Get involved in your local community and make your voice heard at an open discussion about the future of Shoreditch with Olly Wainwright (architecture and design critic of the Guardian), Lucinda Rogers (artist and local resident), and Will Palin (architectural writer & conservation director at the Old Royal Naval College), moderated by Finn Williams (Trustee of the Friends of Arnold Circus).

Look around Arnold Circus in ten years’ time, and there could be as many as 10 new towers over 25 storeys in Shoreditch. There are plans for more than 6.6 million square feet of new development in the neighbourhood. Many of these projects are already approved, like Principal Place (50 storeys) and The Stage (40 storeys). Others are still hotly contested, like The Goodsyard and Blossom Street.

These developments are the next generation of Shoreditchification, a process that goes back further than clichés about hipsters and skinny jeans.

At the edge of the City, Shoreditch has seen its buildings and communities change for centuries; from wealthy Tudor suburb to a centre of textile and furniture industry, from Victorian slums to a model Council Estate, and from a population of Huguenot weavers to Ashkenazi Jews then Bangladeshis from Sylhet.

Will this new wave of development be a continuation of Shoreditch’s tradition of change? Or will we still be able to call it Shoreditch afterwards? Some argue that the social changes from Shoreditchification have brought on these new developments. On the other hand, local communities are now using the internet to mobilise powerful campaigns against them.

How should Shoreditch change next? And what can we do about it?

Schedule:

6.30pm – Reception, light refreshments and view images of a possible Shoreditch future.

7pm – AGM

7.30 pm – ‘What next for Shoreditchification?’

Presentations by Lucy Rogers, Ollie Wainwright & Will Palin. Panel discussion, chaired by Finn Williams. Discussion is thrown open to a Q & A session with the audience.

9pm – Close

The event is free to attend, but booking is essential.

Will Palin, formerly Director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, currently Director of Conservation at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Oliver Wainwright is the Guardian’s architecture and design critic. Trained as an architect, he has worked for a number of practices, both in the UK and overseas, and written extensively on architecture and design for many international publications. He is also a visiting critic at several architecture schools

Lucinda Rogers draws directly from life in the tradition of the artist as reporter