Paddock Johnson’s submission for the Liverpool Architecture Festival 2021, Design Charrette, described by judges as really exciting and creative.

A Paddock Johnson team, including Oliver Moran, Rosana Doseva  and Evie Greenall took part in the inaugural Liverpool Architecture Festival by entering their submission Integration Station into the Design Charrette on Friday 08 October.

Integration Station focussed on the site at Earlestown Station, once the centre of a thriving interchange now exists as an uninhabited island, visited only by travellers passing through. The historically important station building sits vacant contributing to the sense of detachment and disjunct between settlement areas and different land uses.

The essence of the submission was to utilise the ‘gap’ contextually, to embrace and celebrate the ‘island’ as a place to escape to, whilst embarking on a journey to reconnect with the community. After checking in at the ticket office the journey begins via a new high-level network of routes reconnecting the existing community beyond the railway as well as connecting the existing heritage structures and station platforms. The route has purpose, providing links to the required destination but also encouraging engagement and interaction. Integration pods create opportunities to overcome social feelings of remoteness, detachment and disconnect.    

As humans, social interaction is essential to every aspect of our health. By creating the infrastructure to support developing community bonds and fostering social interaction, we can repair some of the damage caused by the pandemic through the creation of purposefulness, belonging, contentedness.

The inaugural festival which runs from 04-15 October 2021 is focussed on, and the first step towards, building bigger, better things. Through a mixture of free events including lectures, workshops, charrettes, tours, and presentations, it aims to bring together and build upon our incredible community. For more info click here https://www.laf-uk.com