Helsinki University of Technology | Department of Architecture

| Urban Renewal studio | Autumn 2002
Mersey River Front Development /Liverpool /England
Brief | 28th of August 2002

Introduction

The theme of the UR course for the study year 2002-03 at HUT was "The City and Work". The autumn term consisted of analysis and design work for Mersey River Front Development, Liverpool (England) -an urban metamorphosis of a former port / dockyard area in the centre of Liverpool, currently under vivid public discussion. The design work was accomplished in teams together with foreign support from Liverpool School of Architecture and Building Engineering (part of Liverpool University). We made a trip to England and a workshop was arranged in Liverpool. The deadline for the design work was 02 December 2002. The central idea is that our plans/designs for the site would arouse public discussion in Liverpool about the future of he site. In addition, this riverfront area is a rather typical example of port renewal sites in Europe. Thus our project is also experimental laboratory for similar cases in many other cities.

The Teaching Personnel

professor, architect Trevor Harris, SAFA/RIBA

architect Antti Ahlava, SAFA

architect Veikko Mäkipaja, SAFA

architect Kirsti Rantanen, SAFA

architect Hannu Tikka, SAFA

Information about the site to be designed

The site is about 1x3 km all together. At the first design stage, every group made a general plan for the whole area. Afterwards smaller parts of it were selected for further examination.

We used for example the following information about the development plans for the whole Liverpool:

www.liverpoolvision.co.uk - A strategy plan for the development of the whole Liverpool centre by architecture office Skidmore-Owings-Merrill and real estate agents.
- Includes also lots of photographs and other images of the city and our site.

Our information concerning specifically our site:

www.liverpoolvision.co.uk
-public discussion about Kings Waterfront site, part of our area.
www.liverpoolfourthgrace.co.uk and www.ladt.org.uk/
-About the invitation competition of the "Fourth Grace" area, also part of our area.
Maps:
www.multimap.com/
-Includes also aereal images. Some maps and images have been copied to the common folder.

Information about the architecture of Liverpool and Manchester

Some of the major attractions in North-West area of England are Frederick Gibberd's Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King (1960-97), Nicholas Grimshaw's Manchester Airport (1998-99) and Stockbridge Leisure Centre in Liverpool (1986-88), Ian Simpson's new Millennium-funded Urbis museum for city living in Manchester (2002), Ove Arup's International Garden Festival Hall in Liverpool (1984) and Manchester City FC Stadium made for the Commonwealth Games (2002) and Hall O'Donahue & Wilson's Playhouse Theatre Extension in Liverpool (1968). Chester is a nice historical town near Liverpool.

Books:
- Murray - Trombley: Britain: Modern Architecture Guide. ADT 1990.
- On Gibberd's catholic cathedral: Jencks: Modern Movements in Architecture (20-25). Penguin 1973.

In the internet:
www.ladt.org.uk/
-Liverpool Architecture and Design Trust
www.liverpoolarchitecture.com
-Liverpool Architectural Society
-Includes "online archi-tours" through old architecture of the city.
www.rebuilding-manchester.co.uk
-50's and 60's architecture

Excercise 1: Background analysis and travel guide

The task entangled many different urban, spatial and social spheres. The idea was to first analyse this background and present the results to the whole Urban Renewal course. Simultaneously the results constituted the travel guide for our journey to England. The excursion took place in October 2002.

The tasks:

A. Division into about ten student groups 3 persons each, preferably nationalities mixed.

B. Choosing the study topics:

You can start with the bibliography and net links already gathered above.
1. The culture of Northern England
-North English culture, society and their local concepts of contemporary urbanity
2. History of Liverpool and the site
3. Present day Liverpool, its city structure, events and entertainment
4. Architecture of Liverpool
-at least 5 historical and 10 modern objects
-the addresses and metro passages to the sites included
5. Existing development strategies for the whole Liverpool
6. Present Mersey Riverfront Site
- traffic
- nature
- building
- activities
- connections
- cityscape
7. Present Mersey Riverfront Site
-existing development schemes
8. Architecture of Manchester
-5 historical and 5 new objects.
-addresses and metro passages to the sites included
9. Architecture of London
-15, mainly modern objects
-addresses and metro passages to the sites included
10. Contemporary Port Renewals
- Industrial utopias (industry & cities in general)
- Existing important factory areas in the history

C. Instruction to analytical methods.

-Literature, magazines
-internet
-emphasis in spatial, pictorial and diagrammatical analysis. The exact locations must be pointed out and preferably also the travel routes should be planned.

D. Presentation

-In horizontal format (for example Microsoft PowerPoint of Adobe Acrobat) to be presented by a data projector (94 dpi, 28,5 x 21, 5 cm) + the same pages printed in a4 format. The results are available on these web pages (see "analysis").

Brief:

-Simply put: at least total 100.000 - 300.000 km2 offices and services for the whole area + additional housing according to the solution. The emphasis is anyway on creating workplaces. We have used realistic norms in deciding about the extents of different amenities and areas.

Produced material:

-Documents that illustrate the urban design for the area and its connection to its environment; its new three dimensional and functional characteristics. Special attention put to atmosphere and image of the place as a new urban realm.
-The technique was free: it could be drawings on boards, scale model, Data projector presentation, Flash presentation, video etc.
-The scale was basically free, but the presentation must give an architecturally reasonable and detailed view of the designed area. For example at least:
-for the interim critique: structure map of the whole area 1:5000, zoom in to the chosen sub-area (1/4) 1:2000, scale model of the sub-area 1:2000-1:1000, calculations, perspectives, axonometrics, area sections 1:1000.
-for the final critique the same material + a detailed block study 1:1000, selected building plans, façade diagrams and partial sections 1:500.

ANTTI AHLAVA, M.Arch. SAFA, 2002