Maryhill: Drawing the Existing City

Maryhill

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Drawing the Existing City

Analysis Stage prepared by, Aanchal Agrawal, Louise Mencnarowski, Viraj Khandalkar & Wolf Compernolle

Urban Design Studies Unit University of Strathclyde Glasgow

Booklet No.1

Introduction This booklet is one of two documents created by a group of Masters students studying Architecture and Urban Design. As part of Studio 5 Masterplanning for Change - several groups have undertaken a preliminary Analysis Phase to gain an in-dpeth understanding of two key areas of “High Street” in Glasgow.

This booklet will cover the mapping of Maryhill Road, Maryhill and it’s immediate context. The following chapters will take the reader through the inttricate mapping process from methodology to output. The second booklet produced for this phase covers the mapping and analysis of Kilmarnock Road, Shawlands.

Authors Aanchal Agrawal

MSc Urban Design, University of Strathclyde

Louise Mencnarowski

Advanced Architectural Design, University of Strathclyde

Viraj Khandalkar

Advanced Architectural Design, University of Strathclyde

Wolf Compernolle

Erasmus, Urban Design and Spatial Planning, KULeuven

Drawing the Existing City

Contents Introduction

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2

Mapping the Highstreet

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Objective

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Location

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First Impressions

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Methodology

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Test Site

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Working Legend

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Output and Analysis Map output

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Heights and typologies

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Comparisson data

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Light map

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Booklet No.1

Mapping the High Street Objective As part of Studio 5 - Masterplanning For Change, this years project will focus on “The Future of Highstreets and Highstreets of the Future.” As a class we were asked to look at the highstreet as a ‘complex adaptive system’ rather than the conventional focus on comercial retail and contemplate whether there is currently a crisis between people and the environment they live in?

Ultimately by the end of Semester 2 we will have developed design visions for the long term future of Highstreets in Glasgow by using Maryhill Road (Maryhil) and Kilmarnock Road (Shawlands) as prototypes.

Our task as Group 1 was to map the existing areas. The maps were required to be finished at 1:1000 in scale complete with heights, typologies, signage, street furniture, open areas etc. The maps produced will act as the foundation for the next phase of developing a strategy for the area.

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Drawing the Existing City

Maryhill Road, Maryhill

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Booklet No.1

Mapping the High Street

Location: Maryhill Road The Maryhill area is situated to the North-West of Glasgow City Centre (Fig. 1) and Maryhill Road runs from North-west/South-east, acting as a commuter route joing the western peripheries of Milngavie and Bearsden to the Hillhead area in the West-end. Maryhill is characterised by its’ waterways and steep topography as Maryhill Road runs perpendicular to the River Kelvin and also passes under the Forth and Clyde Canal.

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Drawing the Existing City

Maryhill Road (G20)

Fig. 1: Location Map

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Booklet No.1

Mapping the High Street

Site Impressions Fig. 2 represents a visual collection of the groups first visit to Maryhill.

This allowed the group to better understand the area. As seen in Fig. 2 the area is very varied, whilst the area boasts spectacular views of the canal locks and is home to several buildings of historical importance this is possibly outweighed by the extent of vacant land and many derelict buildings.

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Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 2: Authors Images

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Booklet No.1

Methodology Test Site As discussed previously the objective for the analysis stage was to note “everything”, in a 1:1000 plan of the study area including elements such as: materials, residential types, ground floor usage, street furniture, lamp posts, cars, fences, vegetation and so on. In order to narrow down exactly what should be included in the mapping the group visited both high streets to gain an initial understanding of the street and its surroundings (Fig. 2). Whilst on this first visit an initial, small but thorough test analysis (Fig. 3) was carried out by all group members. An appropriate test site was identified around an intersection of the high street. With all this information of both area’s the group gathered again in the studio to create a consise legend (Fig. 6). This legend had to be the same for both area’s and needed to contain every single element deemed important for the mapping output. This allowed for group discussions to be had before dividing the area and starting to intensively map the whole area, avoiding any time being wasted on noting irrelevant information.

Fig. 3: Test Analysis

The main concern taken from the initial visit was the undulating terrain and sheer extent of the area to be mapped. This lead to a discussion on how best to cover the whole area, resulting in a divide and conquer theory. By splitting into pairs the survey area was divided in half therefore covered quicker. The halves were then halved again to allow each member to draw up a quarter of the site on the return to studio. A lot of visits and mapping hours were needed to gather all the information. This huge amount of fieldwork resulted in an enormous amount of information that was only understandable for the one who made it (Fig. 4). To translate this information to the actual map the legend was imported in Auto cad (Fig. 6) to allow the scaled map to be drawn.

