DS03: Resilient by Design
Exploring and creatively applying theories of resilience and regenerative design in Blackpool, UK.
Urban settlements have always been subject to cycles of growth, flourishing, and deterioration. Resilience has been a recent popular framework for understanding the liveability and long-term sustainability of urban contexts. The rise in popularity of the resilience paradigm can partially be attributed to a shift in environmental thinking that questions the viability of the conservation goals of the sustainability paradigm, and offers the adaptation goals of resilience as a more flexible framework for intervening in increasingly complex and unknown futures.
The studio used two key approaches to locate and integrate theories of resilience and regenerative practice into a people and city focussed scale. The first was the creation of a fictional, yet research derived, possibilist future. The second was the extensive use of stakeholder mapping and narratives. Characters were created and developed to experience the students’ scenarios, their personal resilience and use of the final design propositions.
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Melissa Kinnear, Alex Towler, Tamara Kahn, Jason Coleman (technology), Andy Thomson (Engineer)
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Joseph Boniface, Simeon Shtebunaev, Charlie Edmonds, Michael Pawlyn, Paola Sassi
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Mihaela Petkova, Sahana Ashok, Kuhu Gupta, Adlina Marsya Hairul Nizam, Zhu Song Tee, Julie Kumpilunikunnathi, Akila Sanjith Williams, Olivia Downman, Aimee Denny, Prachi Machhar, Sumaiya Shameem, Suet Ngo Yan, Prashani Balasooriya
Prachi Machhar
Prachi Machhar
Prachi Machhar
Akila Sanjith Williams - Blackpool Re-Wilding Center - The project is based on research done in the current locality and the possible regenerative measures that can be taken for a more regenerative future for Blackpool. My future scenario highlights the climate tipping points imminent for global disaster. With rapid urbanization and increase in the global carbon footprint Re-wilding would be the best option to reverse climate change and bring back balance with a more promising future. Inspired by London’s West End Project by Arup I studied aerial maps of Blackpool to research potential green links. Based on these maps I identified the possible links and presented my initial proposal for my site. My site is a bare area for an abandoned housing complex extension. The site lies within my proposal for the green links. Since nature reserves like Merton Mere are within proximity to the site the potential for incorporating rich biodiversity is a vital aspect of my design proposal. Based on stakeholders of Blackpool the incorporation of the Blackpool scout’s guild and the local community help drive the success factors of the project. Targeting all generations to participate in rewilding and forest schools can spread the initiatives of the project to a broader scope of development. The brief development includes a gallery space for exhibits and spaces for the forest school forum. The structure was a play of my own version of a treehouse with angular columns that simulate walking through the forest. The Rewilding center is a temporary structure that can be dismantled once the master plan is complete. However, hoping its legacy lives on to the future long after the structure is dismantled.
Akila Sanjith Williams
Akila Sanjith Williams
Sahana Ashok - The School on the Promenade: A Case of Introducing Care into Blackpool’s Education System by 2030 - In a World where, “More is Better '', we tend to forget our Planets Biophysical Limits. This calls for a change in our mindsets towards ingrained harmful practices that cause a lot of damage to our living ecosystems and also ourselves. This could start with the way we educate our future stakeholders. This project looks into De-growing young mindsets, by inculcating the concept of Care in our education systems. In a scenario where the economy is changing towards De-growth, it becomes imperative to look into our practices as a society, and also identify the systems that have been deteriorating and rectify them. Blackpool has become the place for launching a change in our perspective towards Education, and how it could lead to a better quality of living. Hence, this project is a proposal for a school that believes in the pedagogy where socially responsible and service oriented tasks are given the importance over mainstream classroom learning. The proposed project works on converting an abandoned Waterpark into a School where we learn to de-grow Society by growing a new, sustainable way of learning, that does not harm the earth, and all the living beings encompassed within it.
Sahana Ashok - View of the Entrance
Sahana Ashok - View of the South-West Facade
Mihaela Petkova - Towards A Regenerative Future of Welfare: Ecospiritual Living for the Blackpool’s Elderly - The project is set in 2040, following governmental changes, leading to the collapse of the national welfare system and the growth economy. The brief explores the concept of user-driven welfare system, which addresses the physiological, the social and the self-actualisation needs of the users via providing co-living opportunities, supporting social engagement and finding spirituality in nature.
