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MacEwen Award 2025 commended: Blackpool's Revoe Public Square

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Words:
Flo Armitage-Hookes

The square, co-conceived, designed and constructed by residents, is fostering collaboration, agency and hopes for the future in an area facing deprivation

‘Apart from the tower, there’s nothing touristy about this part of Blackpool,’ explains Lee Ivett, who runs University of Central Lancashire’s live-action studio Other People’s Dreams. Although the iconic tower peeks over rooftops in the Revoe neighbourhood, the leisure industry and seafront are a world away. The area faces significant deprivation, has few green spaces and is home to a range of disparate communities.

Until recently, a fenced-off wasteland lined the high street, following demolition in 2020 of the George Hotel pub – ‘a rough but loved establishment’. Pressure to transform and open up the space was growing. Today, a new temporary public square on the site, co-conceived, designed and constructed by residents, is fostering collaboration, agency and hopes for the future.

Revoe Public Square is a place for meeting, chatting, playing and hosting events. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu
Kids enjoyed face painting and a circus skills workshop on the platform during Revoe Fun Day last August. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu

A 30m2 circular platform is the eye-catching centrepiece. Octagonal and square tiles of decking boards and bespoke concrete terrazzo form a patchwork surface which sits on a raised timber frame. A round cut-out creates a perch for sitting while a wooden ramp provides access from existing paving. Up close, you can trace patterns of broken bottles, shells and flecks of demolition debris in the coloured concrete. Pinks and burgundy echo the red brick of the lost pub, while blues and yellows evoke the nearby sea and sand. It’s a bit scraggly in places, but charming and well used. It’s already hosted a circus-skills workshop, choir, café, poetry readings and the National Gallery’s Art Road Trip. Day to day, it’s a place for meeting people, chatting and playing. I’m told that the ramp is used as a bike track and fashion runway by kids.

The project is a collaboration between Other People’s Dreams, resident-led group Revoelution and socially engaged arts practice LeftCoast. On my visit, I’m met by members from all three groups despite the bitter cold. Our conversation is peppered with waves from locals, nods at passers-by and people joining the group. There’s clearly warmth and familiarity between stakeholders here and I’m surprised to learn that the public engagement rate is as low as 10 per cent at nearby community projects.

The design emerged through interactive workshops and experimentation. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu
Discussing materials on site. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu

However, Ivett and Ecaterina Stefanescu of Other People’s Dreams have certainly been doing things differently. Their approach blurs the distinction between designer and client and predetermines very little. During meetings, their role was to stimulate discussion, step back and later explain the implications of ideas. Local Joyce Folkett remembers her initial scepticism. ‘We thought, oh yeah we’ll get an architect and they’ll come up with some dopey ideas … but instead he just sat in a corner and listened to people.’

There’s no masterplan, each design decision is incremental and, once realised, informs the next. ‘We do a bit, we stand back, we see how it goes, then we do a bit more, stand back and see how that goes,’ explains Ivett. Action is encouraged over inertia, experimenting over speculating. Yet each small step can quickly respond to suggestions or issues raised by residents. The scheme is ambitious but firmly rooted in what locals want from it and the realities of ongoing occupation.

  • A pop-up art studio occupied the site during the National Gallery’s Art Road Trip.
    A pop-up art studio occupied the site during the National Gallery’s Art Road Trip. Credit: James Walmsley
  • Revoe Fun Day, August 2024.
    Revoe Fun Day, August 2024. Credit: Donna Hannigan
  • Terrazzo colours were chosen to echo the sand, sea and George Hotel pub.
    Terrazzo colours were chosen to echo the sand, sea and George Hotel pub. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu
  • Painting the platform's wooden ramp.
    Painting the platform's wooden ramp. Credit: Lee Ivett
  • Although Blackpool Tower is visible from Revoe, it’s a world away.
    Although Blackpool Tower is visible from Revoe, it’s a world away. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu
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Next to the platform, a wooden market stall is being tested, designed to be easily slotted together, taken down and stored. If it works and the markets are well attended, the elements will be cast in metal for longevity. If it doesn’t work, the wood will be used somewhere else in the project. There’s a refreshing practicality to it all.

When it’s too cold to keep huddling on the platform, we retreat inside to Revoelution’s base, which borders the site. Palms clasping cuppas, the group chats animatedly about making the concrete terrazzo blocks. Residents were stirring, pouring, grinding and polishing over the course of a month in the back garden. Revoelution’s Simon Lawton fondly recalls how people crowded around buckets, advising ‘put a bit more red in!’ However, Stefanescu emphasises that the activities didn’t rely on language and that new skills were shared by showing and doing, enabling asylum seekers, the local Romanian community and other non-English speakers to participate. ‘It’s important that people meet each other for the first time during a positive activity, not a negative one,’ she says.

Residents got stuck in making the concrete terrazzo. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu
The construction process connected communities without the need for language. Credit: Ecaterina Stefanescu

Although wonderfully DIY, the method drew on expertise from technicians at the University of Central Lancashire. Ivett would ferry back concrete samples each week for discussion in Revoe. The terrazzo is sturdy, durable and lends pockets of grandeur to the platform. The project straddles both art programming and architecture, delivering value through process and a built, usable outcome.

Since these photographs were taken, a large circular planter has been added to the front of the site and there are plans for further additions. ‘It will continue to evolve … and try to creep towards permanency,’ asserts Ivett. The temporary nature of the project has been liberating, allowing for experimentation and tempering initial trepidation. Although there’s not a set end date for the scheme, the land is owned privately and all structures need to be easily dismantlable. However, LeftCoast’s artistic director Laura Jamieson is adamant that the work, knowledge and relationship-building achieved will not be lost and should directly inform upcoming regeneration plans. ‘This is the underground knowledge that they simply don’t have,’ she says.

  • Demolition debris flecks the terrazzo panels.
    Demolition debris flecks the terrazzo panels. Credit: Flo Armitage-Hookes
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The public square – or circle – has compellingly shown the need for civic spaces in the area and their generative potential. It achieves well beyond its meagre budget, increasing the capacity of existing community spaces, bringing together different groups, providing agency in the public realm and hopefully sparking future projects. The site has not encouraged antisocial behaviour as some feared, nor has it been vandalised. It has been created by and for the users rather than by a well-wishing external entity. Other People’s Dreams, Revoelution and LeftCoast are working in ways that are woefully rare and there is much to be learnt from them.

The judges were particularly impressed by the space’s informal possibilities. ‘It’s always open, visible and public,’ said Steve Wilkinson. ‘It can be active even in passive ways.’

Robyn Poulson concurred. ‘It feels embedded in the place and can be used for performances, gathering, playing or sitting,’ she said. ‘It’s a catalyst for further activities and creation.’

See more MacEwen projects and architecture for the common good 


IN NUMBERS:
Contract cost £18,000 
Circular platform 30m2 
Bespoke terrazzo panels 19
Local volunteers 20+

Credits

Client Revoelution
Client and neighbourhood producer LeftCoast
Technical team University of Central Lancashire
Design team and fabrication Other People’s Dreams (Grenfell-Baines Institute of Architecture), University of Central Lancashire

 

Site plan.
Site plan. Credit: Lee Ivett

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