The Charm Agenda, Charm Offensive, Offensive Charm

A whole month after our "Final Thought" about the planning debacle surrounding Aberdeen's only town-centre green space - Union Terrace Gardens - events conspire to make liars of us, and we're obliged to offer yet more "final thoughts".

CHARM

I was leafing through the most recent edition of Tyler Brûlé's Monocle "cultural briefing" magazine the other day. (Yeah, yeah, I know.) But we very much like Tyler's takes on urbanism, on transport and on modernism (in architecture and design). Since he turned the 'lifestyle' magazine market inside out when he launched Wallpaper in 1996, his editorial push has been characterised by a purity of vision and a earnest championing of good taste and human scale urban design - quality, authenticity and integrity in urbanism. Looking at his magazines, you might think that postmodernism never happened.

The most recent edition of Monocle points out that, as we're getting accustomed to having tough economic forecasts thrust in front of us, and as politicians and mass-media pundits struggle to begin to think about how they might approach - as they eventually must - the necessity of starting to condition the general public to the fact that a return to economic growth may not actually be possible - certain brands, businesses, regions and people seem not to be merely surviving, but rather thriving despite the economic crisis. The magazine devotes an editorial and an entire globetrotting section with travelogues (dérives) and essays (polemics) all turned to the examination of that special quality which allows some to float easily to the top to enjoy the oxygen of prosperity while others sink in the stifling mire of economic depression. Tyler's travel writers, photographers, philosophers, and graphic artists are flung to the four corners of the earth and return to identify this fundamental ingredient of resilient success. They conclude that this vital essence is charm.

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It's a set of attributes got by doing things based on human feelings and not because a focus group says it sounds good or the numbers seem to add up when you pile them on to an Excel sheet. The reason we think this word [charm] is key in 2012 is because it adds the DNA for longevity into brands, business and neighbourhoods
[…]
Honesty, integrity, simplicity … are other words that help all manner of firms thrive, but oddly, they never seem to make it past the door of a business school. That's because these things can't be taught; you have to genuinely possess these qualities.
[…]
Charm is unquantifiable, which is why management consultants and MBA graduates overlook it. Decisions about the future of a town, building or business that are made in the boardroom don't consider the importance or charm. … And yet charm is arguably the most important factor for securing repeat business, which in today's financial climate is invaluable.
Charm is fragile too - it's not something you can buy (think Dubai), it takes time to nurture and requires safeguarding because, once lost, it's near impossible to reinstate.
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So you can see that this resonates with today's urban planning tumult in Aberdeen. Since the intervention of oil-tycoon Sir Ian Wood in 2008 caused the collapse of the project to build the Northern Light (a contemporary art centre) in favour of his own vanity-stroking City Square Project (as was), the discourse in Aberdeen has been characterised by a singular lack of charm. Accusation and counter-accusation have flown in an increasingly polarised debate as the polity is subjected to the spectacle of a process which has been distressingly divisive. Misdirection, misinformation, sock-puppetry, DPR, website hacking, vexatious allegations, character assassinations and other dirty tricks have all been rumoured to have been used by one side or the other or both. Allegedly. We have been disappointed but unsurprised to see a lack of balance in the local press, who have continued to act as editorial mouthpieces for the boosters of CO2-supremo Sir Ian Wood's project, their pro-development articles hitting their own front pages with predictably metronomic regularity. But then, we've long since aired our disappointment about how our Aberdeen newspapers are operated.

In our opinion, the distasteful aspects of this process which will in effect privatise commonly-held land, were inevitable. When carbon-bigwig Sir Ian Wood first announced his intention to outbid the creative and performing arts community in Aberdeen he set our teeth on edge by going on record and saying:

Eighty percent of the people who spend time in [my] square will have no interest in the arts.

So breathtaking an expression and expectation of philistinism, both patronising and dismissive, used by the emission-king Sir Ian Wood as a justification for why his scheme would be preferred by the people of Aberdeen over the Northern Light scheme, was inevitably seen by the creative arts community - both producers and consumers with curator-types in between - as an opening pre-emptive strike in a dirty war for the soul (both metaphysical and urban-physical) of our town. Thus was the wind sown, and now we reap the whirlwind as the time has arrived and the people of Aberdeen are now making a decision on whether or not the park gets bulldozed. A postal referendum is in progress at this time. What emission-monger Sir Ian Wood first called "The City Square Project" has been re-branded "The City Garden Project". You can see what they did there.

THE SUPERFICIAL CHARM OF BOILERPLATE

One of the many aspects which has characterised the moneymen's push to foist their debt-creating real-estate land-grab and building project on the people of Aberdeen is the use of pubic relations (PR) consultancies who are involved in projecting a presence (we think that's the kind of thing these sorts of people tend to say) for the City Square Garden Project. Posters, flyers, web, social media, radio, tv and print. It's all been very slick and impressive. If you think that a corporate branding and impression management (as they say) exercise can ever be impressive, that is. Many people do in these hyperreal times, more's the pity.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked one of the social media manifestation aspects of the City Square Garden Project a straightforward enough genuine question. Here's what I asked:

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One of the things which is a perennial spectacle in Aberdeen, in the city centre, is the sunset gathering of starlings - vectoring in from all directions and amorphously flocking in the sky above Union Street. The spectacular flock (numbering tens of thousands of birds) swoops around the city centre, gathering strength of numbers as subsidiary flocks join, before groups break off and dive beneath Union Bridge to roost.  

The RSPB and the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) state that: "starling numbers have fallen by 66 per cent in Britain since the mid-1970s. Because of this decline in numbers, the starling is red listed as a bird of high conservation concern." 

And the RSPB also note that the Countryside Act (1981) makes it illegal to intentionally kill, injure or take a starling, or to take, damage or destroy an active nest or its contents. They say that preventing the birds from gaining access to their nests may also be viewed as illegal by the courts. And indeed, the provisions of the Scottish Nature Conservation Act (which supersedes and modifies the Countryside Act) are more stringent yet when it comes to bird habitat protection, making it an explicit offence to: "obstruct or prevent any wild bird from using its nest". How can this be avoided by the plans as proposed? 

How will the project circumvent the provisions of the Countryside Act and the Scottish Nature Conservation Act? How will the promotors of the project deal with this issue? Has the City Garden Project been in touch with the RSPB and the BTO?  If they have not already contacted the RSPB/BTO, why not?
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The response from the City Square Garden Project's social media manifestation:

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We love the birds too and want to see them remain in the city centre. What is exciting about the new gardens is the fact that new eco-systems and habitats will be created by the larger gardens with a greater diversity of plants and wildlife. 

