André Reid Start a conversation

André Reid, transition steward. Walsall, Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Helping heritage and community projects move from ambition to delivery.

When a building, a place or an organisation is changing, what holds it back is usually out of sight: who will run it, who trusts whom, what a funder needs to see, what has to happen first. I make those conditions visible, and help you decide what to do next.

Book a free 20 minute conversation

or write to hello@andrereid.co.uk

Walsall town centre from above: the bus station roof in the foreground, the red sandstone church of St Paul behind it, shops, trees, and tower blocks in the distance.
  • Who gathers here, and who holds the keys?
  • Shared ground. Who looks after it?
  • How people arrive, and who decides the routes.
  • Who keeps the lights on, and for how long?
  • Who lives here, and who decides for them?
  • The parts nobody sees until they leak.

Walsall town centre, April 2026. Photograph: André Reid. Move across the photograph to see what holds it together.

Where projects stall

Most of the people I work with are trustees, directors, founders and project leads. Some of these may sound familiar.

  • You hold a building that is changing, and you need a credible case for a funder.

    The ambition is clear. The evidence, the route and the story are not yet in one place, and the deadline is not moving.

  • You need to hear from the people around the project before you design or bid.

    Neighbours, users and partners each see the project differently. A funder will want to know that you listened, and what changed because you did.

  • Small grants keep you going, but you are not sure who funds the next step.

    You know what you want to do. You do not yet know which funder fits, what they will ask for, or whether you are ready to ask.

  • You are carrying it alone and cannot get to the strategic work.

    The day to day takes every hour. The thinking that would move things on keeps slipping to next week.

Help usually arrives in separate boxes: funding, strategy, design, engagement. The point where a project is stuck tends to sit between them, in relationships, trust, and the order things need to happen in. That is where I work.

How I work

Plainly, in a set order, and scoped to the brief you actually have.

A drawing shows the walls and the roof. It does not show who will run the building, who the neighbours trust, or what the funder is really asking. I call those conditions the invisible architecture of a project. They decide whether it comes alive or stalls, and they can be seen, if someone takes the time to look.

  1. Listen

    A first conversation, then time with the people, the papers and the place: the numbers, the funders, what is said, and what is left unsaid.

  2. See what is really happening

    Find where things are stuck, and check the story told about the project against how it actually works.

  3. Agree one picture

    A short written read or map that everyone involved can see: what needs attention now, and what can be left alone.

  4. Decide the order, then act

    What to do first, who does it, and what it costs, with a clear scope and an end date. Then I stay alongside, or hand you to the right specialist.

“Cities are the spaces where through good design we gather, and through bad design separate.”

André Reid, writing for KIONDO

The invisible architecture of a place

Places are shaped by more than their physical structures. They are shaped by the relationships, decisions, resources and systems that make life within them possible.

Six scales, from one person outwards. Choose one to see what holds it together.

The invisible architecture of a placeSix rings around one person: family and close relationships, friends and peers, community, organisations, and institutions and place. Dashed lines connect points on each ring to the next, showing how relationships accumulate outwards into the conditions that shape a place.

01 The individual

One person, with needs, ambitions, knowledge, experience, agency and limits. The start of a living system, not an isolated dot.

  • Identity and lived experience
  • Attention and understanding
  • Health, safety and personal agency
  • Knowledge, skills and imagination
  • Access to resources and opportunity

02 Family and close relationships

The people who sustain or constrain a life: family, partners, children, carers. Support networks take many forms.

  • Care and responsibility
  • Emotional security and belonging
  • Shared resources and practical support
  • Knowledge passed between generations
  • Dependency, conflict and boundaries

03 Friends and peers

Relationships people choose: friends, colleagues, peers, mutual aid, shared interests. Trust and reciprocity give support formal systems often cannot.

  • Friendship and companionship
  • Peer learning and accountability
  • Informal exchange and mutual aid
  • Introductions, referrals and opportunity
  • Shared identity and collective confidence

04 Community and collective life

Neighbourhoods, cultural networks, grassroots groups, faith spaces, local businesses and shared places, where individual relationships become collective capacity.

  • Belonging and participation
  • Shared memory, culture and identity
  • Local knowledge and informal leadership
  • Collective organising and stewardship
  • Access to spaces, resources and decisions

05 Organisations and networks

Charities, social enterprises, trusts, businesses and partnerships, where care and ambition are given structure, staff and money.

  • Governance and accountability
  • Funding, contracts and obligations
  • Partnership and collaboration
  • Staff, volunteers and capacity
  • Shared knowledge and referral routes

06 Institutions, systems and place

Councils, funders, regulators and the systems of land, planning and investment that decide what a place can become.

  • Policy, regulation and planning
  • Public funding and investment
  • Land, ownership and assets
  • Infrastructure and the built environment
  • Power, representation and accountability

Ways to work together

Start small. Every piece of work is scoped and agreed in writing before it begins, and each one ends with something you can use.

  1. A first conversation

    20 minutes, by video call. Free.

    Tell me about the moment you are in. I will tell you honestly whether I can help, which piece of work would fit, or who could help better.

    Book a first conversation

  2. A Read

    A short, fixed piece of work with a written result.

    For one question that needs an outside view before you commit time or money.

    • Thinking Session

      £150Fixed fee, agreed before we start

      Ninety minutes on the decision that is stuck, and a one page note of the next three moves.

      Ask about a Thinking Session

    • Funding Scan

      £195Fixed fee, agreed before we start

      Desk research on who funds work like yours: five funders that fit, why, and which to approach first.

      Ask about a Funding Scan

    • Bid Read

      £295Fixed fee, agreed before we start

      Your draft application read as a funder would read it, with notes in the margin and the three changes that matter most.

