Urban Design and Housing - 3 Development projects in Scotland by Audrey Chan

Fragmented Culture

Urban Design and Housing Leith Waterfront Group 3 Panel 1

At the north to Edinburgh, Leith, one of the first settlements in history lies along the coast, silently waiting for attention. As one of the oldest area in Edinburgh, Leith started developing as an individual burgh in 12th century, joining with the city of Edinburgh in the 1920s. As an international cruise liner port, land developers utilized the land available into a major attraction, Ocean Terminal. However, the lack of planning in the area hinders Leith from flourishing.

Explanatory Texts

Site Analysis

This consisted several asepcts: Palette of the areas, spaital relationship, accessbility, public space and building types.

Analysis consisted several asepcts: Palette of the areas, spaital relationship, accessbility, public space and building types. Analysis revealed that: - there is a lack of transition on the cold palette between the port (grey and blue - water) to the warm palette (construction materials)j at the Water of Leith - the building heights dramatically decreases from Ocean Terminal to the Water of Leith - There is an open visual due to the building heights but the lack of accessbility is really hindering people to travel to the attractions desired. - there is a lack of acessibility to the coast of the industrial port, as well as lack of safe accessibility from the Ocean Terminal to the intersection of Water of Leith and the sea, in which two of the public spaces is mostly used by pedestrians.

Analysis revealed there is a lack of transition on the cold palette between the port (grey and blue - water) to the warm palette (construction materials)j at the Water of Leith, and there is a lack of acessibility to the coast of the industrial port, as well as lack of safe accessibility from the Ocean Terminal to the intersection of Water of Leith and the sea, in which two of the public spaces is mostly used by pedestrians. There is an open visual due to the building heights but the lack of accessbility is really hindering people to travel to the attractions desired. However, the historical background of the entire area and the buildings of the area gives a great potential for the area to develop.

Value of the Landscape

Concluding experience and analyses, Leith is a place where its history is worth to celebrate, and where modern development meets the long-old warm neighbourhood with a lot of . However, the lack of transition and accessibility along the coastal port area of Leith and the Water of Leith is hindering the value of landscape to be revealed.

Conclusion

After weighing the development weaknesses and opportunities of Leith, our vision for this project is to make well use of ‘transition’: - from hardscape to softscape; - from old to new; - from port to hub; and - from FRAGMENTED to UNITED. Our group aims to utilize the open landscape to connect and improve the accessibility between the few modern elements along the coast. Incorporating the area development framework, we are to develop a long term plan for Leith the transform from a coastal industrial port to a newly developed residential area, providing more investments to develop Leith into one of the hubs in the city of Edinburgh, instead of a cold, empty industrial port.

- However, the historical background of the entire area and the buildings of the area gives a great potential for the area to develop.

Our concept plan to connect two main areas of Leith.

All in One

Urban Design and Housing Leith Waterfront Group 3 Panel 2

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Incorporation Urban Design and Housing Leith Waterfront Group 3 Panel 3

Pirrama Park, Sydney

An award-winning project that seeks coherence between private residential development and public space creation. It was previously an alienated and fenced-off former Water Police pier, it has become a richly varied urban waterfront parkland for people in Sydney. Design focuses on the park’s topography such as headlands, cliffs, harbor landscape and sublime views. Besides, a flat, featureless base is created as a legacy of its industrial past. The integrated site specific play space is an attraction for both locals and district visitors alike. The water play elements, reclaimed sandstone and natural setting allude to the once famed beach and ‘Pyrmont Spring’. The park proves its success by accommodating a range of public uses, a vision from the past to present and the ability to solve city problems such as rehabilitating street storm-water. More importantly, Pirrama Park successfully builds a neighborhood relationship with the surrounding community and encourage interactions between different people.

This 50 years plan took reference from two projects located in Austrialia and USA. The project initiates at proposing housing at the open space opposite to the Ocean Terminal, then it extend housing across Newhaven, and develop basic infrastructure for the future residential area at the industrial port. In 50 years time from the project initiation, Ocean Terminal, Scottish Government and the new housing we propose should become the new centre of Leith and one of the hubs in the city of Edinburgh.

