2025-03-31-accounts - The Glass-House Community Led Design

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The Glass-House Community Led Design Company number: 05435630 Charity Number: 1112094

Report and financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Reference and administrative information	1
Directors’ report	2
Independent examiner's report	31
Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)	32
Balance sheet	33
Notes to the financial statements	34

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Company number 05435630

Charity number 1112094

Registered office 124 City Road London EC1V 2NX

Country of United Kingdom incorporation

Directors Prue Chiles Chair Susannah Davis Robert Johnson Alexander Sainsbury

Key management Sophia de Sousa Chief Executive personnel

Secretary Sophia de Sousa

Bankers CAF Bank Ltd 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling ME19 4JQ

Solicitors Portrait Solicitors 1 Chancery Lane London WC2A 1LF

Independent Hamilton Coopers

Examiner Chartered Accountants 66 Earl Street Maidstone, Kent ME14 1PS

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

The Directors, who also act as Trustees for charity law purposes, submit their annual report and the financial statements of The Glass-House Community Led Design for the year ended 31 March 2025. The Directors confirm that the annual report and financial statements of the Charity comply with current statutory requirements, the requirements of the Charity's governing document and the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) 'Accounting and Reporting by Charities'.

Structure, Governance and Management

The Glass-House Community Led Design, which is a Registered Charity (1112094) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (05435630), is constituted through its Memorandum and Articles of Association.

The Board of Directors currently has four appointed members, who give their time to the Charity on a voluntary basis. The Directors of the Company during the year are set out in the legal and administrative information on page 1. The current Directors are Prue Chiles (Chair), Susannah Davis, Robert Johnson (Chair of Finance Committee) and Alex Sainsbury.

Either existing Directors or senior staff members may propose potential new Directors. The Chair and at least one other member interview each potential Director. If approved, potential Directors attend a meeting of the Board of Directors as an observer. Directors may subsequently be appointed by a unanimous vote on an ordinary resolution at a quorate meeting of the Charity’s Board of Directors. There is an established process for the induction of Directors. All new Directors are provided with an induction pack containing relevant documentation as recommended by the Charity Commission. The Board carries out regular governance reviews of the Board and its functions.

The Directors appoint a Chief Executive to manage the day-to-day activities of the Charity.

Risk Management

The Charity has assessed the governance, operational, financial, and external risks, as well as those related to compliance with law and regulation. Where appropriate, the Charity has consulted external experts to ensure that the systems and structures in place meet standards and regulations. The Charity has established a clear set of Financial Policies and Procedures adhering to guidance from the Charity Commission, as well as a Financial Reserves Policy appropriate to the risks of the Charity. A comprehensive review of the risks is carried out on an annual basis.

Related Parties

One of the Charity’s Directors (Alex Sainsbury) is also on the board of the Charity’s main core funder, The Glass-House Trust. See note 8 for further information.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Objectives and Activities

The principal objects of the Charity are:

the advancement of education in matters relating to urban design, including by offering advice, information, training and project support to community, tenants and residents groups throughout the UK in matters relating to urban design.
the maintenance, improvement or provision of public amenities in areas of social and economic deprivation, in the interests of urban and rural regeneration, through the support and promotion of public participation in the design of the built environment and public spaces.

Mission and Approach

We want to make great places a reality for everyone.

We connect people with the design of their places, and connect design with people.

Our work is focused on supporting communities, organisations and networks to work collaboratively on the design of buildings, open spaces, homes and neighbourhoods. We see design not only as a tool for creating great places, but also as a way to connect people and to empower them with enhanced confidence, skills, and a greater sense of agency.

We work openly and collaboratively across disciplines and sectors to develop research, projects, events and practical resources. We are committed to sharing the learning from our work to help affect change for people, places and practice.

What We Do

Champion: We are an independent advocate for the value of empowering design practices and for the importance of design quality and its effect on people’s quality of life.
Empower: We empower people and organisations through design by building new skills and confidence that give people the agency to contribute to and lead inclusive local change.

Connect: We use design to bring people together to work collaboratively to improve their places and support local relationships and networks that help build community.

Innovate: We test new ideas and methodologies with partners, projects, and places and share what we learn to inform and innovate design practice.

Areas of work

Improving places

We enable a wide range of people and organisations to work together to shape places, such as the design of new housing, revitalising a green space or transforming a community building.

Our independent, hands-on support helps to build confidence and capacity, to inspire, and to give people the agency to improve the quality of their neighbourhoods.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Innovating practice

We inject new approaches and processes that enhance the social and economic impact of designing places and inform policy and practice.

Our support empowers organisations to rethink their culture and practice to support a more open and collaborative approach to shaping places.

Action research

We undertake action research with partners across sectors and disciplines to explore the value and impact of empowering design practices in supporting people and places.

Through our collaborations with partners and the communities engaged with our research, we develop and share new knowledge, tools and resources.

Supporting dialogue

We create and facilitate interactive events and activities that help people from different backgrounds and professions work together and learn from each other.

We also share our work on empowering design practices at conferences, workshops, lectures and other events that explore the connections between people and places.

When planning our activities for the year, the Directors have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit. The Glass-House works to ensure that our programmes are inclusive, accessible and responsive to the needs of our beneficiaries. We also aim to ensure that any support that we offer brings benefit not only to the direct participants, but also to a broad crosssection of the communities in which their projects are based. We are also committed to ensuring that our work supports innovation, and the production and sharing of learning.

Allocation of resources to beneficiaries

The Glass-House offers free or subsidised enabling and support to community groups and organisations through a number of different programmes.

The Glass-House delivers a programme of free events, which includes our national Glass-House WEdesign Series and other workshops, seminars and events. We generally offer open registration to these on a first come, first served basis.

The Glass-House also offers some free or subsidised project-based support and training to selected communities, which is sometimes made possible through theme-based funded programmes. All this support is accessed through a both rigorous and responsive process to assess eligibility of groups and projects, managed by the Charity’s staff and relevant partners. Applicants are interviewed and/or visited by one or more members of staff, and information assessed by at least two members of staff. The staff team reports regularly to the Chief Executive and the Board of Directors on both projects being considered and resource allocations made. All support given has clear terms and conditions attached and is subject to rigorous monitoring and evaluation. Above all, there is the expectation that we will capture and share learning from each of these projects, and that those we support will work with us to help ensure that the work we do with them can benefit others as well.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

In some cases, our free support to communities is linked to the collaborative action research programmes we deliver with higher education and third sector partners. This allows us to both provide practical support on the ground in communities, and to extract and disseminate learning to contribute to the growing evidence base and movement of community-led, participatory and collaborative design of place. Increasingly, we are also working with communities through our events programme to help community-based organisations convene local place-based conversations and to instigate collaborative action across sectors.

We also offer training and enabling support to communities through commissioned services. We choose only those commissioned projects that contribute to our mission. All funds generated through commissioned work are invested back into meeting our charitable objectives.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Report on activities 2024/25

Being ambitious about the impact of The Glass-House

Our strategic plan sets seven key strategic objectives for 2024-29:

Be catalytic to affect change
Choose and make opportunities for targeted action that has a significant impact.
Champion, challenge, provoke and inspire Constantly ask people to reflect, reconsider and imagine.
Maximise impact through collaboration
Build on existing partnerships to create new opportunities and to extend our impact and reach.
Expand and diversify community of practice

Train and equip both practitioners and community activists, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to do what we do.

Build legacy and share resources

Develop our archive of learning, resources and stories and make it available to others.

