titanic quarter case study geography

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Titanic struggle: memory, heritage and shipyard deindustrialization in Belfast

2019, History Workshop Journal

Titanic Quarter has emerged as Belfast’s premier tourist destination in recent years. This article examines ongoing regeneration efforts alongside the rundown of Harland & Wolff shipyard, which formerly occupied the Titanic Quarter site, and the delicate politics of Northern Ireland peacebuilding. East Belfast oral histories complement recently released state papers to analyze the intentions (and perceptions) of Titanic-themed urban transformation. The connected processes of deindustrialization, regeneration and industrial heritage are unpacked to better understand the cultural erasure and economic marginalization that can afflict displaced workers and communities. Lived social experiences have been largely ignored in heritage interpretations at Titanic Quarter in favour of non-contentious narratives serving the aims of state and corporate actors. Ultimately, the article questions whether attempts to create neutral ‘heritage memory’ tackles underlying divisions in post-conflict Northern Ireland.

Related Papers

Media Culture and Society

Ipek A . Celik Rappas

Using information gathered through analysis of screen industry-related promotion material and fieldwork conducted in Belfast in June 2017, this article traces the ways in which screen economy connected to James Cameron's Titanic (1997) and HBO's Game of Thrones and the celebratory discourse around these works brand Belfast as a dynamic global media capital. This study inquires into the ways in which association with screen industries contributes to the spatial value of a region, especially a post-industrial city that actively seeks to alter its past global image and association with a violent civil conflict. It also aims to contribute to the debate about the discourse on labor in creative cities by showing that while manufacturing labor is waning, its discourse of social welfare, hard labor, and craftsmanship transfers itself to creative industries that then justify themselves through the claim to inherit traditional industries' economic strength, job opportunities, and work ethics.

Gabriella Esposito De Vita , Claudia Trillo

The globalization scenario has determined the rate of increase of urban complexity: the city has become a process of densification and multiculturalism. The port cities, in particular, could be seen as the access points of a “melting pot” process, on the one hand, and as places where these dynamics have exacerbated problems and conflicts. This paper focuses on the potential of an approach centred on a maritime perspective in order to analyse and interpret conflicting dynamics in neighbourhoods whose residents show distinct cultural features. A case study research method is adopted in order to capture the multi-faceted issues embedded in such a complex condition. This paper focuses on Belfast, which has been struggling for years with problems related to inter-religious sectarian conflicts. By applying a visual analysis combined with interactions with local communities, the relationships between the urban pattern and the waterfront are analysed, in order to show if and how the waterfront regeneration could be considered pivotal for contributing to the peace process Further research will apply the results to different contexts, in order to generalize the approach at international level.

Gabriella Esposito De Vita

Sarah Brouillette

Stefania Oppido

Among the many issues that concern the regeneration and shape of public spaces within the waterfront areas, the way in which these spaces respond to the multifaceted influences resulting from globalization, multiculturalism as well as maritime traditions has been chosen for this study. The key issue is the material and immaterial way port cities traditionally combines influences from elsewhere with local identity, in order to define urban design tools oriented to deal with the social and cultural fractures of contemporary urban areas. The main purpose of this research is to develop a methodological approach that targets enhancement of multiple roles of waterfronts in order to favour social inclusion and cultural interactions. The interpretation of multifaceted social needs is aimed at defining strategies in order to improve processes for producing inclusive public spaces. To explore this scenario, case studies have been focused on waterfront regeneration projects in Belfast, Marseille and New York, in order to develop applications for other multicultural heritage. These case studies have been oriented at identifying the characters of those public places that lie on the borderline between land and water, peoples and cultures, port and city. These contexts have been chosen in order to address policies of waterfront regeneration consistent with the role of public spaces in interpreting the intensity of cultural diversity in terms of integrations and interactions.

Irish Review

Fran Brearton

Ethnopolitics Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

Brian Kelly

Clare Mulholland

Making Space for Each Other: Civic Place-Making in a Divided Society is the final report of the research project Planning for Spatial Reconciliation based on Queen's University Belfast. The report comprises three main sections that aim to clarify how a new planning system can contribute to a more socially cohesive post-conflict society in Northern Ireland. Section A of the report identifies the main difficulties that stand in the way of a truly reconciled Northern Irish society. Section B sets out the problems that the traditional forms of planning in Northern Ireland have posed for alleviating its social conflict, while Section C offers an alternative way of planning that might help to establish a Northern Irish society that is more cohesive in the future.

Sarah May , Sefryn Penrose

This, the seventh volume in the series, brings together papers from the sixth CHAT Conference (2008), held at UCL on the theme of ‘Heritage’. Contents: Introduction: The Good, the Bad and the Unbuilt: Handling the Heritage of the Recent Past (Sarah May, Hilary Orange and Sefryn Penrose); 1) Null and Void: the Palace of the Republic, Berlin (Caroline A. Sandes); 2) The Heritage of a Metaphor: Archaeological Investigations of the Iron Curtain (Anna McWilliams); 3) Titanic Quarter: Creating a New Heritage Place (Mary-Cate Garden); 4) The Aquatic Ape and the Rectangular Pit: Perceiving the Archaeology and Value of a Recreational Landscape (Jeremy Lake); 5) Attitudes to London’s Heritage: Interpreting the Signs (David Gordon); 6) Where the Streets Have no Name: a Guided Tour of Pop Heritage Sites in London’s West End (Paul Graves-Brown); 7) Contemporary Places and Change: Lincoln Townscape Assessment (David Walsh and Adam Partington); 8) Revolutionary Archaeology or the Archaeology of Revolution? Landlord Villages of the Tehran Plain (Hassan Fazeli and Ruth Young); 9) Justifying Midcentury Trash: Consumer Culture of the Recent Past and The Heritage Dilemma (Jessica Merizan); 10) Motorways, Modern Heritage and the British Landscape (Peter Merriman); 11) Liberating Material Heritage (Elizabeth Pye); 12) Unbuilt Heritage: Conceptualising Absences in the Historic Environment (Gabriel Moshenska).

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Buildings that elevated cities: Titanic Belfast

The popular museum is the Titanic Quarter’s ‘crown jewel’. Just how important has it been to the city’s waterfront regeneration?

• Noella Pio Kivlehan

13 May 2022

Cities and placemaking

Commercial property

Commercial valuation

Marine environments

Planning and development

Residential

As a memorial, a symbol for change, and a catalyst for development, Titanic Belfast is a building that fulfils many roles.

It opened 10 years ago, on the 100th anniversary of the sailing and sinking of one of the world’s most famous ships, RMS Titanic. The £97m museum’s design replicates four high pointed hulls mimicking the ocean liner, covered by 3,000 individual aluminium shimmering shards.

The building’s distinctive shape has led it to become the picture postcard image for Northern Ireland. And its position in helping regenerate a rundown city waterfront has seen it dubbed the province’s ‘ Guggenheim’ , in reference to Bilbao’s famous museum that transformed the Spanish city’s riverside. 

Since 2012, 1.5m ft 2 of mixed-used buildings have been built around Titanic Belfast (in what is known as the Titanic Quarter), on the 185 acres of former shipyard Harland & Wolff. This includes the Public Records Office, Innovation Centre, Science Park, Belfast Metropolitan College and the Arc Apartments. There’s also the Titanic Studios, where global hit show Game of Thrones was shot, contributing to the area becoming a tourist hotspot – pre-pandemic visitor numbers reached 828,000 in 2019.

Despite having gone through a decade that has seen recession, Brexit creating nervous investors who are uncertain about what will happen in Northern Ireland, and COVID-19, so far, £618m has been invested in Titanic Quarter. Gross value added (GVA) totals £757m, equating to 1.6% of the province’s total GVA.

“I’m proud of where we’ve come from in just over a decade,” says James Eyre, commercial director of Titanic Quarter. “When I came here [nearly 16 years ago] less than 1,000 people worked at Titanic Quarter. Today it supports about 12,000 direct and indirectly employed. We have a resident population of 1,000 people, we built a 240-bed hotel, and we have Titanic Belfast, which is the crown jewel.”

Waterfront regeneration

A declining shipbuilding industry saw the gradual demise of Harland & Wolff shipyard (originally founded in 1861) before it went into administration in 2019. At its peak it dominated global shipbuilding, employing 35,000 workers.

A development framework for the area started in 2003, then in 2007 approval was given for Titanic Quarter, set to be Europe’s largest waterfront redevelopment project with more than a mile of water frontage . The move was welcomed as a massive regeneration boost, not only to Belfast, but to Northern Ireland. At the time it was still climbing back on its feet after suffering years of conflict during the Troubles.

The original masterplan was developed by Civic Arts and included the ‘Titanic Signature Project’, which became Titanic Belfast, located at the head of the slipways where RMS Titanic was built and launched.

Belfast’s TODD Architects were lead consultants, with a brief to design an ‘iconic’ building and visitor experience based around the story of the Titanic. “Generally, things tend to become ‘iconic’ over a period, rather than starting that way, so in many ways the design adopted was a leap of faith and unlike any other building in Northern Ireland,” says Paul Crowe, managing director at TODD Architects.

It was completed in just two years to hit the opening deadline of April 2012: the 100-year anniversary of the sinking of the famous cruise liner with the loss of over 1,500 lives. 

Crowe and colleague, director Daragh Coleman, are honest that not everything is perfect with the initial design. “Some finishes and approaches to the external areas could have been done differently, like any project when you look back,” says Coleman.

These include the slipways, which display illuminated outlines of the Titanic and its sister vessel, the Olympic, beside each other where they were built more than 100 years ago (pictured below). “It’s very hard to visualise when you’re on ground level” says Crowe. “When you’re up in the main building looking down, you can see the outline of the ships in lights, but when you’re on the ground you don’t really appreciate it. Something more 3D would have solved this.”

Another minor issue is the main plaza around the building itself, which Crowe says “could be more of a public realm. It feels sterile at times if there are no people around.”

On the plaza ground is a world map in different colours. “It is an inset of the route the Titanic took, and a dash line of the continuation of the route, but that idea of the map of the world is maybe too abstract and lost on people.”

But Crowe adds: “We try not to be too self-critical. The fact we built something of that scale in two years was an extraordinary effort with the amount of people involved, and the collaborative ‘can do, will do’ approach that was embodied [in the development].”

“When I first came here, less than 1,000 people worked at Titanic Quarter. Today it supports about 12,000 direct and indirectly employed” James Eyre, Titanic Quarter

There’s more to come

For the Titanic Quarter, there are big plans on the horizon. “We hope to build [approximately] 2,600 homes in the next 13 years that will be social, affordable and include a family dimension. That would take it up to 9,000 people living there – that’s a good-sized town,” says Eyre.

A planning application for Loft Lines, a 780-unit residential scheme went in last September, while the 146,000ft 2 office development the Olympic House is set to open by the summer. Just under 900 new hotel rooms are also planned.

“It’s not just about building buildings, when you’re delivering something like Titanic Quarter it’s also about health and wellbeing,” says Eyre. “We will be promoting and leading sustainable transport initiatives and getting people cycling more.

“For cities whose major regeneration projects have included the waterfront, it becomes a focal point. The Titanic Quarter is a major part of that for Belfast,” says Eyre. And, he adds: “As we move on it will have an important role not just for the city, but as a contributor for the region.” 

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“In many ways the design was a leap of faith and unlike any other buildings in Northern Ireland” Paul Crowe, TODD Architects

Buildings that elevated cities

V&A Waterfront  Read more

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Titanic Quarter

Belfast, BT3 9DT

• Description

The Titanic Quarter Regeneration Project encompasses approximately 75 hectares of waterfront, former industrial brownfield land to the south of the River Lagan in Belfast on the site where RMS Titanic was designed and built. It is one of the world’s largest waterfront regeneration projects and includes a mix of residential, commercial, tourism, education and retail space. Central to the scheme is a £100m interactive visitor attraction telling the story of the Titanic, which was opened for the 100 year anniversary of its launch. Although already significant in size, the quarter continues to grow, and will ultimately provide homes and employment for 50,000 people.

Project team

Turley Associates | Todd Architects | CivicArts

Titanic Quarter Ltd

• Completion Status

31 March 2012

Urban Waterfront Regeneration Scheme

Further information

Link | Titanic Quarter

Link | CivicArts

Link | Todd Architects

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Piccadilly Gardens

Piccadilly, Manchester

After the IRA bombing of Manchester City Centre in 1996, public space was in dire need of recovery. Piccadilly Gardens is seen as the heart of Manchester, serving as a public space with bus, tram, and train connections very close by as well as being seconds away from the main high street. The destruction of a lot of the previous city centre public space, there was an opportunity for a new and exciting design. An international design competition was launched to create a masterplan for Manchester City Centre, with Piccadilly Gardens being one of the main focuses, it was opened in May 2002. Funding was sought from the private sector, pushing that “enhanced public realm would be built to a quality that would substantially upgrade the area and stimulate wider regeneration activity.” Now the largest open space in the city centre, Piccadilly Gardens boasts useable grassy areas interspersed with water fountains, and bounded by cafes bars and restaurants. The public space is a great place to meet with friends and to temporarily get away from the bustling streets of Manchester.

EDAW (Now AECOM Design + Planning), Arup, Chapman Robinson, Tadao Ando, Peter Finch

Completed May 2002

Civic Square, Regeneration

Link | RUDI

Link | Engaging Places

New Islington

Manchester, M4 6HF

The New Islington Millennium Community is a development on a 12.5 ha (29 acre) site at Ancoats, East Manchester. It was the third Millennium Community to be identified as part of English Partnerships' national programme. English Partnerships' Millennium Communities Programme brings together new ways of planning, designing and constructing homes in order to enable a more sustainable way of living. The proposals for the site, between the Rochdale and Ashton Canals, incorporate new waterways linking these historic navigations and give the new urban quarter an identity of waterside living and parkland. Pockets of calm and unusual landscape gardens link to a series of bold public spaces. Provision of local shops, a pub, restaurant and commercial office space will help create a community heart for what will be an entirely new and vital district of Manchester. A rich mix of house types, distinct architecture, and multiple activities promote a sustainable and varied community and an urban development which is a destination for visitors as well as a home for its residents. The New Islington project commenced in 2003 and is expected to take until approximately 2014 to build out. By September 2008 over £38m had been spent on construction, with final building costs to be in excess of £200m.

Grant Associates | Alsop Architects | Ian Simpson Architects | FAT

Urban Splash | English Partnerships

Ongoing. Expected completion 2014

Millennium community, Regeneration

Link | Grant Associates

Link | Camlins

Place | Borneo Sporenburg

Newcastle, NE1 3RN

Newcastle's East Quayside regeneration scheme has created a network of new public spaces and buildings, linked by a waterfront promenade. This urban waterfront regeneration project has a dramatic setting on the north bank of the River Tyne. It is linked by the award winning Gateshead Millennium Bridge to Gateshead Quays, where the Baltic, a former grain warehouse converted into a new international centre for contemporary art, creates a key visual focal point across the river. As does the Sage music and conference venue designed by Norman Foster and Partners. A waterfront promenade runs the length of the scheme, linking together new public spaces and buildings, including offices associated with the nearby Law Courts, a hotel and new waterfront apartments. The promenade is a hub of activity, offering among its attractions restaurant and bar facilities to visitors of all types. The opening bridge gives access across the river to the Baltic by foot and cycle, and both attract large numbers of people.

Mixed Use, Waterfront

Link | Fosters + Partners

Link | WilkinsonEyre.Architects

Gateshead Millennium Bridge

Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Newcastle

A pedestrian and cycle bridge spanning the River Tyne between Gateshead Quays and Newcastle’s Quayside, enhancing connectivity between these key city centre destinations and creating a new landmark for Newcastle / Gateshead. The bridge tilts open utilising hydraulic rams, allowing the passage of river traffic underneath. The Millennium Bridge won the 2002 Stirling Prize for architects Wilkinson Eyre.

Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Gifford

Gateshead City Council

Completed 2001

Bridge, Waterfront, City, Lighting

Link | Gateshead City Council

Link | Youtube, Bridge Opening

Link | Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Place | Liverpool Waterfront

Angel of the North

Low Eighton, Gateshead, NE8 7UB

The Angel of the North is a contemporary sculpture, designed by Antony Gormley, which is located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It is a steel sculpture of an angel, 20 metres tall, with wings measuring 54 metres across.

