MILTON IN BLOOM
Stage
Package
Masterplan
Booklet 3/3
Special Place Design
Prepared by Shenmin Lu, Yifan Xu Urban Design Studies Unit, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, January - May 2017
Foreword
Contents
This urban design project is the final year project of our postgraduate study in University of Strathclyde. The course is designed to equip us to analyse the urban fabric, space and measures. The chosen site is Milton, located in the north of Glasgow city. The site is currently a problematic area in Glasgow and our goal is to renew and improve the area according to current urban design theory.
1. Analysis and Strategy
Our design process is divided into three stages: analysing the existing city, creating a overall strategy and detailed masterplan. This booklet is created to explain our detailed masterplan proposal for the third stage, developed with the first two stages research. Please also check booklet No.1 - No.5 for the details of current situation of Milton and booklet No.9 for our early stages of development strategy.
Current Milton
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Design Intention
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Concept Plan
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2. Regulatory Framework 4
Foundation Masterplan Street Design
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Phasing
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3. Special Places design
This is the third booklet out of three. In this booklet there will be a collection of the detail of special public space we chosen to develop, such as the centre square on Liddesdale Road, new community centre and station square, expanded community garden and park, and some small open space.
Milton Community Centre
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Milton Food Centre
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Small Open Space and Pocket Park
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4.Conclusion The Masterplan
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5.Bibliography Bibliography
Yifan Xu Architecture University of Ediburgh
Shenmin Lu Architecture University of Liverpool
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Residents in Milton find themselves hard attached to this piece of land: if they have the chance they will leave this place. But at the same time, we know that Scottish people, especially glasgow people have really strong sense of belonging to their homeland. In order to break the incoherent in identity recognition between glasgow and Milton, what I proposed to do is to extend the existing community garden. This small garden is currently the only public area for locals, and at the same time the process of growing vegetables on a piece of land can help build the connection between people and location. With this “media” we can smoothly transform the Glaswegians to “Miltoners” which will encourage people to stay and develop this area.
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Special Block Design Milton Centre
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Milton Centre Plaza Goal: London bond street Liddestale Square locates on the highest point of the topography in Milton, and it is right in the centre of existing centre of public spaces in Milton. As the precedent image it can be as a busy walking scene or a stopping point as meeting place.
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Milton Centre Plaza is a essential developing area to achieve legibility: more signage and overall layout needs to be detailed. By new nodes in the future, connecting Liddesdale road to Coslton road to upgrade the street hierarchy.
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Ground floor in Milton Plaza is dominated by retail and commercial uses. The main road stretches across the plaza: traffic calming strategies are maximised to pedestrianize the area. The integration of central bus hub, bicycle lane and carefully lined materials work together to manage the traffic flows. The junction to secondary road are refilled with two landmark corner buildings to add beauty and guidance to the area. Each corner building is emphasised to activate the central plaza, ensuring active frontage and same storey height to achieve unique beauty. This area is preserving most street layout and existing public buildings which give the locals a sense of civic pride and identity. What we design is to extend the pride and provide a successful place to attract more amenity as a strong community centre.
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Bond Street Station, London
Station Plaza Pavement Reference: for pavements around fountain, and the bench.
The bollards are to strengthen the interface between traffic flow and pedestrians as urban signage.
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The station plaza works as a functioning public open space to provide essential link to those passing through. The quality of the plaza should be defined as a gathering and safe place to attract people. The plaza provides civic sense, a place to hold events and to relax. A fountain in the centre is designed to strengthen the view when people enter the Milton from station, which can add identity as a navigate signage. The surrounding buildings are including a public office building, a cafe or a restaurant and a community centre. They are all 3 storey high to be a demotic size to get a sense of intimacy.