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Ugh. Firstly, when I read that, I had the feeling that I'd been mugged. It's that superficial charm of the PR "handling" thing that they do by the numbers; that thing that's straight out of the first year media studies playbook where they 1. gushingly agree ("yes we love birds too, see - we're just like you!") - then 2. deflect by issuing handwaving boilerplate ("the new thing will be EVEN BETTER"); all without addressing the serious and genuine specific concerns I'd expressed. At the time of writing, I've seen no genuine response to my questions from the City Square Gardens Project PR people. 

The thing about charm is, it cannot be faked. We can all tell when a corporate entity has a "workshopped vision" rather than a genuine opinion. We are used to the cant of the scripted interactions we must suffer with call centres and checkout till operators. We can even now detect when the script has been drafted in order to appear unscripted. It's wearing, it's tiring, it's disheartening. We live now in an age of flesh-robots consulting decision-tree boilerplate scripts. Where are the real people? What are their genuine opinions? It's doubly disheartening to realise that the real people promoting this real-estate venture (in this case, emission-king Sir Ian Wood and a group of 50 anonymous(ish) - certainly faceless - businesspeople who are bankrolling the PR initiative) reckon themselves to be so lacking in genuine charm that they must retain a PR consultancy to generate a continual outgushing of superficial charm boilerplate in order to deflect public attention away from them, and away from key questions and problems with the project. I suppose, at least, we should congratulate the group of fifty anonymous(ish) businesspeople for their self-knowledge. 

A HAPPY IMPRESSION OF BLACKMAIL

A correspondent pointed us towards the blog of local(ish) PR practitioner Ken McEwan, in which the PR-man contends that  - unless the people of Aberdeen consent to carbon-mogul Sir Ian Wood's real-estate development scheme which would destroy Aberdeen's only town centre green space - there will be no further investment of any kind in Aberdeen. When he asserts: "This is an all or nothing package" he's kind-of saying "Vote Yes to the comprehensive redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens or the rest of the city gets it!" 

Of course, the PR-man avoids any use of the words "loan" or "debt", choosing to use the words "investment" and "funding" instead. But leaving that aside, and also leaving aside the arguable thrust of the "all or nothing" assertion, what we find most enlightening is the posture that this PR-man is happy to be seen to be taking. To us, it seems that he appears to be revelling in creating the impression of a kind of civic-development blackmail. Aren't these PR-types charming?

CO-OPTED

When we last wrote about this subject, we got a bit of criticism for our use of language like "emission-king" and "pollution-mogul" when describing carbon-baron Sir Ian Wood. Some people thought we ran the risk of undermining the work of the various voluntary groups who are working to retain Union Terrace Gardens. We responded by saying that we would happily consent to the destruction of Union Terrace Gardens were the pre-eminent CO2-magnate Sir Ian Wood to renounce his role in the extraction of oil and gas and denounce the oil industry for the atmosphere-threatening activity which it demonstrably is. We said that we were not interested in coalitions, particularly when membership of a coalition might compromise our principles. It's a matter of perspective - for what use will a small city centre park be should the thermohaline circulation system collapse? How will Union Terrace Gardens in their current form help the hundreds of millions of people who will be displaced from low-lying coastal regions as sea levels rise? When ever will the many hundreds of thousands who will be killed in resource-wars to come be able to enjoy the peace and tranquility of a sunken garden in a provincial northern town? 

So we were saddened when the major grouping of volunteers which is working to retain Union Terrace Gardens announced that they have received the beneficent backing of oil-tycoon Jimmy Reid (yes, another one, another tycoon). We wrote about the intransigence of these pollution-millionaires before, in the context of the financial collapse of the potentially atmosphere-saving carbon capture and storage pilot plant at Longannet power station. 

In a press release, carbon-grandee Jimmy Reid, publicity-friendly MD and Chairman of Balmoral Group said:

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I and many of my business contemporaries, are committed to establishing a fund which will help bring the gardens back to their former glory. Without destroying our heritage, and without putting Aberdeen City further into debt, it would not be difficult to breathe fresh life into the park. Improved access, new planting, cleaning and restoration, park wardens and live events could all be relatively easily and cost effectively achieved.
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We were sickened by the sycophancy which Jimmy Milne's announcement provoked from some members of the groups who want to retain Union Terrace Gardens. And we were troubled by this talk of a fund set up by faceless businesspeople to run a public park. But, again, these are side issues. More important to us is that we certainly don't want our activism (such as it is) to be co-opted weight-of-numbers-wise (as it runs the risk of being) in support of the consent-manufacturing activities of the pollution-magnates and their climate-jeopardising activities, whatever their views on the direction of urbanism, new or old. Such are the dangers of coalition membership. Which oil-tycoon do you prefer? We prefer neither.

Spot the difference

SOUR GRAPES

The whole spectacle of this fight for the future of a small park has split opinion in this town. It has marginalised the creative sector, it has damaged the arts and it has polarised discourse. It has served as a window-dressing diversion away from the necessity to build a truly sustainable industrial future for Aberdeen based upon the exploitation of renewable energy sources. The atmosphere of hostility and distrust is poisonous to the enjoyment of this town for its own sake, something which is one of the avowed aims of the whole OtherAberdeen blog. And now the polity of the whole town has been manoeuvred into the false dilemma of being forced to endorse either the vision of one oil-tycoon or the other. We feel a need to distance ourselves from this spectacle, for sometimes the grapes really are sour.

Union Terrace Gardens or City Gardens Project - A Final Thought or Two Before You Decide

OK, there's so much in the media about the ongoing controversy surrounding oil-tycoon Sir Ian Wood's vision of comprehensively redeveloping Union Terrace Gardens and imposing a new building on precious, protected green space in the heart of Aberdeen that there's not much for us to add other than to tie up a few loose ends.

If you live in Aberdeen, you'll know well that you're about to be asked to take part in a postal referendum which will determine the future of our only town-centre park. The choice will be to retain the park - Union Terrace Gardens - or endorse carbon-mogul Sir Ian Wood's City Garden Project (the real-estate boosters of the project used to call it the "City Square Project", but that name didn't play too well in focus groups). If the people of Aberdeen choose destruction of the existing park, the park will be comprehensively redeveloped, and the valley it currently occupies (much like a small-scale version of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens) filled with a new building which has become known as "The Granite Web". This new building appears to be a catwalk-bedecked semi-outdoor concert venue and shopping mall. We used to say "shopping centre". Do you remember when we used to say "shopping scheme"?

Existing - Union Terrace Gardens

Proposed - The Granite Web

Anyway, there's little we can add to the overwhelming dissent, disgust and indignation which characterises the discourse about the comprehensive redevelopment proposals in new media outlets and social media forums, so we present some samples here:

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STV Local

http://local.stv.tv/aberdeen/news/25833-youth-council-chairman-steps-down-over-union-terrace-gardens-stance/

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[Aberdeen] Youth Council’s official view [is] that the City Gardens Project is an environmental, social and financial gamble.

