Over the last decade the School of Architecture, through Live Projects and the Live Works project office, has championed an inclusive community-led approach to the regeneration of the Castle site, and to Castlegate more widely. Working with our students via Live Projects has raised the capacity and aspirations of local community groups to see a future for Castlegate that is representative and meaningful for them. 

“The Live Project gave us confidence to be recognised as an organisation…and it’s made us realise as a group that we shouldn’t be blinkered and we should welcome all kinds of ideas and creativity around what the project might be” Martin Gorman, Friends of Sheffield Castle

Live Works acts as a mediator, connecting stakeholders across different actors and scales; Sheffield City Council, other civic institutions, and local communities. A key role in this mediation has been to amplify voices not normally heard in conventional placemaking and to diversify the network of stakeholders engaged. Live Works has advocated for the inclusion of local BAME and refugee groups, and for the existing ‘pioneers’ in the area who are acting as cultural and social innovators on the ground, championing the value of their contributions to the future of the area.

“Having that synergy with the University is so important [to develop] a long-term vision. You're talking to us, and you're talking to all different parties - it's a totally creative process.” Bally Johal, Exchange Street Collective

This advocacy work has resulted in greater diversity of local community representation on both the Castlegate Partnership and the Castlegate Area Board - groups set up by Sheffield City Council to deliver the regeneration of the area. 

In June 2022, after the Levelling Up award for the development of the Castle site, Live Works facilitated a co-production programme with local stakeholders, and in partnership with Sheffield City Council, that involved a series of workshops to develop collectively the ‘Castlegate Common Manifesto’. This presented 13 recommendations, underpinned by the shared values of stakeholders, to inform the ongoing design of the project and later development around the site. Sheffield City Council have adopted these recommendations and the Manifesto has become an important touchstone in ongoing decision-making for the regeneration of Castlegate. 

In November 2022 Live Works, again working in partnership with Sheffield City Council and local community groups, designed and facilitated a public engagement programme via a pop-up Urban Room in Castlegate. The Castlegate Futures Urban Room hosted a series of workshops, exhibitions, discussions and presentations on the past, present and future of Castlegate. The feedback from the Urban Room programme was presented in the Castlegate Futures Urban Room Public Engagement report and continues to inform the detailed design of the Castle site development. 

The most recent Live Project ‘Castlegate Commons’ continues the work of raising community agency and capacity-building. In this project students worked with a group of community organisations to develop a new vision for the community/event facilities ear-marked for the Castle site. Live Works are working with Sheffield City Council to follow-up on this work and support community groups to scope out new forms of governance to potentially become operators of these facilities in the future.

The work of the School of Architecture in Castlegate played a key role in supporting the development of Sheffield City Council’s ‘Gateway to Sheffield’ successful application for national government Levelling Up Funding. The design for the Castle site that was submitted for funding has its roots in the ‘Revealing the Castle’ vision produced by Live Project students with the Friends of Sheffield Castle in 2016. Live Works then worked with FoSc to develop the design vision for the site that was included in their Blueprint and subsequently adopted by Sheffield City Council. 

Live Works and UoS Department of Archaeology continued to advise SCC on the design vision and community engagement strategy in the LUF application. In October 2021 SCC were awarded £15.8M for regeneration of the Castle site. 

Live Works continues to work closely with SCC and local stakeholders in facilitating a co-production process to inform the detailed design and delivery of the Castle site regeneration.

Harmony Works is a landmark project in the regeneration of Castlegate, for the city of Sheffield and South Yorkshire. The project involves the retrofitting of Canada House, a prominent heritage building, into a new cultural centre for young musicians from across the region. It was kickstarted through a Live Project in 2017 when architecture students produced a highly engaging design vision for the building and the huge impact it could have on children and young people. 

Live Works then worked with the client group to develop the design further for a ‘pre-app’ submission to Sheffield City Council planning department, to develop the Harmony Works website and, to develop a community engagement strategy for before, during and after construction. 

This body of work played a key role in Harmony Works successful application for £1.6M of Levelling Up funding. In 2022, a second Live Project saw students developing design ideas for meanwhile uses of the building and building a physical scale model of Canada House, further informing the community engagement strategy that Live Works continues to help develop.

“Live Works worked with us to develop the original Live Project vision to gain support from politicians, funders, council officers and consultants. Harmony Works is now identified as a priority project for the City with the backing of political leaders and Sheffield City Region and on the back of this work we have received significant development funds from Sheffield City Council, the Architectural Heritage Fund and Levelling Up funding. Working with Live Projects and then Live Works has enabled us to turn a project that previously existed as a ‘maybe one day’ dream into a reality."  Emily Pieters, Sheffield Music Academy 

Website: harmonyworks.org.uk

The School of Architecture’s work in Castlegate was chosen to be featured as part of an international exhibition of ‘Design for the Common Good’, curated by the Live Projects Network, DesignBuildXchange Europe, the Pacific Rim Community Design Network and the SEED Network (US). 

Projects were chosen to exemplify best practice from across the world that champions growing knowledge, evolving processes, and activating public participation in placemaking. The direct involvement of people - communities, stakeholders, designers, as well as educators and their students - is at the heart of all the projects showcased. Projects were evaluated according to their social, economic, and environmental basis, their inclusive participatory design research practices, whether they could evidence creating identified and positive change in the community and the extent to which they promoted new learning & knowledge sharing.

The exhibition was launched at the Center for Visual Art, Denver, United States in January 2022, before moving to Budapest, Hungary in October 2023. Alongside the exhibitions, in March 2022 Carolyn Butterworth and Tom Moore of Live Works were invited to give a presentation of the Castlegate work and take part in a series of dialogues between contributing practitioners and academics from across the world. 

Website: www.designforthecommongood.net