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Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

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paul cardiffwalesmap

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 8:49 am

Kyle wrote:
moyceyyy wrote:
paul cardiffwalesmap wrote: maybe in a decade even custom house st tower won't be on it either - OK that's unlikely!! :lol:


Only THEN can we start making comparisons to Dubai.

Knowing Dubai, in a decade they'll have a space elevator. There's already a 1KM long tower being built in Saudi Arabia. FFS


They are building an observation tower that’s 210 floors high at Dubai Creek.

I’m due to be moving back out there next week


Cool Kyle (well more likely B****y Boiling) - here's the deal... post some pics of super tall Dubai Creek and we'll keep you posted on Herbert St!! :lol:
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Simon__200

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 1:10 pm

moyceyyy wrote:'The tales of URBANO' (this thread will replace the old one)

Recently Cardiff's planning system has allowed some questionable designs to be constructed - Namely 'Bridge Street Tower'. Two others are also under construction:

Herbert Street Tower [Student Accomodation/81m]
Hope Street Tower [Residential/132m]

And a further seven are planned:

Callaghan Square [Mixed Use/95m]
Bayscape [Residential/Hotel/120m]
Capital Quarter 5 [Residential/unknown height - estimate 73m]
Fitzalan Towers [Student Accomodation/95m]
Crawshay Court Tower [Residential/Unkown height - estimate 85m]
Dumballs Road [Residential/estimate 75m]
Premier Inn, Customhouse Sreet [Hotel/estimate 72m]


The designs and proposals aren't the problems, however. Somehow, construction companies are getting away with building these towers with cladding and other materials which are substandard when compared to their renders. Bridge Street Tower is getting a white and red cladding finish when the original renders promised a zinc/copper brushed metal finish. Similar things have happened in Manchester - however, the council caught on it and told the builders to re-start the cladding.

WHY HAS THIS NOT HAPPENED IN CARDIFF YET! If all 10 towers come to fruition and are completed at a sub-standard level, Cardiff will have a serious problem in 40 years time. And Urbano will probably have escaped to the Himalayas!

This thread will go a bit OT - so lets go crazy :)


Is there any need for the personal attacks? I don't share Urbano's views at all, but that's irrelevant. I know bullying when I see it. It's almost like a pack mentality when people start wading in en masse. Shame on you.
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Shminky Binky

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 1:26 pm

Simon__200 wrote:
moyceyyy wrote:'The tales of URBANO' (this thread will replace the old one)

Recently Cardiff's planning system has allowed some questionable designs to be constructed - Namely 'Bridge Street Tower'. Two others are also under construction:

Herbert Street Tower [Student Accomodation/81m]
Hope Street Tower [Residential/132m]

And a further seven are planned:

Callaghan Square [Mixed Use/95m]
Bayscape [Residential/Hotel/120m]
Capital Quarter 5 [Residential/unknown height - estimate 73m]
Fitzalan Towers [Student Accomodation/95m]
Crawshay Court Tower [Residential/Unkown height - estimate 85m]
Dumballs Road [Residential/estimate 75m]
Premier Inn, Customhouse Sreet [Hotel/estimate 72m]


The designs and proposals aren't the problems, however. Somehow, construction companies are getting away with building these towers with cladding and other materials which are substandard when compared to their renders. Bridge Street Tower is getting a white and red cladding finish when the original renders promised a zinc/copper brushed metal finish. Similar things have happened in Manchester - however, the council caught on it and told the builders to re-start the cladding.

WHY HAS THIS NOT HAPPENED IN CARDIFF YET! If all 10 towers come to fruition and are completed at a sub-standard level, Cardiff will have a serious problem in 40 years time. And Urbano will probably have escaped to the Himalayas!

This thread will go a bit OT - so lets go crazy :)


Is there any need for the personal attacks? I don't share Urbano's views at all, but that's irrelevant. I know bullying when I see it. It's almost like a pack mentality when people start wading in en masse. Shame on you.

I think the hijacking of every thread rambling on about the same thing over multiple pages got people annoyed. I can see why people reacted like they did. It might not have been right, but it got to the point where for myself i lost interest in reading any thread because i knew i would have to trawl through the same thing over and over again and then find nothing relating to the thread title. Hopefully the designated thread will now calm the forum down a little.
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Karl

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 1:30 pm

To answer the question posed in the title I think on the whole the 'urban lanscape' is improving. I'm interpreting urban landscape as quality of architecture, placemaking, streetscape, improvement in design etc.

