Glasgow’s new Transport Museum designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is the latest in a series of buildings intended to be key parts of the regeneration of the River Clyde corridor over the last 30 years.  Starting with the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) in 1979, the developments include the Clyde Auditorium or Armadillo, an addition to the SECC complex by Foster and Partners in 1995, the Glasgow Science Centre by BDP in 2001 including the striking Glasgow Tower by Richard Horden and the BBC Scotland studios originally by David Chipperfield but completed by Keppie Design in 2007.  The Glasgow Arena by Foster and Partners is expected to open in 2013.  During this period, the Clyde Corridor hosted the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988, become home to the International Financial Services District and has seen the construction of new bridges at Finnieston and Tradeston.

For many exhibits in the Riverside Museum this will be their fourth home in fifty years.  Kelvingrove Museum, the Tramway and latterly the Kelvin Hall all housed major elements of the collection but this latest and presumably permanent location in theory can display far more of the collection than previous venues.  The riverside location provides an appropriate transport and movement context in abundance.  There are railways, ferries and the seaplane terminal, the buzzing of helicopters, the noise from BAE Systems downstream building Westminster’s warships and the constant background noise of the Clydeside Expressway.  Despite all this movement, the museum’s context is dereliction and the current recession may ensure that it will stay that way for many years.

Interestingly, Glasgow City Council considered three approaches to the provision of a Museum of Transport:  1) constructing a cheap shed on an accessible site and spending more on interior display and curation, 2) housing the collection in an appropriate historic structure – for example a disused shipyard building or perhaps a tram shed or 3) housing the collection in a new icon building.  Clearly the lure of the third approach won, potentially weakening curation and display, secondary research opportunities and floorspace.

Approaching the building by road or on foot is a disappointing experience.   The latest modifications to the Clydeside Expressway have ensured that the Riverside Museum has few convenient connections with surrounding areas.  The access road has the feeling of a motorway off-ramp to a retail park.  With bitmac footpaths and pin kerbing in abundance around the rudimentary car park, this is a value-engineered environment.  Buses roar backwards and forwards from the city centre carrying two or three people in each while the car park (pay and display) overflows with visitors.  Clearly innovation has stopped at the outside wall of the new building.

Well that isn’t strictly fair on Gross Max who designed the public realm around the building. Gross Max, one of Scotland’s brightest and most accomplished landscape architects have produced a sequence of spaces around the curves of the building with token misters for the kids and green mounds and silver birch trees integrated into a simple paving treatment.  Here it is possible to see a nod towards the aesthetic of scrub and spontaneous landscape that is common to the post-industrial Clyde Corridor.   Is it the intention that the maturing of this landscape would see ZHA’s building in a glade of scrubby silver birch?  Who knows – it is hard to find any sense of landscape in the various visualisations of the building.  One thing is certain though and that is that Gross Max did not anticipate the vast consumption of junk food from three temporary outlets around the new building or the consequent overflowing rubbish bins and tomato ketchup staining around the picnic tables.

The building itself is another of the metal clad genre common to the Clyde, very photogenic and certain to join the family of other recent buildings that have become the postcard face of the city.  Like the Science Centre, Armadillo and the recent bridges, it is flattered by blue sky and vacant surroundings which help to point up its other-worldliness.  Purely by being interesting enough to be photographed, the building becomes a location that is unique and worth a visit.  It establishes a significant place on the river – even if it is disconnected from anything else.  And we may be seeing it at its best because once the Scottish property market recovers and starts to roll out more junk developments, especially to the west of the Riverside across the Kelvin, the setting of the building will be altered for the worse.

There are few clues from the outside as to what is happening in the building.  Its crisp exterior of zinc and dark glass, flawless cladding and signature roofline create a memorable if severe aesthetic.  From across the river at Govan, the presence of the SS Glenlee berthed alongside the Museum presents a slightly uncomfortable visual moment which flatters neither object – the effect may be similar to your granny turning up at your graduation wearing a Crimplene dressing gown.

