the international ice arena thingy proposed for blackrock has been approved, i wrote earlier about how much i preferred the winter gardens plan, clearly i'm out of step with the councils decisions; having wanted the wilkinson over the gehry, this is probably not a bad thing. mind you, now the better plan for the king alfred is out i'm looking forward to work starting on the tranny towers.
the interesting side effect of the gehry proposal is that its kick starting the debate on tall buildings in brighton. the council have thier draft tall buildings strategy document out for consultation (by 19th december), written by gillespies urban design consultants, who are also doing (ominous sounding) master plans for gloucester docks and weston super mare.
given brightons rather severe bounding problems; the soon to be national park of the downs to the north and the sea to the south, providing enough housing both for full time residents and for commuters is only accomplished by building up - having now run out of out. tall buildings may well be the only solution outside leaving the cities housing to the highly competitive housing market or encouraging affordable housing in the proposed south east commuter corridor new towns. even then the level of objections to these new town developments and the continued pressure of the brighton - london rail link makes these long terms solutions unacheivable without structral work on the transport links. even before considering the social failure of leaving to the market the job of addressing the needs of lower paid workers, the lower paid workers needed to teach in schools, nurse the sick; as well as staffing the expanding service and entertainment industries in the city.
tall buildings can provide a shorter term solution to the need for social, cooperative and key worker housing brighton so badly needs to continue functioning as a city; as well as the booming private sector. even so the type of housing provided by tall buildings is at odds with some of the deficiencies in the housing stock. high density verticle living is suited to a small section of society, albeit a section of society brighton has in some abundence; younger single people and couples, childless couples and older people, where it fails is for providing housing for people with families and for people seeking more space for whatever reason. all of which brings us back to what (or rather who) are these built for? more loft dwelling media refugees from london? key workers (but only before they have families). theres a shortage of housing yes, but who is there a shortage of housing for?
there are also clear aesthetic problems with this. one of the reasons i liked the wilkinson over the gehry was the preservation of views through the city to the sea and the downs. the earliest new town developments in brighton, the brunswick estate and the kemp town estate at either end of the towns development at the time did exactly this. the connection between and the views of the downs and the sea was at the time one of the prime reasons for the townhouses and their assembled stratified estates (spreading from town houses to merchants houses and marketplaces to artisans housing to support the central estates of the richer residents). the problem with removing the low rise limit on buildings in the city is that, unless sites are carefully chosen, the same mistakes that were made in the centre of the city in the 60s and 70s, mistakes like the bedford tower (seen here as the large tower on the seafront, who’s one contribution to the city is to provide roosts for peregrine falcons), could be made again.
but there are issues aside from the seafront itself, which due to the lack of any brownfield sites for development is probably protected from this. further back into the city there are plenty of brownfield sites. around preston circus a battle is being fought over the plans to build a multistory block on a derelict car sales yard that local residents consider will block their view of the beloved viaduct.
presumably the tall buildings strategy will take into account both how suitable various sites are for tall developments and take account of the views of parts of the cities architecture that are important to the people living around the sites in question. as well as the more pressing issues of who we are building for and what shape, both visually and socially, we want the city to be in ten years time. more when i finish reading the draft document.
Posted by flambingo at December 3, 2003 04:59 PM