Sculpture, Park

Link | Gateshead Council

Place | Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Poynton Shared Surface

A traffic calming scheme implemented in Park Lane and Fountain Place, Poynton is a good example of an implemented shared surface scheme. In 2011 the department of transport issued guidance on shared space as a way of improving the quality of streets and giving greater priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Shared space is an approach to the public realm which seeks to minimize the demarcation between vehicle traffic and pedestrians, often by removing features such as kerbs, road markings, traffic signs and regulations. Schemes are often motivated by a desire to reduce the dominance of vehicles, vehicle speeds and road casualty rates. First proposed in 1991, the term is now strongly associated with the works of Hans Monderman who suggested by creating a greater sense of uncertainty and making it unclear who had right of way, drivers reduce their speed, and everyone reduces their level of risk compensation. Park Lane is the main route into Poynton from the east and carries flows of 10,500 vehicles per day. Much of this is local traffic and there are no practical alternative routes at present to divert. Fountain Place is the junction of Park Lane, the A523 London Road and the A5149 Chester Road, carrying turning flows of some 27,000 vehicles per day including 6% HGVs. Long-standing proposals for a Poynton bypass would not be progressed in the foreseeable future, so the streetscape enhancements proposed needed to accommodate existing traffic patterns, both on Park Lane and through Fountain Place. The final scheme cost was around £3m, coming from a number of funding sources including a contribution from the DfT.

Ben Hamilton Baillie, Cheshire East Council, Poynton Town Council,

Shared space, traffic calming, public realm

Link | Sustrans

Link | Ben Hamilton Baillie

Link | Government publications

Place | Kensington High Street

Saxton Parade, The Avenue, Leeds

Saxton is a £40M residential scheme on the fringe of Leeds City centre. It is an exercise in the reinvention of redundant social housing stock and involves the redevelopment of two derelict 1950’s blocks within the Saxton Gardens estate. The new development provides a range of apartment types complimenting the existing housing, and in line with government guidance caters for different demographics through a combination of tenures.

Urban Splash | Union North

building, apartment, affordable housing

Place | Rotunda

Place | Fort Dunlop

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Park Lane WF4 4LG

YSP provides a centre of international, national and regional importance for the production, exhibition and appreciation of modern and contemporary sculpture. Many inspirational elements combine to create a unique experience of art within a parkland landscape setting. YSP’s success is a testament to personal commitment and vision. The organisation has grown over the last 35 years: from humble beginnings with £1,000 to fund a small exhibition of 31 sculptures, to now contribute £5 million to the local economy and is responsible for five indoor galleries set in 500 acres of the 18th century-designed Bretton Estate. Within a national and European context YSP is unique, offering artists and visitors experiences. ‘Great art for everyone’ has been YSP’s goal since opening to the public in 1977, enabling access, understanding and enjoyment of art and landscape for everyone, whilst dismantling many of the barriers that often exist between the public and contemporary art. This vision remains as strong as ever. The revelatory nature of the Park’s setting opens up many possibilities and encourages exploration of the relationship between art and nature, stimulating engagement and adventure in the surroundings. To look out across carefully designed vistas in the parkland, to chance upon a sculpture in the landscape, to make personal discoveries whilst seeing and touching sculptures by some of the leading artists of the 20th century is a great experience.

sculpture, park

Link | Node Journal

Hepworth Galley

With over 1,600 square metres of light-filled gallery spaces, The Hepworth Wakefield is the largest purpose-built exhibition space outside London. The gallery brings together work from Wakefield’s art collection, exhibitions by contemporary artists and rarely seen works by Barbara Hepworth. In 2003 Wakefield Council launched a RIBA international competition to find an architect to design a new art gallery for Wakefield. The competition led to the selection of David Chipperfield as architect. In designing The Hepworth Wakefield, David Chipperfield Architects responded imaginatively to the gallery’s waterfront setting. The building complements the scale and form of the existing industrial buildings and, like them, appears to rise out of the River Calder. The gallery’s location on the river’s edge also allows it to apply new forms of renewable energy by sourcing the majority of its heating and cooling from the river’s flow. The gallery’s façade has been constructed of pigmented concrete, which was created in-situ. This gives the building a sculptural appearance, which echoes the shapes and forms in many of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures. The sense of arrival created by the bridge link is good. However it is a different experience when walking on foot from the gallery to Wakefield City Centre. The barriers created by highway infrastructure, derelict sites and the back of the Riding shopping centre do not encourage you to explore on foot making the gallery feel isolated. A masterplan strategy that looked at public realm connections and linkages from Wakefield City Centre to the Hepworth gallery would help to provide a framework for investment and create an improved experience for pedestrians. The gallery was shortlisted for RIBA Sterling prize in 2012

David Chipperfield Architects

Wakefield City Council

Art Gallery

Link | RIBA

Place | Guggenheim

Telford Millenium Community

Telford TF1 5BF

East Ketley in Telford is the fourth of the Millennium Communities promoted by English Partnerships. The masterplan for a new neighbourhood of 800 homes was developed in close consultation with the local community. Outline Planning permission was granted in 2004 and the first phase is now complete. The focus of the development is a square around a monkey puzzle tree. The architecture is simple in design being both contemporary and traditional at the same time which works well

Taylor Wimpey

Link | Urbed

Link | Telford Millenium Community

Allerton Bywater

West Yorkshire, WF10 2GF

Allerton Bywater was the second Millennium Communities project to be developed in the United Kingdom. The former mining area and community, has now been transformed by the regeneration. Excellent urban design has brought new life to the area, through the make-up of the public realm – intelligently linking buildings together and creating a strong sense of place. Variety between different housing also provokes these feelings of community and modernity.

Miller Homes | Barratt Developments Plc | PRP Architects

Homes and Communities Agency

Completed 2012

Link | Homes and Communities

Link | Barratt Homes

Telford, TF4 3ST

Lightmoor was planned as the new, 21st century ‘Bournville’: an updated ‘model’ village, for residents of all ages, with quality of life as a priority and environmental sustainability as a key influence. Tibbalds led a multi-disciplinary team in preparing a detailed masterplan and outline planning application material for the mixed-use, 800 home new village.

BCA Landscape Architects | Tibbalds Planning & Urban Design

Bournville Village Trust | English Partnerships

Link | Tibbalds Planning & Urban Design

Link | BCA Landscape Architects

Place | Park Central

Devonshire Green

Division Street Sheffield South Yorkshire S3 7SW

This green space at the end of Sheffield's Gold Route sits next to Sheffield University. A green, skate park, memorial and planting make up the space which also utilises the hard standing areas of temporary markets and events throughout the year.

Sheffield City Council

park, gardens, gaudy, skate park

Journal | Sheffield 'Gold Route'

Place | Parc de la Villette

Place | Jubilee Park

Place | Mile End Park

Barkers Pool

Barkers Pool, Sheffield

A square linking two areas of the city centre and acting as a frontage for the town hall. It features two large square glass-cased fountains with Yorkshire stone paving and seating areas. A large Grade II listed war memorial sits in the centre of the square.

square, town hall, city, memorial, fountain

Place | Town Hall

Peace Gardens

Pinstone Street Sheffield South Yorkshire S1 2HH

The Peace Gardens are an award winning public space in the centre of Sheffield and form part of the 'Gold Route'. The space sits on the site of St Paul's a old church. When the church was demolished in 1938 a temporary garden was built, this has since developed with the additions over time turning it into the public space that it is toady.

square, public space, civic, gardens, fountain

Journal | Journal 'Gold Route'

Winter Garden

90 Surrey Street, S1 2LH

A large temperate glasshouse in the Heart of Sheffield city centre, filled with plants from around the world. The structure itself is impressive, a glulam frame arching out of the ground it also provides a stunning pedestrian link through the city centre.

Pringle Richards Sharratt, Weedle Landscape Design

Completed 2003

garden, city, botanics, public realm, planting

Place | Tudor Square

Tudor Square

Sheffield, S1 2LA

Tudor Square built at the entrance to the world famous Crucible Theatre has always been at the heart of Sheffield’s vibrant city centre. It also is bordered by a large temperate greenhouse called the The Winter Garden. The square itself is made up of a few elements, with the large seating and grass plinths scattered around the square, at night lighting is used to change the atmosphere and mist is also used which works well in combination with the lighting.

Landscape Group | DPA Lighting

Completed 2010

Link | Landscape Group

Link | DPA Lighting

Sheaf Square

Sheffield’s ‘Gold Route’ masterplan had Sheaf Square as the gateway to the city, from the station, linking the disjointed city together by incorporating new crossings of what were two distinct parts of Sheffield’s ring road system. They have transformed the sense of arrival in the city, using the area’s historic character and heritage. The squares design uses a large wall and water feature which leads you on into the city.

Sheffield City Council | AECOM

Link | AECOM

Park Hill is the largest listed structure in Europe. The grade II* listed complex, which was constructed between 1957-1961, has been described by English Heritage as 'the most ambitious inner city housing scheme of its time', pioneering the concept of 'streets in the sky' in the UK which was inspired by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille. Prior to listing in 1998, the site had become increasingly run down and was at risk of being lost. A partnership between developers Urban Splash and a variety of other partners including English Partnerships and English Heritage allowed a scheme to be developed which would recognise the significance of the complex whilst allowing it to become much more attractive to prospective residents. The design for the site allowed for significant internal alteration to the complex and the introduction of brightly coloured infill panels to the exterior which transforms the aesthetic of the building without impacting on the site's significance, which lies in its concrete frame, the scale and massing of the building and its relationship with its surrounding landscape. The results have been transformative and have allowed the ongoing appreciation of a key example of postwar town planning.

Hawkins Brown, Studio Egret West, English Partnerships, Housing Corporation, Sheffield City Council

Place | Lakeshore

Derwenthorpe

Derwenthorpe, York

64 low energy homes at Osbaldwick form the first phase of Derwenthorpe. The architecture builds on the rich legacy of Joseph Rowntree’s model village at nearby New Earswick, planned by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker over a century ago. Large steeply pitched roofs, painted brickwork and striking dormer windows combine to create a distinctive sense of place.

Richards Partington Architects | Barratt Homes Yorkshire East

Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust | David Wilson Homes

Residential, Neighbourhood

Link | Richards Partington Architects

Place | Horsted Park

Place | Hanham Hall

Cross Street, Wolverhampton

Cross Street, Wolverhampton, WV2 3JQ

The Cross Street development in Wolverhampton is an Eco friendly residential scheme of 30 homes (27 two-bedroom flats and 3 four-bedroom houses. Cross Street achieved an EcoHomes ‘Excellent’ rating and an A-rated Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and 18.5/20 against the Building for Life criteria. The scheme integrates a biomass boiler and a green roof as well as low energy lighting. It is situated on the edge of Wolverhampton city centre in an area that includes light industry, a pub, car parking areas, terraced housing and a high-rise housing block. Poor design, patchy maintenance and neglect have led to a degraded environment and poor quality public realm. The residential blocks of Cross Street South stand out against this context, creating attractive and well defined streets with development in the form of a secure perimeter block

Cole Thompson Andes

Bromford Group Housing Association

Building for life, eco homes, green roof

Link | MADE

Derby, DE1 3AS

The Quad is located next to the historic Guildhall Market in Derby’s Cathedral Quarter, the cultural zone of the city centre around the cathedral. It houses a large environmentally controlled exhibition space, two cinemas, education facilities, a café and informal exhibition spaces. Fielden Clegg Bradley won the competition to design a new building for QArts and Metro Cinema (who subsequently merged to form Quad). The building has a dramatic, twisted form with volumes projecting out of the building and is clad in natural stone from a local quarry. It spans three floors and is organised so that the flexible areas face onto the square, while the cinema and gallery are at the back.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Derby City Council

Community Arts Centre

Link | Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Place | Bramall Music Building

Jewellery Quarter

Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

The Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham is a key part of Birmingham’s industrial history. From 1660 the Jewellery industry really prospered, and in the 18th century there was rapid development in the Quarter, with many houses being built for both the manufacturers and the artisans. Gardens became home to workshops as trade picked up. This growing industry peaked in the early 20th century, employing 60,000 people, but this started to decline, and by 1985 the number employed had dropped to around 4,000. By the end of the 20th century major regeneration works had taken place to make way for apartments, offices and retail. Currently, the area is still home to a mix of manufacturers, craftsmen and retailers, as well as 200 listed buildings, and 40% of the jewellery made in the UK is made in the Jewellery Quarter. St Paul’s Square, the only Georgian Square left in Birmingham, was voted one of the Top 20 Urban Picnic Areas in the UK. The area now has it’s own train station just down the road from Warstone Lane Cemetery, and incorporates its history into the transport aspect, such as a piece of public art outside the station and a historic clock tower sitting on the roundabout, also on Warstone Lane. The Jewellery Quarter website states that “Its future depends on the community working together to preserve its heritage as well as adding to its history”, this is what lead to the establishment of the Jewellery Quarter Development Trust (JDQT) in 2011. The JQDT, a Community Interest Company constituted and operated for the benefit of the communities, are committed to promoting and enhancing the unique industrial heritage, as well as other regeneration-related initiatives.

The Jewellery Quarter Development Trust

Link | Jewellery Quarter

Library of Birmingham

Centennary Square, Birmingham, UK

Having opened in September 2013, The Library of Birmingham was well documented in the media for being the new largest public library in Europe. The purpose of the replacement piece of infrastructure is to house and showcase “internationally important collections of archives, photography and rare books.” With facilities such as a BFI Mediatheque, a flexible studio theatre, an outdoor amphitheatre and other informal performance spaces, a recording studio, and dedicated spaces for children and teenagers, the £189m development certainly has something for everyone. Designed by Mecanoo’s architect Francine Houben, who described it as a 'people's palace', the exterior cladding is made up of interlocking metal rings over golden, silver and glass facades, giving reference to Birmingham’s jewellery quarter. The library looks to work in collaboration with The Birmingham Repertory Theatre, partners and communities to provide events, activities and performances.

Carillion, Mecanoo

Birmingham City Council

Completed 2013

Library, Birmingham

Link | Library of Birmingham

Link | Birmingham City Council

Link | The Guardian Art & Design Review

Birmingham, B3 3DQ

Birmingham's town hall is one of only four grade I listed buildings in the city. It is set within the city's key civic space of Victoria Square/Chamberlain Square. The building originally dates from 1834, by architects Joseph Hansom and Edward Welch. The building is of national significance, being the first of the Victorian town halls that came to dominate city centre townscapes across the country. It is also the first major example of 19th century Roman revival architecture, based on the proportions of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum. The building was substantially renovated in the early 21st century with grant funding from Birmingham City Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund, eventually reopening as a 1,100 capacity concert venue in 2008. It is managed in partnership with the nearby Symphony Hall and hosts a variety of performances. It is a highly successful conservation project of a key city centre building.

Rodney Melville + Partners | Wates

Link | Rodney Melville + Partners

Link | Wates

Node Urban Design

85-89 Colmore Row, Birmingham

Node Urban Design's office, 85–89 Colmore Row is a grade II listed building located in a prime position within Birmingham city centre, situated on the junction of Colmore Row and Newhall Street. The building, dating from c.1870 sits within Colmore Business District, which was established to manage improvements and services within the business quarter of Birmingham.

HR Yeoville Thomason | Messrs. Barnsley

Commercial Development

Link | Node Urban Design

Link | 85-89 Colmore Row

Link | Images of England

Park Central

Birmingham, B15 1NZ

Park Central is a 10 minute walk from Birmingham city centre. Park Central is the first phase of the regeneration of the wider Atwood Green area. Park Central will provide nine different residential zones and four business quarters as well as shops, restaurants and a landmark hotel. On a large scale (over 1800 new residential units are planned) and with a genuine mix of uses, Park Central is physically, economically and socially regenerating what was formerly a wasted and dangerous no-go parkland area. The built form of zone 1 is designed to a variety of scales. Three 6 storey apartment blocks run along Wheelys Lane and Bath Row. A U-shaped block of apartments sits on the corner of Wheelys lane and Lea Bank Middleway. Running into the site from Wheelys Lane, The Boulevard is lined with smaller scale three storey townhouses. South from The Boulevard is a more intimate mews section with close-knit two and three storey mews units with first floor terraces. The design is urban and contemporary and every unit has a balcony or private outdoor space. The units currently run off a communal district heating system but were designed to be linked to a central heating and power plant, which will be added to a later phase of the scheme. This will provide electricity efficiently and reduce the environmental impact of the development. Homes are available in a range of sizes for private sale, housing association rental and shared ownership, providing a truly mixed community. The aim for Park Central is to create a village community that also provides amenity for existing surrounding neighbourhoods. This will be built around the re-landscaped park, the largest within Birmingham's ring roads, to create a secure and pleasant place to live, work and play.

Gardner Stewart Architects | Lovejoy Landscape Architects | Landscape Practice Group

Crest Nicholson | Optima Housing Association

Residential Development

Link | Crest Nicholson

Link | Gardner Stewarts Architects

Melbourne, DE73 8LH

Melbourne itself is an attractive Georgian market town. The Millbrook development is a residential scheme of 2, 3, 4 and 5 bed traditional houses. It includes both two and three storey elements and buildings which turn the corner well. The sales office has been designed as a traditional village shop.

