The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

REDEVELOPMENT IN BIRMINGHAM seeking to establish itself as a major The establishment of the new Department European centre. of Planning and Architecture at There they forged a new approach to the LOCAL PLANS Birmingham City Council in 1990 was one development of central Birmingham, an manifestation of the Council's commitment approach that should turn the city around to Urban Design. It followed closely on from being a place for cars to becoming a AND URBAN the Birmingham Urban Design Study place for people. The central issue was the (BUDS) completed by Francis Tibbalds in Inner Ring Road. This dual carriageway DESIGN April 1990 which, itself, was a follow-up to circuit with its grade-separated junctions LDR's Open Space and Pedestrian and pedestrian subways had proved to be a Framework report of 1989. The creation of "concrete collar" around the central core of Centenary Square is the first product of this the city. Land and property values inside Les Sparks new approach to development in the collar soared, whilst outside it there was Birmingham. severe dereliction and lack of investment. For many years Birmingham had been Movement across the Inner Ring Road, associated with the now discredited either on foot or by car was severely methods of redevelopment practised in the impeded, and the long dark and dangerous 1960's and 70's. Renowned for pursuing pedestrian subways are simply intolerable. its objectives with a singular vigour, The American consultant. Don Birmingham built more residential tower Hilderbrandt of LDR, was at Highbury and blocks than any other city outside London, was subsequently commissioned by the completed its motorway style Inner Ring City Council to develop his ideas for the Road and ruthlessly swept away large areas Inner Ring Road. In his subsequent study of Victorian development to create those he proposed downgrading the capacity of renowned monuments to the period, the the road by the replacement of subways Bull Ring Shopping Centre, the Rotunda with "pelican crossings". He recommended office block, and the subterranean New that it be converted into a series of Street Station. boulevards, with widened pavements, tree planting, and direct access to new buildings THE HIGHBURY INITIATIVE fronting onto the road. Developing the All these developments lacked the rich Highbury philosophy, he prepared a new urban quality of the streets and the public framework of pedestrian routes through the and commercial buildings created in Joseph central core and across the Ring Road into Chamberlain's time. It was at the various and distinctive inner city Chamberlain's former mansion home, quarters surrounding it. Highbury, in 1988, that an international group of people from the arts, politics, and BIRMINGHAM URBAN DESIGN STUDY city planning met to review the state of The LDR study was complemented by the Birmingham City Centre and consider Urban Design Study carried out by Francis future options. Tibbalds. This set down a vocabulary of Les Sparks is an architect and town There they seized upon the key design principles for development in the planner and is the Director of Planning relationship between economic activity and City Centre, directed at making it safer, and Architecture at Birmingham City environmental quality. The aim was to more comfortable, convenient, attractive and more legible. Council. He was previously Director of create such an attractive environment in the City Centre that it drew further activity Birmingham is not an easy centre to Environmental Services to Bath City unto itself thereby creating a virtual upward "read". It does not have a major waterfront Council from 1980 to 1991 (during which spiral of enhanced economic activity and or a simple street pattern. Its geography time he was involved in the enhanced environmental quality - each has been further obscured by the intrusion establishment of the English Historic feeding off and reinforcing the other. Put of high buildings, by confusing subway Towns Forum) and before that was in these terms the question ceases to be systems, and by multi-level and decked Project Manager for Telford "can we afford to incur expenditure upon structures which obliterate the natural environmental improvements and quality" topography. Development Corporation's but rather, "can we afford not to do so"? The Urban Design Study identifies conservation programme in the Severn The answer was inescapable for a City important views and landmarks to be Gorge. reinforced in the pattern of new

33 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

development. It makes the case for "gateway" buildings and buildings with strong architectural character on corner sites and junctions. It argues for new development to respect the city's natural topography, for high buildings to be located along the central ridge to identify the central core of the city, and for pedestrians to move about at ground level in preference to decks and subways. REA VALLEY Tibbalds deplored those developments JEWELLERY COLMORE ROW QUARTER CONSERVATION GENERALLY which present a blank wall or car park CONSERVATION AREA GENERALLY 2-4 STOREYS grilles at ground floor level, and called for AREA 4-6 STOREYS GENERALLY active uses both to enrich the pedestrian 2-4 STOREYS CITY CORE RIDGE GENERALLY environment and enhance the informal UP TO 8 STOREYS, SOME TALL "policing" of the street. He also called for BUILDINGS IN STRATEGIC LOCA- the re-establishment of an urban structure TIONS in the form of streets and squares. Post-war redevelopments had generally ignored the street, siting new high rise buildings within cleared sites and surrounded by open spaces which are uncomfortable and unattractive - neither intimate and sheltered nor imposing and grand. The study shows £S> how many of these spaces can be a NEW developed, reclaiming the land to beneficial TOWN GUN U ASTON \\ use and re-establishing the lost geometry of QUARTER n TRIANGLE * the city's streets and "outdoor rooms". Open spaces should be threaded along % J, pedestrian routes, designed to create a JEWELLERY comfortable microclimate, and enriched a QUARTER - with attractive paving, planting, lighting and public art. USUSTPAULS!TT PAULSFPAULSfH l N^ CURZON The Urban Design Study also identifies STREET many opportunities for reinforcing the ^ a CITY $ particular character and identity of CORE Birmingham, and the distinctiveness of the various quarters surrounding the central % core-. Foremost amongst these M opportunities is the extensive network of QUARTER ^ r^CHINESEvtfnciGBETH canals threading their way through and around the City Centre. Largely hidden & ^ ^OLLIDAtfMj ~TS U from public view behind decaying UOVWOOOQ QUARTER^ QL industrial buildings, these waterways represent the City's greatest opportunity, together with the conservation of a wealth of fine Victorian architecture, to transform „ LEE BANK ^ Q HIGHGATE Birmingham's image in the eyes of the ^ 0 world. 0 LOCAL PLANS The Unitary Development Plan for the City makes broad reference to the objectives in the Urban Design Study set within the overall strategy for the City Centre. This

34 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Local Plans and Urban Design

strategy envisages the expansion of central area activities beyond the Inner Ring Road, permeating the surrounding quarters out to the Middle Ring Road. It sets out the Metro station-relate scale new built form programme for enhanced public transport, andform t o locality to match existing including a new light rail system - and the complementary restraint of motor traffic. It makes the case for a diversification of activities in the City Centre, particularly the skyline feature and public open growth of leisure activities, hotels, and space at Hockley Centre residential accommodation to maintain a city centre population around the clock and reverse the post-war trend towards a new development 6.00pm "curfew" when the shops and with corner feature offices close down. In general terms the UDP strategy is directed at attracting people and activities back into an expanding City Centre. Specifically in relation to Urban Design, the UDP contains the following statement : "In general terms development should : (a) Reflect the scale, massing, materials, height and density of buildings which are specific to that locality, and which emphasise the unique characteristic of the various quarters in the City Centre. In some special circumstances high rise development providing a landmark building of exceptional architectural quality may be appropriate. These should be limited in number and restricted to those locations necessary to orientate or terminate key views. (b) Be human in scale and capable of incremental construction thereby <>J avoiding monolithic redevelopment. link to Great (c) Emphasise and where appropriate Charles Street reinstate street frontages. Ground floor activity consistent with a pedestrian gateway buildings environment should incorporate lively

gateway feature mixed uses but strictly avoid car parking fronting the street. Corner features should link to Civic Centre be developed as markers and should help opportunity for restore frontage feature buildings/ link to Convention Centre area to define the street boundary. new space to Sand pits landmarks (d) Reflect and reinforce the natural topography of the City Centre, emphasising the City Core and the ridge which runs from Five Ways through to Extracts from Birmingham Design Study Aston University. Top left: Diagrammatic section NW to SE showing how buildings in the valleys could (e) Enhance orientation and legibility by be kept to a smaller scale and in the core and on the ridge higher landmark creating gateway developments, landmarks and features at principal points buildings could denote the heart of the city centre. of access into the City Centre. Bottom left: Areas of different character. (f) Improve pedestrian movement by Above: Townscape opportunities in the Jewellery Quarter. providing route markers, landscaping.

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 35 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

street level activity and by allowing easy looking at specific topics such as Centrepiece of Victoria Square will be a physical and visual linkages between the remodelling the Inner Ring Road, large water feature, exploiting the levels of various quarters in the City Centre. introducing housing into the centre, car the site to provide two large pools linked Moreover buildings and open space parking strategy, enhancing and developing by a cascade. The Indian artist, Dhruva should be clearly expressed even at night the canal network. As lead Chief Officer Mistry, is producing bronze figures for the time. for the City Centre. I have within the two pools and stone sculptures to stand (h) Contribute to a softer City Centre by Department a City Centre Planning Team alongside. incorporating public open space and (as part of the Urban Design Division) landscaping elements particularly along which deals with project management and THE SOUTH BIRMINGHAM PROJECT the main pedestrian routes. development control. I have also recently The South Birmingham Study is a very (i) Enhance the quality of existing buildings appointed a City Centre Manager to act as different project. The Council had been by means of upgrading facades, the focal point for communication between under pressure to come forward with improving street frontages and shop the public, private and voluntary sectors proposals for increased highway capacity to design and by the use of consistent street such as the Council, police, retail and accommodate traffic from the newly furniture." business community. A group of senior completed M40. It pulled out for public But a Unitary Development Plan for a city Chairmen, including the Leader of the consultation the Engineers' longstanding of one million inhabitants is essentially a Council, meet monthly as an informal plans for a dual carriageway along the A34 broad-bnish structure plan. The Steering Group to give political support and radial route from the outer suburbs to the embodiment of urban design principles is direction to this programme. A specific Middle Ring Road. This is the old emerging more strongly in the local budget for City Centre Enhancement with a Stratford Road which passes through the planning frameworks, development briefs rolling three year programme has been Inner Suburbs of Sparkhill and Spark brook and development control activities of the established under the management of the with their predominantly Asian City, and in the processes by which these Planning Committee which acts as client communities. Stratford Road is a linear are pursued. for major projects involving a number of shopping centre serving these communities Departments. along its considerable length. The dual IMPLEMENTING URBAN DESIGN carriageway would have demolished Urban Design is essentially a corporate, THE CITY CENTRE PROJECTS property along one side of the road and interdisciplinary activity. The combining Two such projects are the current destroyed it as a shopping centre. Public of architects and planners in the new pedestrianisation work and the series of reaction was predictable and the scheme Department has given this process a schemes to remodel the Inner Ring Road. was abandoned. valuable impetus. Architects are now The pedestrianisation of New Street and Instead my Department is now leading on routinely brought into all planning work at Victoria Square follows the principles of an interdepartmental local planning project the local scale through the establishment of the LDR study and completes the first which examines the traffic issues within a project teams to work on area studies, and major pedestrian route from the new wider brief. This shows that, with careful the identification of consultant roles within Centenary Square, across a remodelled urban design, it may be possible to have the the Department for planning control. section of the Inner Ring Road, through the best of both worlds. By classifying Inter-departmental teams are established core area to the Bull Ring. The sections of the A34 as "High Road" or to tackle urban regeneration in a redevelopment of the Bull Ring by London "High Street" it is possible to identify areas comprehensive way (through Integrated & Edinburgh Trust will eventually continue where traffic interests can predominate and Area Initiatives). These exercises bring the route out across the Inner Ring Road to those where they should be subservient. In together the physical planning with the the markets area. the "High Street" it should be possible to economic, educational and social issues. The work is being project managed by keep the traffic moving by carving lay-bys Urban Design is seen to have an important my City Centre team, with the landscape for parking and servicing out of the role in the Council's current City Challenge architects in the Department of Recreation generously wide pavements and by the bid and takes its place alongside wider and Community Services as lead designers stricter prohibition of parking within the policy considerations including aspects of on this occasion, supported by the City road space. This should ensure four lanes political devolution and decentralisation of Engineers Department. Centrepiece of the for traffic of which the two inner lanes Council services. project is the creation of the new Victoria could become bus-only lanes. The But to concentrate specifically on urban Square - a central Civic Space overlooked free-flowing traffic would be subject to design I will focus on two areas of work, by the Council House and Town Hall. calming measures with wide "speed tables" the City Centre and the South Birmingham Previously never more than a busy traffic at the main pedestrian crossing points. Study. junction and a grass slope where a church Environmental enhancement and building refurbishment should follow the The City Centre philosophy, described once stood, the removal of traffic provides abandonment of the former road already, is being pursued through a series the opportunity to create a grand and improvement lines and the release of a of inter-departmental working parties formal space as a central focus for the City.

