Greenway Before&After

Here is a revised E&C sketch plan based on our discussions yesterday.

This reverts to the historic road layout with the exception of joining up the two 'islands' in the middle. The three stations are visually linked with buses adjacent to the new central tube station. The central space is predominantly a transport hub and market place (like a traditional market town), also serving as public open space and open-air entertainment venue.

I'm not sure the traffic and pedestrian movements quite work at the moment - the idea is that traffic would go north on the western side of the market place and south on the eastern side, but the junction at the top looks rather scary and there may be too many pedestrian crossings, but perhaps that's what we want - it would certainly slow the traffic down! The other areas that aren't quite resolved are the open spaces where the roads have been extended down into the area currently occupied by the roundabout (in front of the college buildings, northern most tube station, and flats), and the design of the southern venue - this ought to terminate the north-south axis, but the relationship to the Strata tower is awkward to resolve.

I love the elephants dotted about the greenway idea, like a linear sculpture park and similar to the dinosaurs at Crystal Palace Park, which pull in loads of visitors:

Elephant Trail greenway

A summary of design decisions for the greenway/cycleway through the site:
- pedestrians and cyclists will have priority along the whole of the route;
- there will also be strictly limited vehicle access (for deliveries, access to businesses, houses, etc.);
- the route should have a large amount of planting, including trees wherever possible;
- planting palette should be consistent for the whole route, although exact combinations may vary from place to place;
- there could be a red and gold theme to the planting inspired by images of theatres;
- the surface should also be the same along the whole route (coloured?) to help define the route's identity;
- we also propose using the elephant as a recurring theme along the route - this could include murals, elephant images on the pavement, benches or other street furniture (play features) that looks like elephants or parts of elephants (e.g. the trunk), or elephant 'sculptures'; some of the elephants would be large and obvious, others could be small and hidden, so people have to look carefully to find them  - everyone enjoys a 'treasure' hunt!
 One of our inspirations for this was the 'Elephant Parade' in London last year (and this year's similar Big Egg hunt) where 260 decorated elephants were placed all over the city...

www.elephantparadelondon.org

My aim for area 2 of E&C is to create a "Buskers Quarter", a place where people can walk around and stop for a coffee while listening to live music. 

Reading about busking, I have discovered that buskers would not mind a sort of "organization" of their work. Some need space to rehearsal, to get together and share their talent. Therefore I came out with the idea of creating a "busker centre" building, next to the main performance square.

I went to Covent Garden, the perfect example of a Busker area, and tried to ask questions directly to performers. 

INTERVIEWING PITT THE BUSKER IN COVENT GARDEN

Cristina: What would make people come to the Busker Quarter?

Pitt the Busker: Leisure facilities would attract people who is interested in Art and Entertainment. Theatres, venues for music, nice café and bars.

C. : What is the perfect location for buskers?

P. : It should be a destination for people.

C. : What kind of use would you make of a “Busker Centre“ building?

P. : The building would have an area to rehearsal, an area for events, a Storage for instruments, a kitchen and areas for relaxation.

C. : What kind of retail shops would be in context with the buskers area?

P. : A market close by is a perfect place. People for shopping (maybe) but they feel free to wonder around.

Thanks Pitt for your help!

Photo: Buskers Pitt and Melanie

Ideas for Site 4

Southbank

....this time with full key )

LondonRoad X GardenRow

As it looks now....

As it could look after...

Blackfriars x Scoresby St. Proposals

AS IT IS ...

ONE PROPOSAL - GREENING THE STREET, ADDING CYCLE LANES

PROPOSAL TWO - CHANGING THE  INTEREST THROUGH COLOUR, ADDING TREES, SEPARATING THE LANES

CYCLING THE GREENWAY - A JOURNEY THROUGH THE THEATRE

A sketch of the Greenway Cycle Route with a schematic journey through the interests created along the route.

Another interesting precedent

WĀV

Working Artists Ventura

WĀV is the first sustainable arts community in the world. The Working Artists Ventura (WĀV) project is a state-of-the-art, sustainable village designed for artists and creative businesses. Located in the cultural district of downtown Ventura, California, WĀV provides affordable living and working space for over one hundred artists of every kind; painters, sculptors, dancers, poets, musicians, filmmakers and more. The WĀV Theater Gallery offers performances, art openings and public gatherings. Arts-friendly small businesses that are coming soon include coffee houses, galleries, cafes, wine bars and jazz clubs that will draw foot traffic and contribute to the vitality of the neighborhood.

With the community involved in every phase of development, the WĀV project is filled with diverse, mixed-income families and individuals. Supportive Housing provides homes and services to those at the lowest end of the income scale. Solar-powered, ocean-view condominiums that come with a hybrid car bring higher income households to the community and help to cross-capitalize the affordable components. The entire community is designed and built to the highest standards of green building technology (seeking LEED Gold Award), including recycled building materials, car sharing, water and energy conservation, and renewable power from the sun.

