Oxford: Oxpens Quarter Initiative

Welcome to the Oxpens Quarter Initiative. This site has been set up to enable you to participate in this live urban design project. Your contribution can make a difference.

The Oxpens Quarter Initiative has the aim of generating an exciting and workable vision for the Oxpens area of Oxford City Centre.

One visitor to Oxford expressed his view of the Oxpens area in this manner:

"We could go on through St Ebbes, past the brutalist compound of the magistrates' courts, along the bleak sweep of Oxpens Road, with its tyre and exhaust centres and pathetically under-landscaped ice-rink and car parks, and out onto the busy squalor of Park End Street, but I think we can safely stop here at the County Council, and save our weary legs."

Bryson, B., (1996) Notes from a Small Island, London: Black Swan, p.155

What would you say about the area?

The Oxpens Quarter Initiative is a community urban design project being promoted by a partnership between Oxford City Council, local private companies, the University, and civic groups.

Other aims of the project are to:

  • raise the profile of urban design in the City;
  • promote a participatory approach to town planning;
  • develop ideas that may influence the long term shape and structure of this city quarter.

The central event was a one day workshop that took place on June 21st 1997. It involved key players and the public, and was organised by urban designers Roger Evans Associates. This World Wide Web site enables you to continue to participate and make contributions to the project as it progresses. Information in the site will be updated to let you know what is happening. You may even see how your contributions are helping to shape what happens.

 

The Oxpens site is structured into the three key areas which are shown below. Each area is presented as a sequence of pages linked together by a navigation bar located at the bottom of each page. There are also many textual links, buttons, picture icons, and page logos which allow you to jump to pages out of sequence. The navigation bar always allows you to return to this page. If you are going to use this site regularly, we suggest you go through the pages in sequence at least once to familiarise yourself with its overall structure.

The sponsors of the initiative are:

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