Pier 42, New York

Built at 1967 as a newsprint terminal, Pier 42 was closed in 1987 after it operated as a cargo pier in Manhattan. The recreation project starts in 2008 to develop a community vision for the East River waterfront and Pier 42. The development is responsive to the community needs and aim to increase the pace of gentrification in the neighborhood The proposal activates the pier along with art and design projects as a central of creativity. The signature of the project is its habitat restoration. Apart from avenue and ornamental plantings, the design includes creating tidal marsh wetlands and a small canal that reconstruct the riverside ecosystem. The recreation of Pier 42 is a great example of public space planning as its proposing picnic lawn, recreation of pier pavilion, concession playground and marsh wetland provides space for public uses Significantly, its artificial and ecological content successfully builds an educating space for family gathering and neibourhood relations. More importantly, the recreation of Pier 42 enables urban material to express civic, aesthetic, functional and social meanings, which entails urban quality to the surrounding community.

Predicting the housing to be successful, the demand in transportation is going to be increased and traffic arrangement needs to be extended.

In 30 years, the existing Newhaven residential flats along the coast shall be extended to the rest of the land available, whilst transportation systems will extend to the industrial port, in preparation to the change of land use at the industrial port.

In 50 years, our proposal have implemented tram, which originally travels only rom the city centre to the airport, into Leith. The industrial port will fuly converted into a residential area, creating a circle of residents around Ocean Terminal, creating a business centre and recreational centre for people to use.

Documentation of Models - Urban Edition

Leith Waterfront Group 3 Course Title: Urban Design & Housing Course Code:ARCH08011 Landscape Architecture University of Edinburgh

Project Brief

This first part of the course lasts for 3 weeks. It aims to analyse one of the three urban systems in Edinburgh, in which our group have chosen Leith Waterfront. Leith Waterfront originates from Medieval settlements and it joined up with the urban city of Edinburgh in the 1920s. It thrives as an multicultural landscape and an important part of Edinburgh as an international cruise port. However, socio-economical factors and bad city planning is hindering the historical Leith to become one of the main attractions. Therefore our group aims to develop it into a new hub of Edinburgh as we implement housing. is

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

1:500 Model

This model focuses on the first phase of our 50 years proposal. On the first 10 years of the development, housing are going to be implemented on the open space opposite to the Ocean Terminal, which we aims to connect this shopping mall to the park we aim to develop near the Vistoria Quay. The existing main road will be closed up temporaily and alternative road system shall be introduced.

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

1:3000 Model

This model focuses on the final phase of our 50 years proposal. When we reach the 50th year from the start of the project, Leith should be one of the major towns that is surrounded by dense housing, in which Ocean Terminal and the park we implemented comes in as a vital centre where residents would come and shop, or enjoy the recreational facilities in the park. Also the shops we implemented on the ground floor of some buildings would also start to gather more customers. Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

detail Model

The detail model is a device that shows how the underground constructions are going to work along the Victoria Quay , as a part of the park that we have implemented. We aim to improve the relationship to the water and the Urban Environment and Leith

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

1. Entropy | Aviemore Group 6 Project Location: Aviemore, Highlands - A small town to refuel in the journey to Inverness

Aviemore is a small town located 3 hours drive from Edinburgh and 40 minutes away from Inverness, this is a town that people would stop by to take a break in the journey to the Highlands. It started developing from the 1900s as a railway junction and a skiing resort, hence the centre fully developed in 1965. It started declining due to unstable snowfall, and only recently Aviemore has started to be revitalised because a private organization named Macdonald Resorts aimed to attract tourists to Aviemore through investments.

Concept Plan

Aviemore is defined by 6 structures, and these can be seen from the plan as the end of the mountain of Cairngorms National Park, Highway A9, High Street, Railway Tracks, National Cyclist Network and the River Spey. The town shape is deeply influenced by its topography, lying in a valley. Aviemore suffers from a severely poor planning in its shape of the town centre, and one of the main reason why is the fact that shop-owned carparks mostly are located on the sides of the High Street, where the town centre lies. These series of void open spaces creates a lack of density along the town centre, scattering people into different spots.

Therefore, the problems that persists in Aviemore are as below: - Lack of Density due to scattering carparks - Lack of Orientation for Tourists - Lack of Community Spaces for Local Residents - Disproportion between private and public spaces - Almost none amenities locate within the town centre - Lack of attraction and access to the Organic landscape along the River Spey.

