Regenerative Retail: An ambitious project to revitalise the high street

Across the UK, town centres are struggling as uncertainty, inflation and changing shopping habits continue to take a toll on footfall. Yet new ideas are emerging that provide plenty of reasons for optimism.

In June 2024, UK-based architecture practice Studio Saar won the prestigious 2024 Davidson Prize for its visionary project “Apartment Store”. The concept reimagines a disused department store in Taunton, Somerset, as a vibrant, community-owned housing initiative that could revitalise the town centre. Studio Saar also won the People’s Choice Prize, picking up a quarter of the public vote. The project directly addresses the ongoing decline of the high street and the increasingly pressing need for affordable housing that provides both community and purpose, making creative use of a disused commercial space to foster sustainable urban regeneration that brings with it new growth opportunities.

The studio’s vision sees the former department store reconfigured into a series of flexible, affordable apartments. Studio Saar designed the living spaces on the upper floors to fulfil a variety of roles, adapting to the needs of the community it serves, including young professionals, families and older residents. A ‘stepping stone’ system offering different sizes of apartments would enable people to gradually make their way up the ladder. Repurposed materials and locally sourced biomaterials would be used where possible in construction.

Meanwhile, the spacious ground floor area would be focused on community-oriented functions, including a tools library, education hub for circular skills and a common room. Capping off the space, a rooftop garden would focus on growing food and teaching the skills needed to do so. Every aspect of the project looks to facilitate the development of the circular economy, offering a template for transforming struggling high streets and vacant retail spaces into thriving community hubs.

Now in its fourth year, the Davidson Prize asked multi-disciplinary teams to explore solutions to address housing shortages in the context of the climate crisis. The prize was established in memory of Alan Hayes Davidson, the founder of architectural visualisation studio Hayes Davidson and a board member for GDR until he passed away in 2018.

Here we’ve highlighted some examples of how retailers are bringing some of these principles into action:

1. Nourish Hub

Nourish Hub is a community kitchen and learning space in Hammersmith, West London, that has been created from a row of vacant shop units.

2. Really Local Group

A former Argos store and stock room in the UK town of Reading has been converted into a vibrant multi-use community space by local infrastructure restoration specialists Really Local Group.

3. Charity Super.Mkt

Opened in London from January to March 2023, Charity Super.Mkt brought multiple charities together under one roof for the UK’s first charity department store.

4. Freitag

Freitag opened a new concept store in Shanghai to promote sustainability and prioritise community, featuring a repair shop on the first floor and a community-led rooftop garden for growing fresh produce and socialising.

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