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Blouin Artinfo

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/756740/diller-scofidio-renfro-tapped-to-build-a-high-line-for-scotland

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It’s a fabled and oft-pursued “Bilbao Effect,” or in this case, High Line effect, that we strongly caution against. Recent failures to create this coveted tourist-draw include Oscar Niemeyer’s shuttered cultural center in Spain, and Rafael Viñoly’s critically pummeled “Golden Banana” in Colchester, England.

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Lena the Hyena

http://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/a-tangled-granite-web-weaves-around-union-terrace-gardens/

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Aberdeen did have a park in its centre. It does have a park; Victorian gardens. And it is reasonable to see why someone with disposable income measured in millions might want to influence improvements to the centre of his home town (although that in itself calls into question the morality of influencing policy just because you have more money than most) but the motives behind the proposal have shifted since it was first envisaged. [...] Suffice to say that by creating a piazza (and that was the term in use at the beginning of this whole UTG episode) the city would attract business is specious. I don’t for a moment imagine that Mr Wood ever moved his business into anywhere because of the look of the place, whether or not it had a piazza, but because of the economic returns his company hoped to bank.

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Moved to Comment

http://rxpell.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/and-the-winner-is/

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Sterile, stale and uninspiring are just three of the words that have been used to describe the scheme – a cross between Tellytubby land and a ’70s skatepark with myriad opportunities for graffiti artists and multiple jumping off points for the suicidal. Contempt for heritage is shown by the fact that the historical features of the gardens are wiped away with the distinctive (and listed) granite balustrades going the same way as the mature trees.

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We would also recommend the incisive commentary, spread out over many many posts, on the wonderful Blerr de Blerr Blerr blog from videographer of Aberdeen, Fraser Denholm. 

And we too have covered some aspects of our own objections to the proposed comprehensive development:

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http://otheraberdeen.blogspot.com/2011/03/biting-hand.html

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... our personal greatest vexation with this proposed redevelopment was the way than an opportunity to anchor a progressive arts and creative sector in Aberdeen was so thoughtlessly as to appear maliciously squandered. The City Square proposals caused the collapse of the Peacock Visual Arts Northern Light initiative which would have created a new contemporary arts centre for Aberdeen and the north of Scotland.

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http://otheraberdeen.blogspot.com/2011/04/woonerf-for-denburn-valley-proposal.html

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We are concerned that ACSEF's [local business-interest quango/lobbying group, boosters of the project] top-down agenda to impose one single expensive solution to what they perceive to be Aberdeen's town centre problems runs the risk of putting all our civic eggs in one heavily-indebted basket.

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To all of which, let us add the reminder that this proposed comprehensive redevelopment and building project is on common-good land (pdf) - sometimes referred to as "burgh commons" - as established by land rights campaigner Andy Wightman in his 2011 paper Union Terrace Gardens - Historic and Legal Status (pdf). This is land which is owned exclusively by no-one and generally by everyone, and which is held by the town authorities in trust for the people of Aberdeen.  The Wikipedia entry for "burgh commons" states: "By the early 19th century, most burgh commons had been appropriated by the wealthy landowners who dominated burgh councils, and very few have survived." At the risk of appearing churlish, should we applaud the fact that the affluent capitalists of Aberdeen are at last making this effort to catch up?

"BON ACCORD CENTRE
Permission granted for entry
No public right of way constituted"

In all seriousness, though, this proposed development is of course an attempt by business interests to privatise public-realm space for profit. Or "adding shareholder value" as they tend to say - why use one straightforward word when you can use three obfuscations? Should the development go ahead, we will be able to visit these "gardens" only by the grace of the private sector owners and/or operators of the new building. Experience confirms that those private-sector operators will impose arbitrary restrictions on behaviour and appearance, and will undertake intrusive surveillance on all passing through. Indeed, our town has form in allowing the private sector to extinguish public rights. Where once a public right-of-way south from George Street continued all the way south to join with Market Street via St Nicholas Street, today a huge real-estate company called "Land Securities plc" grant permission for pedestrian access through their Bon Accord and St Nicholas Centre shopping malls only under the condition that no public right of way is (re)established. Where once we had a right of free access and passage, association and discourse, now all we have is consumer choice, that choice itself from a diminishing handful of shargar shoppies. 

When old-media outlets, such as our local press, provide a forum for the boosters of this project which would build commercial and retail premises on the site of of our only town-centre park, they inevitably invoke a loathsome and cringing insecurity, a needy aspiration to "attract" businesses and businesspeople to the town and a perceived necessity to make the town an "attractive prospect for future mobile investment". Over the last two years, ever since emission-monger Sir Ian Wood first caused the collapse of the proposed Northern Lights arts centre, which would have created a home for local creative forum Peacock Visual Arts in Union Terrace Gardens, we have had many misgivings about what comprehensive redevelopment of the gardens would mean - we have always had the feeling that the wool was being pulled over our eyes, and not in the obvious way. But it is only today, only now that the people of Aberdeen (despite already once having said "no" to carbon-magnate Sir Ian's vision) approach the final zero-hour decision time that we can put our finger on one source of these misgivings. The City Garden Project, as proposed by CO2 baron Sir Ian Wood, is not for the people of Aberdeen. It's for the much more important people who aren't here yet. It's not for the likes of you and us - we don't count, we only live here already. We are the pre-existingly inconvenient legacy community.

We therefore urge you, if you have a vote, to reject the proposed destruction of the town centre garden in favour of business profits (sorry - enhanced shareholder value). The moneymen of this town, with emission-monger Sir Ian Wood at their head, have made the mistake of believing that a town is nothing more than the sum total of all the business activity which takes place within its borders, and so they then go on to compound their error by thinking that the town should be run like a business. We at OtherAberdeen know that the truth is much much broader than that pencilneck narrow vision promoted by pollution-king Sir Ian, ACSEF and our town council. Towns and cities are communities - places for people, places for association and interchange of all kinds, not just commerce. Show them that you know this too. Vote to Retain Union Terrace Gardens.

An Open Goal, An Uncontested Scrum

If you're familiar with local planning issues in Aberdeen, skim this first couple of paragraphs. If you're not, then you might be surprised to learn that in Aberdeen we have a sunken town-centre park called Union Terrace Gardens (very much like a pocket-sized version of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens) which is under threat of redevelopment for the sake of business profits. The vision of one man (oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood), this proposed redevelopment has been branded as the "City Gardens Project" and is being 'driven' forward by local business development quango ACSEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future) along with some other local tycoons. Visit the website if you want.