The fact that the Macdonald Resort ‘resurrected’ Aviemore also drove the town itself to a dead end. It might have appeared that the development by MacDonald has attracted new population to move in, however the fact that MacDonald owns large amounts of land actually creates a high disproportion between private and public within the town centre. Residents living in this town suffers from a lack of public space to meet one another and develop communal sense with other residents. There is barely anybody to go to the community centre since the cloest in reach is at least 15 minutes walk away from the town centre. This create two problems: Places where people commute is isolated from the town centre, and there is almost no place for people to meet one another except the square garden located opposite the railway station. As the shape of Aviemore is linear, the sense of direction is also vital for tourists to allow people to explore Aviemore to the fullest. When we visit there in person, there is no signage for pedestrians to locate themselves from their hostel (since majority of the cheaper hostels are located around the lower roundabout) except the signage for cars. Signage designated for pedestrians did not start to appear until we reach the first tunnel that accesses to the River Spey but it still does not communicate where the town centre is.

This has resulted Aviemore to be disconnected in the sense of: - Community - Structure of Town Centre - Organic and Urban Landscape - Back and front of High Street Focusing in the lack of connectivity, we have decided to look at changing the structure of town centre to suit the need of future population growth, types of tourism activities in Aviemore, as well as to reconnect Aviemore in the above aspects. Concept Plan

Vision: Transform Aviemore into a resident-friendly community, with amenitites that encourage social interactions with the tourists and opening up possibilities for tourists to explore the sub-urban landscape and its unique topography.

2. Weaving Connections | Aviemore Group 6 Project Location: Aviemore, Highlands, Scotland.

We approached our vision through few strategies: Propose housing on new vacant areas in order to attract and fulfill the needs of the increasing population, Redesign the square garden which was the only communal space within the town centre, expand the town centre through reclaiming some of the land owned by MacDonald, and to construct new amenities to build up more communal space for residents. At the very first stage of design, due to the lack of analysis, we redesigned the centre based on the aim of relocating all the carpark, when it should be one of the last things to consider in the deisgn process. After being corrected, we redeveloped the vision and firsty changed the ground materials of the High Street, in order to slow people down when they are driving through Aviemore, so that they can have a better look and appreciate Aviemore. Then we expand the town centre through opening up the road to the shopping centre at the MacDonald Resort, and allowing more people to visit this centre. In return, we reclaimed a major part of their undeveloped land where we utilize them in a few purposes: To propose housing at the furthest end from the shopping centre, compose a recreational landscape for both the new residents at the propsoed housing and the existing residents. In return, the housing we propose can compensate value of the land that we chose to reclaim. In order to increase accessibility towards this newly opened public space, we took down the square garden that is one of the rare communal space and expand it into a plaza, looking towards the conference centre of the resort. This corridor also offers an opportunity for people to host communal or seasonal events such as Christmas Market, Art Festival or Exhibitions, which builds up a sense of community. On the High Street, we focus to create density into the main corridor, so we firstly try to cover up the carpark by proposing new buildings, or implement plantations as a screening effect, to hide the carpark from the main corridor. Moreover, due to the topography of Aviemore and the height of the main MacDonald Resort Building, the tourists tend to be attracted to the taller structures. In order to tackle this, we decided to expand vertically on one of the building along the High Street from a 2-storey building into a 6-storey tower, which firstly acts as an attention-catching point, secondly counteracts the MacDonald Tower, and lastly creates a point of view to access from urban landscape to the organic landscpae next to the River Spey.

3. Community | Aviemore Group 6 Project Location: Aviemore, Highlands, Scotland.

Accessibility and Hierarchy of Roads

Location of Carparks

Gathering Space - Private and Public Spaces

In our works, we have relocated several carparks behind the streets such as the carpark behind Tesco. In the demand of increasing population in Aviemore, we have included car parking space in each household and therefore the demand for car parking spaces should be fulfilled. If there is not enough spaces, we have reserved a small area on the proposed recreational green space as temporary carpark for 5-10 years, it is to be determined whether the carpark should be retained after this period, depending on the demand of car parking.