Create a strategy for the future Plan for the future of The Glass-House impact through capacity building, resources and learning, regardless of the charity’s future.
Nurture Glass-House staff & champions

Ensure that working for and with The Glass-House helps people to build the confidence and skills to support and enable The Glass-House mission

With the launch of our new strategic plan this year, we began internal conversations about how to continue to forward The Glass-House mission whilst planning for a Glass-House legacy and the continuity of our work, regardless of the future of the charity itself. This focus on future-proofing responds to an increasingly difficult economic landscape in which we are operating, and a recognition of the impact this is having on not only the community and voluntary sector, but also on the public, private and higher education sectors. At a time of considerable national growth targets, yet diminished budgets across sectors, we are keen to continue to both make the case for and enable community participation and leadership in design and placemaking, and most importantly, to empower other to do so to.

As always, this year we have chosen to work on projects where we feel we can make a difference, innovate and extract and share learning. We continue to enable and inspire public discussion and debate. Our national public programme of events, think pieces and accompanying student programme flourished again this year, and brought invaluable interplay between communities and both practicing and emerging professionals. Our range of free events has ensured that we continue to offer safe, accessible spaces for discussion and debate and for people to connect with each other across communities, organisations, sectors and generations.

We have continued to develop practical resources to enable others to do what we do, and to inject them both into practice and communities. We have continued work with an archivist on a digital asset management system that will help us shape a public facing resource bank of The Glass-House work, learning tools and methods.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Through our strategic partnership with The Open University, we have worked to extract learning from our research to inform policy and practice. We have also worked with a number of community-based organisations to explore ideas for infrastructuring collaborative design nationally, and for supporting knowledge exchange across communities.

This year saw us deliver another rich programme of activities, grounded in our ongoing commitment to enabling, experimentation, capturing and sharing learning and to partnership working. As always, it is clear to us that there is too much for us to achieve on our own. With this in mind, we continue to work with partners and to empower others with the confidence, methods and approaches as well as producing evidence, to drive systemic change to empower communities in and through design and to support cross-sector collaboration in placemaking.

What follows is a snapshot of our work in 2024/25.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Supporting Dialogue

The Glass-House is unusually positioned to bring together a range of voices and perspectives from communities, practice, policy, research and education to explore ideas, to bring experiences and ideas together through discussion and debate, and to challenge the status quo. We create a range of safe and accessible, as well as playful spaces, to foster and support dialogue, and contribute to events organised by others.

A Continuing Collaboration with Ove Arup Foundation

2024/25 is the final year of collaboration with the Ove Arup Foundation on our WEdesign programme. With their support, we have continued to work with higher education partners to codesign and co-facilitate a national programme of free public events, whilst further developing our accompanying WEdesign Student Programme and series of Think Pieces.

Through WEdesign, we have provided safe, accessible spaces for interdisciplinary and crosssector conversations about design and placemaking.

WEdesign series 2024/25: Sharing Place

The theme of our 2024/25 WEdesign series, Sharing Place , emerged very naturally. At a time of profound tension and division within the global socio-political landscape, it felt right to enable a national conversation about the power of sharing places, and of creating places to share. Against the backdrop of both historical and enduring inequities, we wanted to explore how we might reimagine the ways we share our places and spaces with each other, and with nature. We were also keen to get creative about spaces for connection, and the role that they play within our society in sharing experiences, stories, skills and resources.

Sharing Place was our way of generating and sharing provocations and propositions for changes to how we shape, manage and share our built and natural environments. Our WEdesign programme created an opportunity to demonstrate the power of collaborative design to bring diverse people together to drive that change.

We welcomed participants to in-person co-design events in London, Glasgow, Sheffield and Newcastle, all of which were co-designed and co-facilitated with our university partner tutors and students. Online we were joined by participants from across the UK for our Debate and Chat events, as well as a reflective Closing Event. Through our series of Think Pieces, we created a platform for sharing inspiring voices from across sectors.

All our events were captured and shared with our networks through blogs written by The GlassHouse team, partners, event participants and participating student facilitators.

We created a publication that brings together voices and ideas generated across the series, capturing the four in-person events, our online Debate, Glass-House Chat and Closing Event, as well as celebrating contributions to our Think Piece Series and participant blogs. - https://theglasshouse.org.uk/resources/sharing place-reflections-on-the-2024-25-wedesign-event8 series/

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Sharing Place: The Debate

We launched our 2024/25 WEdesign series with Sharing Place: The Debate , kick-starting a national conversation around this year’s theme. Participants from across the UK came together to explore more equitable ways of sharing our places and spaces, as well as creating places to share experiences, skills, knowledge and other things we value through thoughtful placemaking.

The event invited personal and anecdotal contributions from our four inspiring speakers, each offering a unique lens on what it means to share place. The conversation that followed was rich and reflective. Participants discussed the need to empower marginalised voices, challenge assumptions about who spaces are for, and embrace storytelling as a tool for inclusive design. Themes of ownership, power, and resistance to car-led planning emerged, alongside calls for policymakers to recognise the social, not just economic, value of truly shared spaces.

Zac Tudor, Associate Director for Place Resilience at Arup, encouraged us to rethink urban landscapes. Sharing examples from his work in Sheffield, Zac illustrated how we might reclaim our streets for people and nature over cars. He explored how integrating natural systems into our cities can help tackle challenges like air quality, flooding, and biodiversity loss, while improving everyday wellbeing. He left us with a powerful question: “How far can we push back on the spaces that cars have taken over?”

Nana Biamah-Ofosu, architect, educator and Director of YAA Projects, joined us from a study visit in Senegal, where she had been learning about earth construction and collective building traditions, particularly those led by women. She reflected on what contemporary architecture enables us to share, or limits. Drawing from her experiences between Ghana and the UK, including South London’s Rye Lane, Nana asked: “ Who decides how spaces are used, what gets shared, and how can we ensure those decisions are equitable?”

Yashmin Harun , founder of the Muslimah Sports Association, spoke about the barriers Muslim women face in accessing inclusive sports spaces, often due to privacy concerns or a lack of cultural awareness. She advocated for purposeful placemaking, sharing how adaptable spaces can support social, sporting, and religious needs. Reflecting on a local park regeneration project, she described how prayer facilities were incorporated after community input, showing how inclusive design can change how people engage with shared spaces.

Pat Scrutton , Coordinator of the Intergenerational National Network, emphasised the importance of cross-generational engagement. Drawing on stories from her travels and projects, she reminded us that, “Places become meaningful through human connection and memory.” Pat highlighted projects where people of all ages shape their environments together, reminding us that truly inclusive design considers the full span of life and the stories we carry through it.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Glass-House Chat: Sharing Place

Our Sharing Place Chat was a special edition of our GlassHouse Chats, forming part of our WEdesign 2024/25 series, Sharing Place . The Chat offered a more intimate, participantled space for open discussion. Together, we explored how policies and practices can support the sharing of not just physical spaces, but also skills, stories, and experiences.

Key themes included the value of creativity for its own sake, the importance of informal spaces for sharing, and designing places that foster genuine human connection. Participants generously shared insights from community-led projects, highlighting the need to celebrate and support grassroots initiatives.

As one participant put it, “If we can’t find the funding to do what we want, people will meet anyway.” A powerful reflection of what Sharing Place is all about, that wherever we gather, we are . able to create opportunities for collaboration, learning, and meaningful connection

Sharing Place: Think Pieces

In January, we launched our series of WEdesign Think Pieces, with blogs on the theme of Sharing Place added weekly from a range of inspiring voices across sectors and disciplines. Here is our full list of contributions:

Sophia de Sousa, Chief Executive of The Glass-House, kicked off the series with a personal think piece on place equity.

Stephen Hill, an independent urban regeneration practitioner, positions collaborative placemaking in the realm of direct political action, enabling citizens to shape how they live with each other.

Leslie Barson, co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen, explores the difference between space and land, and the power structures that influence our relationships with our local places and with each other.

Ben Derbyshire, architect, shares reflections from visiting inspiring shared places on his visits with the Historic England Historic Places Panel, which he chairs.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Neil Onions from Beyond the Box, explores the power of community-led placemaking, agency and stewardship of our shared spaces.