Other than a scrubby swatch in the centre of a large roundabout on the Inner City Ring-Road, Union Terrace Gardens is the only open green space in the centre of our town. We've covered some aspects of this proposed redevelopment before, and we've even proposed our alternative 'vision' for what could be done to improve and safeguard (rather than destroy or jeopardise) this open green space in the town centre. Against stiff opposition, the business-orientated boosters of this commercial annexation of public space have pushed forward, ever onward - and last week opened an exhibition of the competing submissions to the international design competition which they had taken it upon themselves to organise with public funds. Members of the public are invited to view the proposals for the destruction of the gardens and are asked to vote for which of the six on offer they prefer. No minimum intervention option to restore the park to its originally-intended amenity is offered. Radical change is presented as a fait accompli.

Concept #1.

For visual interest, we've sprinkled this post with images from the submissions to the design competition, which we got from STV local. You can download big PDFs of the full submissions and read all the usual starchitect boilerplate for yourself from design competition gatekeeper Malcolm Reading Consultants' website here.

Interviewed on local TV channel STV, ACSEF-styled "heritage expert" Malcolm Reading himself, interviewed at the VIP-only opening of the exhibition which showcases the six competing designs, said:

>>transcript
It's a testament to Aberdeen haha really, in a sense of er it is a world city and these are world class design teams who're interested in building in this city. I, eh I think its a - its a - really it is, it is, a testament to an interest in design quality about what cities are going to be like in the twenty-first century [sic]

Concept #2

OK. Notwithstanding what's written specifically below, we're not going to examine the various proposals. To do so would be redundant, for friend of OtherAberdeen Fraser Denholm has already examined the six proposals and has written a blistering critique in his trademark style, which we endorse. Go and read it here.

Right, did you read it? Good. So we continue...


1. STARCHITECTS & THE BILBAO EFFECT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starchitect

With urban generation from the turn of the twentieth century picking up, economists forecast that globalization and the powers of multi-national corporations would shift the balance of power away from nation states towards individual cities, which would then compete with neighbouring cities and cities elsewhere for the most lucrative modern industries, and which increasingly in major Western Europe and US cities did not include manufacturing. Thus cities set about 'reinventing themselves', giving precedence to the value given by culture. Municipalities and non-profit organizations hope the use of a Starchitect will drive traffic and tourist income to their new facilities. With the popular and critical success of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, by Frank Gehry, in which a rundown area of a city in economic decline brought in huge financial growth and prestige, the media started to talk about the so-called "Bilbao factor"; a star architect designing a blue-chip, prestige building was thought to make all the difference in producing a landmark for the city.

Concept #3

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/06/11/starchitecture-a-modest-proposal.html
NEWSWEEK

The trend [named] “the Bilbao Effect” after the huge success of Frank Gehry’s 1997 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain—is just about over. 

The phenomenon of using iconic architecture to promote a city, an institution, or a real-estate development was a product of the economic boom that began in the late 1990s and ended with the recession in 2008. As Western economies begin to recover, extravagant, eye-popping architecture is giving way to a subtler new aesthetic. In the U.S. and Europe, architectural values are shifting from can-you-top-this designs toward more efficient, functional building. Innovation and experimentation are increasingly directed at sustainability and new technology. For a younger generation of architects in particular, “the spectacle building is kind of a dinosaur,” says Rosalie Genevro, director of the Architectural League in New York.

Two years ago, the Boston Globe article 'Marking the End of the Bilbao Decade' said: "…times dictate a shift away from vanity projects" and asked: "have we reached the climax and termination of a whole era in architecture?…" And now, Maria Misra writing in last month's Prospect magazine says: "We can expect the monstrous regiment of 'starchitects' who have strewn crass monuments to their [and their clients'] own narcissism across our cities to embrace a more sober, elegant and functional style…"

Concept #4

Alas, here in Aberdeen we must suffer the detritus left after the retreat of the waves at the high-water mark. In our tycoons we have a reservoir of not only the single minded monomania but also the narcissism necessary to power the last of the starchitects forward on one final vanity project, one last triumph of the will. And just as fast-fashion garments are remaindered unsold stepwise through the logistical chain all the way north through the towns and cities of the UK until at last they wash up last-gasp last-chance-to-sell in the shops of Aberdeen (next stop Africa!), so we see the last gasp of this will to "wow factor architecture" expire in our town centre.


2. THE OPEN GOAL

Whatever your feelings about the quality (or otherwise) of the conceptual proposals for the destruction of Union Terrace Gardens, it's important to realise that it's the choice of site that's the problem. We must be careful not to confuse context with content. Imagine, for instance, that these proposals instead were for a building/gardens project to be sited at:

• Mounthooly Roundabout / West Nth st. (Brownfield/transport land-use at present) 
• Timmer Market/Hannover St car park (Brownfield/transport)
• Denburn Health Ctr (Brownfield)
• Holburn Valley North Slope at Justice Mill Lane (Recently redeveloped brownfield - now commercial)
• Site of Union Square (Recently redeveloped brownfield - now retail)

We imagine that, on any of these other sites, the starchitect proposals would have been "grasped with open arms" [sic, per ACSEF] by the people of Aberdeen.

Concept #5

But, of course, the great big open goal which the tycoons and their bagmen have missed is the site of the now empty and soon to be derelict St Nicholas House, former headquarters building of Aberdeen City Council. Leaving our own feelings aside, the building is (rightly or wrongly) generally regarded as a much-loathed buck-tooth turned rotten, an eyesore in the heart of our town. Were the tycoons to have proposed a city garden or civic square on that site, they would have been pushing at an open door and been assured of the wholehearted support of the vast majority of Aberdonians. They would have reaped the benefit of citizens' goodwill for years to come (along with all the consent thereby manufactured for their atmosphere-jeopardising hydrocarbon production activities - but that's another story). How could they miss so obvious a wide open goal? What's wrong with them? We thought they were supposed to be clever.


3. AN ILL-DEFINED CONTEXT LEADS TO A FALSE PREMISE

As mentioned, this project is being forced onward by local enterprise quango ACSEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future) on behalf of the oil-tycoons for who's interests they provide the necessary administrative fig leaves. But the name ACSEF itself points to the problem these people have in defining the necessary content for our local community and wider society as they and we collectively face an uncertain future, for they have a demonstrable problem in defining the context in which they work. The name ACSEF - Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future - is a misnomer, for these people concentrate their efforts on maximising benefits for local business (which is the concern of discrete private individuals, and is limited in its time horizon by reporting seasons and tax-return basis periods) rather than the local economy. The local economy, which is by definition the entirety of the local area, its land, its people, its society, its natural and human resources, its knowledge, its potential and its limitations - in addition to its businesses - is not delimited by time horizons either in the past or the future, and is much larger in scope than can be encompassed by mere business concerns. Thus, by viewing everything through the myopic lens of business, ACSEF blithely have alienated significant sectors of local discourse, which they simply cannot see.

