Putting People First: Hanna Afolabi on Building Better Places
What does it take to create places that work for the people who live, work and gather in them?
A Place Is More Than Its Buildings
A place, Hanna Afolabi argues, is more than the buildings that make up its physical environment. “Place really is a collection of people,” she says. “A place is where people gather.” For her, that makes the people using a development central to how it should be designed, delivered and managed.
That idea runs through Episode 35 of Talking Place, where host Tanisha Raffiuddin ‘talks place’ with Hanna, Managing Director and Founder of Mood and Space and CEO and Founder of Black Women in Real Estate, about what it means to put people at the heart of development.
Hanna’s route into the industry started with architecture. She worked at Peabody Housing Association before moving into development, eventually becoming involved in projects including Bouygues Development, Hallsville Quarter in Canning Town, and East Wick and Sweetwater in East London. It was through this work that her interest in the relationship between people and place became increasingly clear.
Designing for the People Who Stay
For Hanna, Afolabi people-first development is tied directly to the longevity of a building. Understanding how people will actually use a space, and making it work for them, is part of creating places that people will value and look after over time.
She points to London Community Land Trust as one example of a different approach. Community involvement can extend beyond being asked for feedback on a finished proposal. Local people can have a role in shaping how buildings are designed and used, creating a stronger sense of ownership over a place.
For much of the private sector, the traditional model was straightforward: build, sell and move on. But the growth of build-to-rent and other long-term ownership models means developers and investors are increasingly responsible for what happens after construction.
“You can’t just build it and leave,” Hanna says.
When residents are expected to stay, occupancy becomes more than a financial metric. The experience of living in a building matters. Its amenities, management and wider environment all influence whether people want to remain there.
“It’s now about how do we keep people in our buildings?”
That shift from building efficiently to operating well creates a different relationship between developers and the people who ultimately use their buildings. It also raises a broader question about what success looks like once a development is complete.
When Viability Stops Adding Up
But putting people first does not mean ignoring the financial realities of development. In the conversation, Hanna Afolabi is candid about how difficult those realities have become.
“Viability” has become a contentious word in housing and development discussions. Construction costs have risen, sales values have stagnated, rents have stagnated or fallen in some instances, and borrowing costs have increased. The result is a development market under growing financial pressure.
“If income is reducing and costs are going up, how do you make it work?”
The same pressure affects the public sector. Building safety requirements are essential, particularly in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, but Hanna points to the delays and resources involved in getting projects through the system. At the same time, the government’s target of delivering 1.5 million homes presents its own uncertainty.
Asked whether the industry can realistically deliver it, her answer is direct.
“The truth is, I don’t know. I don’t actually have the answer. I don’t even know if the politicians have the answer.”
Who Gets a Voice in Development?
For Hanna Afolabi, the challenge is not simply about how many homes get built. It is also about who gets considered in the process.
She recalls attending a community engagement meeting for East Wick and Sweetwater where she noticed that the people being engaged were largely white and middle class. In an area with a much more diverse population, she questioned why engagement was reaching only one part of the community.
Her response was to push for broader engagement with organisations including charities, football clubs and senior community groups. The point was not simply to increase the number of consultation sessions. It was to reach people who might otherwise never be part of the conversation.
That same concern around representation shaped the creation of Black Women in Real Estate.
After repeatedly finding herself as the only Black woman in offices, on sites and in meetings, Hanna decided that “something needs to change.” She searched LinkedIn for other Black women working in the industry, found 15, and invited them to dinner at Rosa's Thai Spitalfields in London.
What started as a dinner became a community. During Covid, it grew organically, eventually becoming a network of more than 1,300 members with a New York chapter. The organisation's focus is on increasing the number of Black women entering the sector, retaining them and giving them greater visibility and voice.
What Should Regeneration Make Room For?
Representation, for Hanna Afolabi, is connected to the way places themselves are created.
Her idea of a dream development is a genuinely mixed and balanced community. She does not want regeneration to become a process that turns its back on the people who were already there. That is particularly relevant as areas change and their populations grow. The people who lived there before can easily be treated as though they no longer belong.
Hanna wants to find a way of “marrying those two worlds together”: responding to new demand while still considering the original community. It is an ambition that requires a different relationship between the public and private sectors, too. Rather than treating them as opposing sides, Hanna sees a shared objective.
“The goal is to deliver homes. How about we work together on that in a much more effective way?”
That thinking also points towards where she wants to take Mood and Space. Alongside growing the consultancy, she hopes to move further into development management, working with funds and investors to deliver homes with a stronger social focus.
Across the conversation, the thread is consistent. Better places depend on understanding the people who use them, involving communities meaningfully and thinking beyond the point at which construction ends.
For Hanna, putting people first is part of what makes development work in the first place.
Listen to the full episode with Hanna Afolabi on Talking Place, Season 3 Episode 35, available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and all major platforms.
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Tanisha Raffiuddin is Creative Director at Concept Culture and host of Talking Place. Conversations on placemaking, branding, sustainability and culture across the built environment.