36 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 blight which has affected this route since 1913! An appraisal of the route has led to the identification of the key buildings in architectural, historic or townscape terms which must now be carefully retained for posterity.

CLOSING THE GAPS Birmingham is now on course to carry through a wide programme of urban design work. Successful implementation of these projects depends upon co-operation amongst a range of professionals in different Departments of the Council working to common objectives. This can be an enjoyable and rewarding process, but it also requires a great deal of negotiation, persuasion, and considerable tact and diplomacy. Nevertheless the basic urban design objectives are easily understood and shared: creating an attractive and safe public environment; designing new buildings which are appropriate to their context; ensuring city centres are constantly occupied by securing a range of activities including residential accommodation; preserving buildings and links with the past; replacing the pollution and congestion of motor traffic with improved public transport; these are not the exclusive preserve of any particular profession, but can only be achieved by different professions working together. There is also a role for the visual artist, as demonstrated by Tess Jaray's work in Centenary Square. The poor quality of so much post-war development is attributable to the conceptual and operational gaps between architects, planners, landscape architects, developers, engineers, valuers, surveyors and others with an input into the design of urban areas. On an earlier occasion in Cardiff - the RTPI Conference of 1988, the then President of the Institute, Francis Tibbalds, chose as his presidential theme - "Closing the Gaps". This is what we are trying to do in Birmingham. •

Top: Part of the canal network Middle: Analysis of the Broad Street - Suffolk Street area Bottom: Proposals for enhancement. m

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 37 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

I came with two convictions : the crucial tells you that that is their fear and what it significance of the human scale in our cities is they care about. These artefacts we and the need to promote a highly defined as "fixedfactors" around which we PEOPLE AND CARS participatory style of decision making. I had to plan change. remember being asked at many of the Happily the people of Cardiff have had a hundreds of public discussions I attended shared vision about the direction we have how I measured the good city ? I used to taken these past decades. That is the value reply that the city ...."should give pleasure of public involvement. I suppose the Ewart Parkinson and convenience to its citizens and Cardiff Barrage is the first major surprise and delight to strangers." development project which has been Three decades later I still hold these divisive to our community. I say that, not convictions. Indeed, I believe they are to support or oppose it, but to highlight the widely held in Cardiff and that they have remarkable consensus that has underpinned withstood the practical tests of time and our development strategies and which has experience. survived changes in political control. Cardiff central area now has the twin I see the conflict between people and characteristics of being highly compact and vehicles as the most destructive force on with a pedestrian dominated environment. the quality of our urban environment. Our A series of superb shopping arcades public realm - our public spheres, our inherited from the turn of the last century public province, our public domain - has has been supplemented by new arcades, become the vehicle realm. We need to malls and pedestrian streets to create a tackle that obscene heresy with all the complex network of pedestrian routes and talent and commitment we can muster; and places. I do not believe in compromises. I spent But these characteristics have not been nearly ten years arguing for the removal of achieved without continuous dialogue (I am all vehicles - including a hundred buses an trying to avoid the word argument) between hour - from Queen Street. That was the dozens of organisations which have a necessary to transform it from a traffic valid and understandable interest in the street into a social place. centre of the city. The heart of any major city is an incredibly complex organism -"an THE TIME DIMENSION organised body with connected When we seek to improve the quality of the interdependent parts sharing a common public realm, we need infinite patience and life" Like a skilled surgeon, one interferes persistence. We need to think carefully with this organism only after a great deal of about the dimension of time. Changes can The theme, the Practice and thought and care and then only with the occur in ten years which are incapable of Implementation of Urban Design, are utmost delicacy and sensitivity. being achieved in five years. We need time issues Ewart Parkinson has been not only to prepare the strategies and to involved with since he came to Cardiff URBAN CHANGE discuss the implications with all those as the first City Planning Officer in the The first stage in the management of urban affected - for good or ill - by those early 1960s. Encouraged by the then change is to work towards some common strategies. We also need time to find the financial resources. But, above all, we embryonic Welsh Office, the City shared vision of the future. Perhaps "strategy" is the right word. But I think I need time to gain credibility. In the course Council decided to appoint a City prefer a "sense of direction" as the phras£ of a long life in managing urban change, I Planning Officer because of the concern to describe this shared vision. Inevitably have come to the conclusion that if the they shared that Cardiff was suffering in much of the detail will remain shrouded in ideas are right then the money will not economic, social and environmental the mists of the future. But some detail present really fundamental problems. But terms. This in turn had led to a City needs to be examined at the outset. We the gaining of credibility for those ideas can become a really phenomenal task. Council with little confidence in the looked at buildings, places and streets which represented our heritage; not future of its city. We can afford to be patient and persistent necessarily listed or scheduled by the because cities have a long life and are very Colin Buchanan was also appointed, cognoscenti, but loved by the people of the durable organisms. Twenty years in together with W.S. Atkins and Economic city. You can soon tell what people love achieving fundamental economic, social Consultants, to work as part of a team in by their questions which illuminate their and environmental change may seem a long forming some vision of the future. fears. "Are you going to pull down ....?" time from the perspective of the individual.

38 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 From the perspective of the living organism Right: Queen Street pedestrianised of the city it is but the twinkling of an eye. Middle: Church Street before and after I remember when a major Queen Street pedestrianisation bank said it could not possibly agree to removing vehicles because it was a major Bottom: Trinity Street before and after cash centre serving the region and security pedestrianisation vehicles needed to call there throughout the day. It took two years of negotiations to get agreement on the cash centre being relocated - at considerable expense - to another office. A few years later the bankers were talking to me saying that this had released valuable banking space and provided greater efficiency in their cash handling. Everyone benefitted. People need time to adjust to new ideas; if this time is not allowed then the project, like a ship, can build up a huge bow-wave of resistance that can swamp the project. I am not one of those who campaign against the motor car : I can see its remarkable contribution to the quality of life. But if our urban living is to be urbane, then cars and indeed all vehicles, must be eliminated from our key public spaces. One critical feature of our inter-connected pedestrian network in Cardiff is that it is all on the same level. Push-chairs, wheel-chairs and people with disabilities can move right across the central area and enter shops, toilets and public spaces without kerbs or steps. This has taken twenty years to achieve : it began with a conference on planning for the disabled, the elderly and mothers with young children held in central Cardiff in 1971. Finally, I make a plea for quality in our surroundings. Assessing whole-life costs, rather than initial costs, will assist us in selecting materials of quality for our Pavings, our street furniture, our public art. Never let the vandals win : reinstate and repair faster than the vandals do their damage. I conclude with a final simple plea to look at urban design, land-use and traffic with one synoptic vision. My experience at Cardiff and now with W.S. Atkins testifies to the simple I ruth that if the people are to have a public realm which is convenient and pleasant for its citizens and a surprise and delight to strangers then the trilogy of design, land use and traffic has to be handled with vision, sensitivity and patience without end. • The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

I write as an architect in private practice Urban Design in modern Britain happens in the small Welsh border town of more or less by accident. Growth and Abergavenny, where I have seen continuing renewal of the urban fabric proceeds URBAN DESIGN change (and progressive degradation) in the piecemeal by the development of individual urban fabric during the twelve years in sites. The planning framework consists of which I have lived and worked there. From structure and local plans which are verbal FOR SMALL this experience it appears clear to me that and abstract rather than visual. Urban-scale the creation of good urban places must design decisions are rarely co-ordinated and TOWNS involve a much more positive role for usually are made by default. No public planning. agency is responsible for consideration of Towns must be viewed as physical the formal and visual characteristics of artefacts rather than just as abstract systems settlements as a complete artefact - this has Richard Parnaby of functional and social relationships: they certainly been the case in Abergavenny. must be deliberately designed. The design Every new building that is created and of towns is a public responsibility which by every modification to a building is set in a its very nature cannot be left in the hands physical context. The abstract system of of the private sector. The consideration of development plans and other "material the formal and spatial qualities of urban considerations" may be seen as the legal places should be an integral part of a and administrative context to which acts of "plan-led" development process. The only development also respond. There are, of agency that is in a position to address urban course, also cultural and economic contexts design issues is the local planning - which are concerned, on the one hand, authority; the most appropriate tool the with issues of (among many others) It is commonly agreed that the British local plan. While I recognise that the role architectural style and, on the other, with statutory planning system has been of a local plan is to set out the policy financial viability, resource allocation and building economics. The public realm is outstandingly successful at protecting framework of development control I believe that the visual quality of urban shaped by the decisions of all the the countryside from urban sprawl. The places cannot be improved unless the plans participants in the development process: complex arrangements for the produced by local planning authorities developers, designers, planners, politicians preparation of plans, development include explicit guidance on the form of and consumers. All these are urban control, appeals and the protection of future development in relation to the designers. But urban design is rarely an historic buildings constitute an existing urban fabric. It may be that explicit goal. I suggest that there is a need for a more deliberate approach to shaping effective, if cumbersome, means of changes the scope of local planning which may be inconsistent with the values of a urban artefacts. A starting point for that making decisions about the location and pluralistic market -orientated society. deliberate design effort is the existing arrangement of development. However Perhaps I should not hanker for orderly, statutory planning system. few would claim that this administrative beautiful towns but rather learn to love the system has been instrumental in messy variety of the urban scene celebrated ABERGAVENNY by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown creating coherent attractive urban Abergavenny, a town which, although it in 'Complexity and Contradiction and places. Not only has it failed in large retains much of its pre 1939 fabric, has Learning from Las Vegas' or 'The Collage cities which have been subject to experienced rapid change since the second City' identified by Colin Rowe and Fred world war - during the time that the modem extensive redevelopment; but it has also Koetter. It may be that my reactions planning system has been in operation. The failed even to maintain the visual represent an irrational nostalgia for change continues, slowed, temporarily, by qualities of our small towns and villages picturesque order or is simply an recession. Much of the ancient fabric was anachronistic view, out of tune with current where changes have generally been destroyed in the name of slum clearance cultural realities. Perhaps I should learn to incremental and small in scale. It is true and modernisation in the sixties; more was love the more difficult approach of the new that statutory procedures have helped to destroyed in the name of economic economic order. preserve some of our most important regeneration in the eighties. The new fabric is, at best, architecturally undistinguished old buildings and districts through the and unresponsive to established formal listing of buildings and the designation WHAT IS URBAN DESIGN? For the present purpose I understand the relationships. of conservation areas but the system term "urban design" to mean "the process This small market town lies on the banks has proved itself incapable of creating by which the public spaces of a town come of the Usk in Gwent. Tourist guides call it. good new urban places. into being, are modified and maintained". with some justification, the "Gateway to