Davidsons Homes

Link | Davidsons Homes

Place | Poundbury

Birmingham, B2 4PA

The Rotunda is one of the most significant and well loved features of Birmingham’s skyline. The grade II-listed cylindrical structure was originally completed in 1965 as an office block, but was converted for residential use in 2008 by Urban Splash and Glenn Howells Architects, who proposed a significant alteration to the building’s façade through new glazing which has radically altered the external appearance of the building. The 234 new apartments have proved to be highly popular.

Glenn Howells Architects

Spiceal Street

Birmingham, B5 4BH

Spiceal Street is a dining destination located adjacent to the Bullring. Proposed to reinvigorate both the daytime and evening activity within an existing public realm to the southern end of the Bullring, Spiceal Street is entirely dedicated to the dining experience and was officially opened in November 2011. Part indoor, part outdoor, the scheme has introduced three new restaurants and extended two existing units to enhance the overall use of St Martin’s Square and open up the shopping centre to St Martin’s Walk. This is achieved in part by a complete reconfiguration of the public realm to focus attention towards St Martin’s church and the square. Three separate building zones are visually connected using a ‘ribbon- like’ sculptural roof to create a strong architectural element which floats above the building, helping to provide a coherent link throughout the overall space. The new-look street increases the appeal of the Bullring with the design introducing a new green wall and seating areas, plus a public art commission created by Wolfgang Buttress. Also included is a granite stone water feature inscribed with poetry co-written by local poets, Simon Turner and spoken word performer Steve Camden. This curved ‘wall of water’ provides a dramatic backdrop along a sweeping curve of steps, reflecting sunlight during the day and being subtly lit during the evening.

Chapman Taylor | Careys

Link | Chapman Taylor

Link | Careys

Eastside City Park

Curzon St, Birmingham

Eastside City Park is Birmingham's first new park for over a century, joining the City Centre with Millennium Point, Digbeth and Eastside itself. Six-acres in size, £11.7 million Eastside City Park is a segment of the Big City Plan that is looking to transform Birmingham over the next 20 years. Patel Taylor and Allain Provost were the two successful candidates who were commission for the job; their design creates a sequence of defined spaces, or a moment of greenery depending on your journey through the city. Eastside City Park brings a new identity to an already growing area.

Patel Taylor | Allain Provost

Journal | Node Urban Design

Link | Patel Taylor

Place | Garscube Link

Bramall Music Building

University of Birmingham, B15 2TT

In keeping with the masterplan by Aston Webb in 1902 to 1907, the Bramall Music Building completes the Grade II* Chancellor’s Court at the University of Birmingham. The building houses a new state-of-the-art 450-seat concert hall and the faculty of music. This heritage sensitive and beautifully detailed project sets a benchmark for all ‘red brick’ universities and greatly increases the sense of place and identity at the University of Birmingham.

University of Birmingham

Link | University of Birmingham

Fort Dunlop

Birmingham, B24 9FD

Fort Dunlop is a large former tyre factory originally dating from 1916 on the outskirts of Birmingham city centre, which had lain empty for over 20 years. Converted by developers Urban Splash and architects Shed KM, the design aimed to work with the original frame and plan form of the building, creating high quality flexible new space within. The result was the largest speculative office building outside of London, complete with retail and leisure space. It has transformed the formerly derelict building which is a icon of Birmingham’s manufacturing heritage and seen by millions of people every year from the M6 motorway, which passes close by.

shedkm | Martha Schwartz Partners

Link | Shedkm

Castle Vale

Farnborough Road, Birmingham

Castle Vale on the edge on Birmingham is a large scale, resident-led regeneration project which has taken 15 years to come to fruition. Throughout this process the Castle Vale Housing Action Trust (CVHAT) demonstrated a willingness to embrace the latest thinking in housing design and layout, public buildings and public space.

Gillespies | Associated Architects

Castle Vale Housing Action Trust | Lovell Partnerships

Link | Resource for Urban Design Information

Kings Heath Village Square

Kings Heath birmingham

More information coming soon...

All Saints Community Development Company

square, park, urban design, public realm, award winning

Link | http://www.parkwoodconsultancy.co.uk/Portals/0/Case%20Studies/Landscape/Kings%20Heath%20Village%20Square.pdf

Old Market Square

Nottingham, NG1 2DT

Old Market Square in Nottingham is the second-largest square in the UK after Trafalgar Square in London. Designed by Gustafson Porter, the square has been planned to provide civic and cultural events and encourage visitors to stop and enjoy the space. The design includes diagonal routes through the space, including a water channel which enters the square from Chapel Bar leading visitors to the Water Terraces at the north-west end of the square where benches and steps provide opportunity to sit under trees with a balcony view over the events and activities taking place in the square. A further diagonal route of light is placed between Smithy Row and Friar Lane, leading to Nottingham Castle.

Gustafson Porter

Nottingham City Council

Landscape Square

Link | Nottingham City Council

The Butts, Worcester

£60 million pounds of investment later, The Hive was finished and opened by Her Majesty the Queen in 2012. With the title of ‘Britain’s first joint university and public library’, The Hive promises a mix of resources, to be used by students, researchers and the general public alike. The development came about after Worcester needed a new fit for purpose public library, and the University were exploring the idea of a new City Campus whilst trying to improve its learning resources. The partnership has created an innovative structure, incorporating 4 funnel shaped parts to give recognition to the Royal Worcester kilns. “The name ‘The Hive’ was chosen to represent the purposeful activity, and sense of community which the development will help to create. It is also a reflection of the building’s appearance, with its bold, distinctive golden ‘honeycomb’ cladding, which will mark it out as a physical as well as a cultural landmark for Worcester.”

Galliford Try, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Worcestershire County Council, University of Worcester

Public Library, Education

Link | The Hive

Link | The Hive Construction

Link | University of Worcester

Link | Worcestershire County Council

Place | Library of Birmingham

Dickens Heath

West Midlands, B90 1UA

Dickens Heath is a small village in the borough of Solihull, Birmingham. Development of 1,700 new houses, a major mixed use High Street and employment space were all created in the masterplan shaped by John Simpson Architects LLP. The village follows a historicist style, creating a real identity and giving the residents a sense of place.

John Simpson Architects LLP

David Wilson Homes | Berkeley Homes | Bryant Homes | Redrow Homes

Mixed-use Development

Link | John Simpson Architects LLP

Link | Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

Hockerton Housing Project

The Hockerton Housing Project is a small community of five earth sheltered homes on the outskirts of Hockerton, Nottinghamshire, UK. The houses were designed by ‘green’ architects Professor Brenda Vale and Dr Robert Vale

Professor Brenda Vale and Dr Robert Vale

Sustainable Homes, Earth Banked Shelter

Link | Hockerton Housing Project

Eades Meadow National Nature Reserve

Foster’s Green meadows, Feckenham, Worcestershire, UK

Eades Meadow is a National Nature Reserve due to the diverse population of its 180 recorded varieties of rare plants and the huge number of insects, spiders and invertebrates that they support. Wild flower meadows, once considered commonplace, are now a rarity and warrant national recognition. Eades Meadow, which has been free from chemical practices for over 100 years, is particularly famous for its green-winged orchids in spring and meadow saffron in autumn.  The colour of the meadow changes daily as different flowers come into flower throughout spring and summer.

Worcestershire Wildlife Trust

Wild flower meadow

Link | http://www.worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/reserves/fosters-green-meadows

Place | Olympic Park

Redstone Close,Reddich

It was good to hear that the affordable housing scheme we prepared the detail landscape design for won an award for one of the best new affordable housing schemes in the UK at the Inside Housing Awards 2014. The former school site has been transformed from a derelict waste ground to a modern and innovative housing development. It is UK’s largest low carbon, Norwegian timber frame housing development built at the same cost as a traditionally code level 3 scheme. The scheme also featured two carbon neutral level 6 homes. The scheme of 79 houses designed for Accord Group and Reddich Cooperative Homes was designed around a new square that included a community orchard.

Accord Group, Reddich Cooperative Housing

housing, landscape, shared surface

Astley Castle

Astley Castle is a modern holiday home within the ruins of a grade II listed fortified manor house in Astley, near Nuneaton in Warwickshire. The 12th century building had been devastated by fire in the 1970s and had lain in ruins until the Landmark Trust took on the project. Designed by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, the design rejected a restoration approach and instead embraced a contemporary response to the insertion which nevertheless interacts sensitively with its host. The project won the 2013 Stirling Award, the first recipient of the award within the West Midlands.

Witherford Watson Mann Architects

Landmark Trust

Building, Heritage

Link | BBC coverage of Stirling Prize

Link | 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize winner – Astley Castle, Warwickshire

Link | Landmark Trust link

Place | Royal William Yard

Scale Lane Bridge

Scale Lane, Hull

Positioned a few hundred yards north of where the river Hull connects into the mighty Humber, Scale Lane bridge a 57 m long structure was originally supposed to link a £100M regeneration scheme on the down-at-heel east bank called the Boom to the bustling and relatively prosperous old town on the west. Backed by the then Regional Development Agency (RDA) Yorkshire Forward and Hull City Council, the Boom was due to open in 2009 but was hit by the credit crunch. In the press it was referred to as the bridge to nowhere. It finally opened in 2013 at a cost of £7m. The design is strong and resembles a big black comma. On the western bank is a rounded end called the drum which houses the plant room and a cafe. The whole bridge glides open in two minutes to allow boats through. Pedestrians and cyclists can be on the bridge as it moves. It is definitely an iconic structure.

McDowell & Benedetti, Alan Baxter Associates, Qualter Hall

Hull City Council, Yorkshire Forward

Bridge, Hull

Link | aasarchitecture

Place | Gateshead Millennium Bridge

Electric Wharf

Electric Wharf, Coventry, CV1

Electric Wharf, Coventry makes the most of its attractive canal side environment, bringing new life to this former power station. Targeting creative people and industries, Electric Wharf provides live-work lofts, apartments and 21 new homes following its completion in April 2009. Visibly retaining the history of electricity on the site was essential in the design, creating a sense of place through a combination of the retention and conversion of original buildings complete with artistic intervention together with the addition of new buildings providing a mix of employment and residential space. At the site of a redundant Victorian power station, Electric Wharf was created over a period of 4 years, completed in 2008. On the fringe of Coventry City, adjacent to the Coventry canal, the power station was constructed 1894-1895, and was responsible for facilitating a growing demand for electricity across the city. By 1997 however, the site was unused and in need of a new owner. Complex Development Projects took up the challenge, the company recognised the vast opportunities and qualities the site had to offer and began developing it in 2004. Bryant Priest Newman designed a scheme that comprised 68 live/work loft units, 21 eco-homes, and 3,500 sq.m of fully serviced high-tech office accommodation. As well as home and work infrastructure, the public realm was redesigned to include public art and a new pedestrian footbridge. To go hand in hand with the footbridge, the canal towpath network was extended, which allows for a quicker link to the city centre, and helps encourage further investment and regeneration in the area.

Bryant Priest Newman

Complex Development Projects

Link | Bryant Priest Newman

Link | Electric Wharf

Coventry Cathedral

Coventry Cathedral a grade 1 listed building and was designed by Basil Spence Architects in a modernist style and was started in 1951. The old cathedral that was bombed in the Second World War remains as a ruin adjacent to the modern cathedral. It currently acts as a quiet public space. Her Majesty the Queen laid the foundation stone on 23 March 1956 and the building was consecrated on 25 May 1962, in her presence. The ruins remain hallowed ground and together the two create one living Cathedral. Adjacent to the cathedral can be found Coventry University and a small pocket park

Basel Spence and partners

Completed 1951

Modern Church

Gosford Street Shared Surface

Gosford Street, Coventry

Shared space scheme at the junction of Gosford Street and Cox Street. Coventry City Council are looking to implement a number of shared surface schemes across the city. In 2011 the department of transport issued guidance on shared space as a way of improving the quality of streets and giving greater priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Shared space is an approach to the public realm which seeks to minimize the demarcation between vehicle traffic and pedestrians, often by removing features such as kerbs, road markings, traffic signs and regulations. Schemes are often motivated by a desire to reduce the dominance of vehicles, vehicle speeds and road casualty rates. First proposed in 1991, the term is now strongly associated with the works of Hans Monderman who suggested by creating a greater sense of uncertainty and making it unclear who had right of way, drivers reduce their speed, and everyone reduces their level of risk compensation.

Coventry City Council

Link | Government Publications

Place | Poynton Shared Surface

Leicester, LE1 4AN

Highcross is a prime regional shopping centre situated in the heart of Leicester which opened in 2008. It was developed by extending the old Shire's shopping centre. It incorporates a mix of uses including retail, residential, cinema and other leisures uses including bars and restaurants. The Anchor retail store is John Lewis. The scheme incorporates outdoor streets and squares including St Peter's and Old School Square which is a better solution than being completely an internal mall as it allows for better connectivity.

Foreign Office Architects | Chapman Taylor | Gollifer Langston

Hammerson | Hermes Real Estate

Commercial Development, retail, leisure

Link | Leicester City Council

Link | Hammerson

Link | Gollifer Langston Architects

Gallowtree Gate/High Street

Leicester, LE1 5AD

Gallowtree Gate is one of the main shopping streets in Leicester City Centre. The street is located outside the original city wall and was used for the long walk to the old gallows which were in London Road to the south. The Victorian era saw it attract large stores and other retailers including the original Thomas Cook building which is one of the early buildings that still remain today. Pedestrianised in the 1970's the street links with the Market Place, Clocktower and Town Hall Square, all key public spaces within the city centre. The street was redesigned in 2005 and included new bespoke street furniture. It was the first scheme to be designed in line with Leicester City Council's new public realm strategy and was completed in December 2006. LCC - The Clock Tower is the most obvious element within a new public open space which includes East Gates and Cheapside. There are trees, seating and new lighting to enhance the space. Market Street - Market Street was one of the earlier streets in the city centre to be upgraded as a part of the city’s three-year Streets and Spaces regeneration project. Work here has made a dramatic difference to what was once a congested street. Granite paving provides a high quality base. Seating, bins, bike stands and the like are now running down one side of the street in a way that leaves the central space open to promenade and enjoy the lively café atmosphere developing here. At night new lights provide a contemporary feel whilst not detracting from the overall quality of the street which is a part of the Market Street conservation Area.

Burns + Nice

Leicester City Council

Public Realm

Link | Burns + Nice

Leicester, LE1 1SB

The building designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, is built of curved glass and steel. The building contains 1,192 tonnes of steel, and 4600m2 of glass. In was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008. Offering a new theatre experience for Leicester’s audiences, Curve is unlike any other theatre as there is no traditional backstage area. Two theatres stand back to each other and can be opened up to create one large stage. The stages stand as a freestanding element within the centre of the building which can be fully circumnavigated. The building has been criticised by some for being both too expensive and overpowering in its setting of historic and listed buildings. It does however create much needed activity within the cultural quarter.

Rafael Viñoly Architects

December 2008

Theatre, Cultural Quarter

Link | Rafael Viñoly Architects

Link | Curve

New Walk in Leicester is a unique, traffic-free route which provides a pedestrian connection between the council’s offices close to the city centre for about one kilometre south to Victoria Park and De Montfort Hall. New Walk originally dates from 1785 and is lined with a mix of Regency, Victorian and contemporary architecture and a high quality landscape setting.

Link | Friends of New Walk

Wheatsheaf Works

Wordsworth Road, Leicester

The Wheatsheaf Works is an exciting development by Urban Rhythm on the edge of Leicester City centre. When it was built in 1891, Wheatsheaf Works was the largest footwear factory in the world. Owned by the Co-operative Wholesale Society, it supplied a wealth of employment opportunities in Leicester. The area was at the centre of much commercial activity and its iconic clock tower could be seen for many a mile across south Leicester. The area is currently a mixture of traditional Victorian terraced streets, interspersed with industrial buildings and warehouses It is an interesting development of 172 new dwellings consisting of both new town houses and the conversion of two grade II listed factory buildings. The ornate, Neo-Jacobean main factory building is being converted into a series of townhouses and apartments using contemporary interventions. The homes are located around a landscaped courtyard, which should help in ensuring the development has a real sense of community. The roofs on the modern town houses are reminiscent of the roof lights seen on traditional factories that allowed a natural even light from the north. However, the shape does not appear to include large amounts of glazing on the northern elevations. It is good to see the contrast between the existing Victorian terraces, the conversion of the listed buildings and the introduction of modern town houses.

