ABOUT

Lancaster is home to a diverse and cosmopolitan community, with almost 3000 international students from over 100 different countries. The number is continuing to rise sharply (similarly on a global scale), with an annual increase of 12%. Being so close to the international societies of Lancaster and also because two of our team are also international students we were often given flyers for events going on around the university and very often were given the opportunity to socialise with other students inside the university facilities.
Also, being frequent visitors of the town centre, the social scene is a big part of the culture of Lancaster and it is noticeable, visiting the centre, that it is very popular amongst many age groups in the city. Whilst there, we visited several places including the city information centre. Whilst there we tried to find some information about student activity in the city centre. There was limited visible evidence found of international students having somewhere to socialise excluding nightlife and restaurants.
There were not a lot of places focused on helping international students interact. Isolation of visiting a foreign country for the length of a university course can vastly affect the person’s experience. It was important for us that people were able to enjoy their time in Lancaster both inside and outside of the university and this is why we chose this topic.

The aim was to improve the supportive environment for international students within the town centre and increase their social interaction by creating a more attractive place to consort. It focused on identifying the problems and restrictions of foreign students at Lancaster University in terms of their social life and producing a creative alternative of an off-campus location for students. We tackled this by deciding to:
Investigate what places are available for foreign students outside of the university
Investigate the current empty shop locations around the city centre
Investigate locations that were previously empty shops and find out how they have become successful
Understand what activities and social events will attract foreign students to attend them
Co-design with foreign students and users to develop new ideas together to solve the problem
Evaluate what kind of idea can be feasibly developed in this project
Decide on a final idea to improve the supportive environment for foreign students within the town centre.