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Oxford Strategic Partnership: Public Realm Working Group APPROACHES TO THE PUBLIC REALM: EXAMPLES These examples are drawn from research carried out in 2007 for the Cultural Strategy for the West End’s Renaissance. They take into consideration the key objective of the OSP: to work in partnership to improve the public realm in all areas of the city. Bristol : Bristol Legible City (BLC) is a long term project which brings together the public and private sector with transport planners, artists and designers in a multidisciplinary project development team working on movement and information. The aim is to improve people’s understanding and experience of the city through identity, information and transportation projects. These include direction signs, on street information panels with city and area maps, printed walking maps, cycle signing, visitor information identity, and arts projects extending to public transport, highway planning and journey planners. They are all bound together by a consistent visual language, naming hierarchy and unique mapping system, with attention to detail. For more information see: http://www.bristollegiblecity.info/

Public art in Bristol has helped people learn about the city and find their way around. One example is walkie talkie, a 600 metre long poem by a local poet Ralph Hoyte, printed on blue tape and placed across the city centre on pavements, bars and ferry boats.

Bristol’s Harbourside development is the new heart for arts, culture and entertainment. It incorporates Explore@Bristol, a 21st century science centre. This is linked to the waterfront and city centre by a series of magnificent public squares and open spaces, which feature water and light features, sculptures

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and landscaping which can be enjoyed 24 hours a day, and which have been carefully planned to include areas suitable for live entertainment. The public art has been themed around reflection and exploration to complement the architectural heritage of the site and to extend the theme of Explore@Bristol by encouraging people to look at the world in a new way. Cafés, bars and promenades offer plenty of space to sit, relax and enjoy the views.

Newcastle : The Quayside development was begun in 1987 as a partnership between central government and the private sector under the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. It had a strong community strategy which permeated all aspects of its work. This included community arts projects and community representation on monitoring panels for major developments. The development won a BURA (British Urban Regeneration Association) Award in 1999, with the judges including the following reasons in their citation: ‘the area is stunning in terms of its architectural and public art … £1 million has been invested in public art and this has had a major impact on the state of mind in the city, leading to a greater confidence … the Quayside project is an example of what can be achieved in difficult topography and over time’

Grainger Town was described in a 1992 study as an historic area in the heart of Newcastle which exhibited many symptoms of urban decay and economic and social decline, including low standards of public realm. By 2006, the

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Grainger Town development had become a dynamic and competitive location, with the Europa Nostra 2003 Top Prize for Cultural Landscapes. The development included ‘Living Over the Shops’ schemes and the start of an annual Streets Alive street arts festival. The area includes a grade 1 listed covered market, redeveloped to include creation of an events space and the Arcade for use by tenants for speciality events and promotions and seating for use by caterers. Norwich :The Forum and Millennium Plain, a £65million development, funded by the Millennium Commission, Norfolk County Council and Norwich, opened in 2001 and attracts 2 million visitors each year. Millennium Plain is an expansive outdoor space with steps creating an amphitheatre which hosts a variety of free events and activities for the public. The Forum, which includes the library and visitor information centre, has a glass atrium where there are craft fairs, farmers’ markets, art exhibitions, concerts and more.

Spatial Metro is an EU funded project dedicated to finding new and exciting ways of improving city centres for pedestrians. The project includes design ideas such as:

• Giving themes to pedestrian networks within the city, for example heritage, retail and cultural routes

• Giving pedestrian routes an “identity” with special paving and lighting • Metro style maps for pedestrians • Information points giving detail about the City including maps • Virtual reality models of buildings and routes to help people find their

way around the city • Audible signs • Promoting key locations/ attractions along the routes to encourage

pedestrians to discover more about the city • Introducing environmentally friendly transport options within

pedestrian zones

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Within this project, Norwich developed a Walking Metro Map, along the lines of the London Tube map, with cultural, heritage and shopping lines marked in a clear, graphic style; ‘Walking Metro Stations’ where there are public spaces with cafés, toilets, information, seating and other facilities; ‘Interchanges’ where there are places of interest on two or more lines; ‘Stops’ at places of interest; and ‘Transport Gateways’ which are arrival and departure points to the city.

For the Spatial Metro flyer see: http://www.norwich.gov.uk/intranet_docs/A-Z/Economic%20Developemtn%20and%20European%20Affairs/2006/Spatial_Metro_Flyer.pdf

Liveable City was a transnational project, led by by Norwich, worth £10 million and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The main aim of the project was to create an integrated approach to developing, managing and maintaining public urban spaces in historic city centres. It views city centres as single entities and aims to develop a coordinated approach to the way public space is used, managed and looked after.

