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    • Vigil - 26 November 2022
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    @reclaimholloway

    • Home
    • Our Story
    • Vigil - 26 November 2022
    • PRESS RELEASE
    • Pamphlet
    • The Women's Building
    • Plain Text
    • Support us
    • Latest News
    • Contact Us
    • | BUILD COMMUNITIES NOT
    • Social Feed
    • …  
      • Home
      • Our Story
      • Vigil - 26 November 2022
      • PRESS RELEASE
      • Pamphlet
      • The Women's Building
      • Plain Text
      • Support us
      • Latest News
      • Contact Us
      • | BUILD COMMUNITIES NOT
      • Social Feed
      Submit
      • RECLAIM HOLLOWAY

         

         

         

        The opportunity of a generation to reimagine

        women’s services and spaces in the UK

        Pledge Your Support
      • Our Story

        Holloway, the largest women's prison in Western Europe, was closed in 2016 and sold for redevelopment

        Reclaim Holloway are campaigning for a Women's Building to be built on the site.

         

        Visually striking, inclusive, accessible and welcoming, the Holloway Women’s Building will provide a positive and lasting legacy for the tens of thousands held in the prison over its 160-year history, while helping women to stay out of the criminal justice system. It will deliver a range of much-needed services for women and the local community. The Building will also feature working and meeting space for women’s projects that support social change, and for creative and cultural activities.

         

        In early March 2019, three years after prison was closed, the site was sold to the Peabody housing association, backed by a £42 million loan from the Mayor of London. Peabody committed to constructing genuinely affordable housing, green space, and a Women’s Building. Our activism paid off: these three major objectives of the Reclaim Holloway campaign were adopted by Islington Council’s 2018 planning guidance for the site. But the plans they submitted - which will be examined for a second time by councillors on the Islington planning committee on 8th March 2022 - do not honour these commitments.
         

        Reclaim Holloway is continuing its campaign, bringing in community and expert voices to shape the site and hold the developer to account. In particular, we're fighting for a transformative, inclusive, spacious vision of the Holloway Women’s Building. Reclaim Holloway is working with architects, artists, women’s organisations and charities, academics, and women with experience of imprisonment to develop a detailed vision.

         

        We have been fighting - with our friends at Community Plan 4 Holloway - to resist the inadequate and disappointing plans put forward by Peabody. For a breakdown of the timeline of events and so much more, head over to the Justice4Holloway website.

         

        Our work is inspired by the stories of women who were imprisoned in Holloway. Visit the Holloway Prison Stories site to read real and recognisable stories of Holloway, to explore the heritage of the prison, and to be inspired by a vision for the future.

      • Vigil - 26 November 2022

        Marking 7 years since the announcement of the closure of Holloway Prison

      • PRESS RELEASE:

        Architects and skilled tradeswomen condemn Peabody’s

        Holloway plans as a tokenistic, unimaginative

        “totally lost opportunity”

        30 June 2021

         

        Panellists at the London Festival of Architecture (LFA) have sharply criticized Peabody Housing, the developer of the former Holloway Prison for Women, and called for the 10-acre site to be designed and built by women.

         

        The criticisms arose during four online sessions of the Festival devoted to the Women’s Building, which Peabody committed to construct when it purchased the 169 year old prison in 2019. The sessions have drawn strong international attention, particularly in the US and Europe.

         

        Speaking at the second session on 14th June, Helen Aston, Senior Lecturer at the Manchester School of Architecture dismissed Peabody’s current plans for the historic site as “a totally lost opportunity.” She termed it “dismissive, arrogant, and patronising” that the design process was not being carried out by a female-led architectural practice.

         

        A particular target for the panellists was Peabody’s relegating the Women’s Building to a single floor under a residential block. Asked whether this was sufficient to honour the prison’s legacy, architect Sarah Akigbogun replied, “Absolutely not.” Vice-chair of Women in Architecture UK and the founding director at Studio Aki, she called it “another example of the marginalisation of women's needs but also of women in the construction and the procurement processes."

         

        Turning a tragic history into a positive legacy Campaigning group Reclaim Holloway, which organized the LFA sessions, argues that the government’s controversial decision to sell the prison in 2016 offered a unique opportunity,

        both to build a positive legacy for the prison and bring much-needed services for women under one roof. Inmates included leading figures in women’s rights and social justice such as the Suffragettes and the Greenham Common women.

         

        Peabody bought the 10 acres of public land in 2019 for 82 million, with a 39 million grant from the Mayor of London’s office. Planning for the site has been delayed but is expected to be completed by mid-autumn.