So, having established that, we examine sceptically ACSEF's assertions that this redevelopment project is a "fundamental plank" necessary for "businesses and investment to secure jobs for our children and grand-children" and is required to "transform the economy". All this, somehow, from a small city centre park. It's clear that the problems facing the economy are several orders of magnitude more grave than any which might be solved by a real estate deal involving a town centre park. Again, from Prospect Magazine, from back in 2008 - close to the start of the current economic difficulties:

Gelrald Holtham writes:

The freeing of capital movements in the 1980s combined with the collapse of communism, releasing billions of new workers into the world economy, has recreated a global reserve army of labour. That in turn has contributed to a rise in the share of world GDP accounted for by profits and an accompanying decline in the share accounted for by wages. Such a development easily leads either to over-investment by businesses or a shortfall of aggregate demand. When wages lag, spending can keep up with output only by an expansion of consumer debt.
[...]
Since Keynes was unfashionable and Marx unmentionable, no-one asked what this would mean for the level and pattern of demand.
[...]
Yet here was the central problem with the globalised system. If profits and output rise persistently faster than wages, who will buy the output? A lack of effective demand, in Keynesian terms is averted for a time [by the expansion credit], but ultimately shows up in a problem of "the realisation of capital". 

So we in the developed world find ourselves here: globally defective demand caused by an imbalance between wage and profit rates, made worse by a collapse in the availability of the very consumer credit which had masked the problem for a decade or more, and severely aggravated by the necessity to pay down that debt at both national and personal levels.

But here, in our small corner, those who have taken it upon themselves to secure an 'economic future' for Aberdeen believe (or, rather, would try to have us believe) that a real-estate deal involving a small public park and benefitting a handful of local construction companies and property developers will fix it. It will not, of course. The imbalance between wages and profit took decades to reach this crisis point and so it will take comprehensive attitudinal shifts in society; a change in the local, national and international conversation, and a widespread paradigm shift to remedy this imbalance. It's tasteless in the extreme that a local business development quango should use the global crisis as a smokescreen for what is, in fact, a project to privatise - for the benefit of a tiny handful of already-affluent local business-people - a relatively small (but high-value) patch of what has been community-owned land since the middle-ages.

Concept #6

4. THE STING, AN UNCONTESTED SCRUM. "CHOICE ARCHITECTURE"

Above, when we pointed out the 'open goal' we mocked the boosters of the City Gardens Project for their choice of site. But maybe, just maybe they are cleverer than we give them credit for. We are particularly worried about the Concept #6 proposal, with it's bizarre monolith. Go and look at it again (pdf). Maybe we're just paranoid, but we worry nonetheless. Throughout this entire controversial debacle, we've had the feeling that we're being scammed in some way - and not the obvious one - that this whole thing is some sort of shell game. Large real estate deals have always and everywhere been characterised by the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't misdirection of bad-things-made-to-look-good and good-things-made-to-look-bad conjuring. Our concern is that this Concept #6 has been chosen for us, pre-selected. On internet chat forums, blogs and social networking sites, we're all too busy having a damned good laugh at its egregious MONOLITH to notice that this is, indeed, the only proposal which 1. nearly fits the tycoon Sir Ian Woods' parameters and 2. is said to have a 'feasible payback strategy'. We're all too busy being misdirected by the big flashing red herring MONOLITH to notice the 13000 sq metre three-storey public car-park which sits beneath the MONOLITH, and the unspecified area of private car-park which occupies the airspace above the Denburn Road dual carriageway to service the parking needs of the workers in the the 7000 sq metre commercial offices which straddle the valley and 'add to the urban grain' along the eastern slope of the Denburn valley.

For this design, rather than take the approach of all the other designs which are, in fact singular, genuinely monolithic buildings filling the valley. Concept #6 is actually modular, consisting of several discrete buildings which can be pick-mixed to suit. And, indeed (MONOLITH aside) to the vast majority of the public, proposal #6 looks OK. The gardens -particularly the natural [sic] amphitheatre - are shown to be left more-or-less untouched. With a push and a rush, we might envisage this proposal being adopted as Aberdeen City Council favourite, with the proviso that the horrid monolith part is left out (thus making it 'even' cheaper). Of course, the ever-promised arts centre was intended for location in the monolith - but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs! So, in the end what we get is Concept #6 sans monolith (sans arts centre) but including its large development of commercial offices straddling the Denburn at Union Bridge and several new blocks of offices along the eastern slope of the Denburn valley. These commercial developments along with the large new carparks occupying the current 'dark' area of the gardens and over the Denburn Road dual carriageway. These commercial enterprises, carparks and offices, forming the 'payback strategy'. Brilliant!

We have heard members of the public mentioning that the #6 concept has nice things included in it - for instance the extension of the gardens to encompass the William Wallace statue and the inclusion of a spur which appears to extend greenery a hundred metres north as far as Woolmanhill. It has also been pointed out that the Concept #6 plans include the re-greening of Golden Square. But the 'nice' things about this proposal are merely the (very cheap) quid pro quo for developing the currently green backlands of Belmont St for commercial offices and turning fully one third of Union Terrace Gardens into a multi-story carpark.

Surely we need hardly point out that the extension of the park to Woolmanhill and Wallace, and the greening of Golden Square do not require the polity of Aberdeen to give consent to a real estate deal which will see the rest of the Denburn Valley at Union Terrace and Belmont Street fall prey to overdevelopment. Yet, having been presented with a fait accompli, we fear that people will feel compelled to choose the 'least worst' option. The 'least worst' option - we have heard and read a number of our townsfolk opine - is option #6.

And so the moneyed interests which would benefit from this privatisation of common land are offered an uncontested scrum. Amazing. We have heard a great deal from the promoters of this project about "World Class Architects". We have no particular comment on their competence as architects in the usual sense of building design. But we must offer our complements on the developers' heresthetical skills in the design of the "Choice Architecture" which is being presented to the people of our town. World Class.

Submission #6 - Multi-storey carpark on common ground

Submission #6 - Overdevelopment of Belmont backlands

Submission #6 - Overdevelopment of Belmont backlands

Bizarre Opaque Transparency from Aberdeen City Council.

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 http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/transparency/ 

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Local government transparency 


 Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government and enable the Big Society. Transparency is the foundation of accountability. Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their council tax is being spent, and decisions made on their behalf. It is also a powerful means of promoting efficiency, without requiring the heavy-handed intervention of an unaccountable bureaucracy.


