Community Prototyping Cluster

The Community Prototyping Cluster aims to foster and support the development of research interests into community-based prototypes. We work with community collaborators to develop prototypes for architecture, art, and design research.

We use prototypes to test design concepts relating to ecological and social renewal and to scale up art and art-related practices, making them inseparable from life.

Prototypes can include:

  • 1:1 scale projects – built installations which are used for the live testing of innovative materials and ‘eco-social’ structures.
  • Catalyst projects – the development of typologies, strategies, scenarios, and scores which provide a springboard for new types of spaces, organisational roles, and/or multi-scalar relationships to the environment.

Current and recent projects

Anfield Community Prototyping: A Mobile Retrofit Demonstrator (2026)

An Innovation Fellowship led by Dr Jonathan Orlek, Dr Tom Moore and Dr Maike Pötschulat, in partnership with Homebaked CLT. It will involve the co-design of a mobile retrofit demonstrator, to extend the work of local ‘energy champions’ advocating for neighbourhood-scale retrofit in Anfield. The project also pilots a community prototyping service within LJMU Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries.

Prototyping as Research (2025)

Convened by Dr Jonathan Orlek and Dr Tom Moore, 'Prototyping as Research: Making Relations between Communities and ECRs in Architecture, Art and Design' was an event for the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network on 26 November 2025.

Download the visual minutes from the event, by Millie Chesters (PDF, 13.9MB)

Active Urban Rooms (2025)

Led by Dr Tom Moore, this project engages residents of Levenshulme, South Manchester, in ecological prototyping, in partnership with local cycle cafe Station South.

Rural Artist-Led Housing (2025)

Led by Dr Jonathan Orlek and in collaboration with arts charity Peak Cymru, this design-research catalyst project explored the provision of rural artist housing.

Contact us

Please email us if you are interested in collaborating with the cluster, or joining this collective of researchers.