Introduction
Re-Imagining St. Paul’s Street is a vision created by DLA Design Group to support the wider debate about improving the public realm in Leeds. In 2015, Leeds City Council produced a ‘Leeds Public Realm Design, Ideas and Opportunities’ document to encourage discussions about the enhancement of the public realm in the city.
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Park Here, DLA 2015
The document identified that well designed streetscapes and the public realm is key to increasing vibrancy and attractiveness of the city whilst aiding a pedestrian focused environment to create an economically successful, livable and healthy city centre for people of all ages and abilities. As a multi-disciplinary company of Architects, Urban Designers and Landscape Architects located on St. Paul’s Street, its staff have become acutely aware that the street, which is currently a hard urban car dominated backwater thoroughfare, could be transformed through some rebalancing of priorities. Alongside the City Council’s goals for the wider city, DLA Design Group, wanted to influence and contribute to the debate about how public realm is used by exploring a new masterplan for St Paul’s Street. With a little creative thinking and some rebalancing between the car and the pedestrian, the character of the street could be transformed into a vibrant, attractive, humanised space with a unique character which could act as a catalyst for the evolution of spaces across the city, to create a more civilized and people-friendly environment. This document explains the process a team from DLA Design Group went through to develop a masterplan for the street and deliver a temporary intervention to demonstrate the potential for change and engagement with a wider audience.
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