Youth Shelters

The structure represents almost two years of trying to arrive at the design and development of a piece of street furniture dedicated to allowing groups of youths to congregate in the one place and have it accepted that as a peice of street furniture, it belongs to them. The basic principle is that the local groups are given their own space to hang about, and the structure is designed to allow them to develop their own visual identity, ie Graphiti, posters, etc. without it being considered as antisocial or vandalism.

Some idea of the range of different voices and agencies concerned with the deployment of such a piece of street furniture comes from the press photo call that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on July 19th 2007. Appearing in the photograph along with others involved in the project is Dundee City Council's Deputy Housing Convener, Councillor Brian Gordon, photographed at the first deployed shelters.

The local Tenant's Association, youth workers, anti-social behaviour team and the youths worked together to agree on how the design of the shelter was to be developed (with the aid of funding from the Scottish Executive).