Opinion piece by Dr Graham Kelly, Managing Director, Okana

In many cities, large parts of the built environment are comprised of outdated urban assets and infrastructure that are not yet future ready. The challenge is to make these urban neighbourhoods more liveable, resilient, sustainable and healthy.

A new strategic approach to addressing these challenges is place shaping, a vision over the top of urban design, a grander scale of master planning! An approach that champions new thinking to enable better living.

Major regeneration projects for example, focus on specific urban districts and neighbourhoods as a key mechanism to deliver sustainable urban change. They have the potential to attract inward investment and bring multiple agencies and communities together to deliver transformation at scale. 

Knowledge Quarter Liverpool (KQ Liverpool) is a great example of this type of transformation. KQ Liverpool aims to bring significant regeneration, long term investment and global innovation leaders together across health, science, culture and technology.

At Okana we have been supporting KQ Liverpool with the Liverpool Green Lanes initiative, that explores how the influence of urban regeneration projects like KQ Liverpool can be extended beyond their boundaries.

We proposed that by defining critical paths across cities we can connect areas of need, interest and potential. These critical paths can amplify and accelerate positive transformation, providing many communities with access to a greener, healthier, more liveable and better connected urban environment.

Starting with the KQ Liverpool urban framework, backed by state of the art urban analytics from Yeme Tech and the University of Liverpool’s GroundsWell team, the proposition explores the potential of an urban critical path – a ‘Green Lane’ of transformation – connecting Liverpool’s Waterfront to KQ Liverpool, integrating everything in between.

In doing so, Liverpool Green Lanes will connect and accelerate urban transformation along and adjacent to the ‘Green Lane’ and into the wider city.

It will create active and productive urban greening and green corridors, while focusing on quality of life indices through place innovations. The proposition supports emergent shifts in urban transportation modalities and integrates KQ Liverpool as a catalyst for broader city and urban community renewal. It will take the city’s communities on a journey ensuring they are engaged and able to contribute to a project that reignites the ambitions of the grand urban project.

Liverpool Green Lanes was a centrepiece for the 2023 Healthy City Design Congress held in KQ Liverpool. Alongside an interactive exhibit which generated significant interest and feedback, the proposition was presented to congress and enthusiastically debated in a panel discussion with representatives from the World Health Organisation, University of Liverpool, Liverpool City Council and subject matter experts. The level of interest generated by the proposition throughout the congress was recognised with the award for the Most Innovative Idea.

We are continuing to engage with a broad range of interested community, business and academic partners to develop the proposition and its potential impacts on Liverpool’s economic, health, wellbeing and mobility.

We also continue to engage with the World Health Organisation to explore how Liverpool Green Lanes can become a live test case for their emerging Strategic Guide for Urban Health.

The Liverpool Green Lanes proposal is the perfect example of a sustainable initiative that can be replicated in any city world wide. It is this type of example of place shaping that can be truly transformative and enable our cities to indeed become future ready.