JSP Architecture

Hazelton Homes

Part Completed 2013

Heritage, Residential

Link | Wheatsheaf Works

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

An ancient woodland covering 14 acres (5.7 ha). Over a mile of pathways were laid down in the early 19th century to provide access to the woods, and provide picturesque walks. The area contains strange rock formations, secret caves and ancient trees.

Forest of Dean

Link | http://www.puzzlewood.net

Place | Winter Garden

Place | Peace Gardens

Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BB

The grade II* listed Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the bank of the River Avon in Stratford was reopened in 2011 following extensive remodeling. The building has an interesting history, opening in 1932 on a site adjacent to an original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre of 1879, which had been destroyed by fire. The building was designed by Elizabeth Scott and constitutes the first important work in England to the designs of a female architect. The redevelopment proposals focused on theatre space, aiming to bring actors and audiences closer, but also included major improvements to the wider environment, including visitor facilities and the surrounding public realm which has been significantly enhanced.

Bennetts Associates | Buro Happold | Nicolas Pearson Associates

Royal Shakespeare Company

Link | Bennetts Associates

Link | Buro Happold

Newport City Footbridge

South Wales

The £4.9 million Newport City Footbridge provides the city with a new landmark. Acting as a vital link between the east and west banks of the River Usk, the bridge was the first stage for the development of a cultural district on the left bank, making the crane structure powerful evidence of regeneration in Newport. This distinctive structure is now a key part of Newport's Skyline, and brings contemporary urban design to the city.

Grimshaw Architects

Newport Unlimited

Pedestrian Footbridge

Link | Grimshaw Architects

The Russells

Broadway, WR12 7AP

The Russells is located behind the high street of Broadway village, a World Heritage site on the Northern edge of the Cotswalds. Built on the brownfield land of a former factory set up by 1920 Arts and Crafts style furniture maker Gordon Russell, it is now a mixed-use development of 77 private and affordable homes with mixed use including a supermarket and a museum. The development shows a high degree of sensitivity to the historic character of this village on the edge of the Cotswolds setting. The developer has refurbished 16th Century buildings into shops and a restaurant along the high street and created pedestrian links to a new supermarket and public pedestrian square behind. Across the square an old barn has been converted into a new museum. With housing for the elderly identified as a local priority, 24 flats special needs flats have been built beside the square and supermarket around a secure court. Beyond the square a new access road leads to a mix of new apartments and terraced houses. The development provides a variety of quality homes, new public amenity and much needed mixed use, while remaining sensitive in design to the local historical building style. The Russells was praised by the Building for Life judges as "a great piece of urbanism ... real town building"

Lapworth Architects |

Chase Homes | Wychavon District Council

Link | Lapworth Architects

Brewery Quarter

Cardiff, CF10 1FG

The Brewery Quarter in Cardiff is a mixed use development comprising residential and commercial space within a historic context in Cardiff city centre. The scheme by Countryside Properties, which is set within a conservation area and utilises listed buildings and other existing structures, creates a distinctive townscape through contemporary interventions, simple detailing and use of colour.

Powell Dobson Architects

Mansford Holdings PLC and S A Brains | Countryside Properties

October 2003

Link | Powell Dobson

Link | Design Commission for Wales

Wetlands Visitor Centre

Newport, NP18 2PZ

The visitor and environmental education centre at the wetlands is a good example of an uncomplicated design which sits well within the context of a very sensitive landscape. Approached on foot from the car park, the building arouses curiosity, enticing visitors to stop and observe the wetlands and to explore the landscape beyond.

Powell Dobson Architects | McGregor Smith

RSPB and Newport City Council

Public Building, Visitor Centre

Westonbirt Arboretum

Tetbury, Gloucestershire

An internationally renowned tree collection carefully laid out within a beautiful Grade One listed heritage landscape and a fantastic location for playing, walking, relaxing and learning about nature.

Forestry Commission

Robert Stayner Holford (1829)

Link | http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7NPM2F

Place | Puzzlewood

Hanham Hall

Hanham, South Gloucestershire near Bristol

Hanham Hall is the first site in the government’s Carbon Challenge initiative and is scheduled to become one of the first zero carbon communities in England. 185 new homes are proposed in the grounds of the former hospital structured around a series of green spaces with allotments, orchards, hedges, ponds, cycle and walking routes. A restaurant, nursery, community hall, cafe and offices are currently proposed in the Hall.

HTA Design LLP | Barratt Homes

Barratt Homes

residential, Neighbourhood

Lakeshore, Bristol, BS13 7TJ

Lakeshore is a residential development of eco homes in Bristol offering a mix of studio, one and two bedroom apartments. Housed in the grade II listed former Imperial Tobacco factory, the site lies within 10 acres of landscaped gardens and green space designed by Camlins to allow nature to re-establish itself within the area. Developers Urban Splash have made reference to the building’s history through the use of cor-ten, the steel in which the original factory was built and architectural practice Ferguson Mann focused on creating light filled apartment space through full height glazing. The development at Lakeshore exemplifies how to give new life to a historic building.

Ferguson Mann Architects | Homes and Community Agencies

Link | Ferguson Mann

Northampton, NN5 4EH ?

Upton is located less than 3 miles to the south west of Northampton. This initial phase of this major urban extension of c. 1382 homes is one of the first housing schemes to be delivered according to a design code produced by a partnership of landowner and local authority interests, which also provided advanced site infrastructure. The design code for Upton guided the overall character of the community but allows flexibility when it comes to designing buildings for this high-volume housing development. . It demonstrates how a high quality public realm can be achieved by volume house builders through adherence to design code principles and through careful monitoring of their implementation. Also notable are the way flood attenuation measures have been integrated into the design of public space and the way in which a high environmental performance can be achieved by dwellings which are not unusual in appearance. Affordable housing, constituting 22% of the homes, is pepper potted throughout the site and includes 4 wheelchair units. The amount of different architectural styles does not appeal to all and a lack of other uses results in a lack of activity onto the street

Urban Initiatives Studios | KRT Associates | Quartet Design

English Partnerships | Paul Newman New Homes

December 2007

Residential, Design Code, SUD's

Link | KRT Associates

Link | Quartet Design

Place | Oxley Woods

Royal Crescent

Bath, BA1 2LS

The Royal Crescent in Bath is a grade I listed building and perhaps one of the best-known examples of Georgian architecture that has become synonymous with Bath as a city and the Georgian period as a whole. The building is a sweeping crescent of 30 terraced houses, designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and constructed between 1767 and 1775. Today, the stone façade of the building displays little change from when it was first built. The popularity of the building means that one of these houses (number 1) is open to the public and another operates as the Royal Crescent Hotel.

John Wood the Younger

Link | No 1 Royal Crescent

Link | Royal Crescent Bath

Bath Riverside

Crest Nicholson Regeneration obtained Outline Planning consent at the end of 2010 to transform this 44 acre former industrial site into a new residential quarter for the City of Bath. Once completed, Bath Riverside will comprise over 2000 modern new homes, a new school, over 19 acres of public open spaces including a large riverside park, up to 650 student bedrooms and up to 60,000sq ft of commercial spaces such as restaurants, cafes and community uses. We believe Bath Riverside to be one of the most important regeneration projects in the UK.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios | Holder Mathias Architects | Alison Brooks Architects

Crest Nicholson Regeneration

building, residential, apartments, riverside

Link | FCB Studios

Broadclose, Bude, Cornwall

Bude, Cornwall

This unique housing project consists of a partnership between North Cornwall District Council, Westcountry Housing Association, The Guinness Trust and Midas Homes Ltd. The project provides 173 properties - of which two-thirds are affordable homes for rent, or controlled affordable sale with the remainder being open market private homes. With its high proportion of affordable homes and adherence to “green” principles, it is hoped that this scheme will become a regional exemplar of urban design, low energy architecture and sustainable development. The scheme, which is derived from a masterplan by ECD Architects, is a pioneering use of the HomeZone concept that provides a new approach to the road layouts.

ECD Architects | Trewin Design Partnership | North Cornwall District Council | Midas Homes

Guinness Trust & Westcountry Housing Association

building, blocks, street, neighbourhood

Link | Trewin Design

Link | Guinness Partnership

Place | Derwenthorpe

Icon Lime Tree Square

Somerset, BA16 0FX

This scheme built on the site of the original Clarks shoe factory in Street. It uses an innovative approach to highways design to put the pedestrian first, redefine the idea of the square and create a series of social spaces. It is the first phase of a larger development, ICON, which comprises housing from apartment blocks to mews and terraced housing. Whilst shoes are no longer made there, the Clarks family has been there since 1825 and the project started with their vision for a new development of outstanding quality as a lasting legacy for the town.

Crest Nicholson | Knightstone Housing Association

October 2008

Place | Gun Wharf

Oxley Woods

Swanson Drive, Milton Keynes

Oxley Woods is located on the western fringes of Milton Keynes. It includes a number of phases with both traditional and modern architecture Richard Rogers - “Oxley Woods achieves something which should have happened sixty years ago. This is mass factory- produced housing, erected in three days, incorporating top technology, top energy performance, varied house designs, a choice of cladding materials and a wide variety of estate layouts. It is radical, innovative and an outstanding step away from the tradition mud and mess of the domestic building site.' The project represents a thorough-going attempt at innovation within the all-too risk-averse conventional housebuilders’ market. It points the way forward to achieving high environmental standards in quality housebuilding where design comes first. .

Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners

Link | Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners

Link | Oxley Woids

Hereward Hall

March, Cambridge

Hereward Hall is one of three developments built in the Fenland towns of March and Chatteris as part of an Anglo-German-Swedish programme for sharing skills needed for sustainable growth. Called SmartLIFE, the project was hit when Sweden elected a new government that withdrew support. All proposals utilise a number of ‘standard’ dwelling types, primarily designed by Proctor and Matthews, to be constructed using a range of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).

Proctor and Matthews Architects | Inspace

Home Group Developments

houses, mews

Link | Proctor and Matthews

Place | Armour Close

Place | Hargood Close

Princesshay

Exeter, Devon EX1 1EU

Princesshay is a major city centre retail development within Exeter’s Cathedral Quarter comprising over 60 units over 530,000sq ft of floorspace. It replaced a 1950s shopping precinct which had been built on a war damaged site close to the city’s cathedral. The centre, which was opened in 2007, was designed by a team comprised of three sets of architects and designers, led by the developer, Land Securities. The design development process included the formulation of design principles based on a sound understanding of the historic significance of the site and its context, which has come to bear in the quality of the completed scheme.

InSite Arts | Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Land Securities

Link | Land Securities

Link | InSite Arts

Bishops Walk

Bishops Walk, Ely, CB7 4GB

Bishops’ Walk was commissioned by the District Council of East Cambridgeshire, in a public/private partnership with Hopkins Homes as the developer. Latham Architects were appointed as architects on the scheme, which was designed to a stringent development brief and design guide that aimed to restore the traditional grain of the city through plot layout and roads which follow the west-east orientation of existing developments. The house types range in height and size, but are predominantly terraced, which is appropriate to the surrounding context. Parking has been accommodated integral to the units to reduce its impact on the streetscene, which is of a high quality.

Latham Architects | Hawk & Dovetail | James Blake Associates

Hopkins Homes

Design guide, Affordable housing

Link | Latham Architects

Place | Upton

Eden Project

The Eden Project is located on the site of a former clay pit in Cornwall. It endeavours to recognise our country’s heritage of plant exploration while simultaneously looking to the future. Key to The Eden Project’s success is the contrast between the structure of the building and its impressive landscape setting. The Eden Project has become a major visitor attraction. The strategy of replacing an almost uninhabitable clay pit with a new natural habitat is perhaps in principle the biggest environmental success of Eden Project. Situated in a 15-hectare landscaped site, it is an excellent example of successful place-making. The Eden Project has created its own unique culture comprising performance, educational and artistic spaces which extends far beyond the site itself. The Project currently employs around 600 permanent staff, 95% of whom were recruited locally and 75% of whom were previously unemployed.

Grimshaw Architects | Anthony Hunt and Associates | Land Use Consultants | MERO

The Eden Project Ltd

Link | Land Use Consultants

Link | Eden Project

Bradbury Place

Andover, UK

Bradbury Place is an 8 unit residential development that gives choice to disabled people who want to live independently. Designed and built for Enham Trust, Winton Court is presently on site and set for completion in 2014. The development is on the site of the former Winton Court and is a break with history for disability charity, Enham Trust. It is the Trust’s first housing development for disabled people outside of the village of Enham Alamein. The central location gives access to opportunities in the town centre such as employment, public transport and leisure facilitates. The building has been designed with a brick storey at ground to first floor level to reflect the brick construction of the existing bungalows adjacent to the development. At first, second and roof levels the building is predominately clad in pre-weathered zinc, which is intended to ‘unify’ the massing of the four buildings that form the whole. The zinc has been detailed to offer a continuity of surface between each building and so give the sense that although within separated dwellings, the residents are sharing a single roof.

Enham Trust | Design Engine Architects | Drew Smith

Enham Trust

building, town centre

Link | Design Engine Architects

Link | Enham Trust

Cambridge, CB28DL

Accordia, Cambridge was the first large residential development in the UK to receive the 2008 RIBA Stirling Prize. The brownfield site was transformed from formerly owned military land into high-density and high-quality housing for all, due to the inclusion of affordable housing, as well as the variety in house plans producing aesthetically different dwellings to create a quality environment to live in. The relationship between internal and external spaces generates a ‘outside-inside’ life for its residents, reinstating light and fresh air to high density housing projects. Accordia should be the benchmark for all new housing developments in the UK.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios | Maccreanor Lavington | Alison Brooks Architects | Grant Associates

Countryside Properties

Affordable housing, Stirling Prize, RIBA,

Place | Telford Millenium Community

Great Kneighton, Cambridge, Uk

Abode at Great Kneighton is a large-scale housing development containing 450 sustainable new homes on the edge of Cambridge. Built on the former Clay Farm site, it is a key part of a major new housing and mixed use community by Countryside Properties.

Proctor & Matthews | Countryside Properties | Cambridge City Council

Link | Countryside Properites

Plymouth, PL1 4NY

Plymouth's Gun Wharf development was previously a run down post-war estate. The transformation has included modern housing that reflects the local identity of the area. It was designed by Lacey Hickie Caley Architects. Public meetings were held to hear local residents' views on the scheme, also involving Plymouth County Council, Devon and Cornwall Housing Association and the Regional Development Association. Existing residents were temporarily re-housed during the phased construction. The scheme manages to integrate a variety of housing types with mixed occupancy The innovative design uses a mixture of local materials including wooden cladding. It appears that overall, the development has been hugely successful in creating a sense of place. The mixed-use units vary from 1-bedroom flats to 3-4 bedroom town houses, and sit on a stepped terrace overlooking the River Tamar.

LHC | Plymouth City Council | Claire Foxford

Midas Homes Limited

Residential, Urban redevelopment of post-war estate

Royal William Yard

Royal William Yard is a Plymouth landmark, hosting a unique collection of British naval buildings which together form the largest collection of grade I listed military buildings in Europe. The built form originally dates from 1825-31 and today provides a mixed-use development comprising office space, retail, residential development and leisure and cultural uses.

Ferguson Mann Architects | Gillespie Yunnie

In progress

building, waterside

Link | Gillespie Yunnie

Dorset, DT1 3WH

Poundbury is an urban extension to the Dorset county town of Dorchester, built on Duchy of Cornwall land according to architectural principles advocated by The Prince of Wales. In 1989 His Royal Highness published the book ‘A Vision of Britain’ which set out his beliefs in certain principles of architecture and urban planning. These principles reflected some of the timeless ideas that have enabled many places around Britain to endure and thrive over the centuries. Begin in 1994 Poundbury is the living embodiment of these principles. It is a high density urban quarter of Dorchester which gives priority to people, rather than cars, and where commercial buildings are mixed with residential areas, shops and leisure facilities to create a walkable community. The result is an attractive and pleasing place, in keeping with the character of Dorchester, in which people live, work, shop and play. It is home to 2,000 people in different types of housing, including social housing, as well as providing employment for some 1,600 people and is a home to 140 businesses.

Leon Krier | Ben Pentreath & Associates

Duchy of Cornwall

Link | Duchy of Cornwall

Link | Ben Pentreath & Associates

Link | Prince of Wales

Osprey Quay

Officers Field, Weymouth

This residential development consists of 77 contemporary and sustainable 2, 3 and 4 bedroom homes each with access to private and shared open space. The homes provide a modern take on traditional family homes in a variety of terraced, semi and detached types and make good use of the locally sourced quality Portland stone. The development was leased to the 2012 Olympic Games to be used as accommodation for the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Village until September 2012. The homes achieve level 4 of the Code for Sustainable homes, and are designed to deliver much needed family accommodation in Portland. They incorporate biomass district heating, wood pellet stoves and rainwater harvesting, as well as bicycle storage, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and high performance windows suitable to the coastal location. The site makes the most of the challenging topography and maximises views towards Chesil Beach and the National Sailing Centre in Portland.

