Scotswood Cabintopia
Cabintopia is a collaboration between architects Kapok and Dan Dubowitz.
When development of the Scotswood site begins in the form of earthworks and infrastructure across the development area, we might expect the Scotswood community to be delighted. Paradoxically the initiation of site works often triggers a backlash in community support for redevelopment. A site that has been open and gradually, subtly inhabited and owned by the community becomes suddenly cordoned off, boarded up for safety reasons, effectively visually privatised. The community are physically locked out from their own neighbourhood. With the long development history surrounding this site, and the fact that the majority of the area is open space, the risk of exclusion here is even greater. Rather than seeing this as a problem it can be seen to offer a huge opportunity.
The Cultural Masterplan for the regeneration of Scotswood has identified the initiation of works as both a problem to be addressed and an enormous opportunity to create new identity and involve communities. In Scotswood this means not only existing inhabitants,
but also new people to be enticed to the area.
Cabintopia is a proposal to counter the process of walling up and keeping people out. Instead, the site is to made more visible, its presence amplified, and from far and wide. Rather than closing the doors to the public, the approach is to open them wide and invite people from across the city to watch this site and engage with this amazing 30-hectare landscape work as it unfolds. The second aspect of Cabintopia is to provide activities such as a local radio station, tea rooms, exhibition and education space so that these visitors can do other things that are part of the burgeoning new community while they are there.