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Special Block Design Milton Food Centre
Residents in Milton find themselves hard attached to this piece of land: if they have the chance they will leave this place. But at the same time, we know that Scottish people, especially glasgow people have really strong sense of belonging to their homeland. In order to break the incoherent in identity recognition between glasgow and Milton, what I proposed to do is to extend the existing community garden. This small garden is currently the only public area for locals, and at the same time the process of growing vegetables on a piece of land can help build the connection between people and location. With this “media” we can smoothly transform the Glaswegians to “Miltoners” which will encourage people to stay and develop this area.
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The Milton Community Garden is featured in the recent published Co-op advertisement. ”There was houses here before. And when they poke them down, this place is just lying empty. Nothing happens here. There’s no place for the kids to go, place for actually anybody to go cause we don’t have a community centre anymore. So this is like a god send.” This community garden become so important in local life so it is necessary to bring it further in our proposal.
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The existing Milton Community Garden may be the only highlight currently existed in Milton at the moment. It is organized by North Glasgow Community Food Initiative, who believed that a active society will deliver health, well-being and harmony to the society. Currently in the community garden there are drop in sessions, pop-up cafe, youth gardening, and cookery class held regularly.
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There are many benefits joining and maintaining community garden. It is a lighter, more satisfying and pleasant roster of task comparing to the boring work in a farm. The community garden only requires participation in residents’ spare time. Community gardens contribute to a healthy lifestyle Fresh, safe, affordable herbs, fruits and vegetables Relieve stress and increase sense of wellness Getting people active, improves overall physical health Help build a sense of community and belonging Opportunity to learn and share knowledge Community gardens benefit the community Build welcoming, safer communities Improve the look of neighbourhoods Sequestering carbon Reducing the shipping of food over long distances Support well-being habitats Reduce food insecurity Connect people to nature Provide a common meeting area Educate people on food
Create unique civic space
Education for children
Enjoy growing with low cost
Encourage social interaction
Local food supply
Space for local events
Promote healthy lifestyle
Good family activity
Earlier in 2017, due to the cold weather there were a few types of vegetables disappeared from the shelves. The supply of vegetables heavily depend on import, which means this situation will repeat in the future and causes difficulties for all Britain. A community garden will help prevent the shortage of food and supply stable and safe food source.
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Milton Park
Springburn Park Eastfield Park
Robroyston Park
Richill Park
Milton park: Too small for most of the activities in park. Possible to extend the park to the adjacent plot that is ready to be removed.
Broomfield Park
Cowlairs Park
Comparing to other civic parks in neighbourhood area, the existing Milton park is very small, useless and poorly maintained. In order to attract local residences, the park need to serve as much purposes as possible. Existing Milton park has a lot of problems: It is too small for jogging or walking and lack of entertainment facilities. There are houses surrounding the park, blocking the sight from the road. In this case it makes the park out side the surveillance of the street, which is less secure for staying.
Ruchill Park: Build with landscape with walking / jogging paths, connected to school as part of education scheme.
Springburn park: Contain sports grounds, landscape with walking / jogging paths, green houses, local memorial site. Multiple function park serving the area.
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Sunday Market
Connecting the two food production centre
Milton community garden have a existing expansion plan. The proposal is to transform the vacant site next to the community garden. According to our masterplan strategy, this area is a high density mix-use residential area. Instead of using the potentially higher value site, we decided to move the expansion to the Milton park. Associate with a growing centred community space, it will be one of the most important reason for residents to go to Milton park.
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Market use to be a common social space. People come to this spaces for daily necessities and naturally have contact with other residence and shopkeepers. The market is also the primary social condenser of Agrarian Urbanism. Comparing to shopping centre, a food market provide products that everyone need as essential of life, so it could attract more social interaction.
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Community garden construction phasing
The park is divided into three function area: The green area is sports ground, connecting to the primary school next to it; The orange area is cycling practice area, connecting to the cycling route; the blue area is the extension of community garden, connecting to the existing community garden through Market Street. The rest of the park will be designed landscape.
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Small raised plot (X25) 2m x 2m plots, raised for easier reach for people with less ability to work on ground.
