WHAT would the Oxford of 2030 look like if you got to design it?
A pedestrianised Broad Street? Shops that entrepreneurs can rent by the day? Dedicated bike-only roads?
At an event on Sunday, 15 city residents got to put forward their wildest ideas to see if they could change the future.
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Among the arresting suggestions were a school run by the children, a huge beehive-like 'library of things' where the whole city could rent hammers and lawnmowers, and turning Broad Street into a green, tree-lined boulevard.
The three-hour workshop at Open House on Little Clarendon Street was organised by Community Action Groups (CAG) Oxfordshire and invited people from across the city to help shape a vibrant vision of the city in just over ten years' time from today.
Among the first suggestions was one from Henry Owen of the CAG.
He proposed creating a huge cycling co-operative which would be the main communications and transportation hub for the entire city.
He said: "First of all, it is a centre for delivery service, because I think all possible deliveries should be done by bike couriers.
"I’d like it to be a place when cycle-electric cabs are available for people who commute to neighbouring villages.
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"Then, it’s a specialised skill-swap centre, where people can not only find all the tools needed to fix their bikes, but also learn how to use them, and where bikes are adapted to different needs of different people.
"Finally, at my co-op people could also sign up for a cycle training. In 2030 the authorities would finance training for all of those who don’t feel confident of their bikes."
Mr Owen said that he would hope to develop the organisation in a way that could help other local businesses.
Lucy Waren built in her Oxford 2030 a leisure centre with a multi-sport pitch, swimming pool and a park by the river.
She explained: "I want it to a beautifully designed public space with sport at its heart, attached to a school but available to people of all ages and backgrounds."
Two other members of the group, Ines Rahtz and Laonikos Psimikakis-Chalkokondylis, added to the vision a community library, a beehive-like building intended to serve as something much bigger than a regular library.
They imagined a library of 2030 as a place incorporating the ideas of a library of things – where people can borrow objects such as tools and appliances – a skill-swapping centre and a workshop space.
Ms Rahtz explained that Oxford already has a functioning 'library of things' based in Jericho, but for 2030 they had imagined the place to be a centre for 'exchange of tools, books, clothes and other equipment, that people could use there or take home and return later'.
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Mr Psimikakis-Chalkokondylis added that the place would also be serve as a point where people can advertise their skills and exchange their work for services of others, with different skills.
They also wanted their enterprise to be located close to school so children could go there to learn useful skills such as repairing electronics, fixing clothes and the rudiments of running a small business.
The school, which turned out to be a centre-point of Oxford in 2030, was created by a team of four.
Sarah Thorne explained that the place was named Children's Town Hall, as she and her team had imagined that in 2030 children could take part in decision-making more than a regular school of today.
Pointing to a tiny scale model her group had created of this future school Ms Thorne pointed at ice-cream sticks inside the cardboard box, which represented movable walls inside the school.
She explained: "Movable walls allow children to adapt the space to their needs.
"The space would be managed by children, not structured by age and there wouldn’t be too much stuff inside, I see it as a rather minimalist design."
Two other participants redesigned Oxford’s Broad Street into a wide, green boulevard with bicycle parking, a delivery and pick-up centre and movable street furniture.
Another gentleman at the event added a tram stop.
He laughed: “Finally I’m not being objected to when I propose a tram stop in Broad Street!”
The inspiration for Sunday's event came from the Pop-up Tomorrow events run by Transition Network, a campaign that aims at discovering ways of making the local communities voice their ideas for common space development.
Mr Owen said: "Now we are facing disasters and catastrophes, but what if we succeeded in tackling issues such as climate change and homelessness?
"If we cannot imagine having a better future, how can we do it?"
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