40 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Wales". It remains a market town serving a wide area of the Border Country of north Gwent and south Herefordshire. Overlaid on that agricultural inheritance is a modern *W st •B-- economy dominated by health care - the | ESTABLISHED I town's three hospitals, taken together, are I m the largest employer. There is also some Jt 33• F light industry and a thriving shopping B centre. There is a considerable population i 18 7 0 33 'MI of commuters who work in the former • mining towns of the South Wales valleys H—'1 PMHMHBHHHNHNHHNHI 3 1MM and the coastal urban centres of Cardiff and T Newport. BROS. 1L -«? ... 1 The pattern of urban growth in JSK VALE Abergavenny is typical of many small towns in the U.K. The urban core evolved in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on river terraces on the north bank of the Usk - a town site occupied since Roman times. There has been extensive peripheral residential expansion in the twentieth century - but firm planning policies have ensured that there is still a clear urban edge. In the last thirty years the process of redevelopment of the core has accelerated - recent projects have been on much larger sites than was typical of building in earlier times. In the mid 1980s a number of disused and underused sites immediately adjacent to the town's main shopping streets were assembled by the Land Authority for Wales (LAW). The resulting site was seen by Potential commercial developers as large enough to accommodate a viable shopping development. This is unexceptionable: LAW has carried out the task for which it was created - assembling a viable site for commercial development to revive the local economy. Unfortunately the built result - commercially successful as it has been - is an urban design disaster. The form ignores local topography and the tectonic character of the surrounding town; serviceable and attractive traditional buildings were unnecessarily demolished (see top two Photos) to make way for the new buildings. The architectural "treatment" of the scheme 's entirely foreign to the local context and the huge size of the development in relation to the town emphasises the negative impact the scheme. Now the town is faced with proposals for |arge peripheral retail development '"eluding a suggestion that the thriving

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 41 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

livestock market be moved from its There is scope for lengthy debate on the long-standing town centre site to an edge of details of its contents but that debate can, town location with more convenient road given the current concerns of access. In addition major road proposals institutionalised planning and planners, will fundamentally affect the perception of only be on matters of abstract policies the town in its spectacular setting in the which deal with the location and density of Vale of Usk, flanked by the Blorenge to the development, car parking provision, the south and the Black Mountains to the alignment of roads and so on. north. None of these proposals appear to If the qualities of towns as architectural have been considered in relation to their experiences are a legitimate goal of unique urban setting by their designers; planning, plans must include guidance on there were no substantial urban design formal and visual matters. An urban design policies in the relevant development plans component of a local plan should include: against which they could be judged. This is • Analysis of existing building typology not to suggest that the developments should • analysis of urban spaces and the not take place; that the town should forever structure of the public realm. remain as it was the day I first saw it. • Identification of development and urban Rather it is to suggest that new design opportunities - for example development has both positive and negative preservation and creation of important effects on the quality of the place. Most if views and definition of new urban spaces. not all the benefits of recent projects have • Design of a coherent system of been non- visual (the arrival of Safeway, pedestrian and cycle routes. more convenient vehicle circulation and • Guidance on building form in a more extensive pedestrianisation). The rationalistic typological way rather than visual and formal effects have been in terms of architectural style: a model generally negative - intrusive architectural may be found in the Pattern Language design, unsympathetic to local building approach of Christopher Alexander. traditions and not bringing the best of • Guidance on the design of paving and newer design ideas to town. A serious street lighting. modern or even post-modem work might • A co-ordinated policy for open space, have been acceptable. Above all huge tree planting and wildlife habitat. capital sums have been spent and in the process great opportunities have been lost. CONCLUSION We have no new urban spaces of any Planning has retreated from its Utopian quality; no consideration has been given to roots - for good reasons. However, I submit the creation of a network of pedestrian and there is a place for more vision within the cycle routes; the new developments have local planning system - without not taken the lead in providing better public compromising the status of development lighting, tree planting or the opening of plans as policy documents mediating significant vistas. between the various conflicting forces which shape our towns. The urban AN URBAN DESIGN COMPONENT FOR environments which we admire tend to be THE LOCAL PLAN either historic towns which were the Existing development plans are essentially product of a homogeneous culture, limited concerned with controlling development technology, locally produced materials, and and preserving existing qualities rather than incremental development process based on proposing a vision of possible future form. locally generated capital (Venice, the The Abergavenny Local Plan - and its British market town or the old towns of successor now under consideration the Holland) or environments that were created Monmouth Borough Plan - is typical in that by powerful autocratic, commercial or its only images are Ordnance Survey bureaucratic organisations in which design extracts overlaid with two dimensional was centralised and the development "proposals". Much of the content is process closely controlled (the Paris of sensible, indeed essential. Haussman, Georgian London or the early Garden Cities). We live in a pluralistic

44 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Urban Design for Small Towns

society with a varied and extensive technological resources, cheap energy, and concentrated capital. This tends to result in relatively large developments in styles that are determined hy a nationwide or international culture and materials that are widely distributed. The challenge for urban designers is to devise a development control process that puts design - the consideration of formal and visual qualities of places - nearer the top of its agenda. Urban design must be a matter for the administrative and bureaucratic process, for politically controlled state power - and community power. •

Top: View of Abergavenny in its spectacular setting in the Vale of Usk. Right: Built form of Abergavenny before u-c? „ (on the left) and after recent commercial development (on the right).

Richard Parnaby is an architect and partner in the practice of Brown and Parnaby formed in Abergavenny, Wales in 1980. He has worked in private practice in Liverpool and Vancouver, Canada. He is a member of RIBA Council and the Institute's Membership B®5 and Environment and Energy Committees.

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 43 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

When asked to make a presentation on The THE WORK AND APPROACH Public Realm and Urban Design, I gave Llewelyn-Davies Planning are consultants myself this title. I wish I had not, and I do in planning, economics and development. BIG SITES - not intend to stick too closely to the theme. This is important because, although we Nevertheless, the reason for the frustration have architects and landscape architects is relevant. A client had required a plan for within Llewelyn-Davies, the range of social ARCHITECTURE an area of inner-city wasteland of planning, economics, landscape, considerable size. It had to meet transportation and engineering skills WRIT LARGE OR commercial criteria, be capable of provides a wide view and a robust base to development in step-by-step packages, be our work. Our starting point is CREATING A acceptable to the transportation planning understanding the essence of a design authorities, and so on. problem, its setting, time scale, social and SETTING We produced our report and the specified economic milieu and the constraints within "model". The proposals for a complex new which decisions are made. The process area of city were thoroughly researched and involves a balancing act between tested in valuation, cost, transportation and practicality and vision. engineering terms. The model (at 1:2500 Our work ranges from major green field David Walton scale) was designed to show the sort of schemes to the regeneration of inner-city setting - streetscape, building lines and brown field sites, from intricate forms, open space and landscape structure - "knitting-in" bits of city which have within which a quality environment could become divorced from each other to emerge and which was in no way making new communities from redundant architecturally deterministic. We saw this Victorian landscapes and buildings. We as the later job of individual architects for also work overseas in different cultures and particular buildings. economies. In parallel, a developer decided to try to We start with a clean sheet and set about "bump" the client into a development understanding the context, constraints and agreement with a scheme of his own. The possibilities. Concepts are generated and developer's model was large and very tested, and a range of different solutions impressive - 1:500 scale - and suggested emerge. Thus the concept of Ashford Great the form and nature of the intended Park was the idea of a green heart and architecture throughout. spine acting as a collector of activities. Our model sat on a table, his needed a Here, because of the rural nature of the very large conference room and took 24 area, the concern was to generate a soft hours to move and re-assemble. backdrop to urban form. The concept for David Walton is an architect and planner The result has been a stand-off - no Barking Reach reflects a seaside esplanade and partner in Llewelyn-Davies Planning decision, no direction, no progress. The with a suburban hinterland. For Tattenhoe, Ltd. which is involved in international client's original brief to us had been clear - a final sector of Milton Keynes being consulting. now the client body has been thrown into designed for a consortium of housing confusion by attractive promises which developers, a grand suburban design using Top: Orgreave, Sheffield - a new may not be fulfilled in the end. woodlands, streams, village greens, parkland and rural avenues is seen to be "working village" in the 'grand manner' After this experience, I was amused recently by Ben Elton's opinions of the appropriate. A new City park in a valley on formerly contaminated land. models we make: running through from the city to the green Middle left: Shahestan Pahlavi, Tehran - "Architectural models are like the belt is being designed at Orgreave, plan for the new city centre. sluggish, hairy caterpillar which turns into Sheffield, as the framework for Middle right: Kowloon Bay, part of the the delicate beautiful butterfly. development when British Coal cease working model - not perhaps a sense of Unfortunately, with architectural models open-cast mining. The Mall and Newtown human scale in the Poundbury manner, the process is reversed." in Cardiff provided a new large-scale formal piece of City in the grand manner. but half a million people will enjoy the I intend to discuss the parameters which we find influence our work, and then return Utterly different concepts have been largest planned public realm in the city. to the issues raised in the title. generated in places as varied as Hong Bottom: Barking Reach, East London - a Kong, Iran, China and Jordan. riverside promenade fronting a Our urban design concepts are tested in realistically suburban promenade. many ways : environmental and social