Inside the building, the atmosphere is chaotic and redolent of a 1950s toy garage.  Presumably there were three phases of appreciation of the building: as an empty cathedral-like space with no exhibits, as a completed building with everything in place except for the ‘customers’ – these two being very important to people living in the architecture bubble – and finally, the crowded and complete environment we see today with kids trying to break exhibits and folk bumping into each other.  It’s a happy place though with much smiling, patient helpful staff and reminiscing.  Almost everything seems very familiar yet very special too.  The curation is crowded and for some, overcrowded or cramped, lacking space for contemplation or research.

Although it may be a minor work in terms of ZHA buildings, it will surely be an excellent investment for the Council, hugely popular and extremely positive for the marketing of the city.  But despite the merits of the building, it can’t escape its surroundings and disconnection with the city. So it would be unfortunate if any euphoria surrounding the Riverside obscured the fact that this un-crowded stretch of ‘world class waterfront’ is actually a world class failure in terms of the production of contemporary city and certainly one of the worst waterfront developments in Europe.  If landscape articulates a politics as well as an aesthetic then this waterfront is a consummate neo-liberal landscape of public waste, private greed, risk aversion and an environment for ‘customers’ in which communities, their economies and potential are completely ignored.  It’s not that the individual public sector funded developments have not succeeded – indeed they are mostly highly successful in their own terms – but the external environment of each development is a total failure and after adding in the sterile private sector developments and their accompanying over-designed roads infrastructure, the cumulative effect is nothing more than junkspace – the Clyde Corridor’s default urbanism.

Hopefully ZHA’s building will be the final moment of iconicism on the Clyde.  For the creators of this waterfront, the first steps towards a change of approach – involving recognition that there is a problem – will be difficult and painful.  For the private sector, to own so much land yet achieve so little and to be unable to string together any sort of cohesive urbanism whether traditional, Modern, contemporary, futuristic or parametric is a profound failure and would make anyone wonder about the skills at play or what those involved were actually trying to achieve.

The point is reached where there has to be a genuine acknowledgement that a different approach is required:  that doing small things better might be more constructive than more mega-million stones on the shiny metal necklace.  That joining things up with decent infrastructure and good public transport  - rather than stinking noisy buses – might actually start to create a riverside of higher value. That growing existing communities to the river might also work – as a contra-notion to developing laterally along the river.  And that constructive employment and providing the circumstances in which economies and innovation might thrive and in which communities can be involved are more valuable aims than private greed and shareholder satisfaction and that all these things are more important than design as shape-making and object creation.

The galleries below include most of Jon-Marc’s images of the Riverside Museum taken in the late afternoon of 4 July 2011.

Interior views: 

External views: 

A pdf of the original article in the AHSS Magazine is available to download here (125kB).

Our starting point was that tourism development is no longer simply a case of increasing visitor numbers and footfall figures in particular locales. It is concerned with ensuring that the Council is able to improve opportunities for bringing direct economic and other benefits to local communities, raising awareness about important global environmental issues (particularly in the case of a World Heritage Site) and managing sensitive built and natural environments.

Also the Council can contribute in the widest sense to the future well-being of the area by nurturing local traditions and culture as well as being responsive to an ever more discerning traveller whose choices are increasingly boundless and whose tastes and expectations are ever more diverse and demanding.

The scope of the commission included research and audit, consultation, policy appraisal, activities and product review, funding appraisal, strategic theme development as well as management and implementation.

We held workshops with the Harbour Commissioners and a range of public and private sector bodies and discussed a range of strategic propositions from which we developed some conceptual ideas for the future development of the harbour lands. The broader strategic concept is based on three principles:

a) to position Coleraine within the wider inter-regional maritime context

b) to establish a strategic vision for the Lower River Bann as a major economic and tourism driver for the region
The spatial concepts for the harbour lands themselves indicate how a range of development scenarios might be considered from a largely maritime industrial complex to a more significant reappraisal of the existing Dunne’s site as part of the development mix. The concepts are meant as tools for further consideration of the site’s future, not as development solutions and they provide the basis for further discussion and investigation. From left to right, options A to C – click to enlarge:

