Last month, students from the University of Liverpool exhibited their work at BirkenEd’s Place, a community hub in Birkenhead, with the support of Wirral Council.
First and Second Year undergraduate students from the School of Architecture, and undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Department of Geography and Urban Planning created a scale model of the town in response to the vision set out by the Birkenhead 2040 Framework.
Curated by Dr Paco Mejias Villatoro from the School of Architecture, the exhibition supported and widened the conversation about the town’s future by inviting the community in Birkenhead and key local stakeholders, to have the opportunity to feedback on the students’ ideas.
The event also marked the reopening of BirkenEd’s Place, the community engagement hub for Birkenhead, following a successful four-month pilot. Over the next few months, projects from across the town will be shared in the space, enabling people to share their ideas.
The opening event was launched by Ms Jo Harrop, director of PLACED and was followed by a brief introduction by Councillor Stuart, Leader of Wirral Council, Mr Alexander Dusterloh, Dr Paco Mejias Villatoro, Ms Lucretia Ray and Dr Junjie Xi from our School of Architecture and Dr Manuela Madeddu, Dr Tatiana Moreira de Souza and Professor Richard Dunning from our Department of Geography and Planning.
Two engagement workshops with the local community (one for teenagers and one for families) were led by second-year students at Architecture and attracted much attention from the local communities. Students also attended BirkenEd’s Place every day throughout the display to speak with members of the community about their plans and ideas.
One student commented: “It was such a great experience for me to interact with the public with my designs! I had a lot of fun.” Another student said: “on the whole I found the experience very insightful and learnt that in order for a public regeneration scheme to be successful, listening and engaging with the public must be a top priority”.
Over 450 visitors visited the exhibition and our students will continue to work on Birkenhead and Collaborate with PLACED next academic year.
For more details and further news, please visit Liverpool’s School of Architecture.