A Public Kitchen is a co-design project with asylum seekers, refugees and long-term Camden residents, creating food infrastructure in response to widespread food poverty and the lack of access to kitchens faced by people living in temporary accommodation. The project reimagines the Somers Town Community Association café as a welcoming public kitchen, a shared space for growing, cooking and meeting.

Across the UK, food insecurity has reached record levels. In 2024–25, the Trussell Trust distributed nearly three million emergency food parcels. Many people seeking asylum are placed in hotels without kitchens, living for months or years without safe access to food or space to cook. Developed with UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity, Sustain, Camden Council, FEAST With Us and Somers Town Community Association, A Public Kitchen responds by framing food as essential human and community infrastructure.

Through a series of co-briefing, co-design and co-build workshops, the first phase introduces new benches and planting, and a more welcoming façade to the Somers Town Community Association café (previously hidden and anonymous from the street) including a series of handmade tiles that mark the entrance. Future phases will extend this approach, including a drinking fountain, additional planting and signage, and the removal of bars from the windows to further open the space to the neighbourhood.

Supported by Camden Council and the Bartlett Policy Support Fund, the project launched with a community meal during Refugee Week 2025 and continues to host workshops and shared meals for asylum seekers, refugees and the local community.

Client: UCL Global Insitute for Prosperity, LB Camden & Somers Town Community Association
Collaborators: Hanna Baumann, Chris Bradley, Simeon Featherstone, Yes Make
Photography: Luke O'Donnovan