44 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 47 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

impact, financial viability, phasing and Design frameworks often need Quality in the public realm - setting out practicality as well as, of course, from a reinforcing, by a range of different forms of objectives strongly from the outset, and design point of view. To follow the guidelines, related to development, scale involving the use of design briefs, panels emerging concept with its own innate rules and buildings and the public realm. These and public art. can lead to a certain inexorability and are helpful to developers, the community predictability in design. We consider it and local authorities who have no adequate CONCLUSIONS important to establish the rules - then break mechanisms of quality control. Our There are no easy answers to creating, in a them. It is this tension which can help approach is geared to identifying key areas modern form, the essence of what people define the character of particular places. which require careful control and those really enjoy about traditional towns, Within this rather abstract paradigm, areas where a more relaxed attitude can be whether they are of the formality of old there are key aspects which concern us. We taken. planned areas, the informality of the see as one of our design objectives the need We do not believe in a particular mediaeval core of towns, or the suburban to resolve the conflict between historical definition of Urban Design or a style of Bedford Park or Hampstead Garden precedent and modem relevance. Much of commitment to a particular style. Nor Suburb for example. our work is involved in creating places. As would this be the right approach for us, as I believe the resolution to the urban urban designers we have to define places it would lead to preconceived and imposed design issues is produced by fighting for without designing buildings. The reality solutions. Conversely, we will continue to high quality schemes throughout their life. today is not church spires, comer shops, explore in a manner which evolves and This is a dynamic struggle between urban horizontal segregation and historical produces unique responses to each urban concepts, the client or clients, the elements which we can use as part of the design task. marketing advisers, the planning and design vocabulary. Instead we have cars, transportation authorities and so on. I internalised shopping malls, pretend streets ISSUES believe it is essential to take a contextual and no-go areas. We are caught between There are three determining issues that viewpoint; i.e., creating a vision within the Chartered Surveyor, Leon Krier and the constantly make our work difficult and which the public realm can be laid down Highways Department. complex : and architectural design can take place. Our main concern is the user and, Costs and Value Creation However, it is important that there is an generally, this means the public. We The Chartered Surveyor; land reclamation architectural dimension to this. Having believe in an urbanism involving people's and servicing costs; market advice; ideas of the sorts of buildings, their scale, aspirations, activities, their relationships, developer preferences; impact of uses on positions, access, parking and servicing streets and spaces and a sense of human form; the difficulties of mixed uses. requirements is essential to creating a scale. Our approach is geared to these Traffic Planning and Car Parking "robust" concept. One works up and down needs, responding to often conflicting The Highways Department; impact of scale in doing this. The Cardiff Strategy is requirements, concentrating on those highway geometry, severance, segregation, presented at 1:5000 scale; however most of elements which create Place and providing and parking requirements - we find the work was done at 1:1000 or even 1:500 that Place with a structure so that people ourselves dealing with the "left-over" space scale. As a result, we knew that there were know where they are. after traffic engineering if we are not many design choices and that the overall Many projects will take years to complete careful. urban design framework was robust. and straddle several market cycles and Urban Form Equally however, dramatic design changes in taste and expectations. We are Traditional; modernist; suburban; the car concepts, can excite; as the work of Foster particularly concerned to create a robust age. Associates alongside us at Port Greenwich overall design framework for these has shown, they can break up conformity, long-term schemes and an individual APPROACHES challenge a "safety first" approach, and lead character phase by phase and area by area. Urban quality objectives need to be set, and to an eclecticism which is in a modem way A full understanding of scale is critical. A a number of design issues arise. There is a what towns are about, providing surprise, major scheme will have several scales for need for "new visions" which get in change and sudden points of focal interest. consideration; the setting of the site in the balance urban quality, realism and the There is a good example in Cardiff Bay, the city; the structure of the scheme and its demands for movement. These need to Exhibition Centre by Alsop and Lyall neighbouring area,, the character of each learn from history - good and bad - and brings real impact and vitality to the whole area within the scheme; and the treatment relate to life today. The issues to be area of the waterfront. of the local space or street. We work at addressed include: Recently, we saw the doors close on each scale and at the articulation of the Scale and a sense of place in large projects. Milton Keynes Development Corporation - major to minor, the hard and the soft, the Built form - the definition of space, 25 years after the original master plan. The grand and the intimate, the formal and the contextual and object buildings; building new city was designed for the car, has informal. lines, height, and scale (not form, style and adapted to many changes in demand, design). preferences, and fashion and attracted

46 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Big Sites - Architecture Writ Large or Creating a Setting

massive investment from the U.K. and overseas. A recent critic described it as Britain's first successful "Grand Suburban Design". There have been many architects and styles used - successes and failures - but overall the city is a great success, and I think it arises because of : • A clear plan and set of objectives consistently pursued for 25 years. • An insistency on quality in landscape, floorspace, street furniture and so on. The public realm has been designed and built with adequate space, good materials and consistent guidelines. • The use of good architects working within the context of carefully prepared development and design briefs for each area. • A commitment to high quality maintenance. •

Cardiff Bay - the Mall as illustrated in the Regeneration strategy.

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 47 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

Benjamin Thompson Associates was vision to continue to develop into the 21st invited by the Cardiff Bay Development century." Corporation in 1989 to help plan Cardiff CARDIFF BAY, THE Bay's Inner Harbour. The majority of THE VISION BTA's previous planning experience in The vision that evolved from the Inner waterfront development in the United Harbour study at Cardiff Bay found its INNER HARBOUR States grew out of the reconstruction of inspiration in a speech which our founding buildings and urban places which were partner Ben Thompson delivered in 1968. designed to create a renewed and enlivened In contrast to the decay, unrest, and destination within their respective cities. inhospitable spaces found in so many cities Hank Haff The Quincy Markets in Boston opened Thompson argued for cities on the human three buildings in three consecutive years in scale, a built environment that is diverse, 1976, 1977 & 1978, Baltimore's and which affirms the enjoyment of life. Harborplace opened in 1980, New York's This approach for creating human scale and South Street Seaport first opened with the joy within the built environment has been a Fulton Market Building in 1982, followed guiding light for our practice in the design by the Pier 17 building in 1984; and of cities, buildings and public spaces. Miami's Bayside Marketplace opened in Cardiff presents an ideal opportunity to 1987. In each case the revitalized water's create "an intimate city by day, a radiant edge created a comfortable place to meet city by night." friends, shop, enjoy a meal, watch the The Pierhead area with its south facing boats, or simply relax and listen to music. Dock Office tower symbolised the heart of The master plans for these buildings and the old port and offered a symbol for the public spaces began with a vision and new waterfront city . It was here, at the understanding of the human activities and head of the bay, that work began. The attractions which could bring back vibrancy kerne! of a new, active, safe, publicly to the redundant and abandoned areas of accessible waterfront for Cardiff Bay was these cities. born in a belief that this fertile zone at the When BTA arrived in Cardiff in 1989 urban shoreline is a point of transition and Llewelyn-Davies had just completed the rebirth, a dynamic place ready for new life Strategy for the Redevelopment of Cardiff and activity. The 700 metre sweep of shore Bay encompassing 2600 acres of CBDC from the Graving Docks on the west to the land area. Having seen the site and read Opera Park on the east was highlighted as about the two hundred year evolution of an arc of entertainment, an area for intense this great port through years of exponential public and private development. In the growth and then decline, there appeared a masterplan it is anchored on the east by a marvellous opportunity to create a superb new Opera and Music Theatre and on the waterfront city. I visited the Pierhead just west by a dynamic museum complex before the interview and was awed by the combining a "Quesf'-the National hands-on beauty of the bay at spring high tide on a Science Centre in Wales with a Maritime clear brisk March day. Returning to the Heritage Centre constructed around the shore later in the day the bay was empty former Mount Stuart Shipyard graving and the scale of the task appeared docks. Each of these new cultural and enormous. leisure facilities will add to the BTA proposed then that: international identity and prestige of "Realizing a new life for the Inner Cardiff's Inner Harbour. Hank Haff is a partner in Benjamin Harbour requires a vision of extending the Today's hurdle is in the funding and Thompson Associates of Cambridge, city centre to the water with careful construction of these facilities. The state of Massachusetts. attention to the existing urban fabric and the local and national economy makes the waterfront heritage, a vibrant mixed task all the more difficult. Also, without programme of new uses and public the tax incentive structure for individual Illustration shows Public Realm Plan spaces,... realistic guidelines to balance and corporate contributions to these part of the Inner Harbour Study, public and private investment, and a non-profit organizations as is found in the Benjamin Thompson Associates, flexible growth plan that will allow the States, the burden of funding in the U.K. Sheppard Robson, Gillespies. falls back upon the government. In the past

48 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 ten years BTA has designed two performing arts centers- the Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In each case the home town pride of public spirited individuals contributed significantly to the realization of these projects. Similar incentives must be found here.

WATERFRONT ACCESS Public accessibility is an essential principle for the redevelopment of Cardiff's Inner Harbour. Priority was given to the Pierhead with construction occurring in three phases to create the 700 metre promenade. Since the construction of the Dock Offices building in 1886 and the Bute West Dock the eastern waterfront has been off limits to the general public. The tram stopped at the foot of Bute Street providing access to the sidepaddle steamers for passage to Bristol and other points along the coast. But Cardiff, like so many working ports throughout the U.K., required restricted access for safety and security. In 1990, the promenade opened the waterfront at the head of the harbour to the public for the first time. By fall of 1991, the eastern and western arms of this public promenade were complete from the Graving Docks to the Roath Basin Lock. Although this is only a fragment of the two miles of publicly accessible water's edge which will eventually surround Cardiff Bay, it is an important first step. It establishes a new standard for quality in the public realm for the waterfront of this capital city. Also, in difficult economic times it represents an ability to focus on the ever important heart of this waterfront city. The new Pierhead walk establishes a dynamic integration of the historic artifacts with new materials of quality. Cardiff's dock walls create a powerful identity of finely crafted ramparts, a castle for this maritime city particularly when viewed at low tide. Those that remain visible were restored, while those declared redundant and subsequently filled as with the Bute East Basin provided a quarry for fine stone readily accessible to the site. The waterfront park stone bench is reincarnated from the cap stone of the Bute East Basin.

