Designing with our Ecoregion — A 3-Day Clay Plastering Series: Top Coats

Join us for the second and final Site As A Classroom Clay Week of the year, where we’ll continue building material literacy and practical skills with our region’s rich local clay, through learning about clay plastering within our homes and neighbourhoods.

Led by the legendary natural plasterer Simon Lovatt, this series focuses on top-coats, following on from the base-coat workshops we held earlier in August.

Over three days, we’ll experiment with different clay mixes, exploring how different recipes and component materials shape the finish, aesthetics, and durability of the plaster, exploring together how that may shape it’s functionality and use within a building, e.g. whether it’s better suited for a bedroom, a kitchen or a high traffic shared community space.

We’ll also practice the hands-on techniques for applying these finishes using our demonstrator straw wall in the on-site polytunnel classroom.

These workshops are part of a longer term strand of Site As A Classroom through which we openly test, research and develop material recipes rooted in materials found in our ecoregion. These insights can then be used to inform the future material applications across our demonstrator sites: the Neighbourhood Public Square and Retrofit House.

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ABOUT SIMON LOVATT, OF CALCH A CHLAI CYMRU

Simon is originally a Welsh Vernacular building specialist from Aberystwyth. As all Welsh cottages used natural materials this led him down the path of modern natural building with a focus on Clay and Lime. He has been practicing the craft for 8 years, Calch a Chlai Cymru (Lime and Clay Wales) has been running since 2021. Simon works all over the UK laying earth and limecrete floors, plastering with clay and lime plasters as well as facilitating workshops.

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Is this for me?
These workshops are open to everyone — no previous experience is required, just an interest in working with others to shape our homes, streets, and neighbourhoods in ways that support the health of us as people and our shared planetary systems.

If you’ve joined us on earlier clay workshops or other material learning journeys, or if you already work with clay and want to deepen your knowledge, this is a good place to go further. If you’re new to clay but curious about its potential as a building material in our homes and neighbourhoods, you are also welcome to start here.

We also welcome makers, builders, and those exploring how natural materials like clay can deepen our relationship with land and each other, as well as support climate, ecological and material transitions across our built environment.

We particularly welcome those who are based in or around Ladywood and interested to co-design and co-build the Neighbourhood Public Square together with us, are involved in the co-design and building of civic spaces in their own neighbourhoods, or are interested in retrofit at the street and neighbourhood scale.

Please note: these workshops are not suitable for children under 14. Young people aged 14–17 must be accompanied by an adult for the full duration of the activity (one adult per young person, for safety).

ABOUT THE SITE

The celebration takes place in and around the polytunnel on the Neighbourhood Public Square site, as well as in South Loop Park.

Whilst the park is open to all ages, as we prepare to begin the construction of Neighbourhood Public Square together, we are very committed and excited to keep the site as open as possible. In order to make this work, we invite you to adopt new postures together with us and adhere to some important principles for taking care and keeping each other safe on site.

— All activity on site is only open to adults and children aged 11+

— Children aged under 16 must be accompanied by an adult

— Closed toed shoes or boots must be worn

— We will also provide any additional safety equipment that is required on your arrival, including hi vis vests which are to be worn at all times on site

— The ground is uneven in places, please navigate carefully and look out for each other

— Toilets will be available off site on Rotton Park Street

— No food or uncovered drinks inside the polytunnel

— Do not go beyond the designated areas, indicated by heras fencing and floor markings

— Please listen and respect any care guidance shared by our team and practitioners on site, for whom your safety if their number one priority

If further information would support your visit, please contact Emily on emilycz@civicsquare.cc. You can also let us know about any specific access requirements you may have during the sign up process, and where possible we will of course seek to meet these, whilst also being honest about the limitations of the current infrastructure where needed to ensure you have any information you may need before attending.

We thank you for your understanding and collaboration whilst we hold the constraints and opportunities of working in close proximity to former industrial buildings which are currently undergoing surveys to gain a full picture of their condition, whilst we keep trying to practice as openly as possible together during this time, and throughout the construction stages to come.

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ABOUT SITE AS A CLASSROOM

Site As A Classroom is a long-term collective practice to ensure every phase of designing, building, repairing and stewarding the Neighbourhood Public Square site is an open, inclusive, and shared opportunity for learning together in our neighbourhood and beyond.

"Together, we are a commitment to this land as a site of reimagination, reuse and repair; a place to learn, build, eat, grow, care and organise; a home for the capacities, skills and relationships we need to face the challenges and possibilities ahead together, held in common for the neighbourhood for generations to come."

—Neighbourhood Public Square: The Land Story So Far

Our intention is for our team, the neighbourhood, and wider national and industrial scales to learn from the ongoing demonstration through Neighbourhood Public Square in real-time, as well as informing how we learn from what the site, ecoregion, neighbourhood, peers, and precedents can continue to teach us, without end.

This builds on so many experiences we have shared with you all so far including Doughnut Economics Peer-To-Peer Learning Journeys, Ecological Health in Neighbourhoods, Neighbourhood Trade School, Material Matter[s], Re:Builders, Retrofit Reimagined, learning from Centre For Alternative Technology, The Rediscovery Centre, Le Magasin Électrique, Ubele Initiative, Freedom & Balance, and countless others.Launching more formally in May 2025, Site As A Classroom is an open invitation to bring the skills you have, your energy, curiosity, and lived wisdoms to help shape and co-produce this next phase of discovery and demonstration together through everyday participation, co-builds and a range of open enquiries that we are excited to share in together.

Find out more: bit.ly/PublicSquareDesign

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ABOUT MATERIAL MATTER[S]

Material Matter[s] is an ongoing open enquiry into how we fundamentally reimagine our relationships with materials and the systems that shape how they are made, distributed, and considered at their ‘end-of-life’ through a lens of material justice.

As we develop the strategies, relationships and practical skills needed to manifest the regenerative design principles within the retrofit of the Neighbourhood Public Square, this enquiry opens out our material explorations into a site of shared (un)learning, reimagination and capacity building.

We invite you to join us on this journey and to bring your own enquiries, curiosities and skills, as we collectively grow our material literacy, hands-on skills and collective capacities to co-lead and steward a just material transition in our homes, streets and neighbourhoods.

If you're interested in reading more about this work so far, head to our recent research publication with Material Cultures — Building Skills: A Material Strategy for Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Open enquiries are one layer of Site As A Classroom, a long-term collective practice to ensure everyday phase of Neighbourhood Public Square is an opportunity to learn together.