Architecture For All was commissioned by Milton Keynes Council and MK City Discovery Centre in Winter 2019-20 to invite local residents to reflect on their experiences of living in a pioneer of the ‘new town’ housing concept.

Milton Keynes was designed, along with a number of other UK towns in the post-war period, to cater for the overspill population from the capital and other major cities. Created fresh, its architects and planners intentions were to actualise a utopian dream – heavily influenced by the ready-made and the rectilinear vision of modernist pioneers such as Le Corbusier, Mies Van de Rohe and Bauhaus. 

However it could be argued that precise, clean lines and absolute form do not work for the inherent messiness of life, that the most liveable spaces are organic and self develop over time. From working with community organisation Global Outreach Foundation – who support and advocate for those of  the African diaspora in Milton Keynes – we also concluded the city had been designed with quite a narrow idea of who a resident of the city could be.

Through exploring the grounding principles of Milton Keynes’ origin, what it means to have an African heritage, and the daily-life/built environment paradigm, we co-created No Corners Here, an exhibition built in a day by members of Global Outreach, MK residents and budding young architects.

Photo credits: Charlotte Levy.  Film Credit: Willie Robb. With special thanks to Mike, Michael, Nigel, Beatrice and Sabelo.