Liveability –the Regeneration Challenge
Ciarán Cuffe , Planning Lecturer and City Councillor
Queens University Belfast, 19th May 2015
Liveability
The ability of places to provide
for the needs of all generations
to learn from, benefit and help
each other throughout their lives
In an age of limits our inner cities can
continue to act as role models of low-carbon
walkeable, cycleable and vibrant
communities
Role of the Inner City
Dublin: affluence and deprivation
Dublin’s Inner City
Belfast: affluence and deprivation
Development
• Focus on regeneration and refurbishment
• Importance of area based planning schemes
• Mixed use
• Near zero energy
• Walkability
Refurbished Seventeenth Century Buildings
New buildings and public space in Dublin’s Docklands
Old and new along the Liffey Quays
Community
• Potential for community gain
• Places for inter-cultural gathering
• Involvement of residents
• Importance of festivals, pop-up events
• Mixed-income neighbourhoods
Importance of community participation in regeneration
Phoenix Park, a place for intercultural encounters and learning
Signs of community ownership of place in Phibsborough
Community festival in Stoneybatter
Place-making
• Antithesis of Corbusian Ideal
• Need to reclaim the Street
• Importance of temporary uses
• Place as a social construct
• Potential of city-owned small sites
• Redesign balance between hard and soft modes of travel
Modernity: a false dawn?
Lubetkin at London Zoo: disliked by penguins
Pop-up Granby Park on Dominick Street
Children fishing on Liffey Quays
Derelict city-owned sites: potential for redevelopment
Anti-social places in the heart of the city, traffic comes first
Travel/Spend share: Dublin CBD
Conclusions
• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves
• Empowering communities crucial to success
• Place-making must be inclusive
• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers
• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration
ciaran.cuffe@dit.ie
One more thing…
Some thoughts on Belfast
Twentieth Century Horror
Skywalks as street Killers
Embodied Carbon: -strip and refurbish?
Possibilities for wraparound development
Living over the Shop?
Successful refurbishment, but traffic calming required
Potential for residential conversion
Conclusions
• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves
• Empowering communities crucial to success
• Place-making must be inclusive
• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers
• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration
ciaran.cuffe@dit.ie