One Small Thing’s vision is a justice system that can recognise, understand, and respond to trauma. Their mission is to redesign the justice system for women and their children, which has led to the opening of a residential community; Hope Street. Hope Street pilots a new approach to working with justice involved women. From within a healing, trauma-informed, residential environment, women and children have access to a range of specialist support.
One Small Thing convened an excellent team through a quality led procurement strategy. They resourced a thorough briefing process to communicate the vision for the project setting an ambitious brief. A collaborative consultation process with the core design team and end users with lived experience of the justice system ensured the project incorporated experience as well as theoretical research.
Using BREEAM Outstanding as a chosen benchmark and process set measurable goals for the sustainability of the project with defined outcomes.
The resultant project was the overall winner of the RIBA Journal MacEwen Award 2024 which celebrates architecture for the common good. Chair of the judging panel Isabelle Priest remarked ‘It is transformative. It is a bold move on behalf of the organisations involved in the justice system’.
Three Winning Facts:
- Pioneering therapeutic trauma informed vision for a replicable pilot project
- Collaborative consultation led project design approach
- Holistic, highly sustainable exemplar project