The Castleford Project
Project Type:
urban Planning Design Strategy
Project Mission/Goal:
increase awareness of the environment and/or address climate change
Project Description:
A $26m programme of capital improvement of the spaces and places that make up people's everyday lives in a poor former coal-mining town, founded upon an initial grant of just $200,000. A new network of civic organizations supporting urban renewal. A programme of popular design that has leveraged over $500m new public and private investments. Over 10,000 people involved in the co-design of their town.
The Castleford Project started in 2002 when people living in the former coal-mining town of Castleford in West Yorkshire, England wanted the public spaces and places in their town to improve. Since 2005, 11 projects across the town have been co-designed and delivered, from small improvements to local parks, to new play facilities, a new town square and a new architect-designed pedestrian bridge.
As a result of the process, three new community groups have formed and are now in their fourth year of existence. Local artists and artists from Europe and Cuba have been commissioned to provide the town with new works of public art. Improvements in the town have rolled out. And over $500m of new residential and commercial investment have been ear-marked for the town.
The project is an outstanding example of how initial seed investment can enable creative and cultural initiative that engages the community and public agencies on a town or community-wide basis, in turn triggering the delivery of a larger, on-going process of regeneration and renewal.
The entire process is the subject of a TV documentary on Channel 4 in the U.K.
Text from: http://www.socialdesignsite.com/content/view/149/73/
Links:
Channel 4 documentary: www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/Castleford-Regeneration.html
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-work/art-at-the-heart-of-castleford/
Video:
New footbridge developed by this Castleford Project:
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Nominated by Cameron Sinclair
