Eleventh International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

This practice-based research seeks to generate a research-led design approach for a post-industrial UNESCO World Heritage site that supports continuity and consistency in the historic built environment through innovative critical design practice. My focus is the town of Belper in the Derwent Valley, which was developed by mill owners during the period of industrialisation from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. As an example of the pioneering period of the Industrial Revolution, Belper’s identity is defined by its overall form and its relationship to the industrial landscape. It is essential that these relationships are definite and recognisable. However, the town is currently under pressure from diverse and conflicting socio-economic forces due to the post-industrial decline of the cotton manufacturing industry. This research generates a coherent design model for Belper that fits into the town’s historical context, drawing from theoretical investigations of alternative urbanism and heritage studies, alongside extensive first-hand investigations of Belper’s architectural heritage and urban fabric. This new way of design thinking developed with a holistic approach, that considers the site and its history together with personal lived experience. Communicating the poetics and politics of making and experiencing a place, design concerns interpreting physical, social, and cultural conditions -the ‘situations’ that make a place and uncovering the dialogue between them within the whole. Knitting together the new and the existing, my research-led design proposal seeks to promote appropriate and viable mixed-use development that repair and upgrade Belper’s existing urban grain while recognising the evolving nature of its historic character.