Option 1: Develop Marina at Cushowen

The initial site appraisal and financial appraisal looked at a 100 berth marina with the full complement of storage and maintenance facilities situated on and around the Cushowen site at the most northern end of the Harbour
lands. Further discussions, both at the workshop and the board have indicated that this may not be the most suitable location, in terms of operational viability and in commercially realising the assets of the site. (left diagram)

Option 2: Develop Marina beside existing Dunnes site
This option starts to free up more land for leisure-based activity and development options. This option would necessitate agreement on the lease with T-Met or be part of a longer term plan post 2021. This option also allows for additional pontoon berths at the Cushowen site for larger vessels and allows the storage, maintenance and boat lifting facilities to be positioned at the top end of the site, this releasing more land for re-development. It also permits a more strategic approach to the development and the ability to bring in periphery sites in public and private ownership as indicated in he centre diagram.

Option 3: Develop Marina on existing Dunnes site
Option 3 takes the principals of Option 2 another stage further and is the most ambitious of the three. It positions the marina on the existing Dunnes site. Again, this would require a partnership with Dunnes and re-location of the existing store, perhaps to one of the new retail developments in the town centre. The advantages of this option are three fold. Firstly, it further optimises the land for redevelopment, both within the existing site boundary and in the surrounding area. Secondly, it provides a possible solution to the navigation of the old bridge by incorporating a lough gate and thirdly, it goes the furthest in realising the ambition of creating a “River Town” where the harbour lands and the town centre are fully integrated. This will have positive economic benefits for the commercial viability of the harbour itself and the wider town and region. Studies have shown that the most successful marina developments are those which have the best linkages to the town they serve.

Clearly there are a number of delivery issues which the Harbour Commissioners are well aware of including clarity and certainty about future ownership of the harbour lands, the future direction of the Port’s maritime activities, future land use directions and the necessity of partnership working. Nevertheless, we hope this short strategic exercise has helped to raise awareness of the broader issues around the future of the harbour.

So the focus of this commission was on key issues and priorities for the town centre, including:

• the adequacy of the current retail and service offer for the catchment population
• the prospects for developing a national, regional or local role for the town as a tourist destination
• opportunities for priorities for softer regeneration activity, including any latent tourism assets
  the relationship between the linked dimensions of heritage and tourism – including whether the relationship with New Lanark has been adequately embraced
• transport and movement – especially the impact of parking on commercial vitality and viability, and the impact of heavy commercial vehicles
• the physical qualities of the town centre, particularly assessing whether the positive impacts of the High Street/North Vennel townscape improvements on the High Street and North Vennel can be extended and connected to draw people and activity into the wider town centre

Our methodology consisted of three stages based on Inquiry and Survey, Analysis and Action Projects developed through workshops with representatives of the local business and residential communities as well as the public sector.
click to enlarge diagram

High priorities for action were parking, streetscape works and building facelifts, information on businesses, signage and legibility, and communication. Medium and longer term priorities included strategic connections to Edinburgh, tourist accommodation and destination marketing, cleanliness and image, developing the evening economy, and showcasing hidden gems such as the historical connections with William Wallace, a higher profile for parks and gardens, and links to new Lanark.

As a community development trust, the client group is in an ideal position to bring some of these ideas to fruition. It has a particular combination of having roots in the local community, the credibility of a properly constituted trust, a facilitative and enabling role to support local projects, and the ability to access to external funding sources. Armed with the strategy provided by this report, the trust is in a strong position to promote the kind of softer, locally based improvement activity which complements physical investment.

The Spatial Dimension

The spatial configuration and qualities of the City are key factors in the visitor experience. We contend that city offers are more than a collection of attractions and a series of events, but that they are a product of the totality of the urban experience in terms the quality and character of the physical landscape, the vibrancy of the cultural environment and the presentation of the City as an accessible and connected place. In this way the City is more than the sum of its parts for both the visitor and citizen.

By looking at tourism in the City from a spatial perspective we can begin to understand and build upon its structure in terms of ‘place’ and the connectedness of different and varied places within the City in order to enhance the visitor experience. How we shape the physical environment, both built and natural, contributes to our celebration of the city’s heritage, represents a city’s sense of expression, values and confidence and says something about contemporary life-style and aspirations for the future.