Mihaela Petkova - Broader Master Plan
Mihaela Petkova - Section through Spaces for Social and Mental Activities
OLIVIA DOWNMAN - THE SYMBIO-LIVING EXPERIMENT - THE SYMBIO-LIVING PROJECT EXPLORES THE CURRENT ARCHITECTURE DESIGN APPROACH OF ALTERING ARCHITECTURE TO INCORPORATE NATURE AND LIFE INTO THE FORM, THIS EXPERIMENTAL LIVING FLIPS THIS NARRATIVE ON ITS HEAD AND CHALLENGES THE SCENARIO OF THE HUMAN SPECIES AND ARCHITECTURE HAVING TO BE ADAPTED AND RE-INTRODUCED INTO A THRIVING ECOSYSTEM.
OLIVIA DOWNMAN
OLIVIA DOWNMAN
Adlina Marsya - The Remedy : Mind and Body Restorative Centre for the Risk of Suicide - The Remedy project is a study of the symbiotic relationship between our mental sensory experience through biophilic design and the flourishment of the shifting sand. This project aims to perceive architecture as social cohesion and sand dune regeneration with an optimised healthcare system in the year 2050. It questions how biophilic architecture aid the mental restorative process for the risk of suicide. This focuses on the marginalised group (LGBTQ+) where they face multiple griefs/challenges due to stigmatism, and dis- crimination. The aim will advocate for an effective, gender-diverse, stigma-free mental restorative centre surrounded by the evocative landscape.
Adlina Marsya
Adlina Marsya
Julie Kumpilunikunnathil Jose - Centre for urban agricultural research and development - In the year 2035 Blackpool along with the rest of the UK are facing a food crisis due to climate change. Vision is a food curious public seeking to understand their new food systems by being an active protagonist in its direction. Neighbourhoods that were once hidden beneath asphalt are in the process of being converted into living flourishing environments through the emergence of a new food production and distribution system that is affordable and adaptable for a resilient blackpool 2040. The new changes in the town have contributed to the rise in popularity of the town’s tourism as well as a change in its tourist behaviour.
Julie Kumpilunikunnathil Jose
Julie Kumpilunikunnathil Jose
Aimee Denny - Blackpool centre of regenerative construction - Leading facility in teaching regenerative construction - Set in a 2038 future scenario that follows years of environmental disasters and political unrest, there is a shift in political power that demands change from the UK government. The project focuses on creating a college for regenerative construction in the town of Blackpool, with regenerative construction becoming the way forward the college focuses on teaching students skills to become the next generation of construction workers. With the concept of the use surrounding regenerative construction, the building is designed to encompass the materials and techniques that it is teaching so that they can also learn from the building.
Aimee Denny
Aimee Denny
Kuhu Gupta
Kuhu Gupta
Kuhu Gupta
Sumaiya Shameem - Lost in the Reef - Blackpool creating a new narrative towards flourishing together. Coral Cultivation Farm will help local economies by promoting tourism and responsible educational functions. The design is inspired by the way corals interact with the environment, and the structures will act as living organisms. Keeping the structure true to nature - the idea is portrayed through biomorphic forms. We want to re-establish a symbiotic relationship of the human system with the natural system. Coral regeneration strategy will restore ecological community. Such facilities also provide the human system with living labs to study marine ecosystems, which can mitigate the impact of climate change and utilizing natural infrastructure and building with nature will be key to delivering coastal resilience.
Sumaiya Shameem
Sumaiya Shameem
Zhusong Tee - Participatory Illumination Hub - This radical project, which is land-locked by Central Drive Community Land Trust to retain creative talent from local artists, challenges the existing consumption-based tourism economy in Blackpool by introducing a new form of regenerative tourism based on a time-banking mechanism whereby tourists and community alike earn time credit by helping out each other. For example, tourists who participated in making Illumination with local artists in the hub get to spend the time credit on theme parks, public transport, local shops et cetera to lock-in wealth locally. Tourists and the community are rewarded with the fruits of their hard work in Illumination-making in the form of streetside bio-based Illumination display and light shows from bioluminescent drones. The embodiment of tactical urbanism means that change happens quickly and experimentally to revitalise the deprived Blackpool Central Drive region through arts and creative regeneration.
Zhusong Tee - Existing Old Cinema
Zhusong Tee - System Diagram