(Ra)dical  (Re)alims
Design Research Lab

Home
Manifesto
Approach
Actors
Projects
Teaching
Writing

Instagram

Email

Peckham Picnic Patch


As part of the re-development of Peckham Square, the design competition, facilitated by the council and Damilola Taylor Trust, called to create a unique meeting place for young people and local communities called ‘Hope in the Square’.  Our project began with a radical proposition: that the picnic can be a model for how we gather, design, and care. The picnic becomes a participatory process open, mobile, and collective. It holds within it the values of shared authorship, slow assembly, cultural exchange, and circular systems of use. From the first invitation to the last folded mat, the picnic process reveals how space can be activated through trust, storytelling, and the reuse of tools and knowledge. Our vision emerges this, unfolding across four acts—Prepare, Gather, Spread, Reuse—each marking a step in transforming the garden area of Peckham square into a living, people-powered infrastructure of care. Year: 2025
Location: London, UK
Mission: Circular Economy; Inclusive Communities
RaRe Actors: Robert Schmidt III, Cagri Sanliturk , Tokyo Picnic Club Theme: Place-making; Urban regeneration; Youth Engagement
Output:  Stage 1 proposal
Methods: Re-use Strategies; System Design; Drawings; Manifesto
















Our interest in the 'Hope in the Square' project is both personal and professional. Fifteen years ago, we facilitated the Adapting Peckham workshop where we worked alongside Southwark Council, local artists, architects and communities to imagine more inclusive futures for Peckham. That formative experience shaped our people-centred approach to design rooted in dialogue, care, and regeneration and planted a long-standing connection to this place. To return now, not just to revisit the past but to help shape something lasting for Peckham, is both timely and meaningful for us.

The design brief resonates with us in its call to reimagine and challenge the role of public space and art - as something relational, co-produced, regenerative and alive - its ability to be formed by and further form local identity.

The transformation of Peckham Square, and particularly the garden zone, aims to embed cultural memory, environmental care, and social equity into the fabric of everyday life. In response, our proposition begins with a grounding belief that public art can be both a permanent and temporal force. It can act as a catalyst for cultural infrastructure that is surprising, inventive, and joyful. Our approach brings together architecture, storytelling, food, and performance to create layered experiences


of public life. This response reflects a shared ethos between RaRe Design and Tokyo Picnic Club. For Tokyo Picnic Club, the picnic is more than a meal, it is a radical act of gathering, a catalyst for civic exchange, and a means to reimagine public life. At RaRe Design, a core ambition is to redefine architectural practice grounded in operational stewardship with an expanded sense of a shared, long-term responsibility for our built environment.

Our dedication to this project is rooted in a deep belief that public space should be shaped by those who use it, especially marginalized communities and young people whose voices are often overlooked.

This brief challenges us to move beyond mere aesthetics and offers a unique opportunity to create a shared infrastructure where food, stories, and stewardship are interconnected; fostering public space that is inclusive, rooted in community, and bridges social and ecological systems. 

Peckham Square serves as a vibrant place of creativity, learning and belonging; key ingredients that nurture London's urban fabric. By approaching the design with playfulness and purpose, we aim to co-create a space that encourages participation (Act l: Prepare), nurtures gathering and shared rituals (Act Il: Gather), extends care through stories and reuse (Act III: Spread), and builds a more inclusive, regenerative civic future (Act IV: Reuse).