▣ TYPE: Spatial intervention
⧇ CLIENT: National Trust
▤ KEY MATERIALS: Timber / Stone
▦ TEAM: Paloma Gormley, as Practice Architecture (co-founder)
⧆ COLLABORATORS: Sam Willis / Xavier Llarch Font / Carolina Caicedo / Mariana Pestana / Bamidele Awoyemi

Together with The Decorators, Paloma Gormley with Practice Architecture have developed a consultation strategy for the National Trust around the future of Heritage, bringing new voices into the conversation and open up debate around the role of the Trust. The Conversation Piece is a research tool to enable the National Trust to publicly discuss the challenges faced by heritage and identify current opportunities of action that can shape their legacy tomorrow. It is a mobile kit of design parts that can be arranged into a number of different spatial configurations.

Movable up and down the country and meeting people where they are, conversations of diverse size, style and tone about the future of heritage take place. Each spatial configuration facilitates a specific conversation about the big challenges currently facing heritage but through a local lens – involving many voices in a conversation about the importance of ‘this place’ and the aspirations for it in the future. Each of the different modes of conversation have been developed and tested by other organisations that are the main partners in this project. These main partners are Cardboard Citizens, Citizen’s Jury and The Conversation Agency with Turner Contemporary.