Adrian Sinclair, a social activist, reflects on his experience of working with communities to shape shared spaces, and the complex local narratives that weave through all our places.

The Architecture Foundation Young Trustees explore the notion of ‘inside’ and ‘outside‘ in both our discourse and decision-making around how we shape our places.

Peter Hetherington, a journalist, explores the link between democracy and place, and how political structures can influence how we shape our places.

George Lovesmith, a placemaking practitioner, explores the importance of our sense of belonging in how we relate to places and each other.

Malcolm Hamilton and Amy Rose from Play:Disrupt talk about the power of play and imagination in shaping spaces with children and young people – and what we can all learn from it.

Tijmen Kuyper, a Dutch co-housing expert, explores the relationship between architecture, community, and the global rise of populism.

You can read all these think pieces on our blog here: https://theglasshouse.org.uk/tag/sharing place-think-pieces/

We have created a publication compiling the Sharing Place Think Piece Collection .

https://theglasshouse.org.uk/resources/glass-housewedesign2024 ~~T~~ -2025/-sharing-place- ~~T~~ think-piece-publication ~~£~~ -

Student Programme

We partner with higher education institutions across the UK, to mentor and upskill students, enabling them to co-facilitate our public events. WEdesign creates a supported space for students to explore real world design and placemaking issues with a diverse audience.

This year, like last, we worked with partners and students at University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture & Landscape, the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London (UCL), Mackintosh School of Architecture at Glasgow School of Art and students from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape.

Continuing these partnerships has enabled us to further develop the programme, building on our collective reflection and learning from last season and injecting new elements into this one. Tailoring the programme to suit the needs of each partner university also helps them integrate the principles of co-design, participatory methods and collaborative action into student learning.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Student co-design workshops at University of Sheffield and Glasgow School of Art.

This year, we continued to refine the student development programme, equipping students with the skills to plan events and facilitate co-design activities. To support this, we also visited students early in the academic year and delivered an additional co-design workshop, to supplement our in-person planning session and reflection sessions after the events. We also refined the student resource guide to aid their learning.

In Newcastle and Glasgow, students took the lead in designing and delivering interactive icebreaker activities, welcoming participants to our in-person events. These activities allowed them to experiment with different design engagement methods they are developing as part of their studies, with WEdesign providing a supportive environment for them to test and refine their ideas.

In-person co-design events

Our Sharing Place in-person events attracted a diverse mix of participants across ages, cultural backgrounds, and both lived and professional experiences. This diversity provided our WEdesign students with valuable opportunities to connect and collaborate with a broad range of individuals, fostering a safe space for engaging conversations on challenging themes.

Our in-person WEdesign events follow a flexible framework, allowing tutors and students to codesign elements of the programme to align with their interests and studies. These collaborative sessions not only enrich the learning experience for our students but also empower participants to actively engage in discourse on placemaking and community development.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Common Ground

Sheffield, 27 February 2025

With University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture and Landscape & Live Works

For our first in-person we travelled to Sheffield, working again with our long time collaborator Leo Care and his students from University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture and Landscape . Hosted by the urban room Live Works we explored both our understanding of common ground , and what this might mean in the context of placemaking that puts the co-existence of people and planet at its core.

The conversation illustrated that despite starting from different lenses at the various tables, there were some key shared values and principles emerging across the groups:

Permission to fail : fear of failure can be stifling, and we should embrace a culture of experimentation and learning from failure or simply unexpected outcomes.
Learning is messy and great things can come from confusion and chaos : sometimes, we need to allow things to get messy, to muddle through and to find solutions in unexpected places and through unpredictable journeys.
Diverse communities have more in common than not : through conversation, and when given the space to expose and explore our differences, we also find that we have more in common than not.
Spaces for connection and conversation are vital to collaboration : we need to create safe spaces and the time for conversation in order to forge meaningful relationships and collaborations.
We share responsibility for collaborative action : in order to activate and sustain collaborative action, we must all contribute to breaking down barriers and to taking steps outside our familiar spaces and ways of working in order to bridge gaps.

We were encouraged to see that our event had planted seeds of thought, but also motivation to take action, to connect with others and to try new things. There was a consensus in the room that we had all benefitted from speaking across generations and experiences, and that in the end, we shared a good deal of common ground.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Living in Agreement

Glasgow, 5 March 2025

With the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh School of Architecture

We were delighted to return to Civic House in Glasgow for Living in Agreement, delivered in partnership with students and tutors from the Mackintosh School of Architecture and Missing in Architecture. Held on a grey and damp evening in Glasgow, the event brought together a multigenerational group from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore new approaches to care, and the sharing of resources, goods, and skills in placemaking.

To welcome participants into the space, students designed an engaging activity centred around the question: How comfortable do you feel? Participants were invited to place coloured dots on a map of Glasgow to indicate areas where they felt comfortable or uncomfortable. They were also asked to reflect on how comfortable they felt travelling to the event, being at the event itself, and to share a personal story related to the theme. Our students also transformed the event space at Civic House by creatively dressing the space using images and words around the event theme.

Through the discussion, several key themes emerged across all four tables:

Empathy and collaboration : Breaking down individual egos to engage in larger, collective conversations about the built environment.
The power of shared spaces : Recognising the importance of places where people can come together, interact, and build relationships.
Challenging the status quo : Encouraging creative and political engagement within the built environment to disrupt existing systems that prevent innovation and inclusivity.
Memory and storytelling : Acknowledging the cultural and historical narratives embedded within our buildings and spaces.
Respect for nature : Designing cities that embrace ecological integration rather than resisting it.

One participant summed up the evening with a powerful observation: “We don’t have enough space just to be with other people and have these conversations. This is what we need more of.”

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

The Healthy City

London, 5 March 2024

With University College London’s Bartlett School of Planning

On 17 March, we gathered in London for The Healthy City, the third in-person event in this year’s Sharing Place series, in collaboration with tutors and students from the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL and hosted by the Alan Baxter Gallery. The event explored what health citizenship means today and how community-led actions and effective governance can create a more holistic approach to health and well-being in placemaking. A diverse group of participants, spanning generations and backgrounds, brought a mix of curiosity and expertise, contributing to vibrant discussions on the theme.

When we regathered to talk about the ideas that we had co-created and shared with each other, it was clear that people had been inspired and moved by what they had heard. Above all, it appeared that we all seemed to be craving better places and opportunities to connect, whether purposely or opportunistically. Here are some of the key points that emerged through our joined up discussion and through people’s parting contributions:

Ecology is more than the green, the blue and the brown. It is also about the connection between people and nature and with each other. We are all parts of the ecosystem.
Each place is a complex tapestry of people and the physical and natural spaces we inhabit and shape. We need to look at places holistically, and to consider how their various elements can best weave together to form a healthy collective.
We need to build more bridges. Some might bridge the gap between people and the amenities and services they need. Others might cross real or perceived barriers between different communities. Above all, we need to create spaces for connection. One of our youngest participants in the room, a teenager, referenced something that he had heard that had stuck with him, “Build longer tables, not higher walls.”
We need to think more strategically about the generations that will follow us and to plan more thoughtfully for the future of our communities, cities and our planet.
We all have a role to play in creating healthy places. While it is our right as individuals, it is also our collective responsibility.

As one of our student facilitators put it, “Everyone left with interesting questions on their minds.” Many of the takeaway cards expressed simple hopeful messages, such as Places to be! Places to Share!” that we felt expressed the power of inclusive, collaborative and creative spaces for connection that we hope our WEdesign events create.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Communities of Care

Newcastle, 24 March 2025

With Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

On 24 March, we were hosted at The Boiler House, Newcastle University, for the final in-person event of our WEdesign series: Communities of Care. In collaboration with tutors and students from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape, the event explored how care can shape sustainable ways of living. Through discussion, debate, and interactive activities, we examined how mutual support, resource sharing, and collective well-being can foster innovation and resilience in our communities.

