Sir Ian Wood’s proposal (11.11.08) to gift £50m of his own cash to create a new city-centre heart for Aberdeen by decking over Union Terrace Gardens has raised a lot controversy, not least its potential impact on the delivery of the dazzling and much needed new Peacock arts centre designed by international architects Brisac Gonzales. In its present form their design for the centre is incompatible with Sir Ian’s vision. However, the purpose here is not to discuss the merits or demerits of either scheme, rather the fact that the proposal raises a number of important issues that are at the core of contemporary urbanism, central to which is Sir Ian’s wish to listen to the views of the citizens of Aberdeen. How citizens are engaged in a debate about architecture and design is not only key to the future of their city, it is an integral part of democracy.
There is a radical emerging field of practice that responds to the changing social landscape and resists the narrow and confrontational way in which architecture, art and city planning are often discussed. In Scotland this has been spearheaded by the Lighthouse’s Access to Architecture programme, which is a delivery component of the Scottish Government’s Policy on Architecture and which has involved thousands of participants. Not least it has initiated numerous Scotland-wide projects focussed on enabling local communities in partnership with built environment practitioners to take greater control of their immediate environment. This new form of practice is gathering worldwide momentum and is clearly delineated in the appropriately titled Design and Landscape for People, Clare Cumberlidge and Lucy Musgraves (2007) useful attempt to bridge the disconnected worlds of planning, politics and commerce. It does this by exploring the ground underneath the centre of local conflicts and is very relevant to the current debacle in Aberdeen about the future of Union Terrace Gardens. Their approach is marked by an awareness of symbolic value and the significance of meaning within place. There are three aspects to this; a belief in the effectiveness of the small action, an emphasis on local distinctiveness and values and an interdisciplinary approach, the latter demonstrating that regeneration is not just a job for planners and architects.
First is the scale of what is being suggested for Union Terrace Gardens. Aberdeen, which is for the most part a low-rise city, already suffers from dislocations of scale. Buildings like the Talisman office, the new Union Plaza and the emerging Union Square sit uncomfortably within the city topography. Decking over the gardens would create a 5-6 acre space comparable with Red Square in Moscow and larger than most of the great European Squares such as St Peters or the Piazza Navona in Rome, Trafalgar Square in London or Piazza San Marco in Venice. And, those squares relate to large or dense urban populations. In comparison, Aberdeen and its hinterland has a population of only 400,000. Could that number (from a very dispersed geographical area) animate a space on the scale of Red Square in Moscow? Of course, something as imaginatively ambitious as Chicago’s Millennium Park with its Frank Gehry outdoor auditorium and Anish Kapoor sculpture might just pull in the crowds, but Aberdeen is not Chicago.
In fact, Aberdeen is not Venice, or Rome either for that matter, and trying to manufacture an outdoor café culture (something that always surfaces in proposals for European style public spaces) for Aberdeen with its bracing climate, is also debatable, far less 5+ acres of it. A lot of very environmentally unfriendly greenhouse gas-heaters would be needed for that. You cannot superimpose an urban culture on such a distinctively northern city. Aberdeen’s unique granite architecture and typology require a different, more sustainable response, and the answer is more likely to be found in Scandinavia than the Mediterranean.
By far the most important issue in this debate however, and one that is missing and is quite new for Aberdeen, is how you engender real, democratic debate on a city-wide level about a matter that is of central concern to the city’s inhabitants? This is where Aberdeen could learn from elsewhere, from emerging global practice and, importantly, the experience of the Lighthouse’s Access to Architecture programme. Rather than debating the merits of Sir Ian’s vision for the Gardens versus the Peacock proposal by straw poll through the local newspaper, a far more creative and constructive method would be to stage open-space workshops in the gardens, led by practitioners with the active involvement of the public. By direct engagement in the design process people could formulate their own visions and test them against the realities of the site and the context of Aberdeen. Crucially, issues such as local distinctiveness, sustainability could be addressed as well as how you think about and connect up problem solving, ergonomics and function. The aim would be to open up discussion about the possibilities and constraints and so create an informed debate as opposed to reacting to received opinion.
Such interactive experiences have been instrumental in achieving high quality public spaces from the Hidden Gardens Project at Glasgow’s Tramway to Clydebank Rebuilt in Scotland to Kevin Macleod’s Big Town plan for Castleford in England. And, in Europe, especially the Netherlands, the exemplars and models are numerous. Right now, that experience is desperately needed in Aberdeen.
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I can understand this authors concerns regarding the scale and scope of sir Ian Wood's scheme for Union Terrace Gardens, I see no reason why elevating this space to street level would alleviate the problems which are inherent with large open spaces in a northern climate. Somewhere along the line Aberdeen has become confused, as have other Scottish cities, about the nature of public space; we are told by government that 'cafe culture' is the primary goal regardless of how incompatible this is with geographical position. I agree with this author that if we are to preserve the quality of Aberdeen and retain it's unique architectural style we should be bold enough turn our back on piazza living, look to the north and develop our own typology. room architects