CIVIC SQUARE

CIVIC SQUARE Neighbourhood-scale civic infrastructure to co-lead social, ecological, economic + climate transition

Demonstrating the civic infrastructure that our homes, streets and neighbourhoods need to co-lead social, ecological, economic, and climate transition together.

🌳 Ground Lab [CIVIC SQUARE, Material Cultures + Friends]📅 14th - 18th August 2026📍 South Loop Park, Retrofit House[s], G...
12/08/2026

🌳 Ground Lab [CIVIC SQUARE, Material Cultures + Friends]
đź“… 14th - 18th August 2026
đź“Ť South Loop Park, Retrofit House[s], Grand Union, Birmingham UK
➡️ bit.ly/GroundLabCS

Ground Lab is a shared open enquiry by CIVIC SQUARE, Material Cultures, a broad ecosystem of practitioners, neighbours, and all of you who join us, growing out of our Street Labs learning with Link Road—connecting the care and repair of everyday systems and relationships as the conditions to reimagine retrofit together.

Bringing together neighbours, gardeners, ecologists, artists, builders, and more, we will gather for practical workshops, site visits, walks, conversations, shared meals, and more to unearth how we design, construct and steward our homes, streets and neighbourhood(s) in relation to the ground as living infrastructure.

SIGN UP: bit.ly/GroundLabCS

Featuring: Pamela Shor | Black Rootz | alys fowler, ffin Jordao, Grand Union, With Nature in Mind, Hannah Wright, John Little, Mollie McMillen + many more.

.01.07.2026What We're Building + HOOD FUTURES STUDIO + Signing Tree Venue"You think 'I'm going to get to the end and I'v...
26/07/2026

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01.07.2026
What We're Building
+ HOOD FUTURES STUDIO + Signing Tree Venue

"You think 'I'm going to get to the end and I've built a building!' Then you realise it's like having a baby, and that was just the bit where you got to the birth."

—Naomi Griffith, Onion Collective

To ignite this month, we were deeply honoured to welcome organisers from across the UK to Birmingham, hosting a day to lift the lid on What We're Building with HOOD FUTURES STUDIO and Footwork, as part of the Mycelium Network.

This was not only time to articulate a vision or inspire one another, but to make visible what happens when you try to build that vision in real life; rooting speculative imaginative practice into grounded reality. Spoiler alert: It's thousands and thousands of mundane tasks, often interacting with systems designed for what we're doing not to be possible, the solidarity around which was palpable and received with relief, liberation and humour across this incredible group of peers and organisers.

Sometimes it’s hard enough just to figure out what to do, let alone what needs to happen on top of that to make it more regenerative. However, each and every touchpoint has the potential to be designed as a micro (or macro) love letter to the futures we're trying to build; from interactions with the planning system, to how we relationship with each other.

When we took inspiration from Dan Hill’s work around building a system demonstrator (working at many layers to surface systems of systems), we knew each season and phase we'd be going through would delve into a different world; finance, governance, design, construction and so much more.

For us, working out loud looks like sharing online and in documents as we go, but also many kinds of peer sharing like this, big and small, that we’ve really prioritised in our work, even when the pressure is on.

As we change phase, with some big news coming up, we extend endless gratitude to peers like Atmos For Totnes, Human Nature, Shared Assets CIC and so many others who helped us get to this moment by generously sharing their tools and processes in the open to adopt and adapt.

Image credit: Angela Grabowska

Neighbourhood Public SquarePlanning Application: Open For CommentsWe are excited to share that, after 6 years of dreamin...
18/04/2026

Neighbourhood Public Square
Planning Application: Open For Comments

We are excited to share that, after 6 years of dreaming, designing, rehearsing, and building together with you all, the first planning application for the Neighbourhood Public Square site (2026/01280/PA) is now live. This application is for the change of use, enabling works to repair and reinforce the existing buildings, and retrospective planning for temporary structures to learn together on site.

This will be the beginning of a phased retrofit of the existing buildings of this former waste transfer station to demonstrate regenerative civic infrastructure at the heart of Ladywood, Birmingham, co-building and democratising access to the spaces, tools and resources for a bold, imaginative, distributed transition, held in common with the neighbourhood.

This defining step marks a shift that the past decade of our collective organising has been in service of, and the next decade will be committed to, following the purchase of the freehold for the site at the end of 2024 and building upon research, practice and rooted organising together as Impact Hub Birmingham and CIVIC SQUARE since 2015.

You can directly submit comments to until Thursday 7th May 2026, which will be taken into account when the planning application is assessed. We’d love to invite your messages of support from near and far, what the site can enable, as well as be able to address or adapt to any concerns or questions.

Direct link to our application on Planning Online:

bit.ly/PlanningCS

We know looking at planning applications can be a headache, so we’ve designed our own page to help you navigate our application, find out how to have your say, connect with us, and discover more about the journey so far to this moment.

Visit our Explore The Planning Application page:

bit.ly/ExplorePlanningCS

Prefer to meet and chat things through, ask questions, and share ideas over a cuppa? Explore all aspects of the application at our first Supper Club of the year on Tuesday 21st April, 4pm—8pm , and at The Floating Front Room Friday 8th—Saturday 9th May, 10am—4pm.

bit.ly/AprilSupper26

[All links in bio]

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Canalside House, Rotton Park Street
Birmingham
B160AE

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