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 49 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

Recut and reset, the granite and sandstone attractions which may stay or may move to this fault by depressing the elevated provides a surface for stone sculpture as a new quay as development progresses. roadway at a cost 20-times that of the well as a 250 metre overlook to the Inner original road construction thirty years ago. Harbour. There is a good example of the BOSTON PARALLELS Cardiff's peripheral distributor road will Percent for Arts programme, where artist The topographical development of my provide more than just easy access to the Michael Watts carved scenes from the sea, home city, Boston, provided BTA with renewed harbour front. The earth from this lyrically interpreting Cardiff's relationship several appropriate urban development cutting is providing fill to create a new to the ocean, imbedded like fossils in the analogies for the planning of Cardiff s community park, an open space at the living stone. Inner Harbour. Boston's hills provided mouth of the River Taff, which will The Roath Basin's Britannia Quay is the sufficient fill material to nearly double the become in part the playing fields for a next area for redevelopment. BTA, original land area of the city over its 350 relocated Mount Stuart primary school. working with associated architects HMA, year history. The filling of Boston's Back This idea must in part be credited to the has proposed a new variation on the Bay up to the line of the old mill dam children whose crayon drawings suggesting waterfront promenade, where a change in created one third of a square mile of new a place to explore, a preserve in the bay, elevation permits an upper and lower development land between 1850 and 1882. and gave inspiration for the creation of this overlook to the water. Eventually this rim A grand boulevard was designed to run park. Two acres of new usable land will of light and backdrop of green will down the centre of this grid of new Back improve the quality of environment for the surround the basin. A street and Bay streets. Today Commonwealth Taff Basin Neighbourhood, an investment promenade are provided around Roath Avenue is a mile long linear park linking in their future. Basin assuring easy public access to the this neighbourhood with the Public Garden. Planning for the public realm however water edge, and allowing development to The subsequent dam, or barrage, built at the must not stop with bricks and mortar, street front and have an address on the water. mouth of the Charles River created a fresh layouts and designation of public spaces. The fingers of water radiating out from the water basin of constant level, free from the To comprehensively improve the quality of Basin take the form of canals, providing an stench of low tide mud flats. It is difficult the urban life for residents near these intimate focus that is clearly linked to the to conceive of Boston today without the derelict lands social issues must also be Roath Basin and the Bay. benefit of this environmental and addressed. A "magnet school" which In the masterplan, streets radiate out to recreational resource, the Charles River provides advanced teaching techniques and the water connecting the built environment Basin. Landscape Architect Frederick Law high quality education for the urban from the foot of the boulevard to the water Olmsted designed a comprehensive urban disadvantaged will begin to confront the edge. East Bute Street heads to the east park system which converted the Muddy age old problem of neglect of the urban toward the Roath Basin, mirroring the angle River into the Back Bay Fens which linked poor. Job training centres can provide of the existing Bute Street which arrives at the Charles River Esplanade to a new more than just retraining for the the western side of the Pierhead. The new Fenway Park System, forming Boston's unemployed, a resource centre can offer central street aligns with the tower of the "Emerald Necklace". These parks provide counselling for business start-up, Dock Offices building on the Pierhead and urban open space for waterside walks, management counselling, and common is proposed to be a pedestrianized retail playgrounds, allotment gardens, exercise printing and typing services. street. The reopened Oval Dock will stations, and a concert shell and Piece by piece the framework for a provide a focus for waterfront retail, amphitheatre - a place to sit, walk, run, publicly accessible waterfront is taking restaurants and museum display ships. exercise, sunbathe or enjoy the passing shape, forming like emeralds on a gold The new Pierhead Street also focuses on crowd and water for recreation. chain, cut from the hills of Wales, to create the Dock Offices tower as it arrives from The new land, the grand boulevard, the a gateway to the new Cardiff Bay. the roundabout in the east. basin and a continuous waterfront park are The public realm is more than just the Now that the principle of public access is all familiar elements in the plans for Cardiff brick and stone waterfront promenades; established the next hurdle is to attract a Bay today. more than the network of streets, squares new and diverse group of uses to the site. and arcades; more than the 35 acres in three Offices are typically the first most IMPLEMENTATION new public parks; more than the two financially viable buildings on this type of Visual accessibility to the waterfront is now square mile expanse of a new Cardiff Bay. site and Capital Waterside is no exception secured in Cardiff as the P.D.R (peripheral The public realm must also include the to this rule. But, restaurants and residential distributor road) construction proceeds Science and Maritime Museums; and the units should follow in rapid succession. through a tunnel, dipping below ground at Welsh National Opera; the new school, One great asset of this site is the Roath the central waterfront area. Unlike Boston, hotel lobbies, and the myriad of shops and Basin where floating restaurants or New York and so many American cities, restaurants, • entertainment can be moored at dockside the option to tunnel was correctly chosen in on a temporary basis providing early Cardiff to avoid severing the city from its waterfront. Today, Boston is correcting

so URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Cardiff Bay, the Inner Harbour

Plan and photograph of Inner Harbour Structure showing arc of entertainment uses at the Pier Head. The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

This article describes three inter-related and private sectors negotiating sales areas of my work: contribute to the Public Art Strategy. This • The role of Cardiff Bay Art Trust and its means a contribution of not less than 1% of PUBLIC ART AND context in Cardiff Bay. capital development costs to the • The role of art and public art in commissioning of public art. This policy particular in urban design and the has been applied to all such agreements URBAN DESIGN creation of new cities. since the adoption of the Strategy. • Brief comments on the training of art. We have already heard about the strategic CARDIFF BAY ART TRUST view and development of Cardiff Bay Cardiff Bay Development Corporation also Sally Medlyn Development Corporation and its core aim agreed to set up an independent of creating a superlative maritime city. organisation - Cardiff Bay Art Trust - to The Development Corporation was put the Strategy into practice. It was approached by representatives of the Welsh decided to establish an independent Arts Council and others to look at whether organisation because there is a definitie art. and public art in particular, was advantage in the Art Trust being able to relevant to their core objectives. They then deal directly with the private sector, work appointed a consultative team, led by with the public sector and local Vivian Lovell, Director of the Public Art communities as well as working directly Commissions Agency, Birmingham, an with the Corporation. Our charitable and independent public art agency, and the not for profit status puts us in a good result of the work was the publication in position to turn the theory of the Strategy June 1990 of The Strategy for Public Art in into practice. Cardiff Bay. Another major element of the policy was its emphasis on a strategic approach trying PUBLIC ART STRATEGY to avoid dotting rare examples of art around The Corporation recommended the the place. The intention is to approach the adoption of the Strategy and agreed that development strategically just as CBDC public art could be relevant to its core works strategically to develop infrastructure objectives of urban renewal. A number of to achieve land sales. A programme of distinct benefits were identified as resulting public art is being established including, for from the incorporation of public art into the example, landmark works at key entry overall strategy: points to the Bay; the marking of key • It could help differentiate Cardiff Bay routes through the Bay; works to aid and give unique identity. orientation; the creation of places for • It could add a tangible sense of quality. people - public spaces whether large or • There can be some economic spin-offs small which can create a pride of place and such as local manufacture of work. identity with place for people living and • It can be very valuable in bridging the working within the Bay. gap between existing local communities We work with a whole range of interests and developers, whether in the public or in the Bay. We have already completed a private sector. scheme within the private sector with • Working alongside a landscape Grosvenor Waterside pic/Associated British architecture programme will result in a Ports - a major landowner - and are looking real impact on the environment in which to work with Tarmac. We have made people live and work, even to the extent contacts with South Glamorgan County of influencing relocation decisions. Council who are responsible for a major Beyond these questions of principle the infrastructure scheme - the Peripheral Strategy addressed the practical Distributor Road - and we shall be carrying implications of such a policy. out a feasibility study for them on the This was then written in as legal and impact of public art within the road scheme. formal a tone as possible to be incorporated We are also working with local into building agreements and land sales. communities, albeit at the moment on a Sally Medlyn is Director of the Cardiff The Development Corporation is a major smaller scale, on projects involving contact Bay Art Trust. land owner and developers from the public between artists and people living in the Bay.

52 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 Overall the Trust aims to: has its part to play in creating the dynamic to avoid the so-called "turd in the plaza" • create a wide ranging programme of high setting of our new urban environments. effect of the "brooch approach". quality art Some artists - and I am generalising • enhance the urban environment madly here of course - would not be ART EDUCATION • support regeneration of the Bay interested in this context at all. However, Finally, training. There was, and probably • provide exciting opportunities for artists. there are a growing number of artists who still is, an idea abroad that "art = self After all, if the proposals are not exciting see working in urban design as a challenge expression full stop", i.e. that art education we will not get the interest of artists or the - not a problem. They can create meaning should nurture the imagination, the quality of finished work. in the urban fabric; can collaborate as part personal expression of the artist, but does of a team of design professionals; not be not concern itself with the practical use of URBAN REGENERATION the brooch which is added at the end when those skills in the "real world". Certainly Turning now to the links between the arts someone realises there is a 'gap' which some years ago that notion seemed to be a and urban regeneration. During the 1980s needs an X put into it. Integration from the very strong strand in art education and that there was an upswell in discussion and outset is one of the fundamental approaches stereotype must be challenged and needs to planning for arts as related to such issues as we are trying to develop in the Bay. be changed. At the launch last week of the economic development and other matters Integration is not only the most cost Public Art Forum/RIBA Alliance the need which previously had perhaps been seen as effective route for any development, but for change in architectural education was in a world apart from the arts. also the one which promises the greatest discussed. There is at least the same need A series of conferences and research degree of success when all the for change in art education because too projects were commissioned which sought professionals have gone away and the often it is assumed that the artists only to place the arts in a very different context, scheme is left to be enjoyed or otherwise target for their work is the gallery. There not looking for patronage of the arts but by the people for whom it was intended. are real challenges and opportunities in looking to ally the arts as a 'tool' to Integrating work specifically into shaping the cities in which we have to live achieve the core objectives of organisations particular sites is important - not the and this is the context which education such as Development Corporations or transfer of gallery work into an often must address. It must release the power of private sector developers. It was felt that hostile urban environment. Site specific imagination, creative and technical skills of there were commercial and social work which takes account of the function artists into that public space for successful objectives which the arts in one form or of a place, who are the users and what are and dynamic partnerships with colleagues another could help achieve. Lord Palumbo, the commercial objectives. All these in architecture, landscape and design. • Chairman of the Arts Council of Great factors are relevant to the preparation of a Britain and a major property developer, public art brief. only last week was talking about art as "the The term public art can, of course, mean highest achievement of which the human different things to different people. For me spirit is capable". It also has a lot to offer it covers a wide range of practice; in terms of urban regeneration, and an permanent or temporary; the obvious art engagement with the practical development work - the inheritor perhaps of civic of the environment. The arts can relate to statuary. Public art can also be functional these very important issues. even to the extent that the art work is not The most obvious link is perhaps arts and necessarily recognised as 'art' - it might be tourism, but there is also art and urban the fencing; even manhole covers in the design. We have examples from around the case of Seattle. Thirdly, it can encompass world - USA, mainland Europe and Japan - the artist working as a professional striking examples of art in public places alongside other professionals - being an integral part of regeneration architects/engineers/ development development schemes. The arts in these surveyors - on the design of the urban schemes have often been a mandatory environment from the earliest possible requirement and have been playing a point. In the Bay we are looking at, from crucial part - not just creating the "bits" in my perspective, a major land art project; between the buildings but public spaces from the CBDC perspective, a land which are well used and even loved by the reclamation scheme intended for a Top left: Michael Watts working on public. I don't want to overstate the case. community park. The aims are not at odds Of course, there is some rotten public art but can work together. Tidemark' at Waterfront Park about, just as there is some rotten So, whatever, the art works are. Top middle: 'Landmark' by Pierre Vivant architecture and town planning. But good integration and site specificity are essential Top right: Secret Station' by Eilis public art, like planning and architecture. O'Connell.