In Belfast the visitor experience can be enhanced and is directly affected by a number of key spatial factors:

1. the quality, variety and vitality of public spaces such as streets and squares and the degree of shared ‘public life’ that is created
2. access to and use of natural assets such as the River Lagan and the Belfast Hills
3. access to and presentation of the city’s built heritage in the form of buildings of architectural and historical significance and areas of visually and historically important townscape value
4. the degree to which the city’s local distinctiveness is conserved and nurtured
5. the ease with which visitors are able to move around the city, either walking, cycling or by public transport
   the emphasis and importance placed upon the quality and distinctiveness of new urban interventions both in terms of buildings and public spaces
6. the degree to which different parts of the city are successfully connected by safe, attractive and visually interesting public spaces and access corridors e.g. the River Lagan
7. the degree to which environmental sustainability is nurtured by projects such as the North Foreshore, Connswater Greenway and the creation of ‘green’ connections between neighbourhoods across the City

We have already pointed to the fact that visitor surveys and other sources suggest that one of the principal shortcomings in Belfast’s visitor experience is the level of quality and appeal of public spaces and streetscapes, combined with issues around street cleanliness, public transport provision and street animation and entertainment this paints the picture of a city which lacks the kind of environment we have come to expect of our great European cities. This despite the improvements that have been brought about in recent years by the ‘Streets Ahead’ programme, the urban riverside public realm improvements at Lanyon Place and along the Lagan, unprecedented levels of investment in new development such as Victoria Square and St Anne’s Square and the emergence of locations such as the Queens and Cathedral Quarters as unique and attractive ‘character areas’.

In short, there is still much that Belfast has to do in order to build on recent investment to improve its physical environment and put it, at least, on a par with other great cities across Europe.

A ten point approach

1. Work to establish the River Lagan as a principle ‘thoroughfare’ through the city linking the Lagan Valley, the City Centre and the Harbour/Titanic Quarter.
2. Enhance the city’s public spaces, improving connectivity between attractions, facilities and city destinations (including the city’s outer neighbourhoods) by investment in key locations, in addition to the City Centre Core, such as;
   • Shaftesbury Square/Bradbury Place
   • Carlisle Circus/Clifton Street
   • Queens Quay/Station Street
   • Divis Street/Falls Road
   • Peter’s Hill/Shankill Road
   • Grosvenor Road
   • Dunbar Link
   • Oxford Street/Donegall Quay
   • Ann Street/Queens Bridge
   • Cromac Street/Ormeau Road
3. Promote investment in a sustainable city-wide public transport system building upon the proposed Guided Bus Network and existing services, connecting attractions and facilities across the City which are becoming all the more widespread and potentially disparate.
4. Work within each of the City ‘Quarters’ to nurture a sense of distinctiveness rooted in the characteristics and cultural uniqueness of each place.
5. Drive up urban quality across the City to achieve ever higher standards of design, and establish a ‘Design Panel’ to assess major strategic projects (Reference here to the type of remit exercised by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment – CABE – in England).
6. Promote the issue of design and nurture sustainable planning principles across the City through the ongoing City Development Plan process being undertaken by Belfast City Council, and include within the Plan a Strategic Urban Design Framework for the City and a specific Urban Design Action Plan for the City Centre.
7. Develop a City-wide ‘Greenways’ Strategy based on improving connections between City neighbourhoods and to and from the City Centre.
8. Establish Titanic Quarter as a world class waterfront visitor destination which aspires to the highest the standards of urban design, sustainable transport, architecture and ‘place-making’ and which has excellent and well executed connections to the City Centre.
9. Ensure Belfast City Centre is one the principle centres in the UK and Ireland with a range of quality facilities and services, and a safe, vibrant and animated public realm.
10. Establish a City ‘Conservation Forum’ which will work to promote the best care and presentation of Belfast’s built and natural heritage assets including buildings, open spaces and parks and urban public spaces.

