Northern Assembly

Northern Assembly

A speculative civic institution for the North of England.

Rather than asking where the next investment should go, what if we first changed the institution responsible for deciding?

The Northern Assembly imagines a permanent civic institution where the major city regions of Northern England come together to shape long term economic priorities, infrastructure, investment and regeneration.

It is not intended to replace Westminster.

Nor is it conceived as a new northern capital.

Instead, it explores an alternative model of regional cooperation where cities work collectively to strengthen the North as a whole while retaining their own distinct identities.

Its guiding principle is simple.

No city's success should depend upon another city's decline.

The Idea

Assembly District is the architectural expression of that principle.

Rather than designing another office building, the project explores what a purpose built home for regional collaboration might look like.

The proposal imagines representatives from Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Hull, Bradford, Preston, Sunderland, York and the wider North meeting within a civic chamber designed specifically for dialogue, long term planning and shared decision making.

The objective is not to determine which city should lead.

It is to ask how every city can reach its own potential while contributing to a stronger regional economy.

Architecture as Institution

The architecture deliberately avoids the language of commercial development.

Instead, it draws upon the permanence and dignity traditionally associated with civic buildings.

Monumental forms, sculptural chambers and carefully controlled natural light create spaces intended to communicate continuity, responsibility and public trust.

The Assembly Chamber forms the symbolic heart of the project, arranged around a shared debating space rather than an opposing political divide.

Large abstract guardian sculptures stand either side of the chamber, representing neither political leaders nor historical figures, but the citizens whose future the institution exists to serve.

Why Liverpool?

The proposal places the Assembly on Liverpool's waterfront not to establish a northern capital, but because the location provides a symbolic civic setting between city and river, capable of accommodating a secure public institution while contributing to the wider regeneration of the northern docks.

The concept itself, however, is deliberately regional.

The Assembly belongs to the North rather than to any individual city.

A Design Conversation

Assembly District is a speculative design project.

It does not attempt to prescribe constitutional change or government policy.

Instead, it asks whether architecture can help us imagine different ways of organising institutions, places and public life.

Sometimes architecture gives form to buildings.

Sometimes it gives form to ideas.