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 53 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

find a situation that reflects the educational Professor Richard picture given, that is one where Silverman architectural and planning education are THE TRAINING OF rounded out with a dose of the other I should say by way of introduction that the discipline - but not extended within each term Urban Designer in the title under discipline. URBAN DESIGNERS which I have been asked to speak is not a very useful descriptive term for an NECESSARY SKILLS individual - as will emerge. If I were given the job of employing • I am going to speak a little about from professionals to design for development a my experience as a member of RIBA couple of hundred acres somewhere I am Visiting Boards to the two surviving Urban afraid I wouldn't look for an "urban Design courses in schools of Architecture designer". What I would look for are two and Planning in the U.K. These two extant people with quite different skills. Firstly I urban design courses - recognised by the would want a tough development planner. Towards the end of the nineteenth RIBA - are both very good courses. This is somebody who really can assess the century, Lord Bute had the vision to However, they are not doing what I believe economic and political realities of provide an appropriate public realm the RIBA - and perhaps the RTPI - hoped individual sites and who can make such courses would do - that is making a which is now recognised as Cardiff's proposals for the location of infrastructure national input at a high level of and land uses which are of a higher order magnificent Civic Centre. We now have achievement in the field of urban design. than his client could make for himself - if the challenge and the opportunities of What these two courses are currently doing you will forgive my cynicism. Really acute Cardiff Bay; and there are many similar are two very necessary remedial jobs. They development planning is not as available on challenges and opportunities in derelict are giving the architects who undertake the market as it should be. Together with docklands and inner city areas them a view of policy issues and the my development planner I'd want to put an throughout the U.K. legislative framework affecting settlements. urban architect. This is an equally rare Architectural education is not very good at There is growing awareness of the bird - a talented designer who is saturated dealing with these areas. The pure planners in the theory and practice of the increasing importance of the public who take up these courses in large numbers architecture of urbanism. realm in the urban environment; the are receiving a strengthening of their I am sceptical about whether the two importance of the space between acquaintanceship with design so that they people I am looking for are often to be buildings, and the provision of public can, among other things, fulfill essential found in the same firm. I am fairly sure I art, is being recognised. The urban development-control functions in local cannot find them in the same individual. I design principles of the late Francis authorities and other places where they are am - perhaps unpopularly - reacting here employed. Tibbalds showed great vision and against the rather wishy washy image of the I do not have knowledge of taught "architect-planner" as "urban designer" who innovation in creating 'People-Friendly masters courses in urban design or other sort of knows about implementation, sort of Towns and Cities'. We must ensure similar courses in the U.K. and so cannot knows about architecture but isn't really that this recognition is translated into comment on them but I suspect there is not very good at either. appropriate action, through proper very much urban design education going on professional training. at the level of conceptual activity which IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION During the last decade, there has been a can deal with the issues being raised for Let me now take this view of the proliferation of Urban Design Courses, example by London Docklands, by Cardiff complementarity of skills needed for urban Bay, by the key sites in the City of London, with emphasis on a range of disciplines, design and apply it to planning and by Poundbury even. The work that I have architectural education. I would look for namely, architecture, planning and seen in the two RIBA-recognised courses an enhanced architectural education with landscape architecture. does not engage with the issues at this level substantial specialist time given to The following contributions on the of complexity nor attempt design work at urbanism and urban architecture. Historical training of urban designers, are the level of creative ambition that such models of urban form, theoretical models of presented by two architect I planners; sensitive sites demand. spatial systems, the design of the public but each is presenting a different Now, speaking from my vantage point as realm and the design of buildings as, a member of Cardiff Bay Development approach, one relating to the training of quoting a well known source, "the walls of Corporation and as an adviser to Milford an outdoor room" are not things to which a architects and the other relating to the Haven Port Authority from, as it were, the general education in architecture gives as training of planners. client's side of employing urban designers I much time as it might. I believe there is a

54 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 very useful specialism possible in the possible to identify two distinct roles. The architecture of urbanism, which is not Dr. Sam Romaya first is the work of the urban designer urban design, it's architecture. Traditionally, urban design has been producing the traditional type of scheme; Now I am going to make some quite perceived as an extension of the work of this role is creative and is comparable to unwarranted guesses about planning the architect. It has often been described as that of the artist or musician. The second is education which I suspect needs to be "the Architecture of Towns and Cities", that of the development control officer, like extended in a similar sort of way. In my which includes the design of the buildings the art or music critic, he/she needs to be conversations with planners I do not find themselves and of the spaces between capable of discerning what is good or bad there are so very many who are really well them; for example, Inigo Jones's Covent work; the cultivation of discernment and versed in models of dynamic Garden, John Nash's Regent Street, or the analytical ability is a primary objective in implementation processes, in tactical work of the Woods at Bath. the training for development control work, decision making in land use and Camillo Sitte introduced a new approach and similar urban design tasks. Is the infrastructure and who have a real insight to urban design incorporating the basic training in this respect adequate ? The into the developer's view and his financing. principles into a system in which the built options could include: Planning as a subject is necessarily a good environment is the result of an input by • Undergraduate option in Urban Design deal about policy, about the general. But different designers. The architect's work • Special post-graduate diploma in Urban some planners need to be educated to cope combined aspects of urban design and Design (part-time) with the specific. They need to be creative architecture. For decades, many architects • Package of courses under the CPD about the economics and commercialism of qualified as architects and planners. programme development because so many of the Such Courses would not only require problems we know about - like being THE PRESENT CONTEXT specially prepared curricula and teaching locked into the single use of sites - need to Modem urban systems have become very methods, but also logistics of funding, be tackled at this level. Someone's got to complex. In addition to buildings and release arrangements and professional crack the mould of conventional spaces in between, other factors, such as status. development wisdom and perhaps it is transportation, urban landscape and outdoor A wide range of courses in urban design going to be enlightened chartered surveyors advertising have assumed great importance have been launched by academic -1 don't think it is going to be architects. I in the urban environment. Co-ordination of institutions recently. The Urban Design feel it ought to be a breed of the input into the urban environment has Group have, quite justifiably, placed action-oriented development planners and if been included in the development control education and training high on their planning education does not already have system. Architects have become less agenda. It is hoped that the discussion this as a specialism then I think it needs it. involved with the 'Architecture of Towns which now follows will make a If we could enhance planning and and Cities'; understandably architects are contribution to the formulation of education architectural education in these ways - preoccupied with the design of buildings policy guidelines for architects, planners making each profession more competent in while planners have assumed the role of and urban designers. • a component of urban design - within the co-ordinators, using an inadequate system, five-year structure of each then I believe development control, which tends to be we would have a basis for a new negative in its approach. To quote post-graduate urban design education, not Professor G.B. Dix "A collection of to produce "urban designers" but to bring beautiful buildings do not necessarily these two sorts of people together in order provide a desirable living environment." Richard Silverman is Professor of that they can gain an awareness of the To deal with the task adequately, the Architecture and Head of the Welsh other's skill and see what they can do planning system has developed appropriate School of Architecture at the University together in confronting demanding urban procedures for the design of the public of Wales at Cardiff. design challenges. From this creative realm; such as preliminary public interaction they can perhaps do something consultation, preparation of area planning Sam Romaya is Senior Lecturer in Urban which I think we desperately need, that is briefs or site specific design briefs. Design in the Department of City and to articulate a vision of an achievable Generally these are prepared by the Regional Planning at the University of humane urbanism for today's world. planning department. Often, expertise in Wales at Cardiff. the field has to be acquired on the job or through individual initiative. Illustrations show qualities of the public realm in Cardiff TRAINING IN URBAN DESIGN The design input in planning courses can Left: part of Cardiff Civic Centre vary considerably. We need to identify Middle: pedestrianisation in Queen Street precise job specifications. It is perhaps Right: landmark in Cardiff Bay

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 55 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

Richard MacCormac Richard MacCormac We have had presentations on two Just one thought, the reason why people connected but distinct topics, namely the talk about designing across the streets is role of the artist in urban design and in that the estate developments were street urban regeneration, and two views developments. The difference between principally distinguished as an architect's modern developments and the 18th century view and a planner's view of education for developments is that they were essentially urban design. street developments but now single developers develop sections between ' John Billingham streets, across the urban fabric existing I should make it clear that there are about from street to street. nine places that offer urban design courses, a wider range of courses in urban design Sam Romaya than has been suggested. On the first point made by John Secondly, in terms of Sam Romaya's Billingham, about the setting of a building, point about the planners role, I think if we these days many consultants now hold are really concerned about the public realm preliminary negotiations with the planning we are not only talking about building officer and in these negotiations the design. I think what we tend to forget is planning officer can recommend a certain that the public realm stretches right across amount of public realm requirements. But the street, a point which Richard the question is are these opportunities used MacCormac has made very well in a to advantage, and are the officers number of his articles where he's saying sufficiently qualified to anticipate what couldn't we get the developer, instead of would be needed and what would be dealing with one side of the street, to appropriate ? consider also the space across the street. On the second point. Professor Silverman If we are really concerned about urban knows we have had some of our students design, it is much more than development working together; our students did a joint control. It is in fact a creative role, and study on Llandaff, six students from there isn't, in my view, a lot of urban architecture and four from planning, and design being done in the existing planning the publication of the joint report was framework. We are really talking about sponsored by the RIBA. Such practice is both sides of the street within an area unusual, and it does not occur often which, I think, needs a different approach. enough, mainly because of logistical The other point I would like to make is difficulties. We were hoping to have that years ago, in a number of schools another collaborative exercise this year, but architectural students and planning students we have had to conduct a preliminary study did work together on schemes. They used this year, in the hope that we will have to go out to a town or a small community another joint venture next year. What we and they'd get together for three, four or need to do is to devise the appropriate The Concluding Session was chaired by five weeks, then the architectural students programmes which relate to the training of Richard MacCormac, President of the would go and design individual buildings. both disciplines, rather than just put the As far as I am aware, I do not think that's students together because we think it is RIBA, for whom Urban Design has been happening now. It does appear to me that good for them to work together. a major point of focus during his that sort of thing has been lost. I would Presidency. Urban Design workshops like to suggest that one should begin to see Richard Silverman have been held in many locations in again the opportunity that architectural and What Sam says is of course right, but I am Britain during that period and a planning students could work jointly not sure it is easy to put the clock back to colloquium has been held at the RIBA together. There is a golden opportunity for some golden age, where architects and the professions to get together in their on that subject planners, as students, can work together. training process. Certainly I take Sam's point: the question of appraising the design, whether as a Illustration shows Richard MacCormac's planner who is in a development control analysis of London streets to work out situation or as an architect looking at his an urban design code for use in practice. own proposition, is undervalued and