Fig. 4: Multiple Methods

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Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 5: Topography Map courtesy of Digimaps

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Fig. 5: Cross Sections

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High Street

Retail

Canal

Canal

Industrial Industrial Estate Estate

Health Health Centre Centre

Residential Residential

High Street

Retail

Residential Residential

River Kelvin

High Street

Canal

Residential Residential

0

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

High Street

Residential Residential

High Street

Canal

River Kelvin

Section A-A

Residential Residential

Residential Residential

Residential Residential

Gym

High Street

Residential Residential

Residential Residential

High Street

Railway Railway Station Station

Residential Residential

Residential Residential

Booklet No.1

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION A A B

C

B C

Section B-B

Section C-C

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100

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Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 6: Working Legend

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Output and Analysis

In week 3 another study group required the building height and ground floor typology from the data collected. This was collated and shared, allowing comparitive maps to be drawn (Fig. 8 and Fig. 9).

Once all gorup members had completed an initial CAD layout of their area it was compiled into one file and edited in Adobe Illistrator to ensure complete continuity and legibility. This final output (Fig. 7) will serve as a base map for the ongoing strategy phase.

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Booklet No.1

Fig. 7: Maryhill Map Output

Booklet No.1

Output and Analysis

Fig. 8: Height Map. This map shows the heights of the buildings in the Maryhill study area. The study shows that the area has buildings ranging from single floor to twentynine floors. The area is dominated by buildings of two and three floors. Along the high street, the buildings range from a ground floor up to four floors.

Fig. 8: Maryhill Height Map

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Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 9: Typology Map. The Maryhill study area has a fabric of mixed typologies but is mainly consists of residential buildings. Along the high street, there are buildings of mixed typologies and not just commercial and retail but also housing and institutional and also a mixture of commercial and residential.

Fig. 9: Maryhill Typology Map

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Output and Analysis Comparison Data Height Comparison (Maryhill verus Shawlands): From the study we can see that both the areas have buildings ranging from a single floor to an average of twenty floors. In Shawlands, along the high street there are buildings with three to four floors and the majority single and double floor buildings can be seen spread away from the high street and in Maryhill, we can see no specific relation in terms of height of the buildings and the high street. There are buildings of three to five floors to the south and it slowly decrease to two and single floors to the north. Both the areas have tall residential buildings of twenty floors and above which look alienated in the existing urban fabric of both the areas. The pattern in heights of the building have a relation with the location of specific typologies of buildings in the areas.

Typology Comparison (Maryhill versus Shawlands): Both the study areas are completely dominated by residences in forms of single family paired, isolated and attached houses and also multifamily attached (tenements). Multifamily isolated buildings are quite low in numbers in both the areas. In the Shawlands study area, there are majority of commercial buildings along the Kilmarnock high street which give the high street it’s true function. While in Maryhill, the high street loses its meaning by less commerce and trade on the high street and is rather seen in different pockets spread throughout the area. The Shawlands area is compact and has a dense urban fabric and to the contrary, the Maryhill area is more spread out and less dense in terms of its urban fabric which gives the sense of Kilmarnock road (Shawlands) being more active than Maryhill road.

Nodes To understand the character and density of the neighbourhood in response to the high street, two nodes are selected along the high street.

‘Node 1’ at the North of the High Street and ‘Node 2’ at the South. Further analysis results in measuring the open versus built-up areas and non-residential versus residential of the selected nodes.

As identified in Fig. 11, varied ratios are detected in the nodes, along with a differing urban fabric and street patttern along the high street.

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Fig. 10: Reference Plan

Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 11: Nodes and associated data

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Booklet No.1

Output and Analysis Light Map The light map includes all of the street lighting in the area. The streets are covered either partially or suffciently with lighting poles.

The intent behind noting street lights is to be able to determine how safe the streets feel and to understand the sense of security at night for pedestrians of Maryhill. The accessibility of areas and buidlings can also be measured.

As shown in Fig. 12: Light Map, the streetlights in the area are spread out sporadically with no uniformity. Some areas are well lit whereas other portions of land remain completely dark, indicating a lack of connectivity and accessibility. The public green areas, inlcuding the canal and riverside paths, do not have any street lighting and as a consequence these areas are deemed unsafe after dark by locals.

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Drawing the Existing City

Fig. 12: Maryhill Light Ma

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Appendix Maryhill Map Output 1:1000

Drawing the Existing City

References ? Google Maps ? Digimaps ? Urban Design Website ?forth and clyde canal website

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