Material[s] Matter Series: Exploring & Reimagining Neighbourhood Reuse

“If we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it'll be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.”

— Rob Hopkins

Welcome to our Material[s] Matter Workshop Series: Exploring and Reimagining Neighbourhood Reuse. Every other Tuesday evening, we’ll gather at the CIVIC SQUARE site to practically explore reuse as a regenerative design principle for how we collectively shape the futures of our homes, streets and neighbourhoods, rooted in cultures of care, repair and radical reimagination.

Led by practitioners Sarah King and Phil Russel, these hands-on sessions will connect us to our local environment, our neighbours, and the resources around us by reimagining waste as a source of value and care.

Together, we’ll experiment with materials, share stories, and map the systems of reuse already present in our neighbourhood — gathering skills, knowledge and ideas to envision a new system that cultivates circular, regenerative material flows.

This workshop series is part of Site As A Classroom, a long-term collective practice to ensure every phase of Neighbourhood Public Square is an opportunity to learn together.

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ABOUT SARAH AND PHIL

Sarah King is a design-researcher and creative practitioner who believes creativity can be the catalyst for positive change in response to current ecological challenges. Her practice incorporates circular design principles and bio-fabrication processes to create new material alternatives. She is the Textiles Course Leader at HCA, a Materials Researcher at STEAMhouse, Birmingham, and the founder of Materials Club, and Earthli Projects. Her current work seeks to explore the physical relationship between materials, the human experience, and future environments, whilst questioning our current linear systems and the role of waste in our future material culture.

Phil Russell is a local and avid Upcycler, Carpenter and repairer, who specialises in using materials found within the locality of Birmingham city centre. This can include broken and discarded furniture, which may otherwise find its way to landfill.

'My practice is best described with this mantra in mind,

"Find, fix or flip".

I allow what I find to lead the way and then let my imagination run'

SCHEDULE

This Material Matter[s] series continues every other Tuesday until autumn - we will add details of further sessions soon.

ABOUT THE SITE

This session takes place in and around the polytunnel on the Neighbourhood Public Square site. 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

— Please note the site currently has no toilet facilities*

— 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 Cat on catriona@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.*Toilets are available nearby at Ladywood Leisure Centre and Reservoir Cafe (subject to opening times). We are working to bring further infrastructure to support more visitors to the Neighbourhood Public Square site as soon as possible, including compost toilets, and acknowedge and appreciate your patience as these upgrades become possible.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.-

WHY THIS MATTERS

Our built environment is one of the most resource-intense and wasteful systems on Earth. In the UK, construction generates 62% of the country’s waste and a quarter of all our greenhouse gas emissions. The scale of consumption is huge: in the UK alone, 0.5 million tonnes of minerals are used per day in construction, within an economy that is largely linear (i.e. materials are used often once and for relatively short amounts of time before being thrown away as ‘waste’) with very little reuse, or ‘circularity’.

These extractive, linear systems are not only accelerating climate breakdown which comes with vast risks we must prepare for, but they often rely on global supply chains that displace harm elsewhere; in places that are too often ‘out of sight, out of mind’. As these interwoven crises deepen, we urgently need to fundamentally reimagine how we live and build together for more hopeful, just futures: shifting away from systems of extraction and depletion towards neighbourhood practices rooted in care, repair and reuse.

IS IT FOR ME?

If you haven't done anything like this before but are interested to participate, you are warmly welcome to join us. No previous experience is required — just an interest in working with those around you to shape your homes, streets, and neighbourhoods together in ways that support those who live there to thrive in balance with the natural world around them.

If you are interested in experimenting with materials for research or craft purposes, curious about the impacts of climate change on material supplies and how we might adapt, or actively keen to learn alongside us as we explore regenerative material possibilities for use across the Neighbourhood Public Square and wider neighbourhood retrofit, these workshops will be a perfect fit for you.

If you have rich knowledge, lived experience or hands-on skills in reuse, upcycling, or finding new life in what’s often seen as waste — whether through craft, construction, or community repair — we'd love for you to bring your wisdoms to the table for this collective enquiry together.

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.

These workshops are not suitable for children under 11 years of age, and children aged 11+ must be accompanied by an adult for the full duration of the activity. For safety, this will need to be one adult in attendance per young person on site.

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-

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.