Alongside many former coalfields, Dearne Valley is one of the most deprived areas in the country, with marginalised communities situated in a degrading townscape and fractured landscape. Developing the Dearne re-conceptualises the idea, vision and processes of regional and spatial development from city-regionalism to bioregionalism. Speculating how self-reliance could be achieved through a process of landscape re-territorialisation, and development defined by a contemporary reframing of historical land-use practices and local material cultures. Through reintroducing industrial hemp as a rotational crop and stitching fractured areas of rewilded native woodlands together, the damaged landscape is reinhabited. The proposed Centre for Sustainable Construction - a renewable construction school and site of carbon-negative hempcrete material production - provides the tools for residents to mould their built environment, and manage their immediate environment. The proposed dispersion of specialist training in renewable construction, as a knowledge sector, into peripheral former mining areas, aims to dismantle central government’s city-centrist ‘Northern Powerhouse’ policies – offering an alternative framework for post-industrial mining regions.

Helena Jordan

︎Year 5