36 ANNIVERSARY
Destination by design
The architecture of the UK’s retail destinations has undergone a fundamental change the last 20 years according to those who have been at the design coalface, writes Sean Kelly
real estate development. Instead of allowing the new shopping centre to turn its back on Reading’s city centre, we developed external spaces and external food terraces — a first as the fashion had previously been internal food courts.” For Nigel Woolner, now a consultant for Chapman Taylor, it’s been
a dynamic 20 years. His first project at the firm was Eldon Square, Newcastle upon Tyne. “We came through the incredible boom of the 1980’s with
scheme after scheme on the drawing boards,” Woolner recalls. “We had over 600 staff and we only worked in the UK. We had completed Lakeside Thurrock, the Harlequin in Watford, the Glades in Bromley and Meadowhall in Sheffield and suddenly there was no new work to replace these large projects in the UK and the situation required a rapid period of major restructuring. “In design terms we saw, over that period, a shift away from the
C
entre design can not only be statement making — it can be history-making as well. The 1979 Milton Keynes shopping centre (now thecentre:mk, was given Grade II listed status
by English heritage in 2010. “Shopping centres developed today are no longer homogenous
masses of retail,” says Derek Barker, MD of Haskoll Architects. “They are inspired new places, integrated into the local environment delivering both shopping, leisure and place making for the communities they serve.”
“New developments are more respectful of their surroundings
with covered streets and open air spaces,” he says. “High Wycombe and Bristol are good examples of this. The Oracle, Reading is a good example of how one new innovation can change the direction of retail
megastructure concept of “a shopping centre” and a move towards the creation of looser building forms with far more connectivity to the existing urban grain and context together with natural ventilation and light,” Woolner says. “As an industry we were literally far more enlightened, creating mixed use environments structured on sound retail design principles but a far cry from the traditional enclosed shopping centre.” If the early 1990s marked a low point Woolner was at least
forewarned. “Only a year or so before, a senior director of MEPC came to a meeting at Chapman Taylor and said: “Nigel be very careful, a whirlwind is about to hit our industry” and how right he was, it was feast to famine again.” Back in 1991 Building Design Partnership’s Peter Drummond had
just accepted an invitation to be an equity partner. Drummond who was leading BDP’s urban planning team which was finishing Centre Court in Wimbledon for Speyhawk, helping to gain planning consent for Cribbs Causeway, Bristol and trying to keep the West Quay project
November 2000
November 2000
January 2001
February 2001
Billed as Europe’s first urban entertainment centre,
The Printworks opened in Manchester.
The 180,000 sq ft extension to Carlisle’s The Lanes shopping centre
opened, prompting a footfall increase of 30 per cent.
SHOPPING CENTRE July 2011
www.shopping-centre.co.uk
commercial property sale, the 250,000 sq ft Forestside shopping centre was sold to USS for £70m.
Then Northern Ireland’s biggest ever
of the opening of a National Footfall Museum in St George’s shopping centre, Preston, to celebrate the centre’s £29m redevelopment.
Footballer Mark Lawrenson did the honours
20 YEARS Leading the industry for
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