         

        Reclaim Holloway charges that detailed suggestions for the Women’s Building, presented by the Community Plan for Holloway organization, have not been seriously listened to and that Peabody’s public consultation efforts have been classic cases of one-way communication.

         

        While a “final” consultation has been announced, LFA panellist Christine Murray, editor-in-chief at The Developer and former editor-in-chief of the Architectural Review, is sceptical. “Having looked at the public consultation, they do celebrate this idea of the Women’s Building,” she notes. “But it doesn’t seem very truthful to what they’re actually proposing to do. So that feeling of being used, that tokenism could actually be quite hurtful to everyone who is

        involved."

         

        A showcase for women in skilled trades and architecture

        Speaking at the final session on June 28th panellist Dr Susan Moir revealed that a delegation of female builders from the US will visit London in 2022 specifically to learn more about Women’s Building planned for the site.

         

        Dr Moir, a University of Massachusetts researcher and founder of Tradeswomen Building Bridges (North American Network of Women Working in the Construction Trades), spoke on the session’s theme of discrimination in building and architecture. Citing low numbers on both sides of the Atlantic of women and minorities in these professions, she noted that “targeted projects” are a proven way to improve representation by providing training opportunities and

        job experience.

         

        “The entire Holloway site could be such a project,” she said. Calling on Peabody and Islington Council to think big both in terms of building size and services, Dr Moir issued a challenge to both: “Build the infrastructure to get women on those projects, and to stay in these jobs. And let women build the Women's Building!”

         

        Anna Schabel, chair of the UK’s Women in Architecture, added that the design process had to open up, starting with a public competition for women-led firms: “Bring women onto the jury, bring in women experts on inclusive procurement, budget a fee for people from the community to attend the consultation panels and provide childcare.” She also urged recruitment and onsite training for women and local people.

         

        Growing momentum

        The movement to create positive physical legacies for women’s prisons and for other institutions with painful histories has been spreading internationally, says criminologist Dr Rachel Seoighe of the University of Kent, who chaired the four sessions and is a member of Reclaim Holloway. Asked about the national and international interest in Holloway, she replied, “At a time when women’s rights are once again a public focus, the challenge of designing something that is both a practical space for women’s services and a visually striking, national ‘site of conscience’ seems to have struck a chord.”

         

        Following the final discussion, Seoighe commented, “We’re finding a strong desire both here and among our international contacts that this unique opportunity must not be wasted. We hope these discussions will influence the future of the Women’s Building development before the site plans are submitted later this year.”

         

        For more information, contact Dr Rachel Seoighe: r.seoighe@kent.ac.uk

        Justice4Holloway

        Sign our petition
      • The Women's Building: Vision & Designs

        Women's Rights | Women's Support Services | Activism & Advocacy | Community Space | Arts & Creativity | Childcare | Social Enterprise | Workspace

      • All sketches by Niki Gibbs.

      • Pledge Your Support

        Click here to sign the new #Justice4Holloway petition

         

        Join the Women’s Building Working Group at Community Plan 4 Holloway
        Do you have 2 hours per week to support the Working Group to take concrete actions
        around the Women’s Building? Do you like to get hands-on and work with a group of local
        residents with similar passions? If yes, please join the Working Group.
         

        Fund us to conduct a feasibility study
        Are you a funder who shares our vision for the Women’s Building, and passion for making
        London an inclusive place for all women to thrive?

        We are looking for funding to produce the feasibility study and business plan, in order to
        bring more community voices into the planning of the Women’s Building.
         

        Share with us your insights
        Do you work to advance women’s rights in this country? Have you been active in feminist
        activism? If yes, please share with us your insights on what you want for the Women’s Building
        by emailing us or connecting on twitter at @reclaimholloway.

        Submit
      • Latest News

        Keep up to date with the campaign and how to take action

        PRESS RELEASE:Architects and skilled tradeswomen condemn Peabody’s Holloway plans as a tokenistic, unimaginative “totally lost opportunity”
        July 1, 2021
        IN THE PRESS: Prison site is a missed opportunity to support women, warns campaign
        June 11, 2021
        ONLINE EVENT: Reclaim Holloway at London Festival of Architecture
        June 3, 2021
        More Posts
      • CONTACT US

        For press inquiries or if you are interested in joining Reclaim Holloway, please fill in the form below.

        Or email us at reclaimhollowaymail@gmail.com

        Submit
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