As participants arrived, they were welcomed by students who had designed a variety of interactive icebreaker activities. These activities were part of the students’ ongoing design engagement experiments, developed as part of their studies. The WEdesign event provided a safe space for them to test these methods, allowing participants to engage with and give feedback on their approaches.

The Communities of Care event brought together diverse voices and sparked meaningful conversations on how to challenge the status quo and create change at every level. Key themes included the importance of breaking down barriers, whether between people and nature or between communities and decision-makers, and empowering individuals to take action in shaping their surroundings. Conversations around guerrilla gardening, public space reclamation, and accessible, grassroots education highlighted how small acts can drive significant transformation.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Series Voices

Our participants generously shared their reflections on their experience and ideas sparked by taking part. In gathering people’s key takeaways, we intentionally did not distinguish between our student facilitators and event participants and instead explored the individual and collective experience of all those taking part.

Here are just a few of our favourites:

“Everybody is talking about change, but they don’t talk to each other. How do we make everyone talk to each other?”

“Kinder Cities make kinder people.”

“There are many barriers to creating communities and it will take all of us to dismantle them.”

“We should be building for generations ahead.”

“Ecology is linked to everything. We cannot live without it.”

“It has highlighted my role in policy and how I can find “roots” into it.”

“Interdependence of different stakeholders for a positive and healthy environment.”

“We’re all in this together! To collaborate and share ideas / knowledge is to succeed.”

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Glass-House Chats

The Glass-House Chats have become a much appreciated part of our public events calendar. These free online sessions were designed to create a safe space to ask questions, explore ideas, approaches and methods, share learning and make connections. They are open to and attract a wide range of participants who are interested in how we can collectively build confidence and capacity in the sectors to engage communities in design and placemaking.

These monthly sessions are chaired by members of The Glass-House team, who briefly introduce the theme and then open the floor for an informal and open discussion among participants. To ensure space for meaningful discussion, places are limited to a small group. We keep these sessions informal, with no set agenda, only a theme as a starting point, and allowed the conversation to go where the mix of participants on the day took us. Every Chat was rich with questions, reflections, ideas and above all, with sharing.

The financial year of 2024/25 crossed over two seasons of Chats:

Glass-House Chats – Season 4

Glass-House Season 4 ran from October 2024 to June 2025. The themes covered in this season include:

17 October 2022 – Housing or Homes?

14 November 2022 – Growing Places?

12 December 2022 – Careful Construction

23 January 2023 – Spaces for Culture

12 March 2023 – People, Place, Planet

30 April 2023 – Has Public Transport Hit the Buffers?

28 May 2023 – Wellbeing & Placemaking

25 June 2023 – The Right to Shape Places

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The key themes that emerged from the Chats, along with a participants’ perspective on the taking part, were captured, in blogs have been compiled in a series publication.

https://theglasshouse.org.uk/resources/glass-housechats-bringing-sectors-together-2023-2024/

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Glass-House Chats – Season 5

In this series of Glass-House Chats, we are revisiting the questions we asked a decade ago in our Glass-House Debate series Place Potential (2013/14) and To a More Ambitious Place (2014/15). All are questions that we feel are still hugely relevant today and that should be informing systemic change to how we shape where we live, work and play. We also hope that, 10 years on, bringing them to the Glass-House Chats space might help us gather some inspiring examples of how things are changing for the better.

Like last year, our Chats crossed over with our WEdesign event series, with a special WEdesign Chat in March. This created a different kind of space for people to explore the event series theme, Sharing Place and help connect audiences from the two series.

This season’s themes are:

17 October - Can housing be a catalyst for great places? 14 November - Should we build less and reuse more? 12 December - Can young people be placemakers?
16 January - Can we improve health through placemaking? 13 March - Sharing Place (WEdesign special)
17 April - Does practice make perfect in place?
15 May - Do the right people have power in place? 19 June - Is our view of place too short-sighted?
17 July - Do we accept the status quo in place?

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Other events to inform, provoke discussion and inspire

It’s also been a busy year for us speaking at external events, including:

Jar-Gone Conversations: Breaking Down Industry Jargon , an event led by the Architecture Foundation’s Young Trustees for the London Festival of Architecture
Design Codes in Practice Roundtable , organised by HTA Design
Design Codes in Practice: Local Authority wide codes , organised by JTP
Engagement & Co-creation Pathfinder Sessio n, organised by MHCLG
Codesign and Cohousing: Creating Better Places Together , organised by UK Cohousing Network
Negroni Talks Housing Roundtable at the Architectural Association , organised by Fourth Space

External events attended included:

We also attend events organised by others, always eager to connect with and learn from others. Here are some of the events attended this year:

Launch of the Engagement Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work , organised by Association of Collaborative Design and Sustrans
Co-Production Workshop , organised by Future of London
Shaping Community-Led Development in New Towns , Organised by UK Cohousing Network
TET Inspire Future Generations Awa rds, Organised by Thornton Education Trust
Towards Playable Cities , organised by 8 80 Cities
What’s Possible for People-Centred, Place-Based Work?, organised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Place Programme

You can also read our reflections on events we have attended and that have inspired us: Codesign, Cohousing & Community Building, and Co-production & Community Engagement.

Supporting dialogue through our website & social media

We see our website and social media as a space to share our work and learning, inspiring stories and best practice, and to provoke discussion and debate. We regularly produce and share blogs about Glass-House activities, updates and opinion pieces.

At The Glass-House, we see one of our key roles as a connector and want to share voices that may not easily find routes into the public domain or that find it difficult to connect with diverse audiences. With this in mind, our blog also creates space for people from all walks of life to share stories, to inform, inspire and to put forward propositions for positive systemic change.

You can visit our blog here: https://theglasshouse.org.uk/blog/

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Action Research

The Glass-House has become a respected voice in the field of research on design processes that empower people in and through placemaking. Our action research is rooted in working collaboratively across sectors and both with and within communities to co-design projects that develop new knowledge methodologies and practical resources.

An ongoing strategic partnership with the Open University

Since 2013, The Glass-House has had a strategic partnership with the Open University’s Design Group. Our partnership innovates, supports and promotes community-led, participatory and codesign practice and research for the benefit of better places for all.

Our partnership is committed to working collaboratively to this shared mission both within and outside funded projects, and we continuously develop new material to use, evolve and share the approaches and methods we develop. This year saw us do this in relation to two collaborative research projects.

Cross-pollination: Growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking

This year we issued a policy brief and held an event to share findings from our Cross-pollination: - Growing cross sector design collaboration in placemaking research project (Jan 2022-April 2023, which we completed in 2023. The project aimed to scale up collaboration by exploring approaches and methods that can enable and empower placemaking actors from all sectors to connect on shared values and objectives, unearth and mobilise their collective assets, and then collaborate through design and placemaking initiatives in local areas. It was a collaboration between The Glass-House and The Open University, working with local partners in England, Scotland and Wales and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Following the policy briefing session, we captured some of the key points that emerged through the discussion in this blog. The session also inspired a second blog exploring The Third Sector, Higher Education and Collaborative Research.

You can find out more about the Cross-pollination project here, watch a series of films about cross-pollination in action and its impacts, and download the Cross-pollination Resource Pack to lead activities to connect local people, initiatives and assets.

Contributing to Academic Journals

This year, we co-authored a paper about Cross-pollination with our Open University colleagues, which was published in She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation .

Our paper, The Cross-pollination Approach: Conditions for Incubating and Cascading

Collaborative Civic Design Initiatives , explores the conditions affecting cross-sector collaboration and integrative civic leadership in design through our Cross-pollination approach. Specifically, it identifies the barriers and enablers of integrative civic design leadership, focusing on how such leadership can be instigated in a particular place (incubating) and how it can be scaled up.

