Developing the Dearne reconceptualises city-regional spatial development from a bioregional perspective, offering an alternative framework for Dearne Valley’s fragmented post-industrial coal mining villages. Speculating how to reconnect the valley to its ecological history while promoting self-reliance, this project reintroduces industrial hemp as a rotation crop for the production of renewable construction materials, food, pharmaceuticals and clothing. Through reterritorializing public and private agricultural land plots toward a community land trust, industrial hemp catalyses versatile community owned and operated enterprises.

Sited atop the former Goldthorpe Colliery, the Centre for Sustainable Construction – housing a carbon-negative hempcrete production facility, renewable construction trade school and community facilities - sits within broader reconnective landscape interventions. The lightweight linear building links the urban townscape to the rural landscape, repairing former infrastructural and industrial damage. This construction logic draws from a knowledge of resources, supply chains, manual building techniques, and renewable construction materials.

Through the building process and school, local construction specialists, apprentices, self-builders and volunteers become empowered with the skills and material expertise to sustainably and affordably retrofit and expand the valley’s townscape. Developing the Dearne endeavours to disperse sustainable industries into peripheral post-industrial areas to dismantle central government’s city-centrist ‘green recovery’ policies.

Portfolio

Greater Cambridge Greenways - Cambridgeshire

Client(s): Greater Cambridge Partnership, Collaborator(s): JCLA / Fulkers / Maddison Graphic

Hospitality Business Recovery— Westminster, London

Client(s): Westminster City Council, Collaborator(s): NRP

Bloqs— Meridian Water, London

Client(s): London Borough of Enfield / Bloqs, Collaborator(s): Arup / Stace

England's Economic Heartland Future Visions - Study

Client(s): England's Economic Heartlands

Chester City Gateway Masterplan

Client(s): LCR / Network Rail, Collaborator(s): Arup / CBRE / Faithful & Gould

New Cross Area Framework  - London

Client(s): London Borough of Lewisham / Transport for London / Greater London Authority Collaborator(s): We Made That / Alan Baxter / Lambert Smith Hampton

Meridian Water Meanwhile Masterplan— London

Client(s): London Borough of Enfield, Collaborator(s): Jonathan Cook Landscape Architects / Urban Projects Bureau / Urban Space Management / Arup / Fulkers / NEF Consulting

Royal Docks Cycling and Walking Action Plan

Client(s): GLA Royal Docks Team / London Borough of Newham / GLA Opportunity Area Planning Framework (OAPF) Team