Link | HTA Design

Place | Icon Lime Tree Square

Krishna Avanti Primary School

Harrow, HA8 6ES

This school designed by Cottrell & Vermeulen Architects in collaboration with the local Hindu community, the school has space for 210 pupils and features a temple, shrine and a meditation garden. The new building supports the academic, physical, social and spiritual development of children at the heart of the school's ethos. Carefully designed spaces indoors and out provide fun spaces for exploration, quiet spots for meditation and reflection, and social spaces to eat, learn and play in. The use of environmental features, such as rainfall recycling and allotments, has resulted in the school being awarded one of the highest environmental ratings of any primary school in Britain.

Cottrell & Vermeulen Architecture | Amish Patel | New world timber frame | Prakash Patel

Nitesh Gor/I-Foundation

Link | Cottrell & Vermeulen Architecture

Cromer Seafront

Mott MacDonald was commissioned by North Norfolk District Council in 2003 to provide landscape design and engineering for the £1.2m Cromer Seafront Enhancement Programme, which was completed in May 2005. The promenade and pier in the seaside town of Cromer is an important public space within the town. The design creates a wave type form in the steps leading up to the pier. The materials enhances Cromer’s Victorian and Edwardian heritage while celebrating its close association with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which has more than 200 years’ history in the town.

Mott MacDonald

North Norfolk District Council

Link | Mott MacDonald

Place | Drift Park

Harlow, Essex, CM17 9JA

Newhall is an award winning new community-based project in Harlow, Essex. The neighborhood is home to approximately 6,000 inhabitants making this successful project also a very large one, as well as providing housing, social amenities such as a primary school, employment and great parkland to meet the needs of the residents in this sustainable community. Contemporary architecture has been used throughout Newhall, creating a strong sense of place through the regulatory quality of the masterplan. Studio | REAL have made great use of the public realm, generating flexible and functional spaces for residents.

studioREAL | Roger Evans Associates

Newhall Projects Limited

Link | studio | REAL

Link | Newhall Project

Link | Roger Evans Associates

Granville New Homes

Carlton Vale, South Kilburn

Granville New Homes was the first housing developed by the the London Borough of Brent in over 20 years. It was designed as a showcase development for the wider South Kilburn regeneration area and provides a range of housing units, a new building for a local children’s and community centre and a pocket park for the wider community. This is a surprising development which responds successfully to its conservation area context at the same time as delivering attractive homes and high quality open spaces. The scheme’s distinctly patterned facades offer a contemporary twist to traditional brickwork, yet careful attention to detail has ensured that it integrates seamlessly with the surrounding conservation area.

Levitt Bernstein Associates | The Glass-House Community Led Design

LB Brent | London Borough of Brent

Residential, Community Use

Link | Levitt Bernstein Associates

Link | The Glass-House Community Led Design

Portobello Square, London

Bonchurch Road, London

Portobello Square is a large-scale one-off, award-winning regeneration project between Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, an area famous for its eclectic style and diverse community. Recognised for its strong sustainability ethos and distinctive contemporary architecture, the development will comprise stylish apartments, town houses and mews houses as well as new shops, cafes and restaurants and a large communal park at its heart.

PRP Architects LLP | Ardmore | Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

Catalyst Housing Group

building, mixed use, mews

Link | Portobello Square

Place | Granville New Homes

Newbury Mews

Newbury Mews, London, NW5

The site is a narrow mews, formerly 35 lock-up garages and workshops located between the busy Prince of Wales Road and the attractive St Leonard's Square in Kentish Town. The narrow width needed a innovative solution to overlooking and the angled facades of each house are designed to provide total privacy although the houses are only 3.6m face to face. A simple pallet of high quality materials creates a high quality urban space with very high density development.

Brooks Murray Architects | The Barttons Partnership

Lincoln Holdings

Link | Brooks Murray Architects

Rolling Bridge

S Wharf Rd, London W2

The Rolling Bridge is a type of curling movable bridge completed in 2004 as part of the Grand Union Canal office & retail development project at Paddington Basin, London

Heatherwick

Completed 2004

Bridge, London

Place | Aiola/ Mur Island Bridge

Kensington High Street

London, W8 6SU

Kensington High Street public realm works is a superb example of how relatively minor changes can have major impacts on the pedestrian experience. Designed by Project Centre, the UK benchmark scheme removes excess clutter and simplifies pedestrian crossings, creating a simple and elegant streetscape for Kensington High Street.. Lord Rogers is quoted as saying "it is the first time I have seen such high quality in England, easily comparable to the best examples on the continent". The design objectives for the work was a move away from standard traffic engineering solutions to a more radical streetscape design which aimed to emphasise pedestrian priority and create a legible and easily accessible street. The scheme has successfully removed all unnecessary clutter from the street, coordinated the design and location of new street furniture, and defined the footway/carriageway boundary.

Project Centre | Woodhouse UK

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Link | Project Centre

Place | Spiceal Street

Place | Newport City Footbridge

Armour Close

Wellington Mews, London

This site showed great challenges. In the shadow of Pentonville Prison, the 0.09 ha garages site was a buffer between the back gardens of existing local authority homes and Wellington Mews, the 6-storey Victorian prison officers’ block abutting it. Today, stand four outstanding houses which make the most of the small site in Islington.

HFI Architects | Mansell

Homes for Islington

street, mews, houses

Link | Housing Design Awards

Place | Arundel Square

Arundel Square

Arundel Square, London

Having decked over the railway, an extra acre of land was created. Half of this land has been added to Arundel Square Gardens, and on the remainder we have completed the square with a contemporary six-storey apartment building. Its layered façade has been designed to harmonise with its surroundings, taking its framed proportions from the brick pilasters and sash windows of the existing houses.

Pollard Thomas Edwards Architects

United House Developments | Londonewcastle

building, park

Link | Pollard Thomas Edwards

Link | Londonewcastle

Place | Saxton

Melody Lane, London

Melody Lane, London N5

Development of 14 new houses on the site of a former car repair garage. The houses are arranged around a new landscaped mews and have a variety of private gardens and terraces. Internally each of the houses is organised around a three story light shaft.

Julian Cowie Architects | London Wharf

London Wharf

Link | Julian Cowie Architects

Place | Chimney Pot Park, Salford

Granary Square

London, N1C 4AA

Granary Square itself is a large, open area focusing towards the historic granary building. The space in front of the building is filled with hundreds of fountains, in four blocks, which orientate towards and take their form from the building. This relationship between the building and layout of the fountains gives the large open space gravity and a sense of scale. The fountains themselves are programmed with hundreds of patterns that dance in time with each other and create a mesmerising display, particularly when lit up at night. The square is grand, and the lighting, furniture and materials respond to this, the paving in particular; rather than typical squared or blocked paving systems, Townshend has used rectilinear paving which changes the axis, rhythm and dimensions of the space, which is a typical feature of his designs, from Brindleyplace through to More London and now King’s Cross.

Townshend Landscape Architects | The Fountain Workshop

King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership

Link | Granary Square

Link | Townshend Landscape Architects

Place | Madrid Rio

Diana Memorial Fountain

Hyde Park, London

According to the landscape designer Gustafson Porter the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain expresses the concept of 'Reaching Out – Letting In'. The fountain which is made out of 545 individual pieces of cornish granite has been integrated into the natural slope of the land in Hyde Park, using as a starting point the existing ground level around the canopies of the mature trees surrounding the site. The memorial stands out as a light-coloured ring in the landscape which contrasts with the surrounding meadow area and planting, and has an energy which radiates outwards while at the same time drawing people near. The total cost of the water feature was £3.6 million The fountain has specific features to create different water effects like a 'Chadar Cascade', a 'Swoosh', 'Stepped Cascade', 'Rock and Roll' and a still basin at the bottom which reflect the various qualities of the Princess' life. When it was first opened some concerns existed over the slipperiness of surfaces and potential for accidents. It was initially fenced off but after some remediation it s now fully open again.

Department of Culture, Media and Sport | The Royal Parks

Water Feature

Seven Dials

Seven Dials is a great piece of good urbanism in the centre of London on the edge of Covent Garden. It is not often you see people sitting in what effectively is a roundabout with seven radial routes spinning off. It is one of those spaces that break our current rules on traffic safety yet it works as a place. At the centre of the space is a sundial on the top of a large obelisk. Seven Dials was originally laid out by Thomas Neale, MP in the early 1690's, who cleverly laid out the area in a series of triangles to maximise the number of houses as rentals were charged per foot of frontage and not per square foot of interiors. The then fashion for squares would have meant far less houses and thus fewer frontages.

Street, Roundabout

Bennet's Courtyard, London

Bennet’s Courtyard contains 52 one - and two bedroom apartments and 164 sq m of commercial space. The brief from Merton Borough Council demanded a sensitive mixeduse development respecting the nearby Merton Priory and adjacent complex of listed 17th, 18th and 19th century industrial buildings. The new development consists of two long blocks. These “arms” encircle a central villa block whose timber-clad edge conceals the ground-floor car park. There is a communal roof garden above, which works not just for the new residents but also as a popular concession to those living opposite in Runnymede Close, as it maintains the landscape-dominated environment.

Feilden Clegg Bradley | Wates Construction

block, apartments

Shoreditch, London, E1 6GY

BOXPARK based in the heart of East London is the world’s first pop-up mall. Created by Roger Wade, BOXPARK is a shopping centre made from stripped and refitted shipping containers producing ‘box shops’, cafes and galleries in Shoreditch. BOXPARK is a revolutionary escape from clone-town style highstreets, it’s uniqueness and quality design really break the mould. The various qualities of shipping containers allow BOXPARK to be moveable, hence the ‘pop-up’ nature this special place.

Pop Up Retail, Temporary Use

Link | Box Park

Claredale Street

Claredale Street, London

Claredale Street, as one of the first phases of the regeneration programme was to be used as an exemplar, to demonstrate to the wider community THCH’s intent to deliver mixed, balanced, high quality housing and an improved neighbourhood. Overall the scheme provides for 77 new homes of mixed tenure, 40 of which are social rented family homes. These included several for larger families and also new homes for residents over the age of 60 moving from larger Council Homes.

Karakusevic Carson | Tower Hamlets Community Housing | Hill Partnership

Tower Hamlets Community Housing

building, blocks, street

Link | Karakusevic Carson

Royal Road, Lonodn

Designed for Affinity Sutton by RIBA award-winning architects, Panter Hudspith, The Square, Royal Road, Kennington offers a contemporary collection of 96 apartments; 20 for shared ownership and 76 for affordable rent for local people.

Panter Hudspith Architects | Higgins Construction

Affinity Sutton

building, residential, apartments, affordable

Link | Affinity Sutton

Link | Panter Hudspith

Place | Bradbury Place

Olympic Park

London, E20 2ST

Hargreaves - The London 2012 Olympic Park combines centuries of British park design with groundbreaking green technology to create a new type of park for the 21st Century. The plan restored a river and transformed former industrial land, much of it contaminated through years of industrial neglect to create 100 hectares of parklands that provided a celebratory setting for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as the Legacy Park for generations to come. The Hargreaves Associates design, with local partners LDA Design, was inspired by the Victorian and post-war pleasure and festival gardens and creates sweeping lawns, a promenade, access to the river, ample seating and public spaces throughout the park that showcased live screens during the Games. In legacy the Olympic Park is a new green space for people and wildlife and will host sports facilities that will remain for public use beyond the Games.

AECOM | Allies and Morrison Architects | Hargreaves Associates | Nigel Dunnett

Olympic Delivery Authority

Link | Allies & Morrison Architects

Link | Hargreaves Associates

Link | Planting a new perspective

Mile End Park

Mile End Park, Tower Hamlets

Mile End Park is a park located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a linear park of some 32 hectares, and was created on industrial land devastated by World War II bombing. It integrates a wide green bridge to allow the park to flow across Mile End Road.

Mott McDonald

Tower Hamlets

Park, Green Bridge

Link | Tower Hamlets

Place | Thames Barrier Park

Jubilee Park

Canary Wharf, London

Jubilee Park is a new public space designed by Jacques and Peter Wirtz on the site of an existing park in Canary Wharf. The park provides access to Jubilee Place underground shopping mall and establishing a peaceful green space for those working in the area, which is set to rise substantially in the coming years to over 100,000 people.

Peter Wirtz | Kym Jones

Canary Wharf Group PLC

Link | Peter Witrz

Link | Applied Landscape

Greenwich Millenium Village

London, SE10 0QR

Part of Greenwich Millennium Village, Phase 2a includes a residential development that promotes and supports sustainable design ideas. The scheme is both inspiring and innovative in its design, construction and sustainability. Stepped housing profiles filter wind speed and exploit solar gain, and green corridors encourage walking and cycling, while spaces between buildings are determined by micro-climatic factors on this exposed site. Pre-fabricated construction techniques allow design and construction teams to achieve impressive reductions in pollution and energy use. Holistic definitions of sustainable development guarantee that more than physical aspects of the development are addressed, through community-based organisations like The Village Trust, which were initially funded by developer subsidies and are charged with management and maintenance of social and economic issues as well as physical ones.

Proctor Matthews | Erskine Tovatt | Robert Rummey

Greenwich Millennium Village Ltd (GMVL) | Countryside Properties | Taylor Woodrow Capital Development

Mixed Use Development, Millennium Community

Link | Tovatt Architects

Link | Greenwich Millenium Village

Barking Central

London, IG11 7NB

Barking Central is a major urban regeneration project which has had a transformative impact on Barking town centre in east London, through the creation of a new civic space surrounded by high quality new buildings around the existing town hall and library. The development was a public-private partnership between Redrow Regeneration and the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. It was designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris and provides 518 flats, a library and learning centre, a hotel, a café, and shops, housed within seven new buildings, ranging from two to seven storeys and sharing a dynamic colour scheme. The new buildings are linked together by high quality public space.

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris | Buro Happold

Redrow Regeneration | London Borough of Barking & Dagenham

Civic, Library, Architecture

Link | Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Place | Vauban

Place | Greenwich Millenium Village

BedZED is the UK’s largest mixed use, carbon-neutral development. When it was built in 2002, it set new standards in sustainable building. BedZED comprises 82 affordable dwellings in a mixture of flats, maisonettes and town houses, and approximately 2500 m2 of workspace/ office, and is built on a brownfield site.

Bill Dunster

Sustainable Homes

Link | Zed Factory

Place | Hockerton Housing Project

Thames Barrier Park

Thames Barrier Park, London

Thames Barrier Park is built on the site of former industrial chemical works. A publicly funded park, was seen as a good may to encourage new private development in the surroundings and the design took advantage of its location along the river. A main axis runs through the park at a diagonal to the rest of the site. With bold blocks of trees and excellent waves of parallel green hedges and seasonal interest planting in the 'Rainbow Garden'.

Patel Taylor | Arup | May Gurney

London Development Agency

Completed 2000

Waterside Park

Buzzards Mouth Court, Barking Riverside

Barking Riverside

At 140 hectares, Barking Riverside is one of the UK’s largest residential regeneration schemes providing 10,800 homes in total. The energy-efficient houses in Buzzards Mouth Courts range from traditionally laid-out terraces to innovative, linear houses wrapping around an intimate garden.

Sheppard Robson | Bellway Homes

Barking Riverside | PPS | Homes & Communities Agency

residential, Neighbourhood,

Link | Sheppard Robson

Link | Greater London Authority

Hargood Close

London Road, Colchester

Hargood Close was designed by Proctor and Matthews Architects, and is managed by Family Mosaic in partnership with the Housing Options Team at Colchester Borough Council. It represents a centre of excellence for the provision of temporary accommodation and support to homeless people, and has been extremely successful since opening earlier this year. One young resident told the chair of the awards panel “I’ve only lived here for two weeks … but it’s been the best two weeks of my life.” Hargood Close provides a mix of apartments (including studios and one and two bedroom dwellings) and family houses. The new accommodation is arranged around two landscaped courtyards which were inspired by the many fine examples of 19th Century almshouses that can be found in this part of Essex.

