BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello, I'm Sui.

I'm Paul.

I'm Mike.

And I'm Sophie.

We're all from the Kingston area of Bristol, and this is a special podcast of our listener guest edit of the Today program.

We've called our group Friendly Neighbours, and we want to use our guest edit to explore how we can build towns and

cities in a way that puts people and communities first. In this podcast you'll hear more about

how we've all worked together. You'll hear a vision for humanising buildings from the designer

Thomas Heatherwick. There's an interview with the housing minister Rachel McLean about social housing

and we'll hear from the architect, designer, author and TV presenter George Clark.

At the heart of our community is a 1960s high-rise estate called Dove Street Flats. We've worked hard

to make the estate safe and a welcoming

space to live in, but sometimes it feels like we've created a community in spite of the architecture

here, not because of it. We've created a community garden where they used to be fly-tipping,

turned derelict underground garages into bright, clean and safe places for the children to play

basketball and football, painted murals

to brighten up the blank concrete walls, and we've made a roof space into a terrace for people

to come together and socialise. We invited the Today programme to come to Doff Street to see how

we have worked together as a community to improve things. So we're standing underneath a 1960s modernist block, which is very tattie and you can see cracks

and the paint peeling. I am Mike. I live in Dove Street flats. Considering there's maybe

2,000 people living in this estate, they didn't build a single communal space. It's almost like they never thought what people do and what they need.

...