Regeneration of a City Centre Liverpool
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liverpool 1 regeneration of a city centre liverpool regeneration of a city centre Front cover; Liverpool One site boundary overlaid on the Designed by BDP city’s historic shoreline. (BDP). © 2009 BDP Produced by contents 2 Looking north towards the 3 Mersey Estuary – Liverpool One in the Heart of the City. introduction 4 1 a historical overview of liverpool 6 2 city regeneration 22 3 masterplan evolution 42 4 planning strategy 60 5 concept designs 70 6 the park 98 7 active streets 112 8 beyond 2008 128 epilogue 136 acknowledgments 138 introduction 4 by terry davenport It’s very rare to lead an undertaking that and fitted out in an eight year period plus, of undoubted impact that Liverpool One has had 5 transforms the fortunes of a great city. It’s course, all the enormous infrastructure works on the city, its visitors and proud inhabitants. even more unusual for that city to be your required for such an initiative. However, more importantly in these uncharted home town and place of birth. Because of The public support for the project times, the challenge to the industry is how my personal familiarity it has been a great was evident from the outset. So many to maintain the regeneration of our towns privilege for me to have led the Liverpool One disappointments over so many past years and cities under a quite different set of masterplan team, on behalf of Grosvenor, from meant that the public’s appetite for change was circumstances, circumstances which mean that the first day of the project. This publication is tangible. Grosvenor’s exemplary consultation for the UK at least the scale of Liverpool One’s the story of the masterplan’s evolution and the process engaged with the community at achievement will not be repeated for many subsequent design development process. every level. The overarching public mood was years to come. Aspiration levels, partnering In the summer of 1999 when the Paradise supportive, despite the recognised challenges agreements, delivery mechanisms, planning Street Development Area (PSDA) competition and inevitable disruption that lay ahead. and phasing strategies will undoubtedly was launched, Liverpool was undergoing its By any standards the Liverpool One project be rescaled to address the next chapter of first significant regeneration programme for has been a huge team effort, not least across development. BDP, with half a century of many years. To the south, in Speke, Liverpool BDP. Over 60 architects from BDP have worked experience and thought leadership, is well Land was progressing major improvements to on the project across four locations, plus the placed to respond to the new challenges ahead one of the city’s main arrival routes and in the partnering with our French associates - Groupe and we look forward to working in partnership city centre BDP was planning the Ropewalks 6 SA. Our role has included developing and with local authorities, developers, institutions regeneration initiative. However, prior to these monitoring the masterplan through the life of and contractors to continue our success in the undertakings, the city had witnessed a difficult the project, producing concept designs for six regeneration of cities, towns and public places. 20 to 30 year period when its reputation was buildings and progressing the executive delivery sadly forged not by the status of its wonderful of nine buildings through to completion; in total heritage but by strikes, unrest and political well over half of the project. Many successful upheaval. However, all that was to change collaborations were formed, not least through with the council’s drive for regeneration, the BDP and Pelli Clarke Pelli on the development selection of Grosvenor as the development of the ‘Pool and the Park’. The many technical . partner and their subsequent contribution to the challenges that faced the teams are not Terry Davenport. BDP Director city’s remarkable recovery. encompassed in this design led story but BDP’s The challenge for the project team was collaboration with Laing O’Rourke was key to enormous; to effectively rebuild a 42 acre swathe delivering a large part of the western side of of the city centre through a 2.4m sq ft mixed Liverpool One with Balfour Beatty also playing use retail led scheme thus leapfrogging the a significant role to the east. In addition, BDP’s city’s position in the retail hierarchy from a lowly landscape and lighting colleagues led a similar 17th national ranking to a top five position. At process across virtually the entire public realm, the same time, to develop the project in such a on the masterplan, concept and executive way that seamlessly linked the development to delivery fronts. the existing grain and street pattern of the city’s Ten years since the launch of the