Within the Liveable City project, Norwich produced a Streetscape Design Manual: available at http://www.liveable-city.eu/frames/project_reports/framer.htm Workshop reports and city special strategies from the project are available at: http://www.liveable-city.eu/frames/project_reports/framer.htm York :A Sustainable Street Lighting Strategy was agreed by the City Council in 2007 which recognised that the use of street lights and illuminated signs can be of considerable benefit for safety, preventing night time injury accidents, reducing street crime and the fear of crime, promoting sustainable transport such as walking and cycling, and facilitating social inclusion. The strategy aimed to ensure that the effects of street lighting are minimised in terms of the use of natural resources for the supply of equipment and services, the use of energy to power the lights and the light pollution produced. It recognised that Street lighting has seen considerable advances in technology in recent years to produce better quality light that is more directional and controllable - the start of a new era for street lighting. The technology is being introduced in such a way that street lights are capable of being controlled remotely, and consideration is given to partial switching off and dimming of light systems in different areas of the city according to needs. Out of the Strategy emerged Illuminating York, an annual festival of specially commissioned, site specific performance and installations across the city by artists and art students, like the piece pictured below by Patrice Warrener for York Minster. The event showcases York as a vibrant, contemporary and

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creative city, and breathes light and innovation into York’s historic and urban environment, attracting visitors from far and wide.

Chester: Chester in 2015, Chester’s Place Marketing Strategy (2006), stated that the city should aspire to be ‘one of Britain’s great historic boutique cities’. ‘The term “boutique” is said to evoke an appealing combination of heritage, design driven quality, and contemporary facilities in an environment that is compact, accessible and manageable from the perspective of both visitors and residents. This is how Chester can differentiate itself from competitor cities – both large and small, building on Chester’s existing assets, developing underutilised assets such as the river, canal and old port, and attracting the type of retail, and leisure businesses that reinforce this “sense of place”.’ The strategy identified the following points:

• that Chester’s future also depends on maintaining a reputation for high quality retail and a range of choice in a unique historic environment, to differentiate it from other regional shopping centres

• that the city is extremely fortunate in terms of both the wealth of its hinterland and its unique historic infrastructure. It must recognise its heritage as the platform upon which to build its distinctiveness. Chester therefore needs to preserve, polish and promote its historical and architectural assets in a way that appeals to visitors and engenders pride amongst residents.

• It also needs to attract more “signature” facilities, such as iconic restaurants and boutique hotels, and to improve the range and quality of its cultural and entertainment offer.

The success of the strategy is said to require (among other things) ‘good maintenance of Chester’s public realm: This means preserving, polishing and promoting Chester’s assets. The importance of clean streets well lit, safe, attractively maintained and in keeping with Chester’s unique historic sense of

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place and good interpretation and signage should not be underestimated. Outstanding contemporary design should be pursued in new developments, which would contribute to Chester’s sense of being a modern and vibrant city, without compromising Chester’s sense of place (or resorting to historic pastiche).’

Chester’s Local Distinctiveness Strategy (2002) refers to research which concluded that local distinctiveness is important because it provides a place with meaning and is an important factor in attracting people to live, work, visit or invest in one place rather than another. It’s an important element in a place’s economic competitiveness. ‘Investors’ in Chester identified distinctive factors which can be broadly categorised as events & attractions, tourism, shopping, economy, location, townscape, and 2000 years of built heritage. The public realm (the spaces between buildings) in Chester was noted as being distinctive in the following ways:

• Street surfaces are paved in traditional materials • Buildings are lit to illustrate their architectural splendour • There is coordinated and high quality street furniture – reflecting

its historic context • High quality finger posts and interpretation features which reflect the

character of the City • Traditional, high quality and well maintained shop fronts • A tradition of trees in the historic streets and spaces • The presence of key public spaces – Town Hall Square, Abbey

Square, the Cross and the Groves • Controlled on-street advertising • Attractive and convenient car parks

The public realm issues to be addressed were identified as:

• Some main retailing streets and spaces in the heart of the City are still dominated by vehicular traffic

• Street furniture is not unique and can be found in many City centres throughout the UK

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• Main public spaces are cluttered • Outside the recently paved areas street surfacing is ordinary and

patchy • Many public car parks are visually poor • Architectural lighting strategy has still to be implemented in full

Some years on from the strategy document, the Chester website now proclaims: ‘Chester - old enough to make your spine tingle, yet young enough in spirit to be effortlessly fashionable’ ‘Small enough to explore easily on foot, but big enough to be wonderfully cosmopolitan’

Chester Town Crier Proclamation Note This is initial information based on examples already held and further examples of different approaches to the public realm could be a useful area for research. Danielle Battigelli, 5 June 2009