      Ask about a Bid Read

    • Outside Read

      £395Fixed fee, agreed before we start

      A short written view of where your project or organisation stands, and what to fix first.

      Ask about an Outside Read

    Reads are invoiced and paid before the work starts. I am not registered for VAT, so no VAT is charged.

  3. A funded programme

    For a building or project on a route to funding. Weekly, named steps.

    When the work is larger, I build it with your team in weekly steps, each with a named piece of work at the end of it: what you know and what is missing, the funder’s criteria mapped against your project, the people and organisations involved, options for the building, and how it could be run. Your team keeps everything, and can do the next one without me.

    Priced by the day, from £600, and agreed as a fixed programme before we start.Priced as a fixed programme, agreed before we start.

    Talk about a programme

  4. Staying alongside

    After a first piece of work. Monthly, for a set term.

    Some projects need someone who holds the whole picture while things change: a regular session, a written note each month, and a second pair of eyes before big decisions. We agree what is included, and when it ends, before it starts.

    Ask about ongoing support

Record

A few pieces of work, described as they happened. Clients are not named without their permission.

KIONDO, Walsall, 2017 to 2024

A community design studio in a former town centre pub

I founded and led KIONDO, a community design studio and creative incubator. It took on the former Hogs Head pub in Walsall town centre, part of it Grade II listed, and ran it as a space for local creative and community work.

What I did and what it produced
Situation
A historic building with a community use and no clear route to a long term future.
What I did
Led the bid to the Architectural Heritage Fund for project viability funding, ran the selection of an architect led team, and brought in the business, legal, engineering and survey expertise a viability study needs.
What it produced
Architectural Heritage Fund project viability funding, and a viability appraisal of the building covering the early design stages.
Why it matters to you
I have been the applicant and the commissioning client, not only the adviser. I know what it takes to hold a building, a team and a funder relationship at the same time.

A charitable trust with a listed building, 2026

Getting a listed building ready to approach a major funder

A programme to prepare the trustees of a listed building that had stood empty for years for a funding application, run in weekly steps under a written agreement.

A white cutaway model of a listed former theatre seen from above, its roof opened to show the auditorium, balcony tiers and stage behind an arched street frontage. Front elevation of the same building: a pale terracotta frontage with a large arched entrance, beside a timber framed building with a slate roof. Axonometric view of the building from above, showing its roofs, the street frontage and the yard behind.
Visualisations I produced for the trustees’ early thinking about the building.
What I did and what it produced
Situation
An important building, a large capital ambition, and a funder that needed to see the organisation was ready before it would consider an application.
What I did
Site visits and a photographic survey, the planning history, a register of what was known and what was missing, the funder’s criteria mapped against the project, a review of comparable schemes, a map of the people and organisations involved, early options for the spaces, and a model for how the building could be run.
What it produced
A set of working documents the trustees could use to decide their next step, and an honest view of how ready they were.
Why it matters to you
Funders ask about readiness before they ask about design. This is the work that answers them.

A community association, Walsall, 2025

Hearing from a neighbourhood before reusing a derelict school building

Development support for a community association’s plans to bring a nineteenth century school building in a Walsall conservation area back into use.

What I did and what it produced
Situation
A proposed heritage project that needed to show a funder it had local support and a clear purpose.
What I did
Ran a public consultation and helped build the evidence base and the case for funding.
What it produced
148 survey responses, more than 100 people taking part in forums, a short project film, and help preparing an application for Architectural Heritage Fund project viability funding.
Why it matters to you
Funders and planners want to know who was asked and what they said. This is how you show them.

On the public record

  • Commissioner, No Place Left Behind Commission, Create Streets Foundation (2020 to 2021)
  • UK Creative Community Fellows, 2021 cohort (National Arts Strategies with Derby Museums)
  • Speaker, “20x20: Storytelling from Walsall”, Creative Black Country (2020)
  • Black History Month Community Spotlight, Walsall for All (2020)

Writing and conversations

Field notes on places in change, and the conversations they have led to.

New writing goes to Substack, so it reaches you by email if you subscribe. Earlier essays from my years running KIONDO are on Medium.

Read and subscribe on Substack

Earlier essays

All essays on Medium

Conversations and features

About André

Architecturally trained, and working in Walsall and Birmingham for more than a decade.

I trained in architecture at Birmingham City University, then spent my working life on the ground: coordinating telecoms civil works across the West Midlands, running a fabrication workshop and shared workspace for makers, and founding KIONDO, a community design studio in Walsall that held a historic building and won heritage funding to plan its future.

I have sat on both sides of the table. I have applied for heritage funding as a founder, assessed applications as a panel member on a participatory grant programme, and helped community groups and trusts build the case for their buildings. I know what a funder needs to see, and what an organisation needs before the money moves.

I work alone and take on a small number of pieces of work at a time, so the person you speak to is the person who does the work.

RIBA BA (Hons) Architecture (Part 1), 2:1, Birmingham City University · Diploma, Design for Six Sigma

Alongside the practice I keep a long running study of places in change, which I call Invisible Architecture: notes, photographs and conversations about the relationships that let a place come alive.

Tell me about the moment you are in.

Book a free 20 minute conversation hello@andrereid.co.uk

What happens next:

  1. We talk for 20 minutes, by video call. You describe the project and where it is stuck.
  2. I tell you honestly whether I can help, and which piece of work fits, or who could help better.
  3. If we go ahead, I send a short written scope and fee for you to agree before anything starts.

The booking link opens Calendly, a separate scheduling service. If you would rather not use it, email works just as well.