Read the paper here: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2405872625000048

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Exploring Challenges faced by Community Anchor Organisations

Working with the Open University, we carried out a series of conversations with five place-based partners representing different types of community and voluntary sector organisations, operating at varying scales and with different areas of focus or specialisms. These included Chichester Community Development Trust (CCDT), Agile City (AC) in Glasgow, Israac Somali Community Association (ISRAAC) and Cemetery Road Baptist Church (CRBC) in Sheffield, and Knowle West Media Centre (NWMC) in Bristol.

Each partner owns and manages one or more community buildings, and has a strong presence within their community, providing a range of activities and services and building capacity of local groups and community enterprises. They all have inspiring stories about how they have transformed their buildings into welcoming and accessible spaces, while tackling the challenges of creating economically, socially and environmentally sustainable community assets.

Building on findings from previous research projects and the work of The Glass-House more broadly, we worked with this group to identify some of the key challenges faced by communitybased organisations, with a particular focus on what would help them enhance the impact of their work both locally and nationally. We feel that the learning from these conversations should be shared, as it has identified activities that we collectively feel are crucial, but that in the current funding landscape have become increasingly difficult for community-based organisations, and the national bodies that work with them, to resource:

Connecting with local people who feel disconnected & disenfranchised They need to constantly find novel ways to invite disenfranchised people in, help them feel welcome and part of a community, share experiences and cultures and work together as confident, active citizens.
Moving conversation to action
They need more time for conversation and networking to activate collaborations and grow new activities and services.
Creating space for experimentation

They embrace a culture of experimentation, research and innovation yet find it hard to resource experimental work.

Capturing & sharing learning

They learn a lot through their work, and would like to better reflect, capture and share learning with other communities.

Taking time out to get inspired by and learn from others Visiting and learning from other communities can be catalytic to their work, but they have very limited time or resources to do this.
Increased, and more equitable collaboration with other sectors Whilst they collaborate with other sectors, they would like to strengthen their position to empower local people and groups through both participating in and enabling more equitable and collaborative partnership working across sectors.

We will continue to champion the role of community anchor organisations, the importance of community owned and managed buildings and programmes, and the importance of knowledge exchange across communities supported by national organisations and networks.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Innovating Practice

More engaged and inclusive design is becoming more and more central to the narrative around placemaking. There is no doubt that things have changed quite significantly in this space over the past two decades, and The Glass-House has been a driving force in championing and enabling this. However, despite more interest and intent across sectors, there is still a huge skills gap within the public and private sectors and lack of shared understanding regarding what it means to move from consultation to true empowerment and meaningful involvement in decision-making.

As a key champion and enabler in this field for over two decades, The Glass-House sees the space of innovating, sharing learning and helping others to do what we do as a key part of our work. Here is a snapshot of some key work in helping to inform, inspire and innovate practice:

Contributing to International Dialogue and Guidance around Participation

The UN Habitat Professionals Forum (HPF) recently launched The International Participatory Charter for Urban and Territorial Development to deliver the New Urban Agenda, along with 10 CASE STUDIES to illustrate the ten Participatory Principles of the Charter, at the 12th World Urban Forum. The Glass-House was pleased to contribute a case study, which illustrated Principle 8, drawing on findings from our collaborative research project Fostering creative citizens through co-design and public makerspaces in collaboration with Brunel University.

The Engagement Overlay for the RIBA Plan of Work

The Glass-House team was pleased to contribute to the development of the Engagement Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work , which launched in May 2024. This guidance was a collaboration between the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Association of Collaborative Design, Sustrans and over 30 contributing organisations.

“The main objective of the Engagement Overlay is to provide a standardised approach and baseline for architects and other built environment professionals to enhance the quality of engagement with all stakeholders and to create capacity for public participation beyond traditional methods of solely informing and consulting. It aims to provide the mechanisms and structure for facilitating early, effective and proportionate engagement throughout all work stages while adhering to the existing RIBA Plan of Work ~~TTT~~ framework.”

From RIBA website https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landingpage/engagement-overlay-to-riba-plan-of-work

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Supporting Higher Education

The Glass-House is always keen to help support built environment and design degree courses. As well as our WEdesign programme, we delivered talks and interactive workshops for students at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning, the University of Sheffield, the University of Roehampton and the Glasgow School of Art as well as at the Wider Issues event organised by Manchester School of Architecture, which inspired a series of Wider Issues blogs by our Design Champion Jake Stephenson-Bartley.

Our Chief Executive Sophia also sat as an External Examiner on Newcastle University’s undergraduate programme in Architecture and Urban Planning, and The University of Sheffield’s Masters in Urban Design.

Enabling the Enablers

We are always delighted to see others take up and use the tools and methods we develop. Our colleague Dr Busawayan Lam from Brunel University, with whom we have collaborated both through research and teaching, has written a blog reflecting on using The Glass-House workshop Design by Consensus, which explores collaborative design through role-play, in her work over the last decade.

You can read her blog here. You can find our Design by Consensus: Makerspaces Facilitation Guide here.

Continuing Professional Development

This year has also seen us providing continuing professional development and strategic support for both local authorities and design practices around community engagement in design, with a focus on setting strategies, social value and making the case for investment in design engagement.

Panels and Advisory Groups

It has also been an active year for Sophia on panels and advisory groups including the Historic England Advisory Committee, the Design Council Expert Panel and the TET Inspire Future Generations Awards.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Improving Places

Our approach to supporting projects has always been rooted in helping people to develop the skills, tools and confidence to lead their local project and to connect with potential partners and beneficiaries. Our enabling and empowerment model aims to support better collaboration and more sustainable approaches to transforming places and spaces. We respond to communities, local authorities, housing associations, developers and design teams that approach us for support.

Supporting Place-based Dialogue with Cross-pollination Approach

We are pleased to be able to use the cross-pollination approach, and the resources we created through the Cross-pollination research project, to help locally based organisations convene local conversations that address local issues and kick-start collaborations. This approach seems to be gaining traction as a simple, enjoyable way to bring communities together to learn more about what is happening in their area and to forge connections and collaborations.

One such organisation we worked with last year was the Chichester Community Development Trust (CCDT) where we did a cross-pollination workshop to help activate cross-sector collaboration across the district . This year, we are delighted to report that CCDT have created a digital map of the projects and assets discussed and are continuing to use this approach to support local conversations. They have published a report on their website on a cross-pollination workshop they ran in June 2024, which focused on key themes that had emerged at the first cross-pollination workshop. The event set out to:

Further develop the existing community asset mapping initiated at the first workshop – the map, with assets listed can be found here.
Better understand the challenges facing the district’s young people and socially isolated.
Share knowledge of assets, projects, people, places and aspirations for community delivery across the region, specifically:
Projects being worked on
Projects participants would like to see delivered
Resources that could be contributed by participants, including skills; connections; places; or time

You can read their full report here: https://chichestercdt.org.uk/cross-pollination-report-june-2024/

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Supporting Place-based Dialogue with WEdesign Event Model

In November, we collaborated with CCDT again on our first Community WEdesign event, using our WEdesign event model to help catalyse a local place-based conversation and activate people to work together to tackle local issues, and seize opportunities. The Connected City invited local people and organisations to explore how they can best work together to make practical, tangible, and positive social impacts in the Chichester District.

Claire Robinson, Head of Partnerships at CCDT, reflected on the day in a blog she wrote for The Glass-House. Here is an excerpt sharing some of the very practical and actionable ideas codesigned by participants:

The community team envisioned a revolutionary concept: the “Share Shop.” This physical and digital hub would provide a central space for residents to access resources, share knowledge, and build stronger community ties. A “library-of-things” approach would allow individuals to borrow seldom-used items like power tools, reducing waste and promoting resource sharing. By partnering with local retailers, the shop would incentivise the purchase of borrowed items, boosting the local economy without undermining it.

