Well-Being Well Built

Snug Projects director Paul Bulkeley was invited to speak at the Churches Together in Winchester AGM on, a vision for well-being in the city. It is significant that the church community are recognising the important contribution the quality of the built environment makes to the well-being of citizens. The Good Foundation recognises that ‘some of the basic assumptions that drive our understanding of success, and therefore the way we approach the development of our built environment, are flawed. The amount invested or the profit made, are not strong indicators of success when it comes to how people experience their day-to-day lives. By contrast, our research found that certain planning and design features – such as access to green space and the provision of social hubs – matter to residents, affecting how people function and how they feel on a day-today basis.' Snug Projects is not only committed to playing our part in promoting and delivering quality places. We recognise that the framework for life that buildings create can only be successful through the adoption and active inhabitation of those who live there. We were encouraged to see the Church recognising its role, not only as the continuing patrons of great places, but also in pro-actively stimulating both their adoption and inhabitation. This is not the easy community life of sameness but the more challenging potential for maturity offered by city life and wonderfully captured in Richard Sennetts book, The Uses of Disorder. He states, ‘it is in the building of purposely diverse cities that society can provide men the experience of breaking from self slavery to freedom as adults' – In other words places can help us work towards maturity and wholeness of character, a deeper well-being, and something the Church and its environment can both aspire to enable.