56 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 tmm j New berg h St Marshal St Dufour's Place Poland St Lavonia Street ^M I

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under-taught. Discernment, that is our guide that certain parts of the the art gallery. It is very important for connoiseurship - a word I use without conservation area were to be demolished as society, but I am very worried about what apology - is under-developed in both our there was apparently no obvious future use some artists are doing, it seems to me at educations, and is where there ought to be for them. Frankly I would be inclined to times they are making jokes at the public in common education. Where I am suggesting leave these buildings alone as the situation the absence of integrated and imaginative education should diverge, is in the can often change in ways we cannot always contributions which engage the public difference between urban architecture and envisage, sometimes in a surprisingly short realm. development planning. I find as a client of time. architect planners and urban designers that It is, of course, difficult to train embryo Sally Medlyn the number of people who have a nose for architects and town planners for that sort of To create a public space is one exercise, to the inevitable strategic decision is not that restraint. I don't know how that fits in with introduce public art is a different challenge. great. Now, I don't think you're going to Sam's or Professor Silverman's syllabus. It is easy to identify an area for public art, get architects to do that or planners and As regards local authorities, I believe but translating it into part of the urban architects working together. There's they must make development control a scene is the work of the artist. It is not a something else that needs to come out of much more senior job. It needs to be case of "here is a site, let's throw some planning education which is more creative exercised by very experienced people with money at it and see if it works". It is much and realistic than I think is happening at the cultivated judgement and design awareness, more of a challenge for everybody, moment. In the same way, there needs to able to provide creative suggestions in including the architect to use the space for be something more sensitive and collaboration with the project designer. a perceptual experience for everyone. I imaginative coming out of architectural The best urban design solutions have, of was talking earlier to Professor Silverman education and I don't necessarily see course, often emerged from conflict about the role of the architect; if an anything to be gained by confusing that. between the architect and the authority. It architect is an artist, then the artist is not a It's only when each is experienced in their does help, too, if the relationship between sticking plaster. discipline that I'd like to see architects and designer and client is a creative one; if may planners as collaborators in the urban be stormy but it must have quality as it's Richard MacCormac design creative process. main aim. I have a bit of difficulty in finding out But the schools of architecture and where we are going? I feel that the urban Alfie Wood schools of planning should, I believe, try to situation is pretty dreadful; although it's In the public realm, our urban ensure that their graduates are exposed to often the best of a bad job. If it fails as an surroundings, it seems to me that we allow as many civilising experiences as possible. urban space then everybody suffers. We different groups of professionals to carry It is only by producing mentally may see achievements on paper, but the out their activities without much relevance well-rounded architects and planners that reality doesn't move me. to each other or to the space itself. We we shall achieve higher standards of urban would, I think, regard it as pretty strange to design. David Walton commission an architect to design a I think the case of the urban designer now building and then permit others to design Richard MacCormac is exactly the case of the interior designer, the corridors and so forth, but that is Last week we had a colloquium about when some architects try to push the role of exactly what we do in our urban spaces Public Art and Civic architecture, in the interior designers. I just wonder if there's which have become largely the province of context of the public realm, and a number always going to be tension between the the traffic engineer. Shakespeare said "all of things came out of that, including one professionals and one has to work at the the world's a stage etc." but in the public rather negative thought which was that the dynamics of the relationship, because it's realm we cannot be sure that all the players 1% strategy may be a kind of tokenism always the tensions that produce the good have the same script or are in the same which the government rather likes, because designs anyway, as well as the disasters. play. Clearly there is a need for these it avoids having to treat architects as artists disparate groups to work collaboratively in which is jolly convenient. It treats the Richard Silverman the urban scene. architectural product as a utilitarian product I would refer to a case, the Cardiff Barrage. However, we must not deceive ourselves and the artwork as a separate input. We The design of it has been described, but that we can design or redesign large areas need to clarify and formalise our position what one may not be aware of is that there of the urban fabric in a country which is against such assertions; I think that once was a team of four professionals, an largely developed, nor should we try. you talk about it, you can convince people engineer, an architect, an artist and a Indeed the stultifying effect of much 60's of the need for both public art and public landscape architect and they've worked on comprehensive redevelopment makes that architecture as an art. It is difficult enough it throughout. They took an original fairly point eloquently in far too many towns and for architects to know what to symbolise crude diagram of the engineering and cities. I believe we must learn what to today; but perhaps it is even more difficult together worked that into what I think is leave alone; this afternoon we were told by for the artist. Public art is not the work of going to be a rather beautiful thing. Now,

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 57 ft Concluding Discussion

the architect Will Alsop is well known as Sally Medlyn to hell with the rest. The space between being more than an architect, that is an I think too often art and architecture are buildings has too often had a rotten deal artist and an architect, but nevertheless he perceived as means of achieving quality in because of the arrogance of the designer. was very keen to emphasise the role of the urban design. If urban design is rejected artist they worked with; I think this is an we all suffer, on the other hand quality Richard Silverman example of the working together that Sally architecture is part of the urban scene, and I wonder if I can ask this question of the has been talking about. How we get that the same situation applies to public art. meeting, which is about the question you into the urban fabric itself I don't know. referred to yourself which is to do with the Richard MacCormac use of buildings. We had a talk from Niels Alfie Wood It is something to do with the post war Torp in Cardiff which showed the dockside I appreciate that it is important for history of architecture; it got caught in development in Oslo which has banks, something like the Cardiff Barrage to be a institutional traps. First of all we got offices, shops, houses and all sorts of beautiful and exciting structure but equally caught in the socialist trap, of utilitarianism things, all on top of each other in a way we I would like to make a plea for the prosaic in the 1960s along with utilitarianism of the don't seem to be able to do. I think a lot of on certain occasions. building industry itself so we were people feel that we can't do what he can do Not all buildings can be, or should be, subsumed within ideas of productivity. in Norway. Whether it's going to be an primadonnas; we need some architects to This resulted in things like the high rise office building or housing or it's going to design some dull buildings which take a concrete panel and concrete housing which be whatever, somehow the urbanism we brief from the street. When every one's a characterised the period. Now we've got want will never come about without mixed King and Queen, no one's anybody. caught up in a similar but right wing uses. Now my question is, can Urban situation where we are supposed to be Design solve that and if not, who is going Sam Romaya subsumed within concepts of marketing and to tackle that problem from the creative I think works of public art are an integral management within the building industry. point of view ? Ben Thompson's firm is part of urban design, and must be perceived There is the problem of quality in working in the U.K. and is persuading to be so. We've got an equestrian statue in architecture which I think is almost clients and developers to break rules of a the middle of a grass field looking impossible to define. The management lifetime to mix uses, and all credit to them absolutely lost in front of City Hall. Now, culture which has prevailed in the last fifty for doing that. But the question is how do previously, this related to the street patterns years in industrial countries finds we educate within the whole design and that was located in direction and increasing difficulty in being able to cope development and business communities position in a very significant urban design with architectural quality which they see as people who can break that mould. guideline. They changed the street pattern a slightly arty concept. It wants to be and now the poor equestrian statue is accountable financially and it can't Sam Romaya completely lost. It is an integral part of the incorporate it. It can't incorporate it in To be fair, if I may come in at this point - fabric and it has to be put in context. either the public or private sectors and so it David Lock gave a paper on the tries to do away with it. The artists then Developer's point of view on Urban Richard Silverman appear, with their advocates who are Design. He identified four essential Why do you think that the artists are exceptionally articulate and smart, and commandments pursued by developers,and represented amongst us, as they always are, everybody says "ah, we've got it". The one of them was that each building shall by an extremely dynamic and intelligent architect can start talking about quality but maintain the same use from top to bottom. person who puts the case for artists with the managers think it will cost hundreds of If you have residential use on one level and incredible skill, as Sally has just done. I thousands, and it's pretty dangerous stuff, commercial use on the other, and then you don't begrudge them that at all, but nobody so they think "let's keep him in control" want to re-develop or rent or change, you is doing that for urban designers or (usually him rather than her), and then have problems. The developers generally architects. I am having a hard job at "let's have a few artists because we can insist on having the same use right across Cardiff Bay, where I think the ground is actually say that it's going to cost such and the board within a structure. actually very fertile to convince people - such, we can have a bit of quality with the with the same argument Sally has with art - artist and we know that we can keep the Alfie Wood if you do better architecture, or if you do cost control there, and we'll make sure that That is quite true. The short term view of better urbanism, not only is it a valuable we don't let the architect into the quality the City of London is a very powerful and thing but it would generate other things of game because that will be quite unruly and notorious damper on imaginative mixed value. I am doing it as an amateur, and I very expensive". uses and is based on developers achieving wonder how the phenomenon has arisen much higher rates of return (about 5% that artists have someone to do this for Alfie Wood greater) than their opposite numbers on the them professionally. I believe there is a terrible danger of letting continent. our main concern be with the building and

58 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 The Public Realm and Urban Design: Practice and Implementation

Les Sparks PARTICIPANTS I want to see designers having more vision Richard Alderton about their business; and to have something Alfredo Alonzo written in the planning system for us to say Chris Barkerboerg there must be comparable attention given to Karen Barlow the street environment and the Public Sue Barlow Realm as that given to buildings. Derek Barston John Billingham Richard MacCormac m r R Kelvin Campbell I think that is a very good note to conclude 111 Faye Cates with because it seems to me that is what Peter Cope we've been talking about. I believe what WR Davies you just said describes what urban design M El- Batran ought to be about. It ought to be extending Nagy El-Gritly the planning process into being a visionary Sue Essex PP^T, - Ij process concerned with qualitative and David Evans difficult to describe objectives. DM Evans I was asked to sum up the meeting. It is Graham Field going to be very difficult to make a Steve Fitzgibbon summary of what I've heard and obviously Jose Garcia Perez K "mk a I haven't heard some of the earlier papers. mflf. •• Paul Goodacre I believe that we are looking at a process Henry Haff that lies between the statutory planning Nigel Hanson process and the design of buildings which Melissa Howells is central to the recovery of the professional Frances Jackson contribution that architects can make to the DAM Jangia public realm. I think that it's very Jussi Jauhianen important at the moment because local Karen Jenner government departments have been run Nicholas King down. There hasn't been a vision of what Tamara Krikorian professionals could be doing in local Henry Lao Yapp government and I think thai urban design David Lock offers a way of reviving the role of Richard MacCormac professionals and their obligations to Maria Marques locality. It would be a role for people who Duncan McClaren are permanently part of local government Sally Medlyn or maybe another sort of role structured so Tim Moss that it can relate to private consultants. It Ewart Parkinson could be a combination of both. I am Richard Parnaby absolutely convinced that urban design is a John Pickup way of recovering the idea of architecture Sakti Prajitno as a public vision and a public obligation. I Sue Rice think it is interesting that we should be Sam Romaya reflecting on what Sally said about the Lorna Serapse artist also looking for a new role, and ways Hooi Siang Lim of finding significance in a public situation. Richard Silverman There are other players to whom we've got Paul Smith to relate, people working at the strategic Les Sparks level like economists, and then people Julian Stedman whom we tend to battle with, like Highway TJ Stevens Engineers who we've got to find ways of Paul Walker communicating with. Urban design has got Photograph shows Michael Welbank, David Walton to become a medium to which a whole President of the RTPI in 1992, signing D Webber range of participants subscribe and in the visitors book at Cardiff Castle in the Michael Welbank which shared objectives are found. • presence of the Deputy Lord Mayor. Helen Williams

