Take action
Loneliness is too big for any one organisation to solve alone, but everyone has a part to play. Your people, resources and expertise can all make a positive difference. Find out how.
Whatever your role in shaping our urban spaces, you can help design out loneliness and design in social connection
Here are some suggestions to get you started
Architects and design studios
Local authority
Education
Developer
Community organisation
Business
Architects and design studios
Talk to your clients about why designing for social connection matters to society and to the economy. Loneliness can often feel taboo but it’s an increasingly important issue for all organisations. Our latest report is full of insights and arguments you can use.
Embed connection into projects from the start. The design principles and features in this report can help reduce loneliness and promote connection through your projects.
Evaluate past projects using a post-occupancy tool to find out if your designs have led to more connection between occupants, such as this new tool from Riba.
Share case studies and contribute to the evidence base on how to design loneliness out of cities. We’d love to add anything to our medium blog or you can share directly with the community via Groups IO.
Talk to your teams about loneliness - everyone has a personal story to share. The Loneliness Map is a great tool to start conversations.
Local authority
Ensure tackling loneliness is a criterion in local planning design codes and in your developer and partner selection process. See our joint submission to the Planning Review for more info.
Offer up underused spaces and assets to community groups to foster more local connection, or team up with local businesses to use theirs, like Library of Things.
Research how loneliness affects people in your community so you can address specific demographic needs and challenges, like Camden Council.
Ensure staff focused on loneliness and wellbeing work closely with colleagues in planning and regeneration, like Southwark Council who have added placemaking as a key component to their loneliness strategy.
Bring together local businesses, placemakers, community organisations and citizens for a joint approach to tackling loneliness, like Bristol One City, or Health Connections Mendip. You could also host your own “Loneliness Lab”, see our playbook for ideas on running a local design sprint.
Education
Add social connection to the curriculum and create student briefs to tackle loneliness in real places, like London School of Architecture.
Tackle loneliness in student housing by bringing together your design school and facilities management to improve campus living environments.
Bring student projects to life by teaming up with the local community, council, developer and businesses, as happens at MAKE @ Story Garden in Somers Town, Euston.
Developer
Incorporate design principles and features that embed social connection into your projects, and work with your customers and suppliers to add it into design briefs and your local community initiatives. Lendlease’s Euston project is a great example of this in action
Commit to tackling loneliness through your corporate sustainability strategy and champion taking action across the industry and with policymakers. Read our submission to the Planning Review for ideas for industry change.
Listen to staff in every role across your business - everyone can help tackle loneliness in different ways.
Experiment in meanwhile use spaces to learn what works, and implement the best approaches in future projects. Make @ Story Garden is a new creative makerspace that involves the community in shaping the future area.
Use post-occupancy surveys to find out how existing projects contribute to social connection, such as this new tool from Riba.
Community organisation
Take over a local underused or abandoned space and create a thriving community hub like Monkey Park in Chesterfield.
Start small on your doorstep with a neighbourhood street party, shared garden or local 'swap box'. We love these ideas from Bright Ideas Belfast.
Experiment with ideas in a space and inspire other local stakeholders with your vision, such as Her Barking.
Business
Start with your staff and your workplace - loneliness can have a big impact on collaboration and productivity. The Loneliness Map is a great tool for facilitating discussions about tackling loneliness with colleagues. Our report on workplace loneliness has lots of tips for thinking about how to design loneliness out of the workplace.
Think strategically about how your core business contributes to loneliness, for instance, what about your core products, services and operations help or hinder people to foster meaningful connections.
Explore how underused spaces such as your lobby, meeting rooms or cafe space could be used by the local community outside core business hours. Monkey Park is a great example of a co-working space that also serves the local community.
Team up with other businesses for greater local impact, like the Elephant Says Hi! campaign uniting businesses and community groups to make the local area more welcoming.