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Urban Landscape Vision Research

Spring '22

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Bristol Harbourside is an important resource for many Bristol residents and an iconic visitor attraction for many others. I helped local research and design agency Mace & Menter deliver a short, hyper-local (for me) project that examined the usage patterns of several areas of the Harbour that were considered potentially under-utilised. The aim of the project being to discover if this was the case and if these areas could better support visitor needs/aspirations.

 

We talked to local authority teams with a stake in the management of the harbourside (such as urban architects and people running the harbour), harbourside businesses (such as cafes, museums and pop-up food stalls) and people actually using and visiting the harbour. 

 

For the street research we hung out around the target locations and observed and engaged people stopping and passing through over several cold, bright January days. The research would need replication across the year to provide a balanced picture, so we designed a simple re-useable methodology based on location-specific observation, intercept and deep dive interviews to facilitate this.

 

Our findings revealed that several discrete groups prediminantly use the harbour to satisfy their diverse cultural, recreational and emotional needs. Some, such as skateboarders, roller skaters and school parties, exploit the physical quirks and characteristics of the harbour for recreation, others draw benefit from being in a shared public space with cultural amenities and a strong heritage; others visit to simply wander and walk the periphery of the harbour for its own sake.

 

Many themes emerged, but notably: ambiguous zonage where predictable conflict between personal transport types occurred (eg electric scooters, pedestrians and cyclists); the way the character of places changed from night to day (some locations became edgy and dangerous at night); the tension between public realm and private spaces as businesses encroached on and bounded the ‘public realm’ for their chairs and tables following a (post covid) relaxation of planning rules; where harbour users with disabilities talked of their lived experience of cobbled streets, inappropriate signage, too little blue-sticker parking, noisy and ambiguous crossing places and cafes that charge £4 for a coffee.

 

Overall our report tells a story of a fantastic, iconic resource that is much valued by people from Bristol and elsewhere - but one whose usage is not represented across all of Bristol's population (lower socioeconomic status and ethnic minorities were under represented). We uncovererd  many real opportunities to make improvements for people through thoughtful urban design - and where in an environment of limited, competing budgets and ROI concerns, there is a struggle between those who view the harbour as a health and safety liability from which people need protection, those who resist change in the name of heritage, and those who see progress and sympathetic development as the future.

 

I was struck by the way that people creatively use what’s available to them. It doesn’t take much intervention or investment to provide a resource that someone will find a use for. For example, thoughtful planting, a few sit-able surfaces and a wall that encourages someone to stand on it, play an instrument and gather an audience, who will probably feel their day significantly enriched by the experience.

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