Canterbury City Council commissioned yellow book and WMUD to carry out a concept study of a proposed creative and cultural quarter in Canterbury. An emerging Creative and Cultural Quarter has been identified in the area west of the Cathedral, which already contains some the city’s key cultural assets, including the New Marlowe Theatre and the Beaney Institute. This historic part of the city already has a distinctive character and sense of place, reflected in its independent retailers and growing evening economy, but it is also facing new competitive challenges from the Whitefriars development, which will shift the centre of gravity of activity in the city centre.

The creation of a successful CCQ is not simply an urban design project. It is about bringing the area’s cultural assets, businesses and people into register to create an appealing whole place experience. Nevertheless, cultural quarters require the right physical framework: a permeable, legible urban form; places for events and activities; opportunities to eat and drink outdoors; and good quality buildings, new and old.

The study will be carried out in two stages – firstly we will test the concept of establishing a creative and cultural quarter in the designated area, based on an assessment of the area’s assets and attributes, and a review of market conditions; at the end of this stage we will present an interim report, setting out a recommended strategic proposition; the report will form the basis for discussion at a partner/stakeholder workshop

The second stage will develop the concept through an overarching strategy for the CCQ, which will set out priorities for action. These will include an area-wide urban design strategy and detailed proposals for key sites, as well as an action plan (with outline costings) and a recommended delivery mechanism.

The final report is shown below:

As part of its Cultural Tourism Strategy and Action Plan, Belfast City Council has commissioned a multidisciplinary team consisting of TTC International, g2 and Willie Miller Urban Design to carry out a Cultural Tourism Visitor Management Plan. This plan will help to develop Belfast in global terms as a city of unique cultural standing. The brief for the study proposes the development and delivery of plan for the most effective interpretation, presentation, management and development of the City’s public realm in designated cultural tourism quarters.

The purpose of this study is to investigate ways in which motor sport events could contribute to the overall tourism product of the Trossachs. The study has been commissioned by Stirling Council and Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley.

The study is based on the proposal that the Trossachs and Callander could become a centre for motor sport activities in Scotland, based on the idea of running a range of events in the area which would attract national and international interest. The main event would be a speed, rally or historical meeting running through the Dukes Pass.

Between 1992 and 1997, efforts were made to build an international standard motor racing circuit in Central Scotland at Forrestburn Reservoir just north of Junction 5 on the M8 Glasgow to Edinburgh motorway. The proposal attracted support and derision in equal measure. The choice of site ensured that the circuit would have a distinctive Scottish character and created the opportunity to build a circuit in the tradition of Spa-Francorchamps, Rheims or Clermont-Ferrand where landscape and track could work together to create a distinctive sense of place – fitting for a national venue. Only the speed hillclimb was built and opened in 1993, becoming a popular and well used motor sport venue run by Monklands Sporting Car Club. This is a collection of some of the drawings of the project showing the development of the idea through various configurations.

The plan shown below was the original scheme proposed by Monklands District Council.

The second plan below is a greatly enlarged proposal with a club circuit and associated development intended to help finance the project.

The plan below originates from early 1996 and shows a larger more flexible arrangement of circuits but with a greater land take and more associated development.

The next plan dating from mid 1996 was a stripped down, more compact proposal with less associated development and smaller facility buildings.

In late 1996 the track round the reservoir was abandoned in favour of building to the north on more stable ground.

Finally in 1997, this northern plan was developed with a longer circuit, more associated development and corporate facilities. It was this plan – shown below – that was granted planning permission.

Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire have appointed us to carry out an assessment of the economic impact that has been achieved by the Ayrshire Paths project, focusing specifically on the village of Straiton in South Ayrshire.

Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire, with the support of local Councils, Scottish Natural Heritage and other bodies has proved a network of seemingly successful footpaths around Straiton, and other villages, but to undertake further work on footpath development, it is considered necessary to quantify the economic benefits of the work undertaken so far.

We will carry out a Baseline Review to consider the impact of tourism upon Straiton prior to the initiative through consultation with lead agencies, community representatives and tourism operators in and around the village.

A Benchmark Review will then examine the economic impact of walking in towns within Scotland. Finally a Current Use Survey should examine the behaviour, attitudes and spending patterns of walkers in and around Straiton using two questionnaire surveys of representative samples of visitors and locals during mid-April 2003 and mid-August 2003.