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 59 v Book Reviews by John Punter and Michael Biddulph

THE AESTHETICS OF LANDSCAPE Despite all the interest in Britain in urban individual. Noting neurophysiological by Steven C. Bourassa design, landscape quality, design control research he concludes that biological and Belhaven Press 1991, £29.95 and environmental enhancement there has cultural responses to the environment can been very little fundamental research into occur separately and he develops the idea AESTHETICS OF BUILT FORM the aesthetics of townscape and landscape. that aesthetic values might be conceived as by Alan Holgate Central Government contents itself with the biological laws, cultural rules and personal Oxford University Press 1992, £45.00 convenient line of argument that aesthetic strategies. judgements are largely subjective while The three core chapters in the book much urban design practice has its roots in explore the literature in each of the three the picturesque townscape tradition. There areas. The chapter on biological laws have been few attempts to grapple with examines Appleton's habitat and fundamental questions of what might prospect-refuge theories; the Kaplans' constitute aesthetic experience in the urban information-processing theories that and rural environment, and equally few emphasise the importance of complexity, attempts to review the relevant field of coherence, legibility and mystery, and aesthetic theory to distill different views of Gestalt theory as key contributions towards aesthetic values. However, two new books, biological bases for landscape aesthetics. both by Australians, at last begin to tackle Bourassa acknowledges that the work is "the intellectual disaster area" that is suggestive rather than conclusive. The (environmental) aesthetics. chapter on cultural rules explores a much The Aesthetics of Landscape by the richer vein of literature identifying aesthetic geographer-planner Steven Bourassa values that appear to be transmitted attempts to provide a comprehensive socially. It carefully reviews the ideas of theoretical framework for research in John Costonis and his 'cultural landscape aesthetics. It explains the origins stability-identity theory' which he sees of both landscape and aesthetics in separate underlying the conservation ethic, and the chapters. While it recognises the influence large body of social science work on the art has exerted on landscape perception landscape, townscape and housing crucially it argues that landscape and preferences which explores the significance townscape are a complex blend of art, of socioeconomic variables like age, sex, artifact and nature, and it rejects the divorce ethnicity, class and lifestyle. Bourassa of the aesthetic and the utilitarian agreeing focuses particularly on existential and with George Santayana that "we are usually professional status as key variables. How in a state of aesthetic unconsciousness". familiar are individuals with an Reviewing aesthetic theory Bourassa environment (are they 'insiders' or counterposes the detached, disinterested 'outsiders') and do they have a professional aesthetics of Kant to Dewey's theory that or a lay perspective (are they 'experts' or aesthetic experience is a particularly non-experts?) This four part typology is of intense, engaged or heightened form of immense importance to urban design everyday experience. After tracing the practice and identifies one of the key issues history of aesthetic disinterestedness he in contemporary aesthetics - the gap embraces Dewey's emphasis upon the between lay and professional tastes. interaction of man with his environment Bourassa then explores personal and the relationship between aesthetic, strategies, drawing together but intellectual and practical experiences in the transcending biological and cultural everyday world, as a sound basis on which influences into highly personal value sets to proceed. that may be expressed either as ways of Noting the tensions between biological seeing (perceptual strategies) or as actual and cultural explanations of aesthetic modifications of the landscape (design experience, and drawing on the work of strategies). He suggests that perhaps Bachelard, Jung and the Russian changes in cultural rules start out as The illustration by Francis Tibbalds psychologist Vygotsky, Bourassa posits a innovative personal strategies (e.g. shows the Lloyds Building, London, one tripartite perspective on aesthetic development of architectural form), and he of the designs referred to by Alan consciousness developing from the explores theories of creativity and the Holgate. biological to the cultural and on to the tensions between 'good fit' (contextual

60 URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 design) and innovation. However the that Holgate's much broader historical design process itself. Holgate admits the whole concept of personal strategy remains overview does not mention Kant and existence of strong political and emotional very much underdeveloped. Dewey, but one can use his arguments to reactions to urban forms but argues for The final two chapters attempt to apply support the idea of the reintegration of much more subtle connections between the ideas in the book to landscape aesthetic experience with the everyday beliefs, morals and built form that demand evaluation methods and to the phenomenon rejecting concepts of beauty, psychic rigorous analysis. of postmodernism. The naivety of the distance, good taste or even style as central The penultimate chapter focuses upon the former is well understood, and Bourassa to our understanding of aesthetic values. history of functional ism, of obvious exposes the reliance on formal In his third chapter Holgate develops the relevance to the preoccupations of characteristics of the landscape and the concepts for formal analysis of buildings - engineers, but which might be considered particular failure to take into account size and scale, proportion, form and shape, rather peripheral to urban designers. The cultural values. The discussion of space, visual weight, texture, light, colour historical overview is fascinating and, as postmodernism does not fit entirely happily and pattern, composition, movement and with theories dominated by good taste or within the book at large and, rather like the rhythm and flow of space. He helps to morality, Holgate reveals a great deal of previous chapter, seems to be more the identify a basic vocabulary and to remind circularity of argument. He does manage to result of parallel interests of the author. us of how much architects and planners separate out the different arguments for The discussion of postmodernism is focus upon formal characteristics, and how functionalism but then recognises that they coherent and concise and explores Foster's they tend to concentrate upon the formal are inevitably confused by preconceptions distinction between "a postmodernism of characteristics of buildings rather than the and different concepts of beauty. The final resistance and a postmodernism of spaces between them. To his credit chapter is primarily addressed to engineers reaction" and Frampton's ideas of critical Holgate then balances his concern with in arguing for the importance and regionalism. Importantly Bourassa takes formal aesthetics with a chapter on complexity of public taste, the value of issue with Harvey's (essentially Kantian) experiential and subjective responses to considering aesthetics despite its extra view of the superficiality of aesthetics and built forms drawing out the different costs, the need to understand meanings and the irrelevance of design improvements. meanings that formal characteristics evoke. symbolism, and the utility of understanding He goes on to argue that his theory of Like the previous chapter it is something of different professional perspectives. landscape aesthetics provides clear support a catalogue of ideas but the wide reading Together these two books provide very for 'critical regionalism' with its emphasis on which it is based makes it a valuable useful overviews of landscape and on biological (prospect-refuge, complex, review of ideas from Rusk in to Venturi, townscape aesthetics that are comparatively sustainable), cultural (identity, response to from Geoffrey Scott to Peter Smith. easy to read and understand, and that place) and personal (creative) strategies, but However, as with the previous chapter, the synthesise and fully reference very large it is a very cursory argument, and one author is content to introduce the ideas and bodies of disparate literature. The books hopes that Bourassa will develop their ideas to urge the reader "to enjoy the experience are surprisingly complementary for while much further. of discovering a variety of approaches" Bourassa is concerned with experiential The Aesthetics of Built Form by Alan rather than to advocate a particular aesthetics and posits a coherent Holgate is a civil engineer's attempt to theoretical perspective. developmental framework of biological, explain the aesthetic arguments of Holgate then explores the idea of a cultural and personal perceptual strategies architects and architectural critics to his language of built form looking at various in aesthetics, Holgate is more concerned fellow professionals, and to broaden their forms of associations and meanings derived with formal aesthetics and explores a rather appreciation of all built forms. Would that from architecture. The emphasis on broader range of approaches. While we had design professionals in Britain meaning, so often neglected in design and Bourassa is equally concerned with prepared to explain their own field to their aesthetics, is of great importance and landscape aesthetics Holgate concentrates fellow practitioners! Holgate begins by provides an important link with Bourassa's upon built forms, and while Bourassa relies explaining some of the key elements of cultural theories. Holgate goes on to upon Dewey's view of aesthetics (quite architectural approaches to design explore the value of semiotic approaches appropriately in my view) Holgate providing a simple introduction to ideas of that reaffirm the importance of the observer mentions almost every key aesthetician a language of architecture an questions of as an active producer of meaning, except him. Both books should find a morality and meaning which preoccupy emphasising that interpretations are often welcome place on the bookshelves of those critics. He then examines terms and highly varied and not widely shared. The who are not content to take urban design concepts in aesthetics exploring the subsequent chapter on political and moral practice at face value, and who really want etymological roots of aesthetics and noting, issues is especially valuable, counterposing to explore the value bases of all their like Bourassa, the tendency to equate the political Right's support for classicism assumptions about the experience and form aesthetics with beauty and good taste and to and the Left's adherence to Modernism, but of the built environment. rarefy aesthetics separating it from also looking at the "privilege of culture" in everyday experience. What is interesting is the elitist arguments about art and in the John Punter

URBAN DESIGN QUARTERLY APRIL 1993 61 Book Reviews

FANTASTIC FORM: ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING TODAY by Bill Risebero Herbert Press 1992, £14.95 Risebero's definition is that a building has "fantastic form" when it attains the value of an object defined primarily by its exchange value. Such a value is created and maintained by a design ideology shaped by the necessity for profitability. Bourgeois architectural theory emphasises a naive debate about style, and flounders in the retreat from progressive utopianism and the social charter offered by welfare capitalism. Deregulation and the development of an enterprise culture, cossetted by a "New Right" ideology, he considers, has resulted in a more selective planning process that builds on economic advantage maintained by a disparity of incentives geared towards the already capital rich. The architecture of post-modernism, late-modemism and deconstructivism offers no realistic response to the urban crisis, because the M co*\v€. IstVie urban crisis is no longer the concern of -tow^tVie- fcAvri focuv>*l*l architecture. The contemporary <*\rtc pimple, The. Hopkins, Michael Graves or Quinlan Terry avi

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Grosvenor Waterside at Cardiff Bay "CARDIFF IS " Cardiff is a City of communities each with a recognisable identity and clear boundaries.

Cardiff is a regional centre for shopping, entertainment, leisure, business and tourism.

Cardiff is a green city. Approximately 3,000 acres of public open space serve 290,000 people. • Cardiff is a city of great variety with "clear edges." Hills, river valleys and the Severn Estuary combine to create a memorable urban place in a green setting. • Cardiff is a city with a quality of life which is increasingly attractive to inward investors, business and tourism. • Cardiff is a city on the waterfront. Cardiff Bay Development Corporation is working with the local authorities to develop a unique waterfront environment of exceptional quality and vitality. • Cardiff is a city for which the quality of design and the urban environment are issues of great importance.