Giving Dowlais a new town centre to reinforce community resilience, through the design of social interaction between buildings.

I investigate how street life can be integrated into a town centre from macro to micro scale. Firstly, how a master-plan creates the centre lacking in Dowlais. Secondly, how street consideration can bring people to the centre, and make them stay. Lastly, how thresholds can be embellished to bring value and a sense of pride back to Dowlais. I explore low-rise density in an existing site, to re-use buildings for a sustainable project, creating street activity. Changing paths in the streetscape, in addition to detailed studies of thresholds creates a space for community members to linger and enjoy.

Years ago, Dowlais was home to the Ifor Works, which created a tight knit community that formed the identity of Dowlais. When the ironworks were shut in the 1980s, Dowlais became isolated from Merthyr, and the community suffered, loosing the facilities for social relationships to thrive. What it had before was such a fascinating vibrant community, and I believe, like every place Dowlais deserved this to be re-imagined in street life, long lasting in the future. The threshold is critical to our experience of architecture, and these should be celebrated, to celebrate the everyday street life of Dowlais.

A solution to an isolated Dowlais cannot lie with a single piece of architecture, but a strategy that navigates social life from masterplan to threshold level. I propose three phases in my project: masterplan, street and threshold, that aim to deliver social life at all levels. The masterplan offers a mixed-use proposal including housing, social spaces, and amenities to attract the community. The masterplan layout and street design make exciting spaces opening onto a square; the epitome of outdoor social life. These spaces encourage lingering and unexpected encounters for the community to once again thrive.

Above all, my project looks to create a social sustainability through the relationships architecture can build. By designing for individual moments across the centre of Dowlais; moments that encourage the closeness that once existed in the old Dowlais, I believe my designs have the potential to connect the community in a way that feels invaluable. The ordinary becomes extraordinary, the everyday becomes special. So not only are we able to at last celebrate everyday street life across dowlais, but truly celebrate the community once again.