The definitive history of Blackburn is Open and the build up to The National Festival of Making. In 2012, we had the idea to take what Blackburn had – empty shops in prime town centre locations, an open minded Council, unused evocative buildings, strong industrial heritage, successful diaspora – and embrace these assets to start […]

The opportunity to design a housing development in Blackburn was something that energised Gerardine and Wayne. I often get asked for my career highlight and my answer for the past decade or so has been The Staiths South Bank in Gateshead, our first housing development. It was one of those rare projects that, despite the […]

We can tend to be utopian but a divided society serves no-one. Britain is divided in a number of ways and if it continues then everybody will suffer. Between Remainers and Leavers, environmentalists and climate change-deniers, misogynists and feminists, the curious and the ignorant and the haves and have-nots, we’re at risk of tearing ourselves […]

A blog about how affordable rents helped us get started and how through the markets we curate we are, in a small way, helping start-ups “have a go” by providing low cost opportunities.  I grew up in modest background to the sound of whirring sewing machines and with a mum and a nan who always […]

What have two much maligned places – Blackburn and Leicester – got in common? Hope through football. Like many people I root for the underdog. I rejoice when a system that increasingly favours generationally accumulated wealth is successfully negotiated by someone with fresh ideas, desire and “elbow grease”. In sport I love “Roy of The […]

Our appreciation of the history of council housing and its value to society. In 2014 I was reminded of my first Blackburn home by Sarah Thompson who emailed me with her proposal for an interiors book about ex-council houses. When someone emails you with an idea for a book about how a new generation are […]