How street art is transforming the look of rundown estates

Graffiti may have negative connotations, but street art is being used to brighten up rundown estates — with the residents’ permission. Kit Smithson, 34, head of the neighbourhood committee at Woodvale Estate in West Norwood, south London, invited the organisation Global Street Art to decorate the building after arranging for children on the estate to spray-paint unused bollards. “They had a good time. We had about six kids and a few adults keen to see how a spray can worked,” Smithson, an architect, says. “Street art was my creative outlet as a teenager, so I already had that positive association and I didn’t have any hang-ups with it.” Smithson has lived in a three-bedroom house on the estate for six years with his partner, Felicitas