A Record of Lancaster

Budget: £125,000

Project Team: BCA Landscape, Smiling Wolf, Placemarque

Awards: Landscape Institute Award 2015, The Planning & Placemaking Awards 2016

Set in a new stone ‘performance plinth’ in the City’s centre and a series of new way-finding monolith’s, ‘A Record of Lancaster’ celebrates the city’s beat; detailing nine narratives in bronze and stone from Lancaster’s past and present through an engaging visual time-line. The scheme creates high quality public spaces in which people want to linger, increasing dwell time to encourage commercial, social and cultural gains.

The concept also drove our visual approach. We treated the plinth like album cover art as stories became tracks, dates turned to running time and the top of the stone acted as a track listing. Each narrative was distilled into a series of bronze illustrations: ‘hidden treasures’; which depict moments in history which lead the viewer to find out more.

“They are not just functional but also excellent pieces of public art. I’ve been very pleased to see people stopping and using them regularly.” – Jerry North Chair of Lancaster Business Improvement District