Tip Top – High Street Regeneration Proposals with Huyton Village continue

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Women and men sitting either side of a long wooden table. At the head of the table is display screen showing a an image of an urban village with the text
Briefing with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Studio Pen and Inc proposals for 2023-2024 were the third pair of Studio projects in an ongoing live collaboration critically thinking on the High Street renewal of Huyton Village.

Studio Pen and Inc worked alongside Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Architectural Emporium, One Day regeneration and UFSS research group to impact this regeneration, MakeCIC and Walk the Plank offered 2023 2024 project support}.

"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns."
Edward de Bono 

Passenger train travel, a revolutionary creation in mass mobility, began 200 hundred years ago, between stations of the Liverpool Manchester Railway. In September 2030 there are plans to celebrate the bicentenary both in the cities of Manchester and Liverpool and at operating train stations along its route. Huyton Station (formerly Huyton Gate) is one of these stations.

Small multi coloured architecture building models.

Click here to download a catalogue of the student models (18MB PDF)

The premise:  Students proposed each of these train stations will host connected celebrations throughout the year and will mark this occasion with bespoke exhibitions and events which will welcome new visitors and existing commuters alike. Huyton Village they proposed will host a series of events throughout the year, beginning and culminating with station arrivals and departures and a Carnival will process its high street from tip to top igniting community celebration and creative industry – looking back at history to look forward to a fresh future.

A woman leaning over a polystyrene site model of a town centre, placing a model of a proposed building in the middle.

Two projects were undertaken:

  1. TIP Meeting Huyton. In semester one students designed a demountable carnival / exhibition and hub with new public realm at the tip of the high street: Huyton Station Gateway.
  2. TOP Staying in Huyton. In semester two students worked with council and stakeholders One Day Regeneration on a reuse project to design a Multi- Function Culture Hub. It proposed re-purposing 1- 8 Derby Road adjacent to its church top at the former village heart.

Studio Pen and Inc themes are: 'liveable cities' - inhabiting a city and challenging what makes it a 'liveable place'; 'fragile futures' - the balance of social, economic and environmental sustainability in the creation of healthy and sustainable places to live and love and 'hapticity of experience' -the crafting of materials and space to create habitable places for all of our senses. Studio Pen and Inc collaborative projects are crafted in live local situations focussing on place and people, real-life scenario and impact, macro and micro scale. The macro of the strategy and the micro in the tiny observation being key to their sensitivity and success.

In a spacious cafe men and women sitting around wooden tables, sketching and discussing projects. A golf buggy is in the background.

LSA studio Teaching team: Sandy Britton, Sian Atherton Simon Cadle, Sarah Green, Tony Lees, with consultants Stuart Gee and Carlos Medel Vera 

The proposals we exhibited At Huyton Village Green in a public Exhibition 'Activate Huyton'.