus on assets that drove the early development of Open Talent and Advantaged Thinking.  In those philosophies, the idea of ‘place’ came to the foreground as a form of inquiry into the type of environment where young people could best develop and harness their talents in life. It is a powerful question which is always best left open, as every age must shape its own answers.  Perhaps it is the job of Foyers to sustain this conversation at the community level, re-applying the Foyer ethos and approach over time.  Indeed, the best projects I visited were those flexible and forward thinking enough to keep redeveloping themselves in the moment. 

I was fortunate to begin my 2016 in Marseille, with a final slot on my itinerary to check out Le Corbusier’s Cité radieuse (Radiant City), the modernist flagship for his vision of Unité d'habitation.  I left regretting I had not visited before. For here was a project of bricks and mortar, in which a vision of life had been cemented into the design.  The stunning sense of space and light, shops, businesses, educational facilities, and breath taking rooftop views, enshrined an approach to community living that still inspires people to live there today.  While not a Foyer for young people, anyone who knows a Foyer would have instantly recognised its principles.  Of course, history will point to how Corbusier’s vision came unstuck in some of the less well conceived housing estates designed by others in Great Britain.  But there are important things to learn when one sees, in the original building, the essential features and intent that were foolishly disregarded in the flawed projects that followed.  It is a lesson in what happens when a founding vision is lost from the bricks and mortar. Le Corbusier’s Cité radieuse was a work of art.  Where is its equivalent as an offer for young people today?  What might be a future way of living that offers a solution to the shifting sands of youth housing and employment? 

Watching the sun sink into the rooftops, I felt three messages from Corbusier grip my mind: 

1. That there must be a strong guiding vision and philosophy for what we wish to create, ambitious and radical enough to shape a positive vision for future living; 

2. That the vision and philosophy of the ethos must not be compromised in its inception, or, most particularly, its replication – for once the approach enshrined into the design of bricks and mortar is taken apart and diluted, the promise of radiance disappears; 

3. That, to ensure the above, we need a collaborative development framework for our new vision and philosophy to guide how and what we do so we maximise its potential over time. 

Those messages are even more important following David Cameron’s recent promise (or not) to ‘regenerate’ UK housing estates.  The message to ‘rebuild houses that people feel they can have a real future in’ is one that Corbusier would surely recognise; though I expect he would also ask, what the vision and philosophy behind the message is.   

Whether demolishing and rebuilding estates, or seeking to sustain or redevelop Foyers, it is the bricks and mortar of inspirational thinking that is most precious. 

At InspireChilli, we take inspiration seriously.  So did Corbusier. Shouldn’t you?

Check out the new InspireChill offer