bristol, uk
Bristol, UK
Bristol is the largest city in the south west of England, and England’s sixth largest overall. Its prosperity grew with its port, which has now moved to the coast at Avonmouth. In more recent years, it has become a centre for the aerospace industry while its city centre docks are currently undergoing extensive regeneration.
The city is growing; by 2026 there are likely to be 30,000 more people living in the city. In the area surrounding Bristol (the former county of Avon), the population will increase by some 100,000. As a result of changes to the planning system in 2004, work has already begun on the Bristol Development Framework, which will guide the significant growth that will be occurring in Bristol over the next 20 years.
The Bristol City Centre Strategy, first published in 1998, sets out a number of key aims based around the aim of establishing Bristol as the regional capital for the south west of England, and a historic European city. These aims are set out in full in Bristol City Centre: Strategy and Area Action Plan, published by the City Council’s Department of Planning in November 2005.
Its Urban Design Framework divides the city into nine city centre neighbourhoods. Three of these are defined as major regeneration focal points:
- Harbourside
- Broadmead
- Temple
The City Council will focus on major regeneration projects in the three areas above. The view is that the expansion and growth of these key areas will spread beyond their boundaries across the whole city centre
Key facts: Tel: (0117) 92 22962 |  |
| Pero’s Bridge at night. Designed by artist Eilis O’Connell Engineers: OveArup. This brushed steel bridge is not onlybeautiful to look at, but is a working bridge which can be raised to let boats through. | |
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| St Augustine’s Parade, Bristol City Centre |
Case studies
Queen Square
See a full case study on the CABE website.
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| View of Queen Square | Looking out of the square showing the detail given to paving and lack of street clutter which contribute to making this a successful scheme |
Harbourside
The regeneration of Bristol’s disused dockland began in a piecemeal fashion in the early 1980s, but has since evolved into an exemplar for waterfront regeneration.
(See project overview on this site)
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| Millennium Square |
Legible City
This comprehensive pedestrian signage system underpins the entire regeneration of the city centre. It aims to provide a user-friendly way of signposting visitors around the centre, with free maps based on the same designs as the signs used in the street.
(see article on this website)
Lake Shore
Bristol City Council has approved plans by Urban Splash to transform the former Imperial Tobacco Factory Headquarters, Imperial Park, Hartcliffe, Bristol, into 358 residential apartments and 17,000 sq ft of commercial space. The scheme will be called Lake Shore. Urban Splash plans to launch the apartments for public sale in summer 2007.
The 10 acre (4.5 hectare) Lakeshore site is Grade II Listed and was originally designed by renowned US architects, Skidmore Owings and Merrill, in conjunction with UK based York Rosenberg Mardell 1974 and featured the Imperial tobacco factory and office head quarters linked together by an underground passage. The factory was closed in 1991 and demolished in 1997. This was followed by the removal of the office headquarters' windows and exterior cladding, leaving the shell and external Corten steel frame of the building.
The plans for the regeneration of Lake Shore have been designed by Bristol based architects Acanthus Ferguson Mann and include converting the existing Corten steel building into apartments and the creation of a new building to complement it and the lake which will rightly become a major feature of the development.
St Paul’s
(see RGS project overview on this site)