More than a borrowing service, the Share Shop would serve as a hub for workshops, coaching, and information-sharing—helping residents connect while addressing environmental concerns. It would become a cornerstone for community engagement, actively reducing barriers to participation and inclusion.

The education team explored the profound potential of lifelong learning. They challenged the narrow focus on qualifications and proposed a broader vision where learning is ongoing and inclusive. The team emphasised apprenticeships with a twist —a model where learners also become teachers. For example, a neurodiverse young person excelling in a trade could not only gain valuable experience but also train employers to create neurodiverse-friendly workplaces.

This dual-purpose approach would build mutual understanding and create a ripple effect, as apprentices evolve into mentors, building a culture of shared knowledge. Moreover, the team stressed the importance of “training the trainers,” equipping organisations to more effectively support apprentices and trainees, especially those from marginalised

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

backgrounds ensuring the position was more than hosting young people, but truly imparting knowledge and skills. Breaking unconscious biases in such a way would lead to a more inclusive and connected community.

The ecology team focused on maximising the potential of green spaces to connect people with nature—and with each other. Their ideas revolved around involving diverse groups, from residents and youth organisations to schools and health bodies, in the stewardship of local natural areas and trees, particularly focussing on the management of such areas in new housing developments. This approach would create a sense of shared ownership and responsibility.

One standout idea was to motivate developers to integrate long-term ecological care into their planning processes, ensuring that new green spaces are sustainably maintained. The group also explored ways to rediscover hidden natural treasures within the district, creating opportunities for community-led initiatives to transform these areas into vibrant, shared spaces.

Read the blog in full here: https://theglasshouse.org.uk/workshops-and-events/the-connected-city-at-graylingwell-chapel/

Sharing Tools for Community Participation and Leadership in Design and Placemaking

Our experimentation with helping communities to use Glass-House approaches and event models has demonstrated the value of empowering communities to use and adapt them to suit local needs and to enable local conversations.

With this in mind, we have been working on developing a resource bank, with the intention of open sourcing as much of our work as possible, and of creating simple and accessible pathways for others to find and use them, with or without direct support from The Glass-House team. This will become a major area of focus for 2025/26.

Initial conversations with both communities and practitioners indicate that a mix of resources is needed, including stories and case studies, explainer videos and publications, and practical tools and guidance that others can pick up, use and adapt. Here are some examples of different types of practical resources on which we have received positive feedback :

A brief Introduction to Co-design

(explainer animation)

https://theglasshouse.org.uk/r esources/a-brief-intro-to-codesign/

Cross-pollination Resource Pack

Engaging Communities in Design Decision Making

(guide with case studies and printable workshop resources)

(provocative think pieces)

https://theglasshouse.org.uk/r https://theglasshouse.org.uk/r esources/cross-pollinationesources/engagingresource/ communities-in-designdecision-making-publication/

Making Community Engagement Count

(tips and snapshots)

https://theglasshouse.org.uk/r - - esources/designing places with-people-making- - community engagement count/

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Business development and financial review of 2024/25

This has been a difficult year in terms of income generation for The Glass-House, despite significant investment of time and energy in fundraising and bid development. The reality is that it is an extremely challenging landscape out there.

In the past, our flexible and responsive approach to staffing the organisation has allowed us to weather shifting political, economic and funding landscapes. We have traditionally benefitted from diverse income streams that combined core funding from The Glass-House Trust with project-based grant funding, commissioned projects and research funding which supplemented, matched or even surpassed core funding. Whilst this balance has varied from year to year, dips in one area of funding were generally compensated for by the others. The current economic situation in the UK means that this is no longer the case.

Where once we could rely on commissioned work for local authorities, the challenges that the public sector now faces means that they are simply not currently commissioning in the same way. With an estimated 80% of the university sector facing deficits this year, investment in partnership working and community-facing initiatives has been slashed, and research funding has become increasingly competitive and overstretched. Charitable trusts are faced with a community and voluntary sector in crisis and with communities struggling to meet basic everyday needs. Not only is there more competition for both research and grant funding, but the timescales for applications have doubled due to the sheer volume of groups and organisations seeking support.

This perfect storm has had a profound impact on income generation over the past two years and this year in particular. Despite our best efforts, we will end this year with a significant deficit. It is worth noting, however, that most of that deficit is the use of restricted funding we received in the last financial year that we expected to spend this year. Fortunately, despite our difficulty in generating new income, our reserves position held us in good stead, with funds in place to support our programme and our small staff team.

With the support of The Glass-House Trust, we have also continued our collaboration with an archivist to help us consolidate several print and digital datasets (which include text, photographs, video and audio recordings) into one searchable system that will serve both as the organisation’s live workspace and as a digital archive. As well as supporting the day-to-day working practice of the organisation, this process to consolidate our data and systems is a crucial step towards our goal of creating an open-source online resource hub. This will serve as a resource to both communities and professionals engaging in participatory design processes, as well as to students and academia. We received a further grant this year to help us continue this work.

Looking forward

We embark on 2025/26 taking note of the socio-political and financial upheaval of the past year, and the impact that that this has had across sectors and on our own financial position. We intend to reduce costs to a baseline budget and to deliver a programme with a firm focus on capturing, sharing and open sourcing The Glass-House work. We will maintain an active events and knowledge exchange programme through a combination of partnership work and online activities, drawing on the collaborative economy of partnerships we have built over many years. We will continue to provide mentoring and support to communities and practitioners alike.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

We will continue to explore how we can best work with others to support a cross-sector and interdisciplinary network, our “collaborative economy”, of those supporting community leadership in design and placemaking. This will be crucial to addressing the changing landscape around us and to ensuring that we can continue to provide free support to communities and to work with and innovate practice, policy and education to help empower communities in design and placemaking.

We will continue to work in collaboration with several higher education partners to support the integration of our learning and experience into degree courses, and to support new champions heading into practice. We will also continue to work with students and communities involved in live projects, mentoring students working with their locally based groups in their area, and helping to draw students and communities onto our event series and the national dialogue around design and placemaking

We will continue to provide both engaging public events and practical support on the ground, and to use our experience and learning to champion and enable best policy and practice, and increasingly to educate and empower others to do what we do. The coming year will see us continuing to develop a wide range of resources to support communities and professionals to help connect design, people, and place, and to build capacity to support community-led and participatory design processes.

We will continue to play an active and outspoken role in the field of design and placemaking, and to champion the role of community leadership and cross-sector collaboration in shaping where we live, work and play.

Reserves policy

Our reserves policy, for the purposes of ensuring the robustness of the organisation, is based on three months’ fixed running costs and is currently calculated at £31k based on our current reduced budget and forecasts for the coming year.

The desired figure for reserves of £31k compares with our existing figure of £34k (general unrestricted funds of approximately £24k and restricted funds of £10k). In calculating the free reserves, the Directors have excluded the designated fund that represents the net book value of the fixed assets.

The Glass-House Trust will continue to fund the organisation at the current level of support (£100k per annum), which along with our reserves provides a high degree of security and the financial viability of the organisation through March 2027. We may access further funding through March 2029 given satisfactory reporting and given that the organisation remains active and viable.

While we did use significant reserves in 2024/25, we have severely limited risk in the 2025/26 budget and are trimming costs where possible. We are thus confident that our reserves and commitment from The Glass-House Trust places us in a viable financial position in the short term, if with a much reduced staff team. Our partnership working and network of Glass-House Enablers provides a team that stretches well beyond our staff team.

Our reserves policy will be reviewed again in the new year.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Directors’ Report For the year ended 31 March 2025

Preparation of the report

This report of the Directors has been prepared taking advantage of the small companies exemption of section 415A of the Companies Act 2006.