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http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/cgp/cgp_city_garden_project.asp

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City Garden - Project Monitoring Group

The role of the Project Monitoring Group is to oversee the City Garden project's progress and ensure that Council's interests, and that of the majority of Aberdeen citizens, are protected as the project progresses.

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http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/cgp/meeting_20May2011.asp

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City Garden Project Monitoring Group

Note of Meeting held at 9.30am on Friday 20 May 2011

Committee Room 5, Town House

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitization_(classified_information)

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Sanitization and Redaction

Sanitization is the process of removing sensitive information from a document or other medium, so that it may be distributed to a broader audience. When dealing with classified information, sanitization attempts to reduce the document's classification level, possibly yielding an unclassified document. Originally, the term sanitization was applied to printed documents; it has since been extended to apply to computer media and the problem of data remanence as well.

Redaction generally refers to the editing or blacking out of text in a document, or to the result of such an effort. It is intended to allow the selective disclosure of information in a document while keeping other parts of the document secret. Typically the result is a document that is suitable for publication, or for dissemination to others than the intended audience of the original document. For example, when a document is subpoenaed in a court case, information not specifically relevant to the case at hand is often redacted.

Government secrecy

In the context of government documents, redaction (also called sanitization) generally refers more specifically to the process of removing sensitive or classified information from a document prior to its publication, during declassification.

Secure document redaction techniques

The traditional technique of redacting confidential material from a paper document before its public release involves crossing out portions of text with a wide black pen, followed by photocopying the result. This is a relatively easy to understand process and has only minor risks associated with it. For example, if the black pen is not wide enough, careful examination of the resulting photocopy may still reveal partial information about the text, such as the difference between short and tall letters. The exact length of the removed text also remains recognizable, which may help to guess plausible wordings for shorter redacted sections. Where computer-generated proportional fonts were used, even more information can leak out of the redacted section in the form of the exact position of nearby visible characters.

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Regardless of the rights or wrongs, transparency or opacity, paranoia or caution which has motivated our elected local council representatives in our and their appointed executives minor provincial county town to undertake this 'redaction', it just looks bad. As one online commenter said:

Nice to see that everything is transparent so as to avoid the feeling of conspiracy and underhanded activity. Good confidence-building job. As ever.

But we have another point: the fact that this has been done should give us pause; should make us consider whether or not these people are suitably qualified, skilled, competent and suitable individuals to be trusted with the execution of this controversial project. We say this because we are not investegative journalists, we are not computer geeks, and we are not cryptologists - but nonetheless we managed to obtain quite by accident unredacted copies of the texts as we were preparing this post. Here are full, redacted copies of the minutes. If anyone wants copies of the unredacted text, you can contact us at otheraberdeen@gmail.com and we'll be delighted to oblige.

EDIT

Following our reportage of this hilarious mis-step, a local newspaper published this article, the and most of the redaction has been removed from the online copies of the minutes.

Thanks to blogger rxpell for the scan.

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=38882&sID=16279

No blanks in that one.

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=38884&sID=16281

The law firm name 'Brodies' has been blanked.

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=38886&sID=16283

Again, the law-firm name 'Brodies' has been blanked.

We wonder why?

Woonerf for The Denburn Valley. Philosophy, Background and Site Visits.

On the day of the launch of a private-sector led design competition to re-shape the public realm space of central Aberdeen via a scheme which has as part of its parameters the destruction of Aberdeen's Union Terrace Gardens, we're delighted to be able to offer this alternative conceptual report into a vision which would retain Aberdonian's beloved city centre garden, and make the best possible use of the existing assets on the other side of the Denburn Valley - "Belmont Street Gardens", if you will...

Belmont Street Gardens

A couple of weeks ago, we laid out the beginnings of our vision for an alternative to the existing monolithic all-or-nothing take-it-or-leave it proposal for the redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens and the east slope of the Denburn Valley opposite. That monolithic proposal was once know as the "City Square Project". Following public outcry at the very idea of destroying Union Terrace Gardens, the promotors of that project now wish it to be known as the "City Gardens Project". You can see what the PR gods have done there. The project is being promoted on behalf of local tycoon oil-man billionaire Sir Ian Wood by local development quango 'ACSEF' (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future).

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Union Terrace Gardens is NOT the problem.

Denburn Dual Carriageway
Plus somewhere to put the bins.

Existing covered section - alienating.

TOP-DOWN

We are concerned that ACSEF's top-down agenda to impose one single expensive solution to what they perceive to be Aberdeen's town centre problems runs the risk of putting all our civic eggs in one heavily-indebted basket. We prefer a more iterative, yet paradoxically much bolder approach, and have so proposed that that the underused Denburn Dual Carriageway (which so blights the valley) be abandoned, ploughed up and turned into a single carriageway 'woonerf' with streetscape initiative build-outs, planting, street furniture, kiosks; all the usual stuff you might see in the centre of any similar-sized town elsewhere in continental Europe.

Human scale - places of refuge and community
St. Nicolas Street - outside M&S

A woonerf is a shared space urban landscape - it's a policy pioneered in the Netherlands in the 1970's. Woonerf is a term increasingly used in the English-speaking world to mean an area where motorists have priority equal to or lesser than other road-users, thus increasing the livability of the city at the human scale, even as residential and commercial-use density increases. Based upon principals of filtered permeability and shared space for transport corridors and thoroughfares these woonerf areas were pioneered in Groningen and other towns in the Netherlands, Flanders and Germany to encourage walking and cycling by giving them a more attractive environment free from traffic and a time and convenience advantage over car driving.

RE-EXAMINED

So, with our woonerf proposal in mind we re-examined the material on the City Gardens Project website. Once or twice in the past we've raised specific concerns about some of the aspects implicit or explicit in the material on the site, but over the last few days, we had the chance to examine in detail the presentation material on their website, specifically the input of Charles Landry (author of The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators). You can download this material here:

• Powerpoint Presentation (*.ppt file download)
• Audio Recording (*.mp3 download)

We also refer to Scottish Government policy statement documents:

• Designing Places (pdf) Interesting to note that the foreword is by Aberdeen Central MSP Lewis Macdonald)
• Designing Streets (pdf)
• Civilising the Streets (pdf direct download)

We also undertook site visits to Union Terrace Gardens and the footway (such as it is) which runs on the east side only of the Denburn Dual Carriageway. We also visited Aberdeen's existing woonerf exemplars at Belmont Street, St Nicholas Street and The Green.

URBAN DUAL CARRIAGEWAYS - A SOLIPSISTIC SOLUTION ONLY TO THEMSELVES

Where is everybody? No pavements, no cyclelanes.
Em. No cars, either.

