The first three winners in the LI-run Pennine Lancashire Squared competition have been announced.

A concept sketch for Blackburn by Studio Weave and MESH Partnership
A concept sketch for Blackburn by Studio Weave and MESH Partnership

Studio Weave and MESH Partnership triumphed in Blackburn; Landscape Projects have been selected for Accrington; and Civic Architects and Colour: Urban Design Ltd were the winners in Burnley.

Coordinated by the Landscape Institute, the competition was dreamt up by Yvette Livesey and her late partner, music mogul Anthony H Wilson and commissioned by regeneration agency Elevate in association with Pennine Lancashire Leaders and Chief Executives.

Elevate Chief Executive Max Steinberg said: “The towns at the heart of Pennine Lancashire are all unique in their own way. The Pennine Lancashire Squared initiative is all about bringing out the personalities of six of those towns, giving each one a world-class space at its centre to help rejuvenate the wider area.”

Landscape Projects’ concept design for Accrington focuses on its identity as a floral market town and proposes creating a flexible open space in front of the neighbouring market hall and town hall, with lighting of key buildings.

The winning entry for Burnley from Civic Architects and Colour: Urban Design Ltd proposes creating terraces of different sizes that can be used at different scales, including programmed events such as the annual Jazz Festival.

Studio Weave and MESH Partnership’s winning entry for Blackburn was conceived in the form of an adventure story in which a boy walks through a mirror to find himself in a secret landscape garden. The landscape boasts undulating lawns and meandering tree-lined paths around a new folly and lake, with a layout that makes the nearby buildings seem as if they are gathering around garden, rather than vice versa.

Stirling prize-winning architect Stephen Hodder chaired the judging panel and will fulfil the same role on the panels that will choose the winners for the remaining three Pennine Lancashire towns – Bacup, Clitheroe and Nelson.

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