Small normal plot (x52) 2m X 2m plot on ground, benefits form the natural soil on ground, creating a environment closest to nature environment for plants.
Big raised plot (X31) 2m x 4m plots, raised for easier reach for people with less ability to work on ground. Bigger area allowing more plants to grow.
Big normal plot (X111) 2m X 4m plot on ground, benefits form the natural soil on ground, creating a environment closest to nature environment for plants. Bigger area allowing more plants to grow. Kid’s plot (X12) 2m x 2m plots for education of children. Separated from other plots because this area is not for profit.
Accessible plot (X12) 2m X 2m plot raised for easy reach for people in a wheelchair. Space under the plot so wheelchair user can fit their chair under it.
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Small open spaces and pocket parks are very important to the city, especially when there is high density residential area. These open space created space to breath between the buildings, and introduce different visual effect among the buildings. On the other hand, squares can be just a empty space if no one is willing to use it. A well loved square can be anything, as long as people are willing to come and use the space. Rather than planning what to do on the square, our proposal leave the decision to the residents of Milton. The open space is not specifically designed for anything. Most of them are located close to high density, mix-use residential blocks, some with public buildings near by to make sure people will walk pass this space and use it in different time period.
Special Block Design Pocket Parks and Open Spaces
Proposed open space and pocket park
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Our proposed site, Ornsay crescent plaza is a residence plaza. A quiet and domestic feeling is created: standing in a leafy garden square surrounded by silver birch trees. The surrounding blocks are medium density housing. In the plaza, the layout of the housing blocks provides a enclosure and the stone pavement strengthen the atmosphere. It’s an idea place for children playing in terms of scale and surrounding.
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The final masterplan is the combination of the work explained in the previous chapters. In the map there are details of plot design, access and transitional spaces, specialist plots and blocks design, landmarks and stages design, street design and traffic calming design, pocket parks and public spaces design. After this year studying urban design theory, as architecture students, it is a valuable experience. Although in architecture studios we also consider our bigger context, but the meaning of context totally changed when the design area is in urban scale. This course does encouraged us to really think about why our city looks like the way it is now, and how it could be better in the future. It is very interesting that after a year of study, every line on the street suddenly has a meaning. Reading the city becomes a natural action when walking around. Also the participation of Glasgow Housing Association and Glasgow City Council made our proposal more on the ground. One of the bad thing being an architecture student, we are always looking at those fancy projects that costs a lot. But in real life there is always the problem of money. During the design process we need to think about how to use every piece of land efficiently, creating usable spaces instead of left over spaces. Every decision we made costs, so it is important to ensure they create value.
Conclusion The Masterplan
Special thanks to Sergio and Ombretta for all the advices. This is just a sample of the final master plan. Please refer to our poster with our masterplan in 1:1000 for further details.
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Transect.org. (2017). Center for Applied Transect Studies. [online] Available at: https://transect.org/codes.html [Accessed 6 Mar. 2017]. YouTube. (2017). Co op Causes | North Glasgow Community Food Initiative. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=kL7HNYK7wEQ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2017]. Duany, A. (2011). Garden cities. 1st ed. [U.K.]: Duany Plater Zybrek & Co. Glasgow.gov.uk. (2017). Glasgow City Council - Glasgow City Council. [online] Available at: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk [Accessed 3 Mar. 2017].
Bibliography
Jacobs, A. (2010). Great streets. 1st ed. [S.l.]: [S.n.]. Jacobs, J. (1965). The death and life of great American cities. 1st ed. Penguin Books. Facebook.com. (2017). Milton Food Hub. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/miltonfoodhub [Accessed 4 Apr. 2017]. Rogers, R. (1999). Towards an urban renaissance. 1st ed. [London]: [Spon]. English Partnership, Housing Corporation (September 2007) Urban Design Compendium English Partnership, Housing Corporation (September 2007) Urban Design Compendium 2
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