As we already pointed out, the Denburn Road urban dual carriageway represents a problematical conundrum to Aberdeen. Barely used, it sits dog in a manger at the heart of the city centre's prime real estate, the footway used for the storage of refuse recycling bins. Lovely. So rarely is it used by motor traffic that what vehicles do use it invariably do so at excessive speed, the granite-canyon walls of the carriageways reflecting and reverberating their engine roar. We are given to understand (and this is hearsay, so take it as such) that the Denburn Dual Carriageway had been planned and drawn up many years before it became a reality, and was finally given the go-ahead as a goodwill gesture to the designer who was due to retire around that time. This ill-conceived piece of urban motorism actually has not one but two plaques commemorating its creation. How embarrassing.

Not one...

Now, as we begin to chew on the meat of the 21st century, this 20th century solution to urban transport looks more and more old-fashioned and shaming. Two schemes are currently officially proposed which will tackle this blight. Both appear to be aimed at providing the Denburn Dual Carriageway with more traffic. Firstly, we have the Berryden Corridor Urban Dual Carriageway project, which will link with the Denburn Dual Carriageway. Secondly we have the City Gardens Project, which has as one of its parameters the requirement to 'cover over' the Denburn Dual Carriageway - thus turning it into an urban motorway tunnel. Indeed the conceptual report (big pdf) into the (then) City Square Project shows some 500 parking spaces on two underdeck levels occupying the volume currently 'airspace' above Union Terrace Gardens. That would certainly put lots of traffic onto the Denburn Dual Carriageway.

but two...

We find that both of these officially proposed solutions are solipsistic - seeing motor-traffic transportation as being the desired outcome of providing infrastructure for motor-traffic transportation. This motorcentric philosophy with its reliance on and pandering to car-dependent obesogenic lifestyles is out of date and out of time.



MOTORCENTRIC "OLD THINKING"

Charles Landry said that "old thinking" is exemplified by attitudes and policies where the "car is king" whereas "new thinking" is partially characterised by urban planning policies where "the car is the guest". This, of course, is an explicit re-statement of the philosophy behind the Woonerf concept which we propose. In his presentation, Landry says that this "new thinking" based on "shared space" where the person - the pedestrian - re-captures the city from the car, helps create the acme of a city which can compete on 21st century global terms - a "humane city" with "distinctiveness" where people have a sense of ownership, where delight and enjoyment, participation and familiarity are encountered within human scale, liveable environments; "great places". It strikes us that what Landry said in his presentation stands in stark contrast to the irreversible monolithic single building (for that is what it would be) which the City Garden Project proposes.

Belmont Street - the car is a "guest". Can you see it?

Rather than "tear up the rulebook" as Landry exhorts planners to do, the advocates of the City Garden Project are flicking through that long-discredited rulebook of comprehensive re-development and urban dual carriageway schemes and coming up with the type of capital-intensive mega-building projects which have long been consigned to history elsewhere where more enlightened planning policy predominates. The perceived need to spend huge amounts of capital on this sort of regeneration is a fallacy. Indeed, as Landry said, shared-space schemes are a means of recapturing spaces in a very cheap way. One of the things which Landry says is a most important consideration relating to our urban experience is "what does it feel like?". How does it make us feel?

THE HAPPINESS AGENDA

Please excuse us while we quote the current Prime Minister, David Cameron:

Too often in politics today, we behave as if the only thing that matters is the insider stuff that we politicians love to argue about - economic growth, budget deficits and GDP.

GDP. Gross domestic product. Yes it's vital. It measures the wealth of our society. But it hardly tells the whole story. Wealth is about so much more than pounds, or euros or dollars can ever measure. It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being. Well-being can't be measured by money or traded in markets. It can't be required by law or delivered by government. It's about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture, and above all the strength of our relationships.

Improving our society's sense of well-being is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times. 

An existing garden off Denburn Road

Right, sorry about that (feel a bit dirty now), but we completely agree with everything he said there. In his book "Cities for People" Jan Gehl, leader of Copenhagen's transformation into a walkable city, examines the necessity to encourage urban design from the perspective of the five senses (we would say six), taken at walking speed. This eye-level approach does much to address the needs -and happiness - of the individual and it is central to our critical approach to current proposals. There's no doubt that we have much to learn from continental Europe, but we also have something to learn from the developing world. In particular, we are aware of the Urban Happiness movement in Bogota, Columbia, and the spectacular advances they have made in creating happiness through livability and inclusive participation in Bogota for all the people, no matter their wealth or social status. Often it is pointed out that Aberdeen is the most socially stratified of Scotland's cities, so we should listen to what this movement has to say. The movement is spearheaded by former Bogota mayor Enrique Peñalosa. “There are a few things we can agree on about happiness,” he says. “You need to fulfill your potential as a human being. You need to walk. You need to be with other people. Most of all, you need to not feel inferior.” A key to equality is providing dignified, functional transportation, which Bogota has done with a powerful version of bus rapid transit as well as extensive bike and pedestrian networks. “When you talk about these things, designing a city can be a very powerful means to generate happiness,” Peñalosa says. By linking urban design to the economics of happiness, Bogotans have become happier. The murder rate fell by an astounding 40% during Peñalosa’s term and continues to decrease, along with the number of traffic deaths. Traffic moves three times faster now during rush hour. And the changes transformed how people feel.

SCOTTISH INITIATIVES

An existing garden off Denburn Road

As mentioned, there is much we can learn from our neighbours in continental Europe, and indeed a great deal of work has been done by policy makers at Scottish Government and quango level to provide frameworks for our planners to follow. The most recent of these documents "Civilising the Streets" (pdf direct download) specifically matches the needs and requirements of specific Scottish Cities (including Aberdeen) with the grass-roots liveability and urban environment initiatives undertaken in analagous cities in continental Europe. This sophisticated document provides specific conclusions and recommendations for the implementation of human-scale active travel and transportation policies in Scottish towns and cities. Read in conjunction with the policy documents "Designing Places" (pdf) and "Designing Streets" (pdf), we can conclude that our Woonerf proposal for Denburn Road would meet with political approval.

From "Designing Places":

The most successful places, the ones that flourish socially and economically, tend to have certain qualities in common. First, they have a distinct identity. Second, their spaces are safe and pleasant. Third, they are easy to move around, especially on foot. Fourth, visitors feel a sense of welcome. Places that have been successful for a long time, or that are likely to continue to be successful, may well have another quality, which may not be immediately apparent – they adapt easily to changing circumstances. Finally, places that are successful in the long term, and which contribute to the wider quality of life, will prove to make good use of scarce resources. They are sustainable.

Sustainability – the measure of the likely impact of development on the social, economic and environmental conditions of people in the future and in other places – must run as a common thread through all our thinking about design. Thinking about sustainability focuses in particular on promoting greener lifestyles, energy efficiency, mixed uses, biodiversity, transport and water quality.