The two highest profile schemes at the moment are Central Square and Capital Quarter. I think the former is better in terms of quality but what I like about them both is that they are built with a view to the sum being greater than the parts. The buildings compliment each other in style and scale. They are arranged logically instead of at wacky angles to the street, improve access and bring to life areas that were previously awful. It sounds simple but it is an improvement on quite a bit of what we have seen in the past 20 years.

I think the new students union in Park Place will really improve that area and complement the university building opposite. The Maindy Rd develpments are not earth shattering in terms of architecture but they are of an appropriate scale and manage to complement and enhance the exsiting streetscape which is for the most part two storey red brick terraces.

SD2 is many leagues better than SD1, Queens Arcade etc and the Hayes now is significantly better than it was prior to development as is St Mary Street.

I share others concerns about the quality of proposed new tall buildings. Thats been done to death recently so I will just restrict my comment to saying that I think we are kidding ourselves if we believe that our student towers will be significantly better quality than the student towers in other cities. I like tall buildings but not enough to accept monolithic lego towers for the sake of getting over 100m.

If the urban landscape is to continue to improve the areas I would prefer to concentrate on would be

- well considered infill (Westgate Street, Capital Waterside, for example),

- improvement of inner city areas (extension of the refurbishment programme for Grangetown, Adamsdown etc and a coherent plan for places like Cowbridge Rd East, City Rd etc)

- a workable masterplan of decent quality buildings for a new mixed use area between town and the Bay (primarily Dumballs Rd area)

- more ambition in suburban new build development. It doesn't need to be cutting edge but surely we are able to move on from the mock georgian in windy cul de sacs....

Jantra

Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 1:58 pm

Karl wrote: They are arranged logically instead of at wacky angles to the street


in this respect, Bute Terrace is a shambles and whilst I may be wrong, i reckon its what Karl is alluding to. There is no streetscape at all, no interaction with the pedestrian. If there was a book on how not to plan a city street, this would be on page 1.
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HalRobsonKanu

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 3:32 pm

Jantra wrote:
Karl wrote: They are arranged logically instead of at wacky angles to the street


in this respect, Bute Terrace is a shambles and whilst I may be wrong, i reckon its what Karl is alluding to. There is no streetscape at all, no interaction with the pedestrian. If there was a book on how not to plan a city street, this would be on page 1.



Indeed. The northern side of Bute Terrace is truly awful, characterised by a lack of active frontages, ugly walls and some diabolical architecture. We can but hope that the development of a new arena elsewhere will prompt the comprehensive redevelopment of the Motorpoint site. Alongside the redevelopment of the Rapport site, this could also massively improve the southern section of Churchill Way, which is frankly an even worse streetscape than Bute Terrace. Hopefully the Park Inn will also soon become acquainted with a wrecking ball.
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Karl

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 4:09 pm

Jantra wrote:
Karl wrote: They are arranged logically instead of at wacky angles to the street


in this respect, Bute Terrace is a shambles and whilst I may be wrong, i reckon its what Karl is alluding to. There is no streetscape at all, no interaction with the pedestrian. If there was a book on how not to plan a city street, this would be on page 1.


Yes - Bute Terrace was in mind when making that comment. It's a really dismal place to be - a place to go through to get somewhere else and as one of the main east -west routes through the city centre it's not good enough.

Other examples are the southern side of Mill Lane - basically the Marriot - which is a bit of a mess. The low rise elements of Celestia are also placed at an odd angle to the water.
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HalRobsonKanu

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 4:30 pm

Karl wrote:
Jantra wrote:
Karl wrote: They are arranged logically instead of at wacky angles to the street


in this respect, Bute Terrace is a shambles and whilst I may be wrong, i reckon its what Karl is alluding to. There is no streetscape at all, no interaction with the pedestrian. If there was a book on how not to plan a city street, this would be on page 1.


Yes - Bute Terrace was in mind when making that comment. It's a really dismal place to be - a place to go through to get somewhere else and as one of the main east -west routes through the city centre it's not good enough.

Other examples are the southern side of Mill Lane - basically the Marriot - which is a bit of a mess. The low rise elements of Celestia are also placed at an odd angle to the water.



