Our January exhibition presented the urban design proposals of our MArch Programme studio to a wider audience. This year our presentation of propositions for Runcorn coincided with Halton Borough Council’s own regeneration planning for the town. The diversion of through traffic away from the Silver Jubilee Bridge via the Mersey Gateway creates opportunities to positively transform the public realm around Runcorn mainline station, and this important nodal point was the focus of the exhibited Runcorn projects. We were pleased to welcome regeneration officers from Halton, who had helped us in preparing the project briefs, and were concurrently commissioning designers to look at these same issues. The projects set in Genoa were a demonstration of the similarity of issues between the city and Liverpool. Propositions for the historic districts, redundant infrastructure and waterfront of Genoa presented ideas that echo with possibilities for Liverpool. Stemming from the ‘Second Tier Cities in Europe: Why invest beyond capitals’ research published by LJMU’s European Institute for Urban Affairs, our study of Genoa is part of an ongoing programme of studio based research which is bringing together exemplars and lessons from cities around Europe sharing similar concerns to Liverpool. Porto, Marseille, Rotterdam and Hamburg have all been studied and Gdansk is our next destination. The public opening of the exhibition was augmented by a lecture from John Grindrod, organised with the Modernist Society, which during the last year has established a Liverpool city group, led by staff from the LJMU Architecture Programme.
10
Liverpool John Moores University - Architecture 2017