Gloucester Green, Oxford, England Case Study

Gloucester Green
(mixed use, 1980's town centre development)

 _{Model of the Piazza}

Technical data

Location:
George Street, Oxford, England. (Map ref. 4510 West 2064 North)

Architects:
Kendrick Associates (2 Littlegate Street, Oxford, OX1 2DH, England)

Developers:
Guardian Properties (17 Burton Street, London, W1X 7AH) with Oxford City Council (Clarendon House, 52 Cornmarket Street, Oxford, England, OX1 1BY)

Public space owned by Oxford City Council.

Access:
Scheme has public access 24 hours a day, including bus station and main public space.

Plan supplied by the architects and reproduced by kind permission.

Scheme summary

Mixed use development, with:

• retail shop units and restaurants
• private flats
• offices
• refurbished 'Old Fire Station' arts complex
• bus station
• underground car park
• public open space
• local context contains cinema, shops, and other town centre uses

Built in the late 1980's, but involving a long planning and development period.

Background to development process

Preceding the existing structure on the site, all that marked the location at Gloucester Green was a car park, a small bus station and a few minor buildings which included a Grade II listed building which had housed a school. Oxford City Council decided in 1978 to regenerate the site at the heart of its Central Conservation Area and put forward a document for public consultation and debate.

The Gloucester Green Discussion Paper proposed several options which ranged from a complete overhaul to smaller scale in-fill. Opinion was in favour of general redevelopment to include a larger bus station and a tree planted piazza. This led to five financial evaluations of the 4,650 square meter plot with a range and combination of property types including the primary components of housing, shops, offices and public space. An alternative scheme was devised by a retail consortium which was rejected by the Council because of the imbalanced mix of uses in favour of retail and the general spatial organisation of the site. As a reflection of this and the change to a Labour controlled council, a stricter design brief was devised which included guidelines on the aggregation of accommodation, its arrangement, aesthetics and for the reinstatement of the Royal Chartered Market. This was referred to the department of the Environment because it proposed to demolish two listed buildings. Two years later, a brief had been finalised and was explicit in its content. The facilities were to include an arts centre, retail outlets for specialist shops, a cleaning depot, public toilets, facilities for the bus station; the piazza was to accommodate 150 market stalls and the residential units were to include local authority tenants as well as private owners. The site was to house these requirements in two mixed-use buildings with the shops at ground floor level, some offices on the first floor and the remainder as residential units. The scheme went to a competition in 1983 to allow for a range of spatial and aesthetic options to be examined. Six teams were asked to exhibit their schemes which were publicly displayed whilst the Council prepared reports on the submissions.

The team chosen included a local architect, Donald Kendrick, local builders, Benfield and Loxley Ltd. and Dimsdale Developments Ltd., with Moult Benn and Co. acting as the surveyors. Presenting the highest overall yield and a high premium this was also the most popular scheme with the public, although the council were not entirely happy with some of the architectural detailing. Following a number of problems over finance and difficult relations between the developers and the Council, Guardian Royal Exchange took over. The scheme was completed in 1989 to 1990 by which time most of the offices had been let, many some months earlier. Similarly with much of the residential accommodation. Renting out the retail units proved considerably harder with Zone A rents rising to £540 per square meter in 1990. The site has seen a rapid turn over of businesses since.

Detailed description and context:

Gloucester Green is a mixed use development, incorporating flats, shops, restaurants, a bus station, and a large open space used for a variety of organised activities, including a one day a week open air market, busking and other entertainments. Most of the buildings as well as the bus station and the main 'piazza' were built as a piece in the late 1980's. The development is situated approximately a quarter of a mile from the main shopping centre of Oxford, and although providing a short cut is not on a primary route through the city. The main plaza space is entirely pedestrian, although one edge incorporates a taxi rank. The bus station forms a distinct and separate territory within the development as a whole. The main spaces are open twenty four hours a day and there is no control over pedestrian access.

Gloucester Green is an urban development whose shops, restaurants and main open space are mainly given over to leisure consumption aimed at a mix of visitor and local business which is predominantly up- market. The majority of retail outlets consist of speciality shops, boutiques, relatively expensive gift shops and cafes. There is also an arts complex, The Old Fire Station, at one corner of the main open space. The space is also given over to a food market one day a week which caters for a much broader range of users than the shops and cafes. Architecturally there has been a clear attempt to create a definite place within the city, as a 'stylish quarter'. This has been achieved through the use of the building form to enclose the main spaces, and through a consistent palette of materials and architectural detailing.

