transforming derby's public realm
Transforming Derby's public realm
Derby Cityscape, the Urban Regeneration Company set up in 2003 to regenerate Derby's city centre, appointed Nick Corbett its urban designer in 2004, making it the first URC to create such a post. From the beginning, says Nick, the URC's has had a commitment to high quality urban design including public realm. In this article, he explains how the company is working to get the public on board, bearing in mind the years of disruption to come. This includes a campaign using the hoardings around building sites as a giant canvas to present their vision for the regeneration of Derby. |
Why Derby?
There are 13 tower cranes dotted across the Derby skyline and they’re testimony to the fact that the city’s undergoing great change; in fact Derby’s undergoing a transformation the like of which it hasn’t seen since the Victorian period. Two key documents that have enabled Derby Cityscape to raise design quality are an approved masterplan and a Public Realm Strategy.
Derby is very much a Midlands city. It has a small compact city centre, which is ideal for walking around; you get these unfolding views and architectural delights that lead you onwards. It works well in terms of serial vision, an unfolding sequence of streets and squares.
As with many of England’s industrial cities, Derby turned its back on its river during its industrial past. But now the river’s a wonderful asset. Our Public Realm Strategy priorities improvements along the river and especially connections to the river from the main shopping streets. The river now provides a dramatic and attractive setting for new development and public spaces.
The masterplan outputs for the city centre include:
- 5000 new homes
- 1.4 million sq ft of new commercial office space
- New 4* and 5* hotels
- Over 1.2 million sq ft of new retail floor space
Giant hoardings: presenting the Vision
As we are going to have a lot of building sites in Derby that means a lot of hoardings, so we thought we would take advantage of them. By using the hoardings as a giant public art project we aim to raise trust and confidence in the Derby Cityscape vision. We needed to show local people that we understood and valued the character that makes their city unique.
We commissioned photographer Christopher Beech and graphic designers Katapult to capture elements of surprising character in Derby’s people and places. Another key theme for the hoardings is the river.
We have also carefully tailored messages on the hoardings to reflect our urban regeneration objectives and a “Derby does it” catch phrase. The hoardings show real Derby people in real Derby locations. They make people stop and think about Derby’s unique character – both in terms of the city’s people and its places. The hoardings are all about building confidence.
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We’ve collaborated with developers and our artwork has been erected on sites all around the city centre. The hoardings are a simple idea but they’ve been a big hit. The Derby Cityscape logo’s also included on the designs and this raises our profile, and crucially, it sends out a clear message that one organization is coordinating activity in the city centre.
Research undertaken recently by Derby City Council has shown that 75% of Derby residents recognize the Derby Cityscape brand. Graffiti’s something of a problem in Derby as it is everywhere but interestingly the hoardings have suffered from hardly any graffiti, and they’ve been up for well over a year.
Derby’s city centre public realm strategy
As well as the design of buildings, we’ve focused upon public realm. We produced the city centre Public Realm Strategy with Urban Initiatives. When I arrived in Derby three years ago it struck me that there was great potential in the layout of its interconnected streets and squares.
The Cathedral Quarter in particular retains a medieval layout with many historic buildings and independent shops. However, it’s also fair to say that Derby’s public spaces had been looking tired for too long. To meet the expectations of local people and investors the public realm needed a more strategic approach. The spaces needed new life breathing into them.
Many of the problems with Derby’s public spaces are similar to those in other cities across the country. For example, there was a plethora of raised planters which were often poorly positioned and poorly maintained. They tended to be obstacles to pedestrian movement and they screened antisocial behaviour. There was also a wide range of contrasting street furniture and materials, and some bizarre colour combinations.
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I’ve heard some people say: 'Every where’s going to look the same if it’s all done in York Stone and granite.' I disagree. These are traditional and historic materials for paving in Derby. I don’t believe that paving should shout at you, “Look at me!” - It’s better if it pulls the city centre together and creates an attractive setting for the buildings and for the public life of the place.'
Our Public Realm Strategy (PRS) includes six major capital projects to enhance the main civic spaces within the city centre.
The PRS is serving as a valuable tool. It’s something that the leaders of the city are using as a vision document, it’s helping to set capital budgets, and it’s being used by those designing schemes. The PRS adds certainty. We wanted to build up a consensus so we held more than 20 public consultation events over 6 weeks, with a very broad range of people.
Again, we had a lot of media coverage with all of this. It was worth it, all of the capital projects that we consulted on received a high number of responses and even the least popular proposals still received over 60 per cent of people in favour of the schemes being built.
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Best practice and sharing ideas
We took the leaders of the City Council and the URC to Birmingham, to see how public realm investment kick started the renaissance of their city centre. Our Derby delegation was received by the Leader of Birmingham City Council and we were given a presentation and walking tour.
From the Birmingham tour we got a very clear message that a strategic approach to public realm is essential and that public money has to be provided upfront to show the private sector that the public sector is serious about their commitment to creating and maintaining a high quality public realm.
In Birmingham the City Council invested around £3.7m in Victoria Sq, and this was the first step in the renaissance of their city centre. This year in Derby we’re building the first public realm projects that will underpin our city centre renaissance. £100 million of public money is committed to delivering the PRS in Derby City Centre over the next ten years.
As soon as our PRS was finished we used it to bid to Government for Growth Point Status. This was a joint bid with the Three Cities, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby. Derby secured the lions share and got £3.7 m to improve Cathedral Green, the main green space in the city centre, beside the river.
We’re currently working on the planning and development of Castleward, Derby’s new urban village, which stands between the city centre and the railway station. Anyone who’s arrived at Derby by train knows that we need to improve the environment around the station.
Our design approach will give greater emphasis to pedestrian freedom and to reducing expensive and unsightly highway clutter. We want the Castleward urban village to be a model project for Manual for Streets.
A number of new bridges are being built to improve connections with the city centre, including what may be the world's first musical bridge over an inner ring road.
Plans for a new footbridge over the River Derwent forms part of a £3.8m scheme to improve the Cathedral Green area. This bridge, which can also be used by cyclists, will be able to swing to one side to allow boats to pass.
The improvements are being financed by £3.6m of Government funding, £100,000 from Derby City Council, and a further £100,000 from the Derby and Derbyshire Economic Partnership. When the bridge opens next spring it will provide visitors with stunning new views up the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.
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Nick Corbett is the author of Revival in the Square, published by RIBA
