Her City UN-Habitat Walks
Co producing better cities for women and girls
Bea Chivers, urban designer, shares recent place based work in how we can co produce safer, more inclusive and accessible cities for women, girls and under represented groups.
Preface
Our goal is simple – to improve the quality of the world around us and, in doing so, improve people’s lives. Everything architecture is an approach embedded in the origins of Ryder which remains a touchstone today.
Introducing Ryder’s ethos of Everything architecture is not a coincidence. It is a continued recognition of our responsibility as designers and place makers to influence the world where we can, for the benefit of current and future generations.
Reports of violence against women and girls continue to rise, and what started as bringing together like minded individuals to talk about how to make our streets safer is now turning into an international series of events.
In 2025, Ryder architectural and place colleagues Alissar Riachi, Bea Chivers, Cathy Russell, and Timea Lewcot hosted an open house exploring inclusive design and the safety of women and girls. Through research, practice insights, and discussion, they shared best practice from within and beyond Ryder. This document highlights Ryder’s place based work in this area and supports the academic research of Bea Chivers, recipient of the Ryder Bursary 2025.
Cities have a capability of providing something for everybody only because and only when they are created by everybody.
Methodology
This research uses a girls safety walk pack from UN-Habitat’s Her City Guide, a practical framework for participatory urban planning and design to gather data from women and girls’ perspectives and translating this into making a place better for everyone who experiences it.
So, what makes a woman or girl thrive? Every individual has certain needs, and a city designed without those needs in mind can quickly become an obstacle course for many.
The guide uses seven principles to prompt participants to think about the issues which women and girls experience when moving around the city:
See and be seen
Hear and be heard
Be able to get away and get help
Live in a clean and welcoming environment
Know where you are and where you are going
Working together
Inclusion
Feedback materials and methods
Photographs were used to capture raw, authentic and timely experiences.
Worksheets from the toolbox were used during and after the walk, allowing participants to record their instant and reflective thoughts and feelings.
At a follow up workshop, participants used collage techniques to create streetscapes, capturing emotional responses to these spaces and exploring interventions to improve these routes. The photographs and collages were displayed in an open exhibition at Ryder’s office in Newcastle city centre.
Newcastle city walk
In April 2026, Ryder and the Urban Design Group hosted a guided city walk through Newcastle city centre to explore women and girls’ safety and accessibility in the public realm. The event was open to everyone and attracted 50 attendees, including built environment and transport professionals, alongside members of the public.
Using the Her City Guide, participants assessed how urban spaces are experienced, identifying locations that felt unsafe, overlooked, or in need of improvement, while also highlighting opportunities for more inclusive and responsive design.
The walk was followed by a facilitated discussion where participants shared observations, reflections, and recommendations. The event generated valuable insights into the relationship between design and perceived safety, encouraging knowledge exchange between citizens and professionals in the field.
London city walk
Following the success of Newcastle’s walk, we hosted a London walk in August using the same process. Findings and outputs from this walk will be shared soon.
Exhibition
The exhibition took place between 8 and 10 July 2026 at Ryder’s Cooper’s Studios in Newcastle.
The exhibition provided an overview of the findings and showcased photographs captured by participants on disposable cameras during the walk.
A creative, interactive workshop launched the exhibition. Participants used collage techniques to create streetscapes, capturing emotional responses to these spaces and exploring interventions to improve these routes.
Next steps
We plan to host a series of walks which will build upon these findings, refining the output as we go:
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Newcastle
Glasgow
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4 October 2026, Walk, Wheel and Talk
8 October 2026, as part of the National Urban Design Conference
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| Bristol | 21 October 2026 |
| Manchester | 22 October 2026 |
| Vancouver | October 2026 |
| Hong Kong | November 2026 |
| Melbourne | February 2027 |
| Sydney | March 2027 |
| Barcelona | April 2027 |
| Budapest | May 2027 |
Call to action
One of the biggest barriers to embedding the consideration of women, girls, and underrepresented groups into everyday projects is the lack of supportive policy. Designers have a responsibility to advocate for more inclusive approaches. Where policy, funding, and education on these issues are lacking, there is often little incentive or obligation to consider the lived experiences of women and girls in the regeneration and development of places.
By sharing resources, hosting walks, and championing this work, we hope to empower you to start conversations with colleagues and project teams. Participating in a walk can help foster discussion about the challenges, fears, and barriers that women, girls, and many other people experience every day in the cities and spaces they call home.
Bea Chivers is supporting the research of the Walking Cities Lab exploring ways to shape policy to create safe, accessible and enjoyable places for all.
For more information, please contact Bea Chivers.