Proctor and Matthews | Colchester Borough Council | ISG Jackson

Family Mosaic

buildings, homeless, temporary

Link | Family Mosaic

East Beach Cafe, Littlehampton

Sea Road, Littlehampton

The structure is made of quarter-inch thick mild steel. The architect Thomas Heatherwick said the building was designed to fit into the "raw beauty" of its surroundings. It moves away from normal conventions of seaside architecture. It has been designed to maximize views out to the sea and integrate shutters as part of the design to protect the large windows. The pavilion building is used as a café/ restaurant

Thomas Hetherwick

Completed 2007

Link | Thomas Hetherwick

Horsted Park

Horsted Way, Chatham, Kent, UK

The scheme is a mixed-use, mixed tenure scheme located next to Horsted Way and Fort Horsted (a Nineteenth Century military defense and Scheduled Ancient Monument), Chatham, Medway. Comprising 337 residential units alongside commercial space, the development will create a sustainable environment over 20 acres of land. The site is located two miles south of Chatham and Rochester town centres, and was previously occupied by Mid Kent College campus (now derelict). A proportion of the homes have been designated as Extra Care affordable housing for elderly people.

Proctor & Matthews | Countryside Properties

residential, streets

Link | Countryside Properties

Place | Abode

Schouwburgplein Theatre Square

Shouwburgplein, meaning “Theater Square,” is situated in the heart of Rotterdam, minutes from the Europe’s largest port, and surrounded by the City Theater, the music hall. This is a contemporary urban square design, with custom furniture, iconic crane-like lights that park users can operate, and a trademarked hardscape pattern, is a reflection of the Port of Rotterdam. Capped by a light-deck square that replaced an outdated and leaking parking roof structure, the design includes a light structure using durable materials that have remarkably withstood the test of time and heavy usage. By raising the surface of the square above the surrounding area, the “city’s stage” was created for festivals and installations, framed by the city skyline and its “audience” of inhabitants. This interactive public space, flexible in use, changes throughout the day and from season to season.

City of Rotterdam

Completed 1997

Public Realm, Square

Link | Mimoa

Link | West 8

Borneo Sporenburg

1019 WZ Amsterdam

Borneo Sporenburg is home to 2,500 high-density (100 units per hectare), low-rise dwellings located on two peninsulas in the Eastern part of the Amsterdam Docks. Variety is key in this development, each house or apartment block is very distinct. Add in the waterfront location and the Borneo Sporenburg makes a statement of individuality.

West 8 | Adriaan Geuze | Sebastiaan Riquois | Wim Kloosterboer | Yushi Uehara

Urban Waterfront, Residential Scheme

IJburg, Amsterdam

The district of Ijburg is situated on specially constructed islands in IJmeer, a lake on the eastern side of Amsterdam. It is one of the largest new developments in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Ijburg’s population is currently 20,000, but it is planned to be 45,000 when complete. The masterplan is laid out on a rectangular grid of urban blocks streets, strips of water and green space. On one of the islands, plots are self-build without supervisory architect and no aesthetic control by the council. This is resulting in a rich variety of architecture that does not look out of place with the whole. The masterplan is based on the ‘collage city’ concept that means that each of the eight neighbourhoods has a distinct feel. One of the most exciting is the floating neighbourhood with dwellings created on the water.

Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer

Ontwikkelingscombinatie Waterbuurt West | Woningstichting Eigen Haard

Link | Node Urban Design | Journal

Link | IJburg | Iamsterdam

Nieuwland Amersfoort

This project is about the planning and development of a new construction (housing) area in the municipality of Amersfoort (Netherlands) consisting 4500 dwellings (35% subsidized and 65% market rate), primary schools, a shopping center and facilities. The project is one of the urban planning projects based on VINEX, a document on planning and development by the Dutch central government. The projects main aim is the realization of sustainable construction through sustainable management. Planning and development were based on a new cooperation model, called “public-private-cooperation”. It is regarded as an important example of a new, large scale approach to cooperation between the local authority and the private sector. While, traditionally, the municipality is responsible for all aspects of planning, land use and site preparation, during this project their task was to create parameters/public law and check the progress of the project. The consortium of private companies was responsible for urban planning, site preparation and project management. The project organization reflected this allocation o tasks. The actual development and implementation of the plan was guided by a project manager form the consortium, supported by external town-planning and civil-engineering advisors in close cooperation with municipal departments. The environmental aspects were achieved by using sustainable and recyclable materials for construction, installing solar energy and through planning with respect to nature and environment. During the project separate waste collection systems ensured public safety and sanitation.

Public/ Private Partnership

Municipality

Link | Amersfoort

Place | Vathorst

Amersfoort, The Netherlands

West 8 together with Kuiper Compagnons made a masterplan for the Vinex site Vathorst in Amersfoort. The plan is for 11000 dwellings, 90 hectare of commercial, industrial and office programs and required public facilities. The masterplan is divided into four zones: City of labour: concentration of industry, commercial and office program at the junction of national infrastructure The plains: low-density urbanization respecting the existing rural landscape with tree lines The well: high-density cluster around a clean water basin Canal city on the Lake: a high density housing area (65 h/ha) designed in the tradition of the Old Dutch canal cities, with a water connection to the IJsselmeer sea.

West 8 | Kuiper Compagnons

Ontwikkelings Bedrijf Vathorst

Link | Vathorst

Place | Nieuwland Amersfoort

Kroller Muller Sculpture Park

Houtkampweg 6, 6731 AW Otterlo, Netherlands ?

The Kröller-Müller Museum is worth visiting for its large sculpture garden that is within the forest park, of more than 75 acres (300,000 m2) and one of the largest in Europe. You can hire bikes to cycle around the park. The park reflects Helene Kröller-Müller's conception of a symbiosis between art, architecture and nature. The collection includes a very large collection of modern and contemporary sculpture

Park, Sculpture, Holland

Link | Kroller Muller

André Citroën Park

75015, Paris

This modernist inspired park on the site of a former Citroen factory by Alain Provost and Gilles Clément was the product of a landscape design competition. The design has four themes of artifice, architecture, movement and nature and incorporates a transition from urban to rural. The park contains a vast central rectangular lawn bisected diagonally by a pedestrian route and surrounded on either side by gardens.

Gilles Clement | Allain Provost | Patrick Berger | Jean-Paul Viguier Architecture

Ville de Paris | Direction des Parcs | Jardins et Espaces verts

Urban Park, Competition

Link | Jean-Paul Viguier Architecture

Promenade des Berges (2010)

7th arrondissement, Paris, France

The Promenade des Berges de la Seine is a public park and promenade located along the left bank of the Seine river between the Pont de l'Alma and the Musée d'Orsay. The promenade, created on the former highway that ran along the left bank, includes five floating gardens, planted atop barges, plus exhibition areas, performance and classroom spaces, playgrounds, sports facilities and cafes. Everything in the park can be dismantled and moved within 24 hours if the water of the river rises too high.

Jean Christophe Chobet + Franklin Azzi

Mayor Bertrand Delanoe

Link | http://www.fodors.com/news/paris-opens-pedestrianonly-stretch-of-the-left-bank-6889.html

Place | City Lounge

Parc de la Villette

75019, Paris

Parc de la Villette provides social and cultural activities set within an urban park in a key area of Paris. Rather than opting for the 19th century landscape solution of attempting to block out the city, Parc de la Villette welcomes it, providing workshops, gymnasium and bath facilities, playgrounds, exhibitions, concerts, science experiments, games and competitions, open air cinema screenings in summer, in addition to the Museum of Science and Technology and the City of Music.

Bernard Tschumi |

City of Paris

Link | Bernard Tschumi

The Centre Pompidou

Beauborg-Les Halles Paris, France

The Centre Pompidou is a unique architectural creation and now an icon of the Parisian landscape. All functional elements such as elevators, escalators, stairways, heating ducts form the building's exterior texture and are painted in bold primary colors. The interior space is 80,000 square feet and six stories high. The plaza, a huge expanse of cobblestone is an opening in an otherwise dense urban area. The grade tilts gradually down toward the museum entrance. There is nowhere to sit, but crowds gather to watch street performers to meet and chat or wait for their friends.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano

Link | https://davisla.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/pompidou-centre-landscape-france

Place | Sydney Opera House

Promenade Plantee

12th arrondissement, Paris, France

The Promenade Plantée (French for tree-lined walkway) or the Coulée verte (French for green course) is a 4.7 km (2.9 mile) elevated linear pedestrian parkway built on top of an abandoned railway infrastructure. The parkway follows the old Vincennes railway line, beginning just east of the Opéra Bastille with the elevated Viaduc des Arts which provides arts and crafts shops within the viaduct arches, and follows a path eastward that ends at a spiral staircase leading to the boulevard Périphérique beltway.

Landscape architect Jacques Vergely and architect Philippe Mathieux (1993)

Link | http://www.paris.fr/english/parks-woods-gardens-and-cemeteries/gardens/promenade-plantee/rub_8212_stand_34230_port_18987

Place | Promenade des Berges (2010)

Emscher Landscape Park

Rhur, Germany

The contrast between industrial heritage and nature and landscape design together make this a unique urban park on a truly massive scale. The Emscher Landshaftspark (Landscape Park) was originally conceived as a part of a 10 year regeneration programme led by the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park (IBA). The programme addressed the decline of the Ruhr Region in North-Rhine Westphalia, the industrial heartland of north west Germany, stretching across 20 local authorities and including several major urban centres. The Emscher valley was highly industrialised, and remains highly urbanised, but nevertheless 60 per cent of it comprises green space of various types and qualities. By focusing the regeneration of the area on the creation of a 'landscape park', the IBA took what could have been seen as a liability and transformed it into the 'glue' that holds the various cities, towns and former industrial sites together. It took a strategic approach to establishing a regional landscape infrastructure, promoting 'green corridors', and allowing a new network of connections between places.

International Building Exhibition (IBA)

State Government of NorthRhine-Westphalia

Ongoing - Expected 2020

Green Connector

Link | Cabe archive

Link | Danish Architecture Centre

Danish Henning Larsen architects received the LEAF award for residential building of the year in 2010?for their project ‘the wave in Vejle’. Node Urban Design went to visit the project in 2013 to find it part way through its construction. ‘The Wave in Vejle’ is a new sculptural housing landmark of Vejle, Denmark. It is in an ideal location?overlooking the promenade and the bay. During the day the building is meant to represent white waves reflected in the sea and at night the characteristic profile looks?like illuminated multi-coloured mountains. The building has 140 attractive apartments many with two?storey house plans, all with views. According to the architects The Wave is inspired by the characteristics of the area: the fjord, the bridge, the town and the hills. The building is clearly distinctive and has a very recognizable shape?that connects to existing the residential area behind and the sea in front.

Henning Larsen Architects

residential, waterfront, Denmark

Link | Henning Larsen Architects

Place | ARoS Aarhus Museum

In 1844 the owners of that mill got permission to establish a new paper mill near the river Gudenå. At that point Silkeborg basically consisted of a couple of small houses, a large farm and 30 inhabitants. Also, the state wanted to establish a market place in what was once known as dark Jutland because of the impassable character and lack of civilisation. That was changed with the paper mill and the market place - within a few years Silkeborg grew into a town as the new factory attracted people from the entire country. The papermill closed in the 1990’s and the area has now been transformed into a vibrant mixed-use area including offices, a Raddison blu hotel, restaurants, apartments, museums and galleries.

completed 2004

Denmark, mixed use, regeneration

Place | Les Docks

ARoS Aarhus Museum

The ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum is one of the largest art museums in northern Europe, 10 storeys tall with a total floor area of 17,000 m². The museum opened on 8th April 2004 after a construction process that started with Danish architects Schmidt hammer lassen winning the design competition in 1997. ARoS features a shop, café and restaurant. The architectural vision of the museum was completed in 2011 with the addition of the rainbow panorama circular skywalk designed by Olafus Eliasson. Great views of the city can be seen and your view can be rose tinted if you want it to be.

Schmidt hammer lassen Architects

Building, Gallery, Museum, Denmark

Place | Arabia Helsinki

Aarhus City Hall

Other buildings in Aarhus that are worth a visit are Aarhus City Hall that was designed by architects Arne Jacobsen (famous for the egg chair) and Erik Moller. The decision to build a city hall was taken during a city hall meeting in 1937 and inaugurated in 1941. As one of just a few Danish city halls it was marked for preservation in March 1994 because of its unique architecture. On the first proposal the plans did not include a tower but due to massive public pressure it was later added to the drawings. The city hall has a total area of 19,380 m² including the basement. The tower is 60 m tall and the tower clock face has a diameter of 7 m. The building is made of concrete plated with 6,000 m² of marble from Porsgrunn in Norway. It is a building very much of its time and also has a sleek curving staircase inside

Arne Jacobsen, Erik Moller

City Hall, Denmark, Arne Jacobsen

In Hamburg, the former port area along the River Elbe is being transformed as part of a large scale regeneration project into a lively urban zone. Rather than produce a fixed masterplan a decision was made to adopt a flexible framework with basic principles and operationally manageable rules. 'HafenCity' is characterised by a metropolitan mix of living, culture, tourism, leisure and business and is set to become a lively waterside urban district. In the space of 25 years, eight sub-districts will be developed, proceeding from West to East.

KCAP Architects & Planners | LAN

HafenCity GmbH

Waterside, Large Mixed Use Development

Link | KCAP

Place | Masdar

Place | Brasilia

Place de la Motte

Place de la Motte, Limoges

Place de la Motte, together with Republic Square form the main square of the historical Castle District within Limoges. In the Middle Ages, there was a castle on a mound at this location giving the area its name. Today the square is one of the busiest in the city, with folk groups, associations and markets together with many shops and an underground car park.

Public Square

Place | Sheaf Square

Strasbourg Tram

The tram network in Strasbourg is an example of a successful introduction of a public transit system into a historic environment. Homme de Fer Station with its circular modern glass design is particularly impressive

Completed 1994

Tram, Station, Street

Nyhaven, Copenhagen

Nyhaven literally translated means 'new harbour'. It is a key tourist site within Copenhagen, providing a heritage waterfront with a range of bars, cafes and restaurants fronting onto the canal.

Place | Quayside

Copenhagen Waterfront

Modern waterfront development is a characteristic feature of Copenhagen, providing an extension to the historic core. Within this area is the Black Diamond, the national public library designed by Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Larsson. The library is monumental in scale and uncompromising in style, despite its setting in the context of historic waterfront buildings. This is typical of the architecture of Copenhagen of all ages; the buildings show a single minded belief in the architecture of their time, and the city is all the richer for it. The Black Diamond is one of a number of public buildings that have been completed in the last 15 years, including Henning Larsen’s Opera House of 2005 and the spectacular Royal Danish Playhouse by Lundgaard and Tranberg of 2008 which maximises its waterfront setting magnificently. Located opposite the Black Diamond is series of repeated contemporary commercial buildings with views through to a historic spire, one of many that are visible across Copenhagen’s skyline, punctuating an otherwise moderate scale environment of between 4-7 storeys.

Completed 2000s

Building, Waterside

Link | Node journal article: A tale of two cities…part one: Copenhagen

Manor of Eyrignac

Château d’Eyrignac

The Gardens of Eyrignac were begun during the eighteenth century by Louis-Antoine Gabriel de la Calprenède. The estate has have remained in the family and the gardens were re-created in the 1960s, making extensive use of clipped hedges and topiary. There is a long pool, parterre and rose garden

garden, france

Link | official site

Place | Jardin de Marqueyssac

Jardin de Marqueyssac

Les Jardins de Marqueyssac

The Marqueyssac gardens are on a hill overlooking the Dordogne River, with splendid views. The primary planting is boxwood hedging, with cypress and wild cyclamen. The box is more sculpted than clipped, with the organic shapes harmonizing with the landscape. The clipping is done, by hand, with only four gardeners and the planting dates from the nineteenth century. In the summer it is worth visiting in the evening when musical events are organised and the gardens are lit with hundreds of candles.

Gardens, France

Place | Manor of Eyrignac

BO01, Malmö, Sweden

BO01 is the first stage of the development of Västra Hamnen (The Western Harbour), in what has been designed as a contemporary highly sustainable development in Sweden’s third biggest city. BO01 has replaced redundant, contaminated industrial land, with a range of building uses from residential to commercial – most noticeable of all is Santiago Calatrava’s Turning Torso that towers above the area.

City of Malmö

Harbour, Post industrial, Architecture

Link | Sustainable Cities

Link | City of Malmö

Freiburg, Germany

‘Germany’s greenest city', Freiburg is a city where the drive for community engagement is high, with a strong co-operative movement and a wide range of community-owned or managed ventures. The city consists of high density, walkable neighbourhoods which are well served by public transport, a wide range of local facilities and a highly permeable network of pedestrian and cycle routes. The results are a noticeable lack of cars and a total absence of supermarkets from the city core and its neighbourhoods. Instead, a diverse range of shops and farmers’ markets provide amply for residents’ retail needs in close proximity to their home.

