London is at a turning point. Shifting work and living patterns, a deepening housing and infrastructure challenge, rising inequalities and the urgent need to decarbonise are all colliding at once. New London Architecture and the LDN Collective created the Reimagine London ideas competition to invite fresh thinking about how the city can respond, with a ten thousand pound prize fund for the most inspiring ideas.

The competition was international and deliberately open. Multi disciplinary teams of built environment professionals, community organisations, students, entrepreneurs and London enthusiasts were invited to submit a one page concept, poster or short film that sells a single idea for the future of the city, however ambitious. All entries are judged against the New London Agenda and its Six Pillars of place making, which focus on health, future generations, diversity, innovation, partnership and thinking beyond traditional boundaries.

LDN Collective worked with NLA to shape the brief and the overall structure of the programme, building on our growing role in the ideas space through work such as ParkPower, the Wolfson Prize on future hospitals and Net Zero Neighbourhoods. As our CEO Max Farrell has set out, the aim is to help London get its confidence back, back big ideas that are rooted in expert insight rather than top down vanity projects, and give emerging voices a direct route to city leaders.

Reimagine London has been designed as a platform, not a one off call for entries. More than one hundred ideas were submitted, over half of them from individuals and teams under thirty five. From that long list, twenty five ideas were shortlisted and exhibited at The London Centre, where thousands of visitors explored them, voted for a People’s Choice winner and joined events that brought entrants, sponsors and decision makers together. Shortlisted teams also had the chance to present PechaKucha style at NLA, raising the profile of their ideas and their practice.

The winning ideas show the breadth of what Londoners care about. The overall winner, Made for Me, proposes a network of accessibility hubs retrofitted into transport interchanges and spare spaces across the city, where people can hire mobility and sensory aids and find accessible facilities for everyday journeys. The Young Londoners winner, Youth Led Empowerment Network, comes from three young people in Brixton who want to reclaim neglected spaces as safe, youth led venues for connection and support. The People’s Choice winner, East London Waterworks Park, is a community proposal to transform a large concrete site in Waltham Forest into a biodiverse park with wild swimming, learning spaces and studios.

For NLA and LDN Collective, the competition is also a way to show how ideas can feed directly into practice. The New London Agenda provides the framework, Reimagine London surfaces new concepts that embody that agenda, and the exhibition, media and events programme make sure those ideas are seen by borough leaders, the Greater London Authority, investors and industry. Through this process, unusual collaborations form between communities, designers, developers and public bodies who might not otherwise meet.

A digital e-book of the shortlisted entries, together with the full competition brief, is available through both the NLA and LDN Collective websites, so that others can draw on the ideas, reuse the structure and build on the momentum that Reimagine London has created.

For future clients, this work shows how the LDN Collective can help cities and institutions unlock new thinking at scale. We co-design open competitions and engagement programmes, align them with existing policy frameworks, convene expert juries and partners, and ensure that the best ideas are surfaced, tested and shared in a way that can influence real projects and investment.

If you are a city region, public body, investor or major landowner and want to use an ideas competition to shape your next phase of strategy or development, we would be very happy to talk.