Creating an Urban Splash
5 November 2015 – 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Theatre B117, Basement, Melbourne School of Design
Serial entrepreneur, Tom Bloxham MBE, will discuss how he set up and built award-winning regeneration company Urban Splash.
From two men in a shed Tom has steered Urban Splash on a 22-year journey through ups and downs to become a globally acclaimed company and recipient of over 360 awards for architecture, regeneration, design and business success.
Illustrated with hundreds of images, Tom will deliver a story of enterprise which has seen the revival of British cities and a redefinition of the very word “urban”.
Tom’s lecture will demonstrate how great architecture can help effect real change and regeneration.
Tom Bloxham MBE is Chairman, majority shareholder and founder of award-winning regeneration company Urban Splash, which has won over 360 awards to date (2015) for architecture, regeneration, design and business success.
Tom is chair of the Manchester International Arts Festival and is a trustee of the Manchester United Foundation Charity and The Bloxham Charitable Trust. In 2009, he was appointed by the Prime Minister as a Trustee of Tate. He is also a governor and the founder of New Islington Free School.
Previously he was Chancellor of The University of Manchester from 2008 to2015, and Founding Chair of the Centre for Cities think tank. He was also a director of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Company, Chair of Arts Council England North West, a trustee of Big Issue in the North, and a member of the Government’s property advisory board and Urban sounding board. In 2014, he was a commissioner of the Lyons Review on housing.
In 1999 at the age of 36, Tom was awarded an MBE for his services to Architecture and Urban Regeneration. Other awards include: The College of Estate Management Property Award (2008); The RSA Bicentenary Medal (2008); North West Insider Property Personality of the Year (2004); Building Magazine Property Entrepreneur Award (2003); the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year Award (2002) and the Ernst & Young National Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (1999).
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and has received a number of Honorary degrees and doctorates from the University of Bristol, the University of Manchester (2007), Oxford Brookes University (2004), the University of Central Lancashire (2003), John Moores University in Liverpool (2001), the University of Cumbria (2010) and the University of Plymouth (2011).
Tom, born in 1963, started out selling fire extinguishers door to door.While at Manchester University studying politics and history he started selling records and posters from market stalls. He established and subsequently sold a local radio station, as well as the Baa Bar chain, which was sold for an eight-figure sum.
Tom founded Urban Splash in 1993 with Jonathan Falkingham to redevelop an unloved building in Liverpool introducing great architecture into the successful Concert Square mixed-use scheme. Since then, Urban Splash has undertaken more than 60 schemes, creating thousands of new homes and jobs and investing nearly a billion pounds into successful regeneration projects across the country including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Bristol, Plymouth and Morecambe.
About Urban Splash
Award-winning property developer Urban Splash is the country’s leading regeneration company and has delivered over 60 mixed-use schemes, including residential property of all tenures, commercial office, retail and hotel. Founded in 1993 by Tom Bloxham MBE and Jonathan Falkingham MBE, the Manchester-based company has received 367 awards for its commitment to architecture, design, regeneration and business success including 57 RIBA Awards – the most won by a property developer. Urban Splash continues to deliver challenging and exciting regeneration projects across the country including Park Hill in Sheffield, Lakeshore in Bristol, New Islington in Manchester and Royal William Yard in Plymouth. In 2014, the company launched its new modular house concept. Urban Splash has successfully completed over 60 regeneration projects across the UK, creating over five million square feet of new homes and workspaces, and thousands of jobs.
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