The examples we used were the Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Avenue, The Wellington Rooms on Mount Pleasant and The Lyceum on Bold Street. The group had to carry out a site analysis of each building to think about its location, strengths, weaknesses, risks and potential.

We then headed back to our base at the University of Liverpool where the group split into small teams and had to recreate scale models of their assigned building using cardboard – not an easy feat in one afternoon!

Once their buildings were constructed, the groups thought about the different audiences that might be able to use the space and created a vision for their buildings, outlining what they wanted the space to achieve in the local community and how it might benefit the people who use it.

The fun really started when they began to design the interiors and everyone came up with really varied & creative ideas including pop-up shops, a nursery, escape rooms, a rehabilitation centre, libraries & study centres, bars, roof gardens, sports facilities restaurants and even a hotel with a spa.

By the end of the week, the models were completed both inside and outside along with posters to explain the groups’ plans for each building. The teams presented to each other before friends & family arrived to have a drink and check out all their hard work, with special prizes given to the groups with the best team dynamic, the most creative ideas, the most evolved design and the best presentation.

Everyone who took part got so stuck in and produced really impressive work in such a short space of time. Some people travelled quite a distance each day to attend and they all gave up a week of their Easter holidays ahead of exam season so we were really impressed with their commitment.

We hope that the programme not only provided great, real-life experience in the field of architecture, design & planning but also helped to develop transferrable skills such as teamwork, creative thinking & problem-solving. Most of all, we hope that everyone who took part found it enjoyable, make new friends, gained more confidence in their abilities and learnt valuable skills to take away for whatever they go on to do in the future.

A huge thank you to University of Liverpool Planning Department for the venue, Sophie from Placed who led the week, making it lots of fun and a really valuable experience for everyone who took part, and all the volunteers and student ambassadors who gave the group real-life insights into a range of careers across the industry. Finally, thank you to  National Lottery players who, through the  National Lottery Heritage Fund, have enabled us to provide this amazing opportunity for free to local young people across the city region.

On Wednesday 3rd April, we were back at St Cecilia’s Club for our latest project update event. Our last event in the summer was a chance to meet our design team from OMI Architects; this time it was to meet our contractors, family-run business H.H. Smith & Sons, who started consruction work on The Old Library this week.

Chris, Rob & Juan from The Old Library project team at Smith’s talked us through some of the previous heritage restoration jobs they’ve worked on across the north of the country, including Gorton Monastery, Norton Priory and Quarry Bank Mill. With some really amazing projects under their belt, we’re thrilled to have them working on The Old Library and know we’re in safe hands. We’ll be working closely with the team to provide a number of community open days throughout the project for people to come and see the progress of the build, as well as numerous training opportunities for local people such as bursary placements, apprenticeships, technical training days and school & university visits.

We also heard from some of our fabulous research volunteers about what they’ve discovered whilst looking into the history of The Old Library and Liverpool’s public library movement. Here’s an extract from Kate’s talk about how sometimes things in the libraries could get a bit out of hand…

One bit of archive I came across encapsulated the excitement experienced in the community with the opening of a Branch Library. The Libraries Annual Report ,1903 describes the hubbub and general mayhem when Toxteth Library first opened its doors. Boys played leapfrog in the Reading Rooms and women chattered boisterously and things got so out of hand, that in the end the local constable had to be called for! Though we are told in the same report that the community soon settled down into, “excellent and steady readers” so we can see that from its inception the library would have been central to the community.

Olivia also ran through some of the exciting events & activities to look forward to over the next 6 months including:

-    Read & Relax shared reading group, every Wednesday from 2pm – 4pm at The Ale House on Prescot Road
-    Community Business Open Day on Saturday 18th May
-    The Big Dig archaeological investigation on Saturday 15th June
-    Lister Steps Summer Fair on Saturday 10th August
-    Heritage Open Days tours of The Old Library on Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th September

Keep an eye on our ‘Events & Activities’ page for more details or email olivia.johnson@listersteps.co.uk to get involved.

As always, thanks to everyone for your continued support for The Old Library project – it’s going to be a very exciting year!

We received some really lovely entries this month for our theme of 'Shadows' but we could only choose one winner... so congratulations to Eram Faroq, who captured the theme in this photograph of two people enjoying an autumn walk. Eram’s photograph will feature in our 2020 calendar and be considered as a potential overall winner at the end of the year, with a chance to win a camera. You can see more of the great entries we received this month in our gallery below.

Today is a really big day for The Old Library project. After a lot of hard work (7 years, in fact!) we have handed over the keys to our contractors, H. H. Smith & Sons, who officially start working on site today. We’re so excited to have reached this milestone and can’t wait to watch the building come back to life over the next 12 months so watch this space regular updates.

The project team from H.H. Smith’s will be meeting the local community at our project update event on Wednesday 3rd April at St Cecilia’s Club on Green Lane. Join us for a free drink from 6pm-8pm to hear all about what you can expect throughout the building phase of the project, as well as what our volunteer research team have been up to and the events & activities we’ve got coming up.  

If you can’t make it, you can read all about the start of the project in our press release.