Regenerating an underutilised city centre site with a focus on connectivity and sociability

This Spring Studio project involved redesigning an underutilised and car-dominated area of Cardiff city centre. Identified as part of the Cardiff Central Enterprise Zone and Regional Transport Hub, this site posed many challenges, particularly with the dominance of railway lines transecting the site both north/south and east/west. My vision was to embrace, rather than problematise, this railway infrastructure. The final design involves a new metro station, ‘underline’ business spaces, and new walking and cycling bridges across the railway lines. As well as improving low-emission transport connectivity across the site, a key objective was to increase the area’s sociability. An integral part of the design is a new metro station, helping to reduce car reliance and promote mode-shift to public transport.

By removing a multi-level car park, space is opened up alongside the existing dock feeder canal, providing an attractive public square at the centre of the site and outside the new metro station. This design adapts an existing tower block as the metro station entrance, with ground-floor retail and upper-floor offices. Car dominance is also reduced at Callaghan Square (southwest of the site) by extending the square south, removing an existing vehicular road. The square’s redesign includes new office blocks alongside smaller retail and café units, improving public/private interfaces with more active, permeable building frontages.

A flexible events space enables creative appropriation of the square and an informal meeting place for office workers or residents. The project followed an iterative design process. By considering twelve separate design layers (including permeability, social mix, and urban crime) the design was extensively tested enabling a robust and comprehensive design proposal to be reached. Increasing the site’s sociability was inspired by the work of architect Jan Gehl, who observed “people’s preference for staying at the edges of space”. This made me consider the effects of enclosure on people’s activity within the built environment.

The design includes a range of exposed and enclosed areas to aid movement, relaxation and unplanned social interaction within the site. This project has enabled me to develop my design skills and understanding of the urban design process, from site analysis, concept testing, and creating options, through to producing a detailed site masterplan and technical design drawings. A key highlight of the project was reimagining Callaghan Square and realising the dramatic impact seemingly simple urban design interventions can have on a place’s function and character.