Pop into our lab on Dudley High Street on Monday 6 December between 3pm and 5pm to meet Time Rebels from Birmingham City University’s Masters of Architecture Studio who have been developing Visions for a Future High Street rooted on Dudley High Street.

You can meet the students and talk to them about their visions. An exhibition of this work will remain on display through the week. Below are brief introductions to ideas they have been working on and images of work in progress from their studio. The visions include a community kitchen, lichen covered buildings, sustainable travel and spaces for learning and participation in the ever changing High Street.

Ryan Cooksey

What would an aesthetic street look like if the materials present were not allowed to contribute to repairs, additions and new buildings going forwards? I plan to celebrate repairs by experimenting with Dudley High Street’s appearance if it were restricted to a zero-carbon / carbon sequestering material pallet. A statement building will be designed to host workshops, open learning areas, and a material library which will encourage more people to realise the excessive number of materials that can be used as an alternative to positive carbon materials.

Victoria Ravenscroft:

Not cooking or eating in isolation can have a tremendous impact on our mental health, well being and our relationship with food, especially as a child. This project will give families and the community an opportunity to cook and eat together where this has not been possible before. It will include a community kitchen that will house facilities to cook meals, dining area to aid communication within the family and larger community, educational programmes to help people eat healthier, and the aim to reduce food waste.

Frances Lacey:

A series of pavilions responding to the Extinction Rebellion themes of air, water, biodiversity, food and materials, assessing and proposing a response which considers the High Street in its entirety. These will be stitched into streetscape, operating based on principles of “ideas becoming infrastructure” to create spaces to facilitate care as an activity to improve and protect the future through long-term betterment of individual education and interest, community networks, environmental performance and eco-restoration.

Samuel Forsythe:

A sustainable architectural approach to the development of Dudley High Street, which responds to the current circumstances, and future challenges, through modification and reassembly of components and elements from its existing buildings. An adaptive built environment on Dudley High Street, allowing the high street to respond to its current circumstances, thereby meeting the needs and requirements of the high street’s residents and users.

Jasmine Lawrence:

Development is often driven and measured by economic factors, yet the value of cultural and societal indicators to performance have begun to be recognised by governments worldwide. This project shall reimagine sustainable patterns of development along water networks in Dudley, where canals were historically at the heart of urban expansion, but at present a live Local Plan threatens to urbanise greenbelt areas. ‘Data Humanism’ (coined by Giorgia Lupi in 2017) has been interpreted in this project to examine alternative methods of data gathering, translation and representation, placing an emphasis on qualitative methods which are personal, meaningful, and human.

Kyle Conway:

‘Archipelago’, looks to create more communities to move the whole of Dudley in to its renewable and sustainable future. A series of communities or ‘islands’ will make up the archipelago. These ‘islands’ will be self-serving and sustaining, embodying principles of the much romanticised ‘15-minute community’.

The islands will also have to interact with one another to fuel operations. ‘Archipelago’ will turn Dudley High Street into a hub of interconnectivity, using state of the art connective technologies like blockchain and online creative commons. The High Street will become a digitised, trade and social hub for the first ever local-level sustainable commodities and energy market. Deglobalizing the production of goods, power and life for the Residents of Dudley.

Mubashir Ahmed:

In this project, the community will be able to be in control and address challenges within Dudley existing buildings. These buildings will be repurposed into narratives that explain the rich culture within Dudley and educate users on the High Street through participation.

As a result of the direct involvement of users of the High Street, existing derelict buildings along the street will have their façade components upgraded.

Key principles would be the focus on transferring knowledge and skills to local residents (youth engagement) coupled with a design and build process that makes use of waste products as building materials. The community would be further reassured that they are taking control of their high street rather than being alienated by third parties.

Sam Rowlatt:

Dudley has been identified as being a location that had a significant involvement in the industrial revolution, therefore it should also lead the way within a green revolution; starting with the high street. My thesis aims to encourage new methods of green travel into Dudley, to encourage an eco friendly, economic growth to the area. My thesis will be a mixed use development, focusing on creating a transport hub to the high street.

Oscar Law:

It’s important for everyday citizens to learn about the past, so that they can prepare and fight for our future.

By creating a space that can inform and teach the people of Dudley, residents can arm their selves with the knowledge for a better tomorrow, while also engaging with the local community.

Michelle Gartside

Lichen is a natural indicator of pollution and thrives in environments that are natural, have lots of texture and most importantly, have un-polluted air. Much like carbon capture units, lichens sequester carbon and so through reproducing and multiplying this thesis aims to propose a High Street covered head-to-toe in lichens of varying species and kinds that help provide a comfortable and green environment.

Lichens and carbon capture units will then form part of a larger High Street wide system that will then be focused in on one site location that proposes a passive building that is a community education hub, in the centre of the town by the museum and art gallery that promotes learning, gathering and growth as a community whilst also being the centre for the systems with a façade covered in living lichens.