Green city, sustainable city

Journal | http://www.nodeurbandesign.com/journal/urban-design-2/freiburg-europes-most-sustainable-city/

Link | http://www.nodeurbandesign.com/journal/journal-entry/freiburg-germanys-ecological-capital/

Frieburg, Germany

Planning for the district started in 1993 and following three development phases, the project was completed in 2006. The site (38 hectares) is home to more than 5000 inhabitants and 600 jobs. The main goal of the project was to create a city district in a co-operative and participatory way, meeting ecological, social, economic and cultural requirements. The landowner, the City of Freiburg, is responsible for the planning and development of the site. This has been characterised by a 'Learning while Planning' principle allowing flexibility in reacting to development proposals and through extended citizen participation. A major achievement by the City of Freiburg has been to divide land into small plots and allocate it in preference to private builders and Baugruppen (co-housing groups). Although the development plan included some regulations for the design and layout of the homes, a variety of structures exists and builders have had the freedom to design and develop the homes they aspire to. Coherence is provided through the extensive use of ecological measures and the 'car-free' and 'parking-free' concepts of living. Perhaps the greatest strengths of the Vauban project are the ideas, creativity and commitment of the people involved and their common goal in creating a sustainable and flourishing neighbourhood.

Forum Vauban | Buergerbau | Baugruppen | Genova Housing Association | Students Union / SUSI

Freiburg City Council

Model Sustainable District

Bilbao 48001, Spain

Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao provides a significant contrast to the surrounding buildings which are generally five storeys in height and in the form of traditional perimeter blocks. It was built in 1997 adjacent to and has had over a hundred exhibitions and more than ten million visitors to its credit. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is an example of cultural regeneration which has attracted visitors to Northern Spain. The building is a sculptural work of art. It however does create limited activity onto the river frontage due to the amount of blank elevation.

Frank O. Gehry | Ferrovial

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Community Uses

Link | Guggenheim

City Lounge

Bleicheli Quarter, Saint Gallen, Switzerland

City Lounge is an outdoor living space in the centre of St. Gallen. Originally intended as a temporary installation to celebrate the pedestrianisation of the city’s business district, it was so popular, it became a permanent feature.

Pipilotti Rist & Carlos Martinez

Raiffeisenbank

Bleicheli Quarter

Link | http://architecture.mapolismagazin.com/carlos-martinez-st-gallen-city-lounge-st-gallen

Place de la Comedie

Place de la Comedie, Montpellier

Central Square in Montpellier with south facing cafes, transport interchange, fountain, event space

square, street

Place Gabriel Peri

Place Gabriel Peri, Bezier

Place Gabriel Peri is situated near the Hotel de Ville in central Bezier. The space incorporates a shared surface street which is defined by robust bollards allowing pedestrians to cross but keeping out motor vehicles. Innovative street furniture including a funky bus stop, lighting and seating all help to create a successful place.

Place | Allee Paul Riquet, Bezier

Allee Paul Riquet, Bezier

Central space in Bezier which connects the theatre to the north with the railway station and Parc de Poetes to the south. A double avenue of London Planes create a strong design providing shade in the summer and a great place for markets and other events. Roads either side of the pedestrian space allow both activity and access to bars and retail shops.

Street, square

Charles Bridge, Prague

Old Town Bridge, Prague

The Charles Bridge is a famous historic bridge that crosses the Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic. Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the beginning of the 15th century

Bridge, Prague

Arriving at the station in Collioure it is a short walk down the hill to the harbour. On the way down a simple black and white checkerboard at some key junctions helps to change the perception of these spaces making cars aware that they need to slow down and giving pedestrian greater priority. In the village itself clever use of materials give the illusion of narrower streets and greater pedestrian priority Grid paving patterns can be seen in the squares and these help to connect the spaces between buildings.

street, square

Place | Place Gabriel Peri

FRAC building

France has a long-held fascination with Japanese aesthetics, so it’s no surprise Kengo Kuma has become the country’s architect du jour. He was responsible for the contemporary FRAC art gallery in Marseille The structure’s footprint is a triangular shape wedged between existing buildings, with neighbours so close you can practically touch their drying laundry. To create the antithesis of museum-as-box, Kuma envisioned the visitors’ path like an extension of the sidewalk, wending its way up and around high-ceilinged exhibition halls and assorted other spaces. In the middle of the building, he gouged out a terrace eight metres in height. But the most striking feature is the pixellated façade. Crafted from 1,600 panels of rectangular glass hung at different angles and in varying degrees of opacity, it fractures the light and gives the building a sense of weightlessness

Building, Gallery, Marseille,

Les Docks are four former warehouses that were transformed by the architect Eric Castaldi. The building, which stretches for approximately 500m will eventually house 220 companies, employing in the region of 3500 people, together with additional residential units. The scheme is a high quality, heritage-led conversion of former warehouses which has sought to keep a number of historical features including vaulted ceilings. A pedestrian route connects through the entire scheme, which is broken up by a series of internal courtyards.

Eric Castaldi

building, waterfront, Marseille

Link | http://www.nodeurbandesign.com/journal/urban-design-2/marseille-capital-of-culture-2013-part-1/

Place | Cité Radieuse

Villa Mediterranee

Stefano Boeri Architects: a Spanish based practice designed the Villa Mediterrainee adjacent to Mucem. It includes a 36 metre overhang suspended 14 metres above sea level.

Stefano Boeri Architects

Building, Gallery, Marseille, Docks

Marseille Vieux Port

The pavilion was created by Norman Foster’s firm, Foster + Partners, in collaboration with the French architect and urban planner Michel Desvigne. The design is a single, ultra-thin stainless steel surface, held up by eight unadorned pillars and is a stroke of simple brilliance. For those approaching or just passing by, the pavilion will be nearly invisible, which is a good thing. The harbour, which is a World Heritage site, deservedly remains the star of the show.

Foster + Partners | Michel Desvigne

Marseille Provence Metropole

Pavillon, Marseille, Waterfront

Link | Foster

Place | Copacabana Beach

Cité Radieuse

Cité Radieuse is a building of international significance located within the city of Marseille in southern France. It is one of only a few examples of the Modernist Unité d'Habitation principle developed by Le Corbusier which promoted building at higher densities in order to free up space for the building to be set within a landscaped park. Cité Radieuse is a vertical mixed-use block designed to house 1600 people in addition to providing a school, a winter terrace, commercial office space and shops. A roof terrace provides community space, a café and a small paddling pool for children, together with a small gallery and shop for contemporary design.

Le Corbusier

Marseille, Corbusier, Building

120 67, Stockholm, Sweden

'The project's geographical context provided the basis for the development of the masterplan. The district's borders are naturally defined by a hilly nature reserve to the south and Hammarby Lake, which is the district's central focus, its "blue eye" and its most attractive public open space. Pedestrian boardwalks, quays and linear parks provide a varied perimeter to the waterfront and residents have access to boat moorings in the summer. Although Hammarby Sjöstad is located outside what is traditionally considered to be the perimeter of inner city Stockholm, the design is intentionally urban rather than suburban, and follows standards for Stockholm's inner city in terms of street width (18m), block sizes (70x100m), density, and land use. This traditional city structure has then been combined with a new architectural style that responds to its specific waterside context, promotes the best of contemporary sustainability technology and follows modern architectural principles, maximising light and views of the water and green spaces and using glass as a core material. The scale of development varies from four to five storeys along Sickla canal and 6 to 8 storeys along the main corridors. The spine of the new district is a 37.5m wide boulevard and transport corridor, which connects key transport nodes and public focal points, and creates a natural focus for activity and commerce. The ground floors of nearly all the buildings along this stretch have been designed as flexible spaces, suitable for commerce, leisure or community use. Additional opportunities for commercial uses are also provided through the intermittent placing of two-storey pavilions along the Sickla canal. Businesses that have located in the neighbourhood to date include fashion, electrical, interior, book and flower shops (20), cafés, restaurants and bars (24), health and beauty (15), general services such as launderettes and key cutters (8), a co-op supermarket, an art gallery and several estate agents. The residential districts adjacent to the main spine follow a grid structure with a semi-open block form, which allows for maximum light and views as well as providing open access to the courtyards of residential blocks. Most apartments have balconies, which provide overlooking onto the streets, waterfront walkways and open spaces. A network of varied parks, green spaces and walkways runs through the district. Where possible, the natural landscape has been preserved and has provided inspiration for the development. The original reeds and rushes remain along the waterfront, in between which secluded walkways out into the water have been built. Birch trees create the landscape for a beautiful waterfront park and rocky oak-woodland defines the edge of the district. The area is easily accessible by public transport and the creation of new road and tram infrastructure has been central to the development. There are four tram stops in the heart of Hammarby Sjöstad - the tram connects the area directly to the underground network and there are plans to extend the tram further eastwards to connect directly to one of Stockholm's main transport hubs. Three new bus routes and one night bus also serve the area. In addition to new bus and tram infrastructure, a free ferry link across Hammarby Sjö has been introduced. The ferry takes five minutes to cross the lake, and runs every 10 to 15 minutes from early in the morning until midnight. Bicycles can be taken on board. Finally, residents have access to a car-pool in the area. There are between 20 to 25 cars in the pool and 270 residents have joined the scheme to date. Community provision in the area includes a modern glass church building, two state schools (6-16 years), one private school, one pre-school and nursery, one GP practice, a library, a sports centre, a ski-slope, a football pitch and a basketball court.' CABE

White Architects | Nyréns Architect Firm | Equator and Erséus

Skanska | Family Housing | Swedish Housing

Link | White Architects

Museo di Castelvecchio

Verona, Italy

Widely considered to be one of Carlo Scarpa’s most important works, the renovation and re-installation of the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona demonstrates his ability to create sophisticated work within a complicated historical context. It is also one of the best examples of Scarpa’s sensitivity towards the nature of materials.

Carlo Scarpa

Link | http://www.carloscarpa.es/Castelvecchio.html

Place | Eden Project

Park Guell, Barcelona, 08024

Park Güell was an attempt to create a housing estate in a English landscape setting in the old village of Gràcia, Barcelona. Gaudi chose an uneven site covering a surface area of 15 hectares where 40 detached houses were to be built. Only two were actually completed, and Gaudí lived in one of them. It is now a museum devoted to the architect’s life and work. Gaudí built Park Güell between 1900 and 1914, using his urban-planning skills and building paths, arcades and viaducts that were fully integrated into Barcelona’s natural surroundings.

Antoni Gaudí

Eusebi Guell

Completed 1914

Urban Park, Barcelona

Link | Park Guell

Link | Project for Public Spaces

Place | André Citroën Park

Torre Agbar

Jean Nouvel’s Torre Agbar, a 38 storey phallic tower is located at Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes at the intersection of Avinguda Diagonal and Avinguda Meridiana in Poblenou. The use of bright and fractured colour panels references one of Barcelona’s greatest fathers, Antoni Gaudi, as indeed does much modern design in the city, however it is at night when this building truly comes to life. The nocturnal lighting of the building is a riot of colour, with flashes of blue, purple and red. The effect is strikingly beautiful.

Jean Nouvel, b720 Fermin Vazquez Arquitectos

Grupo Agbar

Completed 2005

Building, Skscraper

The Barcelona Pavilion

Barcelona, Spain

Designed for the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. This building was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It is an important building and landscape in the history of modern architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as marble, red onyx and travertine. It has inspired many important modernist buildings and landscapes.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Building, Landscape

Link | http://www.archdaily.com/109135/ad-classics-barcelona-pavilion-mies-van-der-rohe/

Place | Fallingwater

La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou

A hugely significant feature of Barcelona’s cityscape is the indelible mark left by the 1992 Olympics, from the athletes’ village at La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou including Hotel Arts, Casino Barcelona and Frank Gehry’s shimmering fish sculpture to the Olympic park itself at Montjuïc, presided over by the spectacular Montjuïc Communications Tower by Spanish architect and sculptor Santiago Calatrava. Today, the Olympic legacy is perhaps strongest at Barcelonetta, where two miles of man made beach was constructed on former industrial land, creating what has proved to be an enormously popular facility for residents and tourists alike.

Santiago Calatrava, Oriol Bohigas, David Mackay, Albert Puigdomènec

City of Barcelona

Completed 1992

Waterside, Olympics, Post industrial

Place | Sydney Olympic Park

Parque Madrid Rio, Madrid, Spain

Madrid Rio was an international design competition won by West 8 and a team of spanish architects. The challenge was to bury the M30 ring road around the old city into tunnels, the project was on a large scale. The design from West 8 for Salon de Pinos an area where the road was tunnelled put forward a completely landscape architectural project. The design used natural patterns of the flora from the Mountains oustide of Madrid and pine trees iconic of the natural areas of Madrid.

West 8 | Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos Asociados | Porras La Casta Arquitectos | Rubio & Álvarez-Sala

Municipality of Madrid

Urban Park, Transport Design, Competition

Link | Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos Asociados

Link | Rubio & Álvarez- Sala

Rialto Bridge

Rialto Bridge, Venice

The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is the oldest bridge across the canal, and was the dividing line for the districts of San Marco and San Polo

Bridge, Venice

Place | Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco, Venice

Piazza San Marco also know as St Mark’s Square is the principle square of Venice. It was constructed in the 9th century as a small square dotted with trees. The square was laid out in front of the original St. Mark’s Basilla, at the time a small chapel that was part of the Doge’s Palace. The square was separated from the palace by a small canal, the Rio Batario. Already a central gathering place for Venetians, the piazza was enlarged in 1174 after the canal and an adjoining dock were filled in. The square became paved with bricks in 1267 in a herringbone pattern. In 1735 the bricks were replaced with natural stone and laid in a more complicated pattern according to a design devised by architect Andrea Tirali. The design marked the location where merchants could set up their stalls.

Piazza, Square, Italy

Place | Piazza del Campo

Aiola/ Mur Island Bridge

Gratz, Austria

The island bridge was originally intended as a temporary project to celebrate the program of the European Capital of Culture in 2003 and to be subsequently sold and relocated to another river or city. However, the island became a landmark popular with local residents and an attraction for visitors to Graz and includes a cafe in the middle. It is made up of two interlocking spirals and includes a small amphitheatre. At night it is illuminated with blue lights. The artist behind the scheme is Vito Acconci who is based in New York.

Acconci Studio, Vito Acconci, Zenkner & Handl, Kurt Kratzer

Bridge, Graz,

Link | Acconci

Kunsthaus Graz

The Kunsthaus Graz knows as the friendly alien opened in 2003 to coincide with Graz title as European Capital of Culture. The biomorphous building designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier is very modern in form but appears to sit well within its historic context. At night the dark mass of the building is lit up on one its facades by a media wall consisting of large circles of light which can be programmed by an internal computer.

Peter Cook, Colin Fournier

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and has a population of 280 000 people. Slovenia became independent in 1991 having been previously part of Yugoslavia which also included Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montonegro and Macedonia. Ljubljana has gone through a number of transitions that have influenced its architectural heritage. The city architecture is a mix of styles. Despite the appearance of large monolithic buildings, especially at the city’s edge, Ljubljana’s historic centre remains intact. Although the oldest architecture has been preserved from the Roman period, Ljubljana predominantly inherited its urban form during the Middle Ages. The Triple Bridge was created in 1932 after the original Charles Bridge was considered too small and two pedestrian bridges were added. To make it feel as one, all three bridges were furnished with identical balustrades so that they would give the impression of three simultaneously built bridges.

Jose Plecnic | Edvard Ravnikar | Ivan Vurnik

City of Ljubljana

Public Space Capital City

Journal | Urban design in Ljubljana

Link | Slovenia.si

Link | Visit Ljubljana

Place | Place de la Motte

Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

The Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy. It is an integral part of the townscape of Florence and function as a place. It has a number of shops on both sides.

Bridge, Florence

Place | Le Murate

via dell'Agnolo, Florence

First a convent, then a prison, now a mixed-use development in the heart of Florence. The 13,000m2 site was built in 1424 to be used as a convent, but when the Benedictine nuns were ejected in 1845, the space was redesigned to house male prisoners. Le Murate (which translates to ‘walled up’) closed as a prison in 1983 due to overcrowding and the poor quality of the walls, and was left empty for more than ten years. A project was initiated in 1996 to revitalise the space, with plans being completed by 1998 by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The location of the space that was regenerated is interesting, as it is not a typically deprived district; it is successful in terms of tourism and gentrification, however the implications of the regeneration make the area more balanced in terms of opportunities. Over 13 years, development took place to create the complex, which includes public housing, parking, shops, restaurants, bars and open spaces. A series of urban passages have been opened up, new squares and public spaces have been made available, and pedestrian connectivity among main public places of the neighbourhood has been increased.

