Re-Making Gainsborough

Year | 2016

Location | Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

Clients | West Lindsey District Council

Re-Making Gainsborough is a project that works in partnership with West Lindsey Council to explore the regeneration of the market town.

Located on the bank of the river Trent, Gainsborough has a culturally and industrially rich history.  Presently, it is suffering from a loss of identity, brought about by the closure of the town’s largest employers, Roses and Marshalls. Through consultation, we found a community that cared deeply about the town and an entrepreneurial council working hard to bring prosperity back to Gainsborough.

The project brief outlined focus areas and took a predominantly morphological approach to regeneration. Key items on the client’s wish-list were areas of shared surface, improved signage, reactivation of the river and increased housing density in the market square. To develop a working brief, these ideas needed to be explored through site investigation, consultation with the public and key stakeholders to develop a unifying strategy and thematic driver.

The Live Project team undertook extensive public consultation, to understand what the people of Gainsborough wanted for their town and to experiment with consultation techniques that the council to utilise in the future. The ambition was to create a new, unique communicative infrastructure between the people of Gainsborough and the Council who represent them – increasing the intrinsic value of both to one another. This could be implemented through the proposed riverside activities, increased council presence in the market square and way-finding strategies, to support a social agenda at the heart of all these physical interventions.

Our work will allow West Lindsey Council to take a more pro-active role in the decision-making process of town centre development. It achieves this by offering them an endless source of inspiration, available through ongoing public consultation. Our team have proposed a strategy for achieving this communicative infrastructure, based on short, medium and long term interventions. This strategy will allow West Lindsey Council to restore the town’s identity and build a more inclusive development process.

The Re-making Gainsborough team have created a brief for the client. This outlines a series of suggestive proposals, ground in social agenda to assist the council in their continued regeneration plans.

We would like to thank Graeme and Wendy of West Lindsey Council for their time and creativity over the past 6 weeks and the Gainsborough community who were generous with their thoughts during our consultation exercises.

Credits

Student Team: 

Richard Grenfell, Rachael Moon, Amanda Vos, Mollie-Mae Dale-Collen, John Bacon, Bonan Zhu, Holly Wilkinson, Nigel Hassell, Simon Xiao, Alex Achniotis, Chris Jones, Yafei Li, Zuzanna Antczak

Mentor:

Howard Evans