city’s remarkable heritage. All this to be ultimately initial brief, Grosvenor and the team can look i conceived, designed, approved, constructed back with pride at the achievement and the a historical historic influences Liverpool’s history has been shaped primarily 6 by its geography. For centuries, the city has 7 capitalised on its natural position at the mouth of the Mersey - from the port activities which catapulted its economy into prosperity, right overview of through to its latter-day regeneration at the water’s edge. Indeed, one of the major natural advantages Liverpool has is that it sits on the Mersey tidal estuary. The historic centre of Liverpool - the former site of the castle, where the crown courts are now located - was on a liverpool high point overlooking the estuary. Beneath it was a small creek. This was called, from the Old English, ‘Lifrigor pool’ or ‘muddy creek’ - the origin of the city’s name - where small ships would take refuge from the huge tidal surge. And so it began. Much of the city’s history is well documented, but there are a few key early milestones that are worth repeating. The first record of Liverpool as a settlement was 800 years ago on its foundation as a borough in 1207, when it was established by King John as a place from which he could embark to Ireland on his military forays. Connections to This page: Top; Liverpool the country have stayed strong ever since. Castle, circa 15th century, by It remained a relatively small place until Edward Fox. (LRO). the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth century, Left; Map of Liverpool, c1650 up until which point, in the age of exploration [Thomas Kaye, 1829]. (LRO). and maritime expansion, Bristol had been the major western port of Britain. Liverpool, though, was a focus for Atlantic trade - the triangular run between Africa, America and back again, and was also fundamental to Britain’s growing Empire. All of which meant that Liverpool started to establish itself very rapidly as a major 1 seaport, expanding initially to the south. maritime beginnings 8 A key date in Liverpool’s rapid upward economic masonry basin with a gate - it was the world’s exponentially, along with the rise of Empire and Opposite page: The 9 movement came with the development of its first commercial wet dock.’ aided by the fact that Liverpool was an Atlantic- Emerging City. Figures taken Old Dock. In 1708, Liverpool’s port authorities It was also a brave step on the part of the facing port. from the PSDA masterplan set up a committee to develop the port, and city fathers. ‘The burghers of Liverpool basically But it was the involvement of the city in illustrating the developing appointed Thomas Steers to advise on the had to mortgage the town to pay for this to be instigating these improvements, says Moth, street pattern and waterfront. building of a dock system. Steers was one built’, says Moth. ‘It was a very bold stroke, but it which proved to be the major catalyst. (BDP). Left: The Origin of of the first of England’s major civil engineers, paid dividends.’ Midway through the nineteenth century a Liverpool. (BDP). Right; having designed a series of canals, but his first The site of that old dock, the Liverpool Old separate body was set up - the Mersey Docks Liverpool as a commercial recommendation was to abandon the idea of a Dock, sits within what is the Paradise Street and Harbour Board - which built some 13 miles city, c1766. (BDP). canal system, and put forward the proposal to Development, or Liverpool One, today - some of of wet docks out into the river. The entire major convert the Pool into a commercial wet dock the remains of its old wall are still visible through dock infrastructure, starting with the Albert Dock, This page: Top; Ackerman’s controlled by floodgates. a special viewing window set into the ground on the Pier Head and all the docks north and south, view of Liverpool with Albert BDP architect director Ken Moth takes up site. The line of the old creek was where Hanover are all built out into the river on timber piles Dock in the foreground, the story: ‘Historically, if ports are affected by tidal Street winds down to meet the Strand. and feature massive masonry walls. ‘It was an c1847. (LRO / LCC). range, then a lot of the time they can’t operate Subsequently, more docks were built, until absolutely stupendous piece of engineering, the Bottom; John Eyres’ map because all the ships simply get grounded on by the 18th century, four wet docks were in like of which was not seen anywhere else in the of Liverpool with the PSDA the mud. So on the site of this muddy creek operation. Warehousing was also built, and nineteenth century’, adds Moth. ‘But it started project boundary overlaid, Steers proposed to build an impounded area, a as a direct result the trade in the city grew off on the Paradise Street site.’ c1765.