As one of our aims is to increase the interaction between local residents and tourists, we have As we are retaining most of the paths, possibly creating more paths, as we open up the green space in the MacDonald Resort, we will expect more people using the path around the green space. However, supplementary set up a few different types of gathering space, including private gathering space (highlighted roads are also provided for different access points such shopping centre and the proposed housing. In the diagram above, we addressed that the deisre line of pedestrian being attracted towards the shopping cenin Orange) which limits to the use of local residents, or tourists, as well as public spaces that al- tre has been paved and predicted in the diagram, where as the paths that leads you around the green space is considered as a secondary road, since there is a shorter way by cutting across the meadow landscape. lows both target audience to go to, which is highlighted in blue. We chose these areas becuase they all have a certain attraction quality or proximity to where people would walk along. An example is how we replaced the playground located at a undulated surface into a natural amphitheatre.

In the aspect of accessing the carpark with ease and its distance from different key locations such as the Tesco, MacDonald Resort, most of the carparks are within 100m reach for dependents such as elderly. Some suggested there is an existence of ‘semi-private/ semi-public spaces’ in Aviemore, which is highlighted in yellow in the diagram. These spaces are privately owned yet allowing people to visit without permissions. These are the spaces with the most potential, as this is a place where you would find both groups of audience the most as it is ambiguous whether one should use this area or not, in result of more unintentional interaction between the tourists and local residents.

Building Heights

Building Types and Uses

As mentioned from the previous panels, we are counter-acting the MacDonald Resort building which stands out in the middle of Aviemore by implementing another tower in the middle of High Street whereas the other structures on the street are mainly at most 3-stories high due to the low density in the town, as well as the history of the buildings itself. Ideally it should also be a strategy when we are proposing housing becuase this offers a higher variety of audience to invest in these assets, such as 3-storey flats for couples, or small houses that suits a nuclear family, even a accessibility house which takes care of the older residents for their retired life.

In the trend of increasing population and tourism year-rounded, residential structures are essential in Aviemore, and the implementation of more commercial structure to attract more investment and revitalise the economy here. Achknowleging High Street as one of the heaviest flow in the town, we implemented buildings around the hardscape plaza for small cafes and restaurants. Also, one has suggested that Tesco is planning to move out for the crises they have gone through, and the insufficient demand received from Aviemore, we have offered them an expansion in their structure in the intention of covering up the large void carpark. For the rest of the categories which involved more industrial elements, there is not much alteration for the fact this is not an industrialistic landscape, and we would not intend to convert Aviemore into an industrial centre, even though the warehouse did create more flow in the High street, due to the transportation needed for orders.`

Conclusion Aviemore is a town with a special atmosphere differnt from an urban city. It is a place of tranquilty, with hidden excitement around the mountain it is located, and large amound of land availabe for development in the future. However, the poor planning that Aviemore had gone through is causing it to lose much of its identity as a village in the Highlands, as well as being a unique town. However, hope has risen after MacDonald bought this large piece of land in Aviemore, the make or break in this situation is inevitable, Aviemore is currently under a force that drives its potentials to a dead end. However after this design, we ideally have been connecting the tourist-oriented and resident-oriented landscape together through the implementation of public space adjacent to the MacDonald Resort which used to be focused towards tourists, and this should create a community that local residents can promote or get to know more about Aviemore as a town that is not just for stopping by, but also as a place to have fun (besides the MacDonald Resort). By densifying the town centre, we hope to tighten up the town structure spatially and offers more investment into the town as this is a town with a unique topography, year-rounded tourism activities, with a proximity to other sub-urban or urban cities. This design should allow Aviemore to grow as a community and as a competent place with such a special topographical, and celebrate its historical background.

Documentation of Models - Rural Edition

Aviemore Group 6 Course Title: Urban Design & Housing Course Code:ARCH08011 Landscape Architecture University of Edinburgh

Project Brief

The second part of the course lasts for 3 weeks. It aims to propose housing on a rural part of Scotland, called Aviemore. Aviemore is a small town in the lower part of the Highlands. It is a 3 hours drive from Edinburgh and 40 minutes drive from Inverness. It was originally developed as a railway conjunction then expanded into a skiing resort. However, the unstable snowing period causes the resort to fail. It is not until recently the private developer, MacDonald Resorts invest to make Aviemore into a new resort. Aviemore has an unique town centre structure, but poor planning schemes and disproportion between private and public spaces causes Aviemore to failure. This project is to propose housing in this unique landscape.

