If the old Debenhams was yours…
What could you do with it?
Winners and Peoples Choice winner of the Davidson Prize 2024
Ideas to transform the vacant building in Taunton, Somerset.
Homes for Taunton’s young people
Smaller, more affordable homes with communal spaces for eating, laundry, storage, exercising and socialising.
Designed to combat loneliness and provide young people with a stake in the town’s future.
Built to bring life back to the building, inside and out
A community-led, sustainable asset
Owned by you via a Community Land Trust, community shares or similar mechanism.
Scheme designed by the community to meet the future needs of Taunton and its people.
Developed with green materials, built with local labour.
New life for the town centre
New gateways and routes to the riverside, Goodland Gardens, independent quarter and the high street.
Town centre living to support Taunton’s economy during the day and into the evening.
Social, eating and learning spaces in the building for everyone to make use of.
A place to organise Taunton’s green future
Collective food growing on the roof, a circular skills hub to learn how to make, repair and re-use your own things.
A tool library and guidance for residents and locals to improve their living spaces.
Commoning Room for future residents and Taunton locals to come together to organise the circular economy.
An issue affecting high streets across the country.
These ideas for the building were submitted as part of the Davidson Prize 2024
Our town centres are in crisis. Whilst shops, banks and post offices close, unimaginative, ‘cookie-cutter’ developments sprawl outwards, failing to meet the demand low-cost housing. All the while, latent potential is right under our nose.
We want to apply a defibrillator to the hearts of our towns. We see huge opportunity in the increasing swathes of vacant retail space. The declining need for this space is by no means a new phenomenon and has been falling for decades, with retail vacancy in urban centres averaging at 14%. Our proposal reimagines how a disused Debenhams in Taunton, a 1938 Art Deco department store - an exemplary piece of retail architecture that exudes a sense of civic pride, can bring people, community, and vibrancy back. Our proposal offers a mix of uses on your doorstep.
Designed as places to dwell and linger, with all your needs met under one roof, these stores became the symbol of the ideal retail experience in the age of consumerism. With careful adaptation they can become the spaces for ideal homes in the age of low-carbon living.
The store will act as a circular economy hub, providing people with real world examples of how buildings can be designed for disassembly (every element allocated a material passport, helping track provenance), how demolition material can be repurposed, and how locally grown bio-materials can create new business ventures. These strategies will help kick start a local green industry revolution.
Welcome to APARTMENT STORE, town centre living meeting all your needs.
Town centre living, meeting all your needs.
Commoning - Community ownership & governance
Circular Hub - Training self-build and enterprise
Stepping Stone Homes - Universally accessible
Working Together - Activated ground floor and roof top landscape supporting community resilience
Thriving People and Place - Revitalising community, streets, town & beyond
Who we are.
We are a collective of professionals based in the southwest led by architects - Studio Saar, and we’ve been working with local people to imagine a new future for the Debenhams that keeps this grand old building for the people of the town. The building is not currently up for development, but we want to help form a locally-driven plan for it if the opportunity arises to purchase or lease the building.
Local Partners
Local Comments
“This is really about the chance to co-create with the community, to do some proper, authentic engagement, to get architects and landscape designers, community, people of all ages and demographics together.”
— Doug
“I've been here for a full 35 years, - I've seen huge changes from being a thriving, bustling retail hub center, to what it is now, which is a tired, old, worn out retail center.”
— Karuna
“Happy to be in Taunton again and proud to be in Taunton again - wanting to be part of making Taunton a better place because it's got the potential.”
— Sarah