More at: http://www.place.us/about.html?gclid=CJi44tzphK8CFS4NtAodtRrG2A

Corridors - Design Code

I have uploaded the design code for my Corridors on Skydrive as copy-paste didn't quite work for all the images I embedded in the word document. They are in a new Folder named DesignCodeDocuments.
Please have a look there and let me know if it is what we want... I have to say that if we make it more complicated it will take time for all of us to put everything together. Mine is not yet complete as I need to add more info and also I would like to discuss some details with all of you. Basically the question is how far are we going with the design code opposed to concentrating on the more important things.

Click here to go straight to the Skydrive location (it opens in a new window)

P.S. Tamasin, I am not sure if it is already sorted but can you please make sure Duncan has access to your Skydrive? His input will help us tomorrow...

Elephant and Castle Idea

Hi guys, ..testing to see if I can upload, It seems that I might be able to now.. As emailed previously, here is my idea for the Elephant and Castle area. Essentially it is is two large complexes where the roundabouts currently are. The road between the two and the north roundabout will be underground via slip roads. There will be no need for the southern roundabout. The two large complexes are mainly for entertainment, featuring large open stage areas on the lower levels. The rest of the buildings will be shops, eateries, leisure facilities, indoor venues, bars, video screens and roof top space. The area inbetween and surrounding the complexes will be open, multi-functional and pedestrianised with other smaller stages and seating. This space along with the park to the southwest will also act as a large capacity audience area for events held on the complex stages. The roof top of the station will also become an open bar/eatery and audience area. Hope the drawing is readable.

Greenway examples

With updated images...
The key thing seems to be to have some continuity along the route so that it is identifiable as a route. Whether that's a consistent surface (coloured tarmac?), or planting, or a continuous or repeated feature or 'motif' like the bright red wall or ribbon (perhaps should be a more 'theatrical' shade of red though) we'll need to figure out.

 
 

 

Definitely not this though!

Design coding 2

Don't know whether this will be any help, but I've been having a think about the design code hierachy we talked about last week and have come up with a few different options as to how we could classify the different levels. The idea - I think - is that there might be some general principles that apply to all areas, e.g. Use & Amount, Layout, Access, Sustainability & Energy from Mitti's draft of last week, then more detail for the sub-areas. Not sure whether we'd need to subdivide these further to allow for different typologies within each sub-area - maybe some but not others, or maybe we just allow enough options within the code for each sub-area to cover the full range...   Does this make any sense to anyone or am i talking complete gibberish??
Option 1:

Option 2: 

 Option 3:

Option 4:

 

And here are some additional headings for the design coding for whichever sub-areas we agree. Comments/ suggestions welcome.

Model overlay

Illustration of the Model over A Google Earth Map
This is the base for overlaying the green route (may I have the sketch so I can put it on?)

Agenda for change - 1st draft

Here's a first stab at our 'Agenda for Change'. I used my design area as a starting point, but I've added in some of the other key elements of the proposals as well. It needs areas, numbers, costs, etc. adding, and I've probably left out some of the impacts, positive and negative. I'll circulate the original excel version so that you can add any suggestions.

Positive		Cost  estimate	Income generation
1	New ‘safe’ Elephant Greenway /Arts Trail cycle and walking path from South Bank to Elephant & Castle;
2	New Elephant & Castle market space;
3	Xno./Xm2 of new performance venues – including created  for benefit of local people and to attract additional visitors to the area;
4	Improvements to main vehicle routes to make them more pedestrian and cycle friendly;
5	Residential streets  made more  pleasant for pedestrians and with dominance of parked and moving vehicles significantly reduced;
6	Additional street trees and other planting throughout the site;
7	Community gardens established as part of increased planting;
8	Sustainable urban drainage systems introduced to slow water run off and reduce risk of flooding;
9	Xm2 of additional open space created;
10	Existing open/green spaces improved to make them  more engaging and usable, e.g. more seating provided;
11	Xno.  of live/work apartments for artists and creative industries through renovation of existing buildings;
12	Xno./Xm2 of student accommodation created through conversion of existing buildings;
13	Xm2 of new retail space for residents and to attract new visitors;
14	Xm2 of new cafe/restaurant/bar space for residents and to attract new visitors;
15	Streets safer as a result of increased use throughout the day and evenings;
16	Improved street lighting;

Negative		Solution/Mitigation
1	Some existing businesses displaced;	Provide alternative equivalent or better accommodation within proposals where possible; identify alternative accommodation outside site area; compensation;
2	Some existing residents displaced?	Provide alternative equivalent or better accommodation within proposals where possible; identify alternative accommodation outside site area; compensation;
3	Reduced availability of on street parking?	Improved public transport connections; improved pedestrian and cycle routes; car rental options (e.g. Street Car)
4	Increased journey lengths for some residents/ users as a result of introducing one way system;	Difference likely to be small; encourage redued car use as above;
5	Increased traffic on main/some thoroughfares due to changes in traffic flow;	Encourage reduced car use as above;
6	Temporary disruption during construction works;	Appropriate phasing; agreed working hours; delivery arrangements, etc. Decanting to alternative facilities where necessary;
7	Increase in noise, litter, etc. as a result of higher visitor numbers;

Area 3 design 'branding'

Not exactly a 'design code', but some initial ideas in that direction for my area... thought it might be helpful alongside Mitti's suggestions last week in developing design code(s) for other areas/the site as a whole. Comments welcome.