08/09/25 This report was approved and authorised for issue by the Directors on ................................ and signed on its behalf by:

Prue Chiles Chair

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Independent examiner’s report to the members f or the year ended 31 March 2025

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of The Glass-House Community Led Design for the year ended 31 March 2025.

This report is made solely to the trustees as a body, in accordance with the Charities Act 2011. My examination has been undertaken so that I might state to the trustees those matters I am required to state to them in an independent examiner's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, I do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the trustees as a body, for my examination, for this report, or for the opinions I have formed.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity trustees of the Company you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’) and the Companies Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Company are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of the Company’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’).

Independent examiner’s statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

1 Accounting records were not kept in respect of the Company as required by section 386 of the 2006 Act; or
2 The accounts do not accord with those records; or
The accounts do not comply with the accounting requirements of section 396 of the 2006 Act other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view’ which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination; or
4 The accounts have not been prepared in accordance with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice for accounting and reporting by charities;

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Asim Malik FCA Chartered Accountant

08/Sep/25

Hamilton Coopers Chartered Accountants 66 Earl Street

Maidstone Kent ME14 1PS

………………………….

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2025

==> picture [497 x 544] intentionally omitted <==

----- Start of picture text -----
Unrestricted Restricted
funds Funds 2025 2024
Total Total Total Total
Note £ £ £ £
Income from:
Donations and legacies 2 100,000 - 100,000 100,000
Charitable activities
Improving Places 3 - - - 7,095
Action Research 3 - 20,000 20,000 2,141
Supporting Dialogue 3 600 600 60,000
Innovating Practice 3 - - - 8,676
Investments - Bank interest 1,420 - 1,420 1,533
Total income 102,020 20,000 122,020 179,445
Expenditure on:
Charitable activities
Improving Places 4 18,255 - 18,255 47,536
Action Research 4 32,075 10,050 42,125 63,229
Supporting Dialogue 4 14,461 65,775 80,236 69,069
Innovating Practice 4 50,590 - 50,590 51,670
Other - - - -
Total expenditure 115,381 75,825 191,206 231,503
Net income for the year and net
5 (13,361) (55,825) (69,186) (52,058)
movement in funds
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward 37,659 65,775 103,434 155,492
Total funds carried forward 24,298 9,950 34,248 103,434
----- End of picture text -----

The Statement of Financial Activities contains all gains and losses for the year. Activities included under unrestricted funds relate to continuing operations. Movements in funds are disclosed in Note 14 to the financial statements.

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Company no. 5435630

Balance sheet

As at 31 March 2025

As at 31 March 2025
Note Fixed assets: 10 Tangible assets	£	2025 £ 413	£	2024 £ 2,223
Current assets: 11 Debtors Cash at bank and in hand	1,473 37,504		62,650 49,352
Liabilities: 12 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year	38,977 (5,144)		112,002 (10,791)
Net current assets		33,833		101,211
Total net assets		34,247		103,434
13 Restricted income funds General funds Unrestricted income funds: Designated funds The funds of the charity:	413 23,885	9,950	2,223 35,436	65,775
Total unrestricted funds		24,298		37,659
Total charity funds		34,248		103,434

The opinion of the directors is that the company is entitled to the exemptions conferred by Section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

The directors acknowledge the following responsibilities:

(i) The members have not required the company to obtain an audit of its accounts for the year in question in accordance with section 476,
(ii) The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Act with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts.

These accounts have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies’ regime.

Approved by the directors on …........................................and signed on their behalf by08/09/25

Prue Chiles Chair

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies

a) Statutory information

The Glass-House Community Led Design is a charitable company limited by guarantee and is incorporated in the United Kingdom. The registered office address is 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX.

b) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) - (Charities SORP FRS 102), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

The directors have taken advantage of the small entity exemption as noted in FRS 102 section 1A. The financial statements have been prepared on the historical cost basis.

Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy or note.

c) Public benefit entity

The charitable company meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.

d) Going concern

The directors consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern.

Key judgements that the charitable company has made which have a significant effect on the accounts include a commitment by The Glass-House Trust to make a grant of £100,000 per annum through March 2026 to the charitable company.

The directors do not consider that there are any sources of estimation uncertainty at the reporting date that have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next reporting period.

e) Income

Income is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the income have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and that the amount can be measured reliably.

Income from government and other grants, whether ‘capital’ grants or ‘revenue’ grants, is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the grants have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably and is not deferred.

f) Interest receivable

Interest on funds held on deposit is included when receivable and the amount can be measured reliably by the charity; this is normally upon notification of the interest paid or payable by the bank.

g) Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds are donations and other incoming resources received or generated for the charitable

Designated funds are unrestricted funds earmarked by the directors for particular purposes.

Restricted funds can only be used for particular restricted purposes within the objects of the charity. Restrictions arise when specified by the donor or when funds are raised for specific restricted purposes.

h) Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT

Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is classified under the following activity headings:

Expenditure on charitable activities includes the costs of activities undertaken to further the purposes of the charity and their associated support costs.

Other expenditure represents those items not falling into any other heading.

Irrecoverable VAT is charged as a cost against the activity for which the expenditure was incurred.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

i) Allocation of support costs

Resources expended are allocated to the particular activity where the cost relates directly to that activity. However, the cost of overall direction and administration of each activity, comprising the salary and overhead costs of the central function, is apportioned on the following basis which are an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity.

Where information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is provided to potential beneficiaries, the costs associated with this publicity are allocated to charitable expenditure.

Where such information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is also provided to potential donors, activity costs are apportioned between fundraising and charitable activities on the basis of area of literature occupied by each activity.

ature occupied by each activity.
Improving Places	10.00%
Action Research	17.69%
Supporting Dialogue	41.46%
Innovating Practice	28.00%
Governance costs	0.92%

Support and governance costs are re-allocated to each of the activities on the following basis which is an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity

Improving Places	10.00%
Action Research	17.69%
Supporting Dialogue	41.46%
Innovating Practice	28.00%

Governance costs are the costs associated with the governance arrangements of the charity. These costs are associated with constitutional and statutory requirements and include any costs associated with the strategic management of the charity’s activities.

j) Tangible fixed assets

Items of equipment are capitalised where the purchase price exceeds £500. Depreciation costs are allocated to activities on the basis of the use of the related assets in those activities. Assets are reviewed for impairment if circumstances indicate their carrying value may exceed their net realisable value and value in use.

Where fixed assets have been revalued, any excess between the revalued amount and the historic cost of the asset will be shown as a revaluation reserve in the balance sheet.

Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value over its expected useful life. The depreciation rates in use are as follows:

Office equipment

3 years

k) Debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

l) Cash at bank and in hand

Cash at bank and cash in hand includes cash and short term highly liquid investments with a short maturity of three months or less from the date of acquisition or opening of the deposit or similar account. Cash balances exclude any funds held on behalf of service users.

m) Creditors

Creditors and provisions are recognised where the charity has a present obligation resulting from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are normally recognised at their settlement amount after allowing for any trade discounts due.

