Urban Design

The project is in Site A, Cardiff Central Station, and focuses on human-scale rhythms to engage the pedestrian and ensure a comfortable walking experience, connecting spaces not only within the site, but the surrounding areas too. It achieved this through a focus on legibility as well as sensorial experiences, leading to 3 key interventions. Firstly, to connect the south to the north of the site and to promote access to the waterfront, a new ‘green walk’ was created, broken up by different ‘moments’ of public space. This meant as you’re walking through the site, you experience different public spaces, keeping you engaged. To achieve these moments of experience whilst connecting the site through rhythms, the barrier of the railway underpass needed to be addressed.

Therefore, for the second main intervention, I activated the underpass through pedestrianisation, allowing me to create an additional station entrance, with additional shops with transparent interfaces throughout, creating a tunnel of ‘visit’ functions throughout, attracting people and creating a new experience. Thus, removing the experience of the underpass as a dead and unattractive space. Thirdly, throughout the different pathways to Brewery Square from the south of the site, buildings were arranged in a way to create vistas of the Brewery to ensure legibility, making users aware of a new experience in the site thus attracting people.

Sensorial experiences were a main focus for this project. Whilst highly sensorially stimulating spaces were incorporated, such as water fountains in Brewery Square for touch/play as well as blocking out unpleasant road and railway noises, I ensured there were also low sensorially stimulating spaces. These were ‘breathing spaces’ to escape the business of the city and promote calming spaces, to ensure the city is for every user. This was achieved through a green, pedestrianised ‘breathing walk’ in the north, as well as pocket parks throughout. Green infrastructure was also used throughout the project, where trees not only provided a canopy for enclosure, aiding sensorial experiences of touch, and promoting walkability, it also aided a hierarchy of routes in the site by trees framing the main green walk allowing legibility.

This hierarchy was also achieved through painting the lots on this walk colourfully, promoting not only legibility, but also engaging the senses. The north, despite being more developed prior to interventions, was not neglected in this project either. The area was developed with the Principality Stadium in mind, with a new public square being built outside, giving pedestrian priority. New buildings were built around existing morphology, with continuous active frontages created through a perimeter block. Furthermore, the stadium itself was built into so that the interface was active and transparent, promoting engagement.