On March 31, RIBA North (Royal Institute of British Architects North) in Liverpool will be opening the doors on a new exhibition that explores 25 years of award winning work by the developer and self-described “regenerator”, Urban Splash. I love the name of the exhibition. It’s called: “It Will Never Work.”

Here is a short description of the exhibition:

Urban Splash profess to have started without a plan, purposefully ignoring advice and routinely rejecting accepted development processes. At every step ‘it will never work’ has been a call to action rather than a discouragement.

The company’s maverick presence on the development landscape of the North has changed the way we live, work and play in our cities, and their continued success as 'established innovators’ is helping to shape urban futures.

If you aren’t familiar with the work of Urban Splash, I would encourage you to check them out. When I was first starting out in development and scouring the world for developers that actually cared about design and cities, these guys were on my shortlist.

So I have been a longtime follower and I have developer friends here in Toronto who I know also admire their work. Sadly, I have no plans to be in Liverpool anytime soon. But maybe some of you do.