Growing Together
Growing Together is a socially-led regenerative development in Pendleton, Salford’s most deprived ward. Centred on the adaptive re-use of Salford Shopping City, the project addresses long-standing inequalities in health, education, and employment, and responds to the risk of gentrification driven by nearby development pressures from Manchester’s ongoing urban sprawl.
Rejecting a typical top-down regeneration model that often prioritises economic return over community benefit, the scheme adopts an incremental, bottom-up approach. It places existing residents at the centre of the design process, aiming to retain and strengthen the social fabric of the neighbourhood while improving living conditions and access to opportunity.
The proposal reconfigures Salford Shopping City into a phased, mixed-use town centre development to include a consolidated retail offering, new cultural buildings, offices, co-working spaces, a mobility hub, social and private housing, and improved public realm.
The key anchor is the Salford School of Food, acting as a cultural connector within the neighbourhood, where food is understood as a universal language. Through learning to grow food in shared gardens and cooking together in community kitchens, residents are given the tools to build new skills, form connections, and establish a sense of shared ownership over local space. This reaffirms their right to remain in and shape their neighbourhood in the face of wider urban change.
The architecture aims to reflect Salford’s identity by reinterpreting the area’s mid-century modernist vernacular in a contemporary setting whilst engaging with passive environmental strategies to reduce energy output and adopt a sustainable approach amidst an ongoing climate crisis.
In actively resisting potential displacement and rooting the community in local developments early, it is hoped a socially just regeneration can be deployed and Pendleton can begin Growing Together.
