The Dovetail

As part of our wider engagement work for the regeneration of the Carpenters Estate in Stratford, we transformed a vacant shop unit — formerly a neighbourhood police station — into a meanwhile-use community space for residents. make:good led both the redesign and fit-out of the space, as well as curating the first 18 months of programmed activity, ensuring alignment with Newham’s corporate strategy Towards a Fairer Newham. The Dovetail was conceived as more than just a place to display regeneration plans. It was created as a welcoming hub for residents and neighbours of the Carpenters Estate to build connections, share skills, explore new activities, and get involved in their local community. The space offered paid opportunities for residents to plan and run their own sessions, alongside a wide variety of free activities. In parallel, we delivered programmes focused on skills development and training to help people thrive. Our starting point was to ask local people how they’d like to use a new community space, while also learning about the existing skills and passions of residents. These conversations helped us connect with community members interested in delivering sessions, and informed our outreach to external providers who could offer the types of activities residents wanted to see.