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MVRDV & Austin-Smith:Lord to deliver Glasgow’s City Centre Districts plan

May 3 2016

MVRDV & Austin-Smith:Lord to deliver Glasgow’s City Centre Districts plan
Glasgow City Council has appointed MVRDV and Austin-Smith:Lord to lead a multidisciplinary team to begin design work for the regeneration of the Broomielaw, Blythswood, St Enoch and Central areas as part of its City Centre Districts initiative.

The quartet of initiatives aim to unlock economic, cultural and social improvements for the city through improvements to urban structure, targeting issues such as vacant buildings, under-utilised plots, changes in retail patterns, city centre living, public open space, safety and traffic.

Winy Maas of MVRDV said, “For the residents it is to make the city a vibrant and exciting place to live in at this moment. But we have to look ahead as well and create the plan for a city that can adapt and change in response to whatever the future throws at it; whilst at the same time capturing and developing the identity of the city and its people and further stimulating programmatic and economic development.”

Graham Ross, partner at Austin-Smith:Lord added: "There are opportunities to make small scale interventions to enhance the city for all. There are also areas that require significant transformation to address longstanding issues. We look forward to collaborating with Glaswegians, the Council and stakeholders to shape an exciting future for these districts."

Space Syntax, Urban Tide, Douglas Wheeler Associates, WAVEparticle, Ryden, Gerry Grams, Gardiner + Theobald and Arup complete the round-up of appointments.

11 Comments

Basho
#1 Posted by Basho on 3 May 2016 at 11:28 AM
The above picture is a wonderful example of a multi-layered pan-spatial super-dense info-cluster that looks great but means sweet fanny adams. And costs a lot. Expect many sentences containing the words 'node' and 'catalyst'.
We had two such reports done here in Leith and Newhaven. Vast muckle things that took months to complete and were full of diagrams like above. Years later, has anything happened? Have a guess....
Blam
#2 Posted by Blam on 3 May 2016 at 13:56 PM
#1
Thanks for that nothing comment, your contribution is noted and has been forwarded to the nothing to add that might help department.
Brian
#3 Posted by Brian on 3 May 2016 at 21:54 PM
I think the already in use city union line would help sustain regeneration in a lot of the areas it cuts through if opened to public and hub with subway at west st and Hub at the cross .Not a lot to tax payers as the line is already in use.
Robin
#4 Posted by Robin on 4 May 2016 at 09:06 AM
Money follows ideas: Glasgow could do with more ideas. Personally I hope the area of North Laurieston, which is in the Central Conservation area and contains five listed buildings on the "at risk" register, as well as a lovely James Miller building join the corner of Norfolk Street and Bridge Street currently in poor repair is an area that needs new ideas, so I look forward to seeing what ASL and MVRDV come up with.
QMD
#5 Posted by QMD on 4 May 2016 at 11:22 AM
I wonder how many years do we have to wait for these 'masterplans' to happen.. 5 years? 10 years?
jtinto
#6 Posted by jtinto on 4 May 2016 at 12:27 PM
I think #1 Basho makes some very good points

My understanding the idea behind city deals is that the citys invest and get the benefit of that by retaining the rates for the investment.

I imagine what that will mean in reality is that one bit of the toon will get special treatment , the other parts will die off and they will lose the income they were generating . They will destroy the driver too making it impossible for them further killing business. They will then spend the money on a Unicorn petting zoo and after a billion pound wasted and 5 years disruption will be on to something new.
pleasantfield
#7 Posted by pleasantfield on 4 May 2016 at 14:43 PM
Excuse me asking but is this not what the City Planning Department are all paid to do?
Fraser
#8 Posted by Fraser on 4 May 2016 at 15:30 PM
I Agree with #4; speculate to accumulate.
my little pony
#9 Posted by my little pony on 4 May 2016 at 17:07 PM
all the pretty colours
Islands of sanity
#10 Posted by Islands of sanity on 4 May 2016 at 20:37 PM
They weren't perfect but I do wish we still had the SDA to help address market failure and help put things in the ground as opposed to endless consultant strategies commissioned by those who gave no clue how to implement. The world of Disconnects.
Terra
#11 Posted by Terra on 8 May 2016 at 02:32 AM
I think it's a good plan and needed. I'm in Edinburgh but from what I gather from my interest development and of Glasgow in particular, there are a lot of absolutely gorgeous Georgian and Victorian era buildings in Glasgow that would be perfect for flats and with ground floors open to the street perfect for cafes, etc, sitting empty, disused for years and in need of sorting out. There's a building, just down the road Central Station and next to the IFSD, which takes up most of a city block and which has the most beautiful, classical detailing that has clearly been derelict for years and looks an absolute state, it's criminal that a building so beautiful has been allowed to slide like that. With the desire to get more people living and working in the city centre, these buildings are perfect for that but need immediate care and restoration.

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