re:GAINsborough

The RE:GAINsborough live project was tasked by Hill Holt Wood, a social enterprise supporting young people in Lincolnshire, to examine and develop responses to complement their work in Gainsborough, which is located in the West Lindsay District of Lincolnshire on the River Trent.

The project focused on three strands, which we developed after unpicking the complex stakeholder situation. Firstly, addressing the need to retrofit existing terraces, to bring them up to a better standard of energy efficiency; secondly, to look at the opportunities to improve the “ten foots”, the alleys that run along to back of the back to back terraces and finally, the potential for Hill Holt Wood to set up a community run dry cleaners and internet cafe.

Over the course of the project the group engaged in meetings with members of residents groups representing our area of study, councillors and officers from the three councils that have influence over Gainsborough, local business groups and volunteer organisations. Through these meetings we were able to tailor the work done in the project to the relevant audiences with the hope that it will have a real and lasting impact beyond the 6 weeks of the project; throughout there has been a real emphasis on how to achieve the proposals, not just what they are. In addition to the work produced in the studio, there was also an aspect of being demonstrative and actioning some of our proposals on site to show what is achievable.

The final outcome of the project is audience specific, as each stakeholder has slightly different requirements. The overall product is an action pack containing between 4 and 7 posters that lay out the information needed to bring about the changes to deliver the three elements of the project, along side this are more “active” elements including instruction of how to make objects that support the aims of the project, this is collected into a presentation box.

Finally, beyond the scope of the formal project, there is a desire to follow up in the new year to assess how successful out instruction of “how” has been; with a view to offering some level of ongoing support to deliver the changes set out.