A cantilevered cafe over Denburn Road,
looking across to Union Terrace Gardens.
We will integrate this.

We believe that the back lots of Belmont Street - the front lots of Denburn Road, have huge potential to fulfill these six qualities and that the only barrier to them doing so immediately is the fact that they face onto an urban dual carriageway. The fact that that urban dual carriageway is so sparsely populated with traffic is our opportunity to boldly seize the initiative and remove it once and for all, thus also removing its inhuman blight from our townscape. Once achieved, this reversion to a more human-scale streetscape will, as Landry promotes, provide a familiar and convenient space at a human scale in stark contrast with the inhuman alienation of an environment which is at present designed exclusively for use by machines. From being a dead space which specifically and intentionally excludes human activity, we will transform it into a "great street".

From "Designing Streets":

The process of street design offers an opportunity to deliver far more to our society than simply transport corridors. Well-designed streets can be a vital resource in social, economic and cultural terms; they can be the main component of our public realm and a core element of local and national identity. Well-designed streets can also be crucial components in Scotland’s drive towards sustainable development and responding to climate change. Attractive and well-connected street networks encourage more people to walk and cycle to local destinations, improving their health while reducing motor traffic, energy use and pollution.

Discovery, delight, access

We believe that the placing of the redevelopment of the Denburn Valley on our civic agenda in Aberdeen provides us with a once-in a lifetime opportunity to create a "great space" at human scale and minimal cost. Already many streetscape enhancing enterprises back onto Denburn Road. Bars, cafés, hotels, photographic studios, restaurants, high-end engineering consultancies and even a cinema (notwithstanding it's current difficulties) already have street-level access to Denburn Road - given the right streetscape these enterprises will thrive in the human-scale environment which a woonef has been proven time and again all over the world to provide. We should have that here.

ABERDONIAN EXEMPLARS

Bustle in heritage.

Too often, Aberdeen is characterised as exemplifying an insular "not invented here" attitude. That need not bother us in this case, for we already have successful examples of woonerf operating in the commercial heart of the town. In Belmont Street and St Nicholas Street, people walk the centre of the road untroubled by motor traffic - yet in Belmont Street motor traffic is not specifically banned - it has "guest" status. St Nicholas Street links well with the Belmont Street area through the St Nicholas churchyard, which is a green haven in the town centre. Most recently, an urban streetscape initiative has been implemented in "The Green" a historic part of our town.

Serenity and refuge

With our proposals for the Denburn Road area, we can link all these pedestrian-friendly areas together, and, moreover we can increase connectivity with other transport modes. Our proposals would have the east side of The Green terminate at the railway platform which currently serves the suburban service to Dyce. There are plans to greatly improve the suburban and exurban rail service to and from Aberdeen, and our proposals would integrate with that. At present the east end of The Green terminates in the Denburn Dual Carrageway, beyond which is a loading bay for the Trinity Centre shopping mall above, in turn, beyond that is the railway platform Our proposal to close the Denburn Dual Carriageway would re-develop the loading-bay space as Railway Station space and would fulfill the 150-year-old dream of providing direct access to Union Street from that Railway Station Platform via existing lift-shafts and stairwells at the Trinity Centre shopping mall. This scheme would also provide pleasant and direct access to the Union Square shopping centre and its huge car-park, obviating the need to bring any elevated levels of motor transport any farther into the town centre than that which we suffer already.

The east-end of The Green as it is today. It just stops.
Dual Carriageway, then loading bay. Then Railway Station.
But no access. We will fix that.

SUMMATION

Nooks and corners add interest and intrigue.

This is an imaginative and simple scheme; a low impact but high effect plan which radically alters the emphasis of our town centre away from motorcars, and provides space in a pleasant environment for commercial, retail and residential development. And all at very little up-front cost to existing businesses and residents. A little while ago we wrote about the return of a mixed economy to the towns and cities of the USA; a grass-roots sustainable movement of entrepreneurs providing goods and services in the new-economic realities of the 21st century. Our proposals for the Denburn Valley support this new vision of capital. Our proposal to turn an underused urban asset in the form of the Denburn Dual Carriageway into a "great space" which could be linked to Union Terrace Gardens by footbridges allows a modern and radical human-scale vision for Aberdeen's town centre. This is an achievable vision which allows for organic growth in business sectors making the best use of our splendid and iconic existing buildings.

Development opportunity.

Our imaginative proposals would put our town at the forefront of the new urbanism and would allow creativity to flourish at a human scale in a familiar and welcoming environment. This environment provides choices, promotes connectivity and provokes delight while retaining what is best about the built environment of our town. What is more, this proposal is a minimum intervention and allows enterprise to flourish sustainably from the grass roots, not by top-down once-only fingers-crossed-and-see-what-happens decree. In effect our proposals would turn the whole breathtaking scenographic vista of the entirety of the Denburn Valley transected by Rosemount Viaduct into an enormous (nearly) natural-topography entrance porch - a cultural crucible - for our town for those arriving by rail. This "sense of arrival" (per Landry) would make this town famous, and for better reasons than it is famous today. Maybe even the Denburn itself could run in the open once more, the living water flowing in the heart of our town, it certainly makes a picturesque scene further up its valley at the Grammar School.

In the grounds of the Grammar School

There are many options along the way: Our new plan to turn the existing dual carrageway into a new contemporary garden, the Denburn Valley Gardens (if you will) would encompass both east and west slopes of the valley, so some part of the gardens would always be in direct sunlight. The existing Victorian gardens would be fully retained at practically no cost, and when the sunlight moves off them, garden users can cross over to new, modern gardens on the east bank, terracing down from Belmont Street, accessed by footbridges over the railway line which itself would be retained lending scenographic drama to our showpiece city centre and displaying the latest railway technology. There need be no hurry to proscriptively pedestrianise Union Street, as by the agency of our scheme, private motorised transport in the town centre will simply wither away.

Indeed, once our scheme is up and running, seamlessly connecting the Green with the Railway Station; with Union Square and St Nicholas Street; with St Nicholas Churchyard and Belmont Street with Union Terrace Gardens - all at pedestrian scale with charm and delight around every corner - who would ever want to take their car all the way into the town centre ever again?

Just needs a bit of care.

ALREADY part of this beautiful vista seen from Union Terrace Gardens.

CODA

As part of our researches, we found that there's another woonerf already in existence in the Denburn Valley which could serve as a precident for our proposals. It's at Rubislaw Den South, very near the home of Sir Ian Wood, oil-man tycoon and backer of the City Gardens Project. It's lovely.

Existing Denburn Valley woonerf.