The southern side of Mill Lane has been problematic for a long time. To be fair, the library and small multi-storey car park have helped to give the street a clearer urban form (prior to the St Davids 2 development the hotel was basically surrounded on both sides by a surface level car-park from what I remember) but it's a real shame that nobody thought of including surface level retail or cafe units in the car park building. Potential also exists for the hotel entrance to be significantly reconfigured, which could help improve matters, if the owners are willing to invest.

As for Celestia, this whole development is truly atrocious. Whilst I'm not a huge fan of Scott Harbour, at least it makes some sort of attempts to engage with the waterside. Celestia on the other hand begs huge questions about what developers have been (and still are) allowed to get away with in this city. Throwing any arguments about materials, renders and the quality of the towers (all of which are hugely problematic) aside for one moment, the dead frontages, car park grills and angular form along the waterside alone are reason enough for the planners to have sent the developers packing. Celestia blights this area and has made this part of the part of the Bay dead and depressing. The architects should frankly never work again.
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Cardiff

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 6:37 pm

I know i have a vestige interest in Celestia as i live there but i dont see the issue with it. Its an apartment development, name me another in Cardiff that has interaction with the waterfront, none do as people dont want shop/reataurants/takeaways beneath beneath them bringing noise and smells, so i dont understand why you think there should be some here when it is a good 5 minute walk away from Mermaid Quay whichstruggles to be fully let and there are a number of empty units there let alone in the Scott Harbour development. There are issue with the render which are being tackled but it is no different from Victoria Wharf/Meridian Gate/Watermark, with the towers having nice design elements IMO. You also dont have to worry about someone partying on a balcony next to your bedroom window like Victoria Wharf, which exhibits many of your points of criticism yet is not mentioned as a poorly designed development. It also has a lovely little green space and terrace that is accessible to the public during the day and interacts well with Pierhead street which many other development in Cardiff are far far worse at (Atlantic wharf springs to mind).

This part of the bay was never going to be the social hub of the bay, its always been destined to be a quiet oasis close to the bay but not interrupted by it, no different from Atlantic Wharf yet without the loud traffic noise. As a place to live in it is a great development, its 11 years old and once the render issue has been resolved and it is freshly painted it will look much better.

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moyceyyy

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Re: Is the Quality of Urban Landscape in Cardiff Improving?

PostWed Nov 29, 2017 8:14 pm

Simon__200 wrote:
moyceyyy wrote:'The tales of URBANO' (this thread will replace the old one)

Recently Cardiff's planning system has allowed some questionable designs to be constructed - Namely 'Bridge Street Tower'. Two others are also under construction:

Herbert Street Tower [Student Accomodation/81m]
Hope Street Tower [Residential/132m]

And a further seven are planned:

Callaghan Square [Mixed Use/95m]
Bayscape [Residential/Hotel/120m]
Capital Quarter 5 [Residential/unknown height - estimate 73m]
Fitzalan Towers [Student Accomodation/95m]
Crawshay Court Tower [Residential/Unkown height - estimate 85m]
Dumballs Road [Residential/estimate 75m]
Premier Inn, Customhouse Sreet [Hotel/estimate 72m]


The designs and proposals aren't the problems, however. Somehow, construction companies are getting away with building these towers with cladding and other materials which are substandard when compared to their renders. Bridge Street Tower is getting a white and red cladding finish when the original renders promised a zinc/copper brushed metal finish. Similar things have happened in Manchester - however, the council caught on it and told the builders to re-start the cladding.

WHY HAS THIS NOT HAPPENED IN CARDIFF YET! If all 10 towers come to fruition and are completed at a sub-standard level, Cardiff will have a serious problem in 40 years time. And Urbano will probably have escaped to the Himalayas!

This thread will go a bit OT - so lets go crazy :)


Is there any need for the personal attacks? I don't share Urbano's views at all, but that's irrelevant. I know bullying when I see it. It's almost like a pack mentality when people start wading in en masse. Shame on you.


Mate what are you on about?

Where on Earth did you see a 'personal attack' on Urbano?

Get a grip.

I actually see where he is coming from in context to Cardiff's low-quality architecture - I cannot fathom how you've come to the conclusion that I'm 'bullying him' Jesus. 'Tales of Urbano' was just reflecting on the arguments that were caused by his strong views.
Last edited by moyceyyy on Wed Nov 29, 2017 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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