The charity only has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value with the exception of bank loans which are subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

n) Pensions

The Company contributes to members' stakeholder pension schemes by making contributions of 8% of gross wages. Contributions are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities as they become payable in accordance with the rules of the scheme.

o) Financial instruments:

2 Income from donations and legacies

Other income from Improving Places Action Research Innovating Practice Other income from Innovating Practice Total income from charitable activities Improving Places University of Sheffield - Arts & Humanities Research Council The Glass-House Trust (restricted archive grant) Supporting Dialogue Ove Arup Foundation (restricted grant for Supporting Dialogue) Other income from Supporting Dialogue The Glass-House Trust (unrestricted core funding) Income from charitable activities	Unrestricted 100,000 100,000 Unrestricted - - - 600 600 600	Restricted - - Restricted - - 20,000 20,000 - - - 20,000	2025 Total £ 100,000 - 100,000 2025 Total £ - - 20,000 20,000 - 600 600 - 120,600	2024 Total £ 100,000 100,000 2024 Total £ 7,095 2,141 - 2,141 60,000 - 60,000 8,676 77,912

3 Income from charitable activities

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

4a Analysis of expenditure

Staff costs (Note 6) Direct Costs Other Indirect Costs Support Costs Governance costs Total expenditure 2025 Total expenditure 2024	Improving Places £ 14,618 - - 14,618 3,333 304 18,255 47,536	Action Research Supporting Dialogue £ £ 25,863 60,606 10,050 5,385 - - 35,913 65,992 5,898 13,840 315 404 42,125 80,236 63,229 69,069 Charitable activities	Innovating Practice £ 40,931 - - 40,931 9,332 327 50,590 51,670	Governance costs £ 1,349 - - 1,349 (1,349) -	Support costs £ 2,811 - 29,593 32,404 (32,404) - - -	2025 Total £ 146,178 15,435 29,593 191,206 - - 191,206 231,504	2024 Total £ 183,095 20,381 28,027 231,503 - - 231,503 -

The amount of expenditure from restricted funds in the year ending March 2025 was £75,825

The Glass-House Community Led Design

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

4b Analysis of expenditure - Previous year (2024) comparative

Staff costs (Note 6) Direct Costs Other Indirect Costs Support Costs Governance costs Total expenditure 2024	Improving Places £ 40,151 150 - 40,301 6,973 262 47,536	Action Research Supporting Dialogue £ £ 41,749 53,655 13,974 5,768 - - 55,723 59,423 7,234 9,297 271 349 63,228 69,069 Charitable activities	Innovating Practice £ 43,382 489 - 43,871 7,517 282 51,670	Governance costs £ 1,164 - - 1,164 - (1,164) -	Support costs £ 2,995 - 28,027 31,022 (31,022) - -	2024 Total £ 183,095 20,381 28,027 231,503 - - 231,503

The amount of expenditure from restricted funds in the year ending March 2024 was £77,904

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

5 Net income for the year

This is stated after charging / (crediting):

This is stated after charging / (crediting):
	2025	2024
	£	£
Depreciation	1,810	1,810
Accountants' remuneration (excluding VAT):
Independent Examination	2,700	3,240

6 Analysis of staff costs, director remuneration and expenses, and the cost of key management personnel

Staff costs were as follows:

Salaries and wages Social security costs Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension schemes Other staff costs	2025 £ 126,611 9,439 10,129 - 146,178	2024 £ 158,036 12,416 12,643 - 183,095

The following number of employees received employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs and employer's national insurance during the the year between

		2025	2024
£60,000	- £69,999	0	1
£59,000	- £59 ,999	1	0
£40,000	- £49,999	0	1
£30,000	- £39,000	1	2

The charity directors were not paid or received any other benefits from employment with the charity in the year (2024: £nil). No charity director received payment for professional or other services supplied to the charity (2024: £nil).

Directors' expenses represents the payment or reimbursement of travel and subsistence costs totalling £0 (2024: 0.0) incurred by 0 (2024: 0) members relating to attendance at meetings of the directors

The Trustees consider the key management to be themselves and the CEO. Remuneration paid to key management was £84,510 (2024 £81,935).

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

7 Staff numbers

The average number of employees (head count based on number of staff employed) during the year was as follows:

Support Supporting Dialogue Innovating Practice Governance Improving Places Action Research	2025 No. 0.22 0.38 0.90 0.61 0.04 0.02 2.16	2024 No. 0.69 0.72 0.92 0.75 0.05 0.02 3.15

8 Related party transactions

One of the charity's directors, Alex Sainsbury, is also on the board of the charity's main core funder, The Glass-House Trust.

The Glass-House Trust made a grant of £120,000 to The Glass-House Led Community Design (2023/4: £100,000). There were no amounts outstanding at the year end. There are no donations from related parties which are outside the normal course of business and no restricted donations from related parties.

9 Taxation

The charitable company is exempt from corporation tax as all its income is charitable and is applied for charitable purposes.

10 Tangible fixed assets

Charge for the year At the end of the year Net book value At the end of the year At the start of the year Cost or valuation At the start of the year Additions At the end of the year Depreciation At the start of the year	Office Equipment £ 12,109 - 12,109 9,886 1,810 11,696 413 2,223	Total £ 12,109 - 12,109 9,886 1,810 11,696 413 2,223

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

11 Debtors

Taxation and social security Pensions Other creditors Accruals Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Trade creditors Trade debtors Prepayments	2025 £ - 1,473 1,473 2025 £ 33 36 21 2,353 2,700 5,144	2024 £ 60,175 2,475 62,650 2024 £ 33 3,738 186 3,595 3,240 10,791

12 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

13a Analysis of net assets between funds (current year)

Tangible fixed assets Net current assets Net assets at the end of the year	General unrestricted £ - 23,885 23,885	Designated £ 413 - 413	Restricted £ - 9,950 9,950	Total funds 2025 £ 413 33,835 34,248

13b Analysis of net assets between funds (prior year)

Tangible fixed assets Net current assets Net assets at the end of the year	General unrestricted £ - 35,436 35,436	Designated £ 2,223 - 2,223	Restricted - 65,775 65,775	Total funds 2024 £ 2,223 101,211 103,434

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

14a Movements in funds (current year)

General funds Restricted funds Ove Arup GHT Archive Project Total restricted funds Unrestricted funds Designated funds: Fixed Assets - Office Equipment Total unrestricted funds Total funds	At the start of the year £ 2,223 35,436 37,659 65,775 - 65,775 103,434	Incoming resources & gains £ - 102,020 102,020 - 20,000 20,000 122,020	Outgoing resources & losses £ (1,810) (113,571) (115,381) (65,775) (10,050) (75,825) (191,206)	At the end of the year £ 413 23,885 24,298 - 9,950 9,950 34,248

The Glass House Trust archive grant is for creating an archive of our work and sits in the Research area of our work.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

14b Movements in funds (prior year)

General funds Restricted funds Ove Arup Glass House Trust Total restricted funds Unrestricted funds Pension reserve Total funds Designated funds: Fixed Assets - Office Equipment Total unrestricted funds	At the start of the year £ 4,033 67,780 71,813 73,599 10,080 83,679 - 155,492	Incoming resources & gains £ - 119,445 119,445 60,000 - 60,000 - 179,445	Outgoing resources & losses £ (1,810) (151,789) (153,599) (67,824) (10,080) (77,904) - (231,503)	At the end of the year £ 2,223 35,436 37,659 65,775 - 65,775 - 103,434

Purposes of designated funds

Fixed assets - This fund represents the net book value of the Charity's fixed assets.

The Glass-House Community Led Design Notes to the financial statements For the year ended 31 March 2025

15 Comparatives for the Statement of Financial Activities for 31 March 2024

Income from: Donations and Legacies Charitable Activities Improving Places Action Research Supporting Dialogue Innovating Practice Investments - Bank interest Total income Expenditure on: Charitable activities Improving Places Action Research Supporting Dialogue Innovating Practice Total expenditure Net income for the year and net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds: Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	Unrestricted Funds Total £ 100,000 7,095 2,141 8,676 1,533 119,445 47,535 53,149 1,245 51,670 153,599 (34,154) 71,813 65,417	Restricted Funds Total £ - 60,000 60,000 10,080 67,824 77,904 (17,904) 83,679 65,775	2024 Total £ 100,000 7,095 2,141 60,000 8,676 1,533 179,445 47,535 63,229 69,069 51,670 231,503 (52,058) 155,492 103,434

16 Legal status of the charity

The charity is a company limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The liability of each member in the event of winding up is limited to £1.