Renzo Piano

Municipality of Florence

Completed April 2011

Regeneration, Reuse, Social Housing

Link | The Florentine Article

Link | European Commission

City of Arts and Sciences

Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela

Link | Santiago Calatrava

Piazza del Campo

Sienna, Italy

The historic centre of Siena is a magnificent public space defined by the three main arteries that meet at the Croce del Travaglio. Houses and palaces follow one another in rows along the main streets, creating a characteristic urban space with certain notable elements. The Piazza del Campo, sited at the junction of three hills, is one of the most remarkable urban open spaces in all Italy. Its formation coincides with the growth of the medieval city and the assertion of communal power. Financial and commercial activities were concentrated halfway along the Via Francigena, the entire lengths of the present-day Via dei Banchi Sopra and Via dei Banchi Sotto, and the market-place proper was located in the Piazza del Campo. The space is famously used for a number of events including hosting the Mille Migla Rally and Palio di Siena a horserace that occurs twice a year on July 2nd and August 16th.

Council of Nine

Link | UNESCO World Heritage

Place | Ljubljana

puente del Alamillo

puente del Alamillo, Seville

The Alamillo Bridge spans the Canal de Alfonso XIII in Seville, allowing access to La Cartuja, an island between the canal and the Guadalquivir River. The bridge was constructed as part of infrastructure improvements for Expo 92, which was held on a large site on the island. Construction of the bridge began in 1989 and was completed in 1992. The bridge is of the cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge type and consists of a single pylon, counterbalancing a 200 m span with thirteen lengths of cables. The original intent was to build two symmetrical bridges on either side of the island.

Bridge, Spain

Link | Calatrava

Treehouse Hotel

Edeforsvägen 2A, 960 24 Harads

Tree hotel is located in Harads, near the Lule River, about 100 kilometers from Luleå airport not far from the Arctic Circle. In total seven treehouse are available to hire and from each you get a fantastic view of the Lule River valley. The Tree house are all unique in design and range from the cantilevered cabin, to the birds nest, a mirrored cube which reflects the forest, the blue cone (which is actually red) and a tree house which looks like a UFO. The latest designs include the dragonfly that sleeps four. Finally being Sweden the seventh tree house is a sauna.

Tree House, Sweden, Eco Living, Hotel

Link | Tree Hotel

Arabia Helsinki

Arabiakeskus Hameentie 135, Helsinki 00560 , Finland

Arabia is a mixed use district where old and new, nature and urban city collide. Historically it has been the heart of finnish creative design. At its centre can be found the Arabia porcelain factory built in 1871. The Arabia district is also famous for its culture, creative industries and higher education campuses. The Arabia factory, once the biggest ceramics factory in all of Europe, is a great example of Finnish industrial and design history and worth a visit. The Arabia products are characterized by a timeless beauty as well as high quality and functionality. The offerings are also highly appreciated, collectible and valued in Finland. The Northern parts of Arabia shore have recently been redeveloped into to a new housing district with 220 acre beachfront residential resort and marina. The coastal zone has also been made into a park.

City of Helsinki

Link | Arabia Finnish Design

Link | Design Museum

Link | City of Helsinki

Link | jfda presentation

Place | Hammarby

Villa Cimbrone

Villa Cimbrone stands on a rocky outcrop known as "Cimbronium", and it is from this landscape feature that the villa takes its name. The earliest references to the villa date back to the eleventh century AD, when the villa belonged to the Accongiogioco, a noble family. It later passed to the ownership of a wealthy and influential family, the Fusco, who are also recorded in 1291 as owning the local church of S. Angelo de Cimbrone. Villa Cimbrone is an old farmhouse in Ravello on the Amalfi coast with views over the Gulf of Salerno that was transformed into a fortified palace by English politician Lord Grimthorpe in the early twentieth century. Vita Sackville-West contributed to the current design of the garden, which is English in style but with views of the Amalfi coast. The garden is laid out along the clifftop and includes a Temple of Bacchus and Roman statues. The villa is now a luxury hotel.

garden, Italy

Jardin Majorelle

Marrakech, Morocco

Jardin Majorelle covers nearly two and a half acres on the edge of Marrakech, Morocco and includes collections of cacti, exotic plants and trees together with water features creating a haven of tranquility. Walkways through the garden allow visitors to see how the architectural style of the villa-studio, now transformed into a museum, is set off by vibrant colours dominated by its “Majorelle blue”.

Yves Saint Laurent | Pierre Bergé

Jacques Majorelle

Private Garden

Link | Jardin Majorelle

Place | Park Guell

Highline Park

210 10th Ave New York

Highline Park is New York’s contemporary alternative to the legendary Central Park. Built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the city’s streets, Highline Park advocates quality urban design and landscape architecture. Piet Oudolf’s planting is different to the norm, to an almost revolutionary level through his use of natural and prairie style planting. The award winning Highline Park has great potential to become New York’s next great landmark.

James Corner Field Operations | Diller Scofidio | Renfro | Planting designer: Piet Oudolf

City of New York

Link | Highline Park

Link | James Corner Field Operations

Journal | Planting a new perspective

Fallingwater

Bear Run Nature Reserve, Pennsylvania

A house that doesn’t even appear to stand on solid ground, but instead stretches out over a 30’ waterfall. It captured everyone’s imagination when it was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1938, being cited as Wright's "most beautiful job". It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and in 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the "best all-time work of American architecture."

Frank Lloyd Wright

Edgar Kaufmann

Building, Waterfall

Link | http://www.fallingwater.org

Place | Treehouse Hotel

Millennium Park

Millennium Park, Chicago

Millennium Park was an urban regeneration project transforming a large surface car park and neglected lawns into a national treasure full of public art, culture, music and excellent planting. Although the surface treatment is only half of it, the real transformation is the two massive car parks which now sit under the park, making the park one of the largest green roofs around. The park contains an iconic Frank Gehry building in the centre, with Anish Kapoor sculptures and others used throughout the park. The The Lurie Garden within the park, one of the main features is 3 acre oasis providing a peaceful place in a hectic metropolis, with soft perennial planting from expert Piet Oudolf.

Frank Gehry | Anish Kapoor | Jaume Plensa | Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd | Piet Oudolf

City of Chicago

Urban Park, Public Art, Planting Design

Link | Anish Kapoor

Link | Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Masdar City has been designed based on planning principals of traditional Arab settlements to create a desert community that aims to be carbon neutral and zero waste. The 640-hectare project is a key component of the Masdar Initiative, established by the government of Abu Dhabi to advance the development of renewable energy and clean-technology solutions for a life beyond oil. The city will become a centre for the advancement of new ideas for energy production, with the ambition of attracting the highest levels of expertise. Knowledge gained here has already aided the development of Abu Dhabi's 'Estidama' rating system for sustainable building. A mixed-use, low-rise, high-density development, Masdar City includes the headquarters for the International Renewable Energy Agency and the recently completed Masdar Institute.

Foster + Partners | Mott MacDonald

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company

Sustainable Community

Link | Foster + Partners

Link | Masdar

Place | HafenCity

Cathedral of Brasila, Brazil

Brasilia, a new capital was created in the centre of Brazil in 1956. It was a landmark in the history of town planning. Urban planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer intended that every element; from the layout of the residential and administrative districts (often compared to the shape of a bird in flight) to the symmetry of the buildings themselves – should be in harmony with the city’s overall design. The official buildings, in particular, are innovative and imaginative. It's success as a place has to be questioned due to its reliance on large scale modernism but it does include some iconic set piece architecture.

Lúcio Costa | Oscar Niemeyer | Roberto Burle Marx

Brazillian Government

Capital City

Link | UNESCO

Seonyudo Park

Seonyudo Park ecological park, used to be water treatment plant on Seonyudo Island in the along the Hangang in South Korea. An urban park which relates well to its industrial heritage utilising old features of the treatment plant and creating news areas like the aroma garden, a moss garden and a fern garden. There are walkways which take visitors on journeys through the park and museum dedicated to the Hangang River, and a 200-seat amphitheatre.

Seoahn Total Landscape | Johsungyong Architecture Office

Seoul Metropolitan Government

Urban Ecological Park, Post Industrial

Place | Zhongshan Shipyard Park

Xintiandi, Shanghai, China

Xintiandi, the site of the first congress of the communist party in China, is now a high-end mixed use development following major renovation in 2001. Uses are housed in restored "Shikumen" buildings - a special old form of building architecture only found in Shanghai - as well as state-of-the-art new buildings, catering for both residents and visitors.

Studio Shanghai

Shui On Land

Link | Studio Shanghai

Tianzifang, Shanghai, China

Due for demolition in 2006, a local community action group submitted for proposals to preserve this area of to preserve the traditional Shikumen architecture and ambience in the French Concession area of Shanghai, China. Today, Tianzifang is a favourite with tourists with over 200 small businesses filling the cosy lanes.

Residents | Local Businesses | Chen Yifei

Local community action group

street, area

Link | Rough Guides

Place | Xintiandi

Copacabana Beach

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Roberto Burle Marx, iconic landscape architect designed the Copacabana promenade with a simple yet effective pattern. The scale of this paving design was huge, stretching 4 kilometres. It was completed in 1970 using black and white Portuguese stone in a geometric wave pattern mosaic.

Roberto Burle Marx.

Completed 1970

Waterfront, Beach, Paving

Link | External blog post

Freedom Park

freedom park, pretoria, south africa

Freedom park was designed as a memorial and museum to reflect the sacrifices the nation has made and the reconciliation process they went through. The park is a visual and interactive story about South Africa's rich, diverse history spanning a 3.6 billion years. They narrated this by designing seven areas: Earth, Ancestors, Peopling, Resistance and Colonisation, Industrialisation and Urbanisation, Nationalism and Struggle, Nation Building and Continent Building the park also includes a Garden of Remembrance which acknowledges sacrifices people made for the freedom of the country.

Park, Memorial, Museum

Link | Freedom Park

Link | Green inc

Zhongshan Shipyard Park

Zhongshan, Guangdong, 528400

Zhongshan Shipyard Park is a memorial park to workers who used to work on the former shipping works. The design for the park mixes the historical context and current ecological themes. With a central axis walk way dissecting thorough the park, there are a series of buildings and structures throughout the park with most planting in the form of solid green hedges and trees. There are many parts of the old yard still intact and reinvented within the park.

City of Zhongshan

Urban Park, Shipyard

Link | Landezine

Henderson Wave Bridge

Henderson Road, Singapore

This pedestrian bridge is the highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore. It is 274 m long and is 36 m above the Henderson Road below. The stunning wave-like structure made up of seven undulating curved steel ribs that alternately go above and below its deck. The curved ribs form alcoves that function as shelters with seats within, making them nice places to sit Thousands of yellow balau wood slats were used to compose the deck. At night it is transformed by the way it is lit.

IJP Corporation, RSP Architects Planners and Engineers (PTE) ltd

Bridge, Singapore

Gardens by the Bay

18 Marina Gardens Drive Singapore 018953

Gardens by the Bay south is a 54 Hectare garden and park in Singapore. Grant Associates won the competition to masterplan the site. The garden highlights tropical horticulture and garden art, with mass displays of tropical flowers and coloured foliage, sculptural theme gardens with oversized topiary animals sculpted. There are huge vertical gardens in the form of 'Sueprtrees' large red towers with planting growing up and lit up at night and two large glasshouses which house the highest indoor waterfall in the world.

Grant Associates, Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Atelier One, Atelier Ten

National Parks Board

park, garden, sculpture, masterplan

Video | Vimeo - Gardens by the Bay

Place | Freedom Park

Sydney Opera House

Inaugurated in 1973, the Sydney Opera House is a great architectural work of the 20th century that brings together multiple strands of creativity and innovation in both architectural form and structural design. A great urban sculpture set in a remarkable waterscape, at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour, the building has had an enduring influence on architecture. The Sydney Opera House comprises three groups of interlocking vaulted ‘shells’ which roof two main performance halls and a restaurant. These shell-structures are set upon a vast platform and are surrounded by terrace areas that function as pedestrian concourses. In 1957, when the project of the Sydney Opera House was awarded by an international jury to Danish architect Jørn Utzon, it marked a radically new approach to construction.

Jørn Utzon | Ove Arup & Partners

NSW Government

20 October 1973

Opera House

Link | Jorn Utzon

Link | Sydney Opera House

Link | The Opera House Project

Link | UNESCO World Heritage Centre

Sydney Olympic Park

Sydney, Australia

Previous to Sydney winning the bid for the 2000 Olympic Games, the site in question was a “highly polluted post-industrial wasteland” which was transformed into a “425-hectare sustainable urban parkland”. From the start the developers were keen for sustainability to be the design driver, now, the park successfully provides examples and lessons for other urban areas that are trying to become more sustainable. More than one sporting venue has failed to create a lasting legacy for when the event has passed, however the Sydney Olympic Park Authority has made this a priority. The clearing up of an industrial wasteland for the sports venues has lead into an area of valuable infrastructure, diverse parklands and rich ecosystems. Alongside the Olympic venues, there are now other leisure facilities such as a skate park, gallery and theatre. Accommodation facilities have also invested here, such as Novotel and Ibis, accompanied by the Olympic Park’s own railway station and ferry wharf. To add to the sustainability factor, surrounding the infrastructure there is 430 hectares of green space and parklands inhabited by threatened species, protected marine vegetation and endangered ecological communities, this includes Bicentennial Park.

Bates Smart, Clouston Associates, Peter Walker Partners Landscape Architecture, Hassell, Bruce Mackenzie Design

Olympic Coordination Authority, Sydney Olympic Park Authority

Regeneration, Landscape, Sustainable Development

Link | Landscape Architecture Foundation

Link | Sydney Olympic Park Authority

Link | Sydney Olympic Park Guide

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The Development

Titanic Quarter offers a diverse range of uses across a fully assembled site in central Belfast.

Titanic Quarter on Belfast’s Maritime Mile has evolved from masterplan to reality as a thriving and bustling destination, where some 20,000 people live, work, visit and stay on a daily basis.

Over £640 million has already been invested in Titanic Quarter, delivering homes for over 1,000 residents, it is Northern Ireland’s leading visitor and leisure destination and generates 12,200 direct and indirect jobs for the city.

Titanic Quarter is currently home to over 100 multi-national companies, such as Citi, HBO, Amazon, Artemis Technologies and Catagen to name a few.

Olympic House , recently completed and now ready for occupiers, is the district’s most recent flagship office development built to a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard and does not use fossil fuels.

Construction of Loft Lines (778 new apartment homes) commenced in June 2023 and represents the largest ever private sector investment into housing in Northern Ireland. The construction of the Hamilton Dock Hotel (228 beds) started in December 2023. Both these projects will be completed in 2026.

Titanic Quarter’s ambition over the next 10 years is to increase the investment to £2 billion, create over £0.5 billion of social value, grow its residential population to over 9,000 residents and increase the number of direct and indirect jobs to 27,100.

Further Information

For further information, please contact:

Email [email protected] Call +44 (0) 28 9076 6300

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Geography case study - Titanic Quarter, Belfast

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7,500 apartments have been built such as the Arc (Located around Abercorn Basin with 747 apartments). These attract young professionals who can live close to work in the Titanic Quarter or walk to the CBD for jobs. This means that people can have a healthier lifestyle and save on transportation costs

Housing - Negatives

There are many unoccupied apartments in the Arc because only young professional people can afford these expensive apartments and they are out of the price range for a lot of local people

Employment - Postitives

Employment opportunities have increased with new service industries such as tourism in the Titanic Signature Project hotels and in modern technology and research

It is hoped that 20,000 new jobs will be created in the Titanic Quuarter such as the NI Science Park (employs 1,500 people) which will replace traditional jobs such as ship bulding in the past

Employment - Negatives

Local people will require more training in the new high technology and research centres in the area

Transport - Postitives

Public transport links were developed and dedicated bus services operated every 12 minutes from Wellington Place at peak times

Cycle and walking routes were developed (£5 million) to form part of the Comber Greenway improving recreational opportunities in the area

A pedestrian bridge was built across the River Lagan towards the CBD so people would walk to work

New glider bus service (introduced in September 2018) links CBD to Titanic Quarter so tourist could easily get to Titanic Hotel.

Transport - Negatives

The nearest train stop is a 30 minute walk away from the NI Science Park

Environment - Positives

Created landscaped areas and habitats e.g 1.5km lough-side walkway

Reduced carbon emissions by using energy efficient light fittings and solar heating in buildings e.g Titanic Studios

Derelict industrial sites have been cleaned up and decontaminated

Jobs, entertainment and living in the same area means people don’t need to use cars and their carbon dioxide emissions are reduced

Environment - Negatives

The new buildings have increased light pollution in the area since LED light buld have been installed, the starling murmuration at the Lagan Hospital has stopped

Increased tourism activities in the Titanic Quarter such as concerts at the SSe Arena and outdoor concerts on the spilways mean there is more litter in the area

Very costly - £385 million has been invested in the area

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