So far, we have run through the principles and context we need to understand to make sure schemes are designed well and are appropriate for their context. The next step is to design and deliver a scheme which applies those principles. This starts with masterplanning and moves on to developing and implementing the delivery strategy, which is where the hard slog starts.
I have summarised this in the Making S**t Happen video:
To start with we need to differentiate the three strands that schemes generally fall into, as they require different delivery strategies:
Stand-alone development – taking an individual site or couple of sites and seeking to change the building on that site, something which likely has limited impact on the overall area
Regeneration: taking a comprehensive approach to an overall area and repairing its failings and achieving specific objectives
Clean start- essentially a new place or a new large urban extension- starting with a clean sheet, perhaps greenfield development.
Stand-alone development is generally fairly straightforward and generally doesn’t make a step shift in an overall area so I’m going to ignore it here.
Regeneration is something we need to look at in more detail and remember it differs significantly from urban renewal, since regeneration is much more than simply replacing old buildings and shabby public realm. With regeneration it is first necessary to research an area to understand what is wrong with the market there, and identify how that can be fixed and to identify what is wrong with it structurally, and judge the nature of the required interventions against the intervention matrix shown below.
With clean start development we can work out where to start on the intervention matrix fairly easily- the far right. But as a clean start scheme is built out the remaining work required moves closer to the far left.
The Intervention Matrix
By identifying whether the aforementioned characteristics of a great place are present or not we can determine what is wrong with a place at a structural level- and therefore what is required to enable regeneration from a structural perspective. The solution developed must be proportionate to the scale of the problem in the urban environment.
So, if we have a place that just doesn’t work very well at a structural level, then we won’t fix its problems by simply polishing its public realm. Or as they say in some places: "you can't polish a turd, but you can cover it in glitter."
If we resolve the structural problems to start with, it will have substantive impact, but will be substantially harder to achieve. Just as surgery is harder than a sticking plaster- but if surgery is needed a sticking plaster will do little other than cover up the problem until it falls off.
With clean start and regeneration type schemes the next step after identifying where the place falls on the intervention matrix is to research the wider context as set out previously and then start to masterplan to understand how to solve the problems.
Masterplanning
If undertaken properly masterplanning interprets the local context as set out previously and applies good design principles to develop and design the solution. Masterplanning can be divided into 3 stages:
Step 1 and 2 are best explained by watching someone do it, in this case someone else has already done that so CLICK HERE and give them all due credit, all I have done is link you to their YouTube page which required no effort on my part at all.
Deliverability testing is less straightforward to succinctly explain, but it essentially involves reviewing the proposal from all angles to make sure that it can actually be achieved- I cover that from a financial aspect in the first video in this section. This is really the start of preparing the delivery strategy as this work will identify the strategy necessary to implement the solution chosen.
Delivery Strategy
Once the masterplan has been developed and identified as likely deliverable, it is necessary to put in place the strategy to give it the best possible chance of being achieved. There are several steps to this, and these vary in all cases, with the general principle being the more complex the scheme the more complex the strategy will be. We will come onto this in more detail in the later sections. For now its time to move to section 21- almost the end now Whooo!
Comments