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

1:500 Model

This model shows the two main parts that we have changed in the Aviemore landscape. We have reclaimed part of MacDonald's land and aim to do two things. To propose housing for the local residents due to the increasing population, and to attract people to use the MacDonald Resort as part of the town centre by developing more public space within the resort. ALso , we expanded the square garden along the town centre then open up a new path towards the large open space near the new housing. Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

Supporting Device

This device is to analyse the topography of where Avemore is located and its relationship to the surroundings. It sits in a valley and adjacent to the River Spey. Aviemore sits on a floodplain so especially in spring and summer, the water level of river Spey will rise, and possibly flood due to the snow melting from the mountains inside the Cairngorms National Park.

Leao Pang, Zixuan Li, Huanran Sun, Lingzi HuangFu, Audrey Chan

01. Everchanging

Audrey Chan Urban Design and Housing

An camas mor is a privately-owned property located east to Aviemore nad North to Rothiemurchus. Sitting inside the Cairngorms National Park, this undeveloped piece of land has a high ecological value and currently under pressure of being developed into a housing estate. Beisdes a high preservation value in the woodlands, the two kettle holes sitting respectively on the North and the South part of the landscape also displays high geological value and potential.

ANALYSIS

An Camas Mor has a high potential to develop as a rural village, due to its proximity to River Spey, yet not being threatened by seasonal floods due to its topography. There is a high concentration and variety of plants which grows in a very quick regeneration rate, which causes the spatial experience of the landscape to change almost everytime one visit it. THe vegetation also provides a windbreaker effect which makes certain parts of the site having a more stable microclimate. However, it suffers from a lack of accessibility due to the ownership and site being isolated from the tourist concentrations - Aviemore and Rothiemurchus. I see the opportunity that this can develop into a village isolated from the more concentrated centres and provide a quality views with a certain rearrangement of the woodland distribution in the area. Beisdes, the kettle hole can also become a park which preserves and emphasize the specialty of such landform. The Google Map Images above are the village structures I have taken references from in order to design the housing structure.

VISION

From the analyses above, I am going to set my vision as to provide housing units for nuclear families and working couples which mainly works near Aviemore or Inverness with communal spaces accomodated. On further phases, developing the area around kettle hole into a landform park which preserves the kettle hole, as well as adding facilities to allow residents at the proposed housing to form a larger community.

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My approach is to focus on the housing within a 2.5 hectares area, which is surrounded by woodland to provide a calming environment to accomodate people, later develop the site with additional facilities through phasing.

02.Village in the Woodland

Audrey Chan Urban Design and Housing

Section A-A

Section B-B

Proposed Housing structures

My design concept for this housing scheme is to create small communal space using a square form to enclose a green space. There is also a row of housing which is isolated from the green space but I have also opened up an open terrace for those residents just before the boundary of the design meets the dense woodland. From the sections above, Section A displays an example of the density of housing on the sides of the road, whereas section B shows the green spaces opened up for the residents to commute and share the environment. THe Kettle hole is going to be isolated using a series tall hedges since it is existing around there, and it also act as a noise breaker from the park I was going to propose. I have manipulated few of the contours from the existing landscape, including the filling up the slopes to allow the road to pass through with ease and cutting corners to blance it up. There are 53 units in total of this housing scheme. However, one can easily add more by changing housing types, which was one thing I didn't get to explore due to the consideration of density within the defined area. These are not limited to the images below:

Alternative housing typology in order to increase the units within the designated area

Documentation of Models - An Camas Mor

student name: AUdrey Chan Course Title: Urban Design & Housing Course Code:ARCH08011 Landscape Architecture University of Edinburgh

Project Brief

The last part of the course lasts for 2 weeks. It aims to propose housing on an open field adjacent to Aviemore, called An Camas Mor. An Camas Mor and Aviemore is separated a river and it is a private land owned by MacDonald Resorts. When I visited there, I felt that this landscape is constantly changing, in both time and space continum. It is truly a piece of untouched landscape, except the open grassland which is maintained for military purpose. This project particularly focuses on proposing 50 units in a 2 hectares area (minimum), and due to its condition, it should be in a rural structure.

Audrey Chan (s1433555), University of Edinburgh

1:500 Model

This model displays and conveys the housing structure I have proposed on the grassland , which is a part of the ladnscape I have experienced in first person. I aimed to create a series of housing which allows people to have quality visual access to the moutains and adding additional public facilities to accomodate residents, particularly nuclear families which will live there in the future.

Audrey Chan (s1433555), University of Edinburgh