The scheme is in a mixture of ownerships which make its management complex. The office element is under freehold, as is the residential element, whereas the retail outlets are currently owned by a large development company, Guardian Properties. The main piazza space was not built as a matter of choice by Guardian Properties but as a planning obligation. The main piazza space is owned by the city council although the management is given over again to Guardian Properties under a somewhat vague leasing arrangement. This requires the leasing agents to maintain the space but also allows them a broad remit in terms of controlling use and implies a responsibility for the security of the space. The arrangement between Guardian Properties and the retailers who lease outlets in the scheme is somewhat similar to that in many shopping centres. The owners manage the space on behalf of the retailers and levy a service charge to pay for maintenance, promotions and advertising. Although privately managed the piazza remains in the ownership of the city council which, in the view of Guardian Property, makes it quite difficult to control in terms of users and uses.

The intention in the letting policy of the managers has been to create an up-market retail environment. The model that the company had in mind for the scheme was that of a continental square served by street cafes, aimed to attract middle class consumers, drawn predominantly from the University - both its staff and students.

This had been very difficult to achieve because of certain legal requirements to allow access for emergency vehicles to the buildings themselves, combined with a requirement to keep the central space clear for the weekly Charter Market. Likewise, the market itself was seen as detrimental to the tone they had wished to manufacture. Another significant factor that has constrained the creation of a total up-market ambience is that one side of the square which predates the new development is owned by another company whose letting policy is somewhat different to that of Guardian Properties. This block contains fast food outlets and a betting shop which clearly contradicts the feel that the managers of the space as a whole would like to create.

When the scheme first opened and for five years after, it was actively promoted and marketed by Guardian Properties through an Oxford based company, Marketing Principles. They published both a promotional magazine 'The Gallery'), and a flier. The magazine was aimed at potential retailers rather than the general public. The magazine itself with its articles on the history of the site, the comparisons with Covent Garden and its organised 'quality' busking, and on such past times as yachting and travel to exotic places attempts to reinforce this appeal to the 'yuppie' user. However, in attempting to define precisely who the place is targeted at, the first edition of 'The Gallery' fights shy of identifying itself with an out and out elite user group:

(The Gallery is) a bright, colourful development in the heart of Oxford that we hope will become a favourite haunt of yours, and of people like you.....We referred to people like you. Isn't that a bit presumptuous? How do we know what 'people like you' are like? We've no wish to presume. But we've carried out some very careful research. We discovered that many people warm to the idea of finding in Oxford specialist shops, pavement cafes, and a good restaurant or two, with proper service. Street entertainment of an unobtrusively controlled nature also features at The Gallery.....You'll find The Gallery has something to suit almost all tastes and interests - no matter how diverse - whether its an attraction to the arts, but not too seriously; to food and drink, but not to the point of pretentiousness; to travel and sport, but not necessarily to the most popular forms either. ('The Gallery', 1989).

(Text supplied by Dr Alan Reeve, RUDI Project, Library, Oxford Brookes University).

Evaluation

New mixed use scheme built following pro- active approach by local authority. The ownership of site by the local authority allowed them to influence development brief and force through mixed use scheme with substantial public open space.

Kendrick Associates used standardized internal layouts for flats and offices to save design time to 'spend' on detailed design of exterior elevations.

Attempts to accommodate a new bus station on a very tight site below residential accommodation.

Aesthetic of scheme provoked much heated debate when first erected.

(Notes supplied by Sue McGlynn, Joint Centre for Urban Design, Oxford Brookes University)

A model of the whole scheme with the Bus Station to the left, and the Piazza to the right.

Sources of data on scheme:

Architects Journal (1991) 'Oxford Entrants', 16 Jan pp 36-43

Country Life (1991) 'Gloucester Green, a mixed use development', July 18, v.185, no.29, p.81

Reeve. A. (1995)Urban Design and Places of Spectacle, unpublished PhD thesis, Joint Centre for Urban Design, Oxford Brookes University