Dan Jones and Andrew Siddall established civic in 2006; an architecture and arts practice concerned with community-led design projects and the advocacy of users’ engagement with art and architecture.

We have a strong background in collaborative working between creative disciplines and an ethos of strengthening links between lay stakeholders and the built environment.

A key difference between what civic is practising and more conventionally held ideas about public involvement in the design process, is that our client groups are neither soft partners in the consultation process, nor are they being asked to design their own buildings, rather they are being enabled to lead the design process by their own experiences and from their position as lay people. We call this process demand-led design. This means working with people who stand to gain directly from getting involved in making changes to the places where they live.

In 2012 we won the Architect of the Year Awards in the Environmental Excellence Award for our work on the Gamlingay Eco Hub, a re-purposed community centre in South Cambridgeshire. The judges on the awards panel said “civic show how far you can go with a building. It’s the most architecturally inventive building that’s achieved the most.”