Wealdstone Youth Workshop is a public design project, in collaboration with the youth of Wealdstone, north-west London, to design and make furniture for use in the forthcoming Wealdstone Square.

We brought together a group of local 17 and 18 year olds – Esther, Marius, Tanya, Leo, Katy, Danica, Kayleigh and Marina – and commissioned multi-disciplinary designers Silo to work with them, to research, design and produce the furniture over a period of six months.

The Wealdstone Leg is the result – a new, strange, wonderful furniture component, which forms the basis of a range of stools, benches and chairs for use in the new square. The Wealdstone Leg was available to buy and use as a leg, an arm, a bracket, a thing. All proceeds went back into the project, with the youth each receiving a % royalty on each sale (along with a small stipend of £500 for taking part).

The project grew out of a brief to create new activity and new users for the square. We quickly realised, however, that the community had bigger problems: namely, a lack of activity for young people due to cuts to youth services, and the resulting negative perception of young people hanging around the town.

We set out to create a project that could change this dynamic, by putting the young people at the centre of what was happening in Wealdstone, and working with them to create something the rest of the community could use. Our ambition was always to create a piece of sell-able furniture, by Wealdstone, for Wealdstone, which could help change perceptions of both the youth and the area itself. Thanks to Silo and the youth, we got exactly that.

Wealdstone Youth Workshop was part of a wider project by Harrow Council to create a new public space at the centre of Wealdstone to bring the community together. The overall project was led by We Made That, with Spacemakers, Europa and others in support. We were assisted on the ground by Karolina Cialkaite.