Voice
Amplifying The Unheard
(undergoing research)
Explore the space for voice
September 2024- May 2025
Location: Salford, Great Manchester
Area : TBC
Thesis question
“How can we establish a sense of belonging through amplifying unheard voices, redefining spaces, addressing social disconnection and isolation, and re-establishing meaningful community connections in urban environments?”
The thesis question examines the role of voice in addressing social disconnection and isolation in the rapid profit-driven urban development, focusing on “unheard voices” from the overlooked perspectives of marginalised individuals and communities. By emphasising communal storytelling and shared voices, the thesis aims to reconnect fragmented communities and create a more powerful social bond through inclusive and adaptive design strategies
Story cards
Stories collected from the local residents
Matter of care
ISOLATION / SOCIAL DISCONNECTION
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UNHEARD VOICES?
“We can easily miss the wider pattern: offers of voice are increasingly unsustainable; voice is persistently offered” (Couldry, 2010)
My matter of care focuses on “isolation / social disconnection caused by the unheard voices”. As cities expand, profit-driven development often ignores the value of community voices, creating environments that contribute to inequality and social fragmentation. In this context, people’s voices remain unheard, and spaces designed without them lead to negative impacts on social well-being and health. This led me to ask: How can we address the matter of care by amplifying these voices within the urban environment to enhance the connection of isolated individuals/communities and improve their well-being?
Project Concept
Be The Voice, Project roadmap
Pathway to Belonging envisions a transformative space that serves as a roadmap to amplify the “unheard voices” of individuals and communities, guiding them from social disconnection and isolation towards self-actualisation (Be The Voice). This roadmap aims to create a space where people can reconnect with themselves and others through shared experiences, creating a sense of belonging to the proposed site while forging connections to the broader city through the lens of voice.
A Journey from Isolation to Belonging, the strategy focuses on five stages of voice, inspired by the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs and shaped by the “rhythm of prefiguring, configuring, and re-figuring“ (Costanzo, 2021). The roadmap to “Be The Voice“ presents a clear object and aim within each stage of duration, not only establishing belonging, collective healing, and wellbeing but also creating a narrative-rich space that evolves through stories and memories, connecting the past, present, and future.
