Students enlisted to plan for future of heritage
ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS and Bradford Civic Society will come together to plan possible futures for some of the city’s most distinctive heritage areas thanks to a new grant.
The society has been successful in its bid for a grant from the Architectural Heritage Fund, which will support a project in collaboration with Manchester School of Architecture ( MSA).
Over a 10- month period undergraduates and practitioners from MSA will team up with the society to produce research and design proposals for reimagining historic parts of the city centre.
The focus will be the Top of Town area of the city centre which includes areas such as North Parade and Oastler Square.
The area, which is home to numerous historic and listed buildings and is well known for a number of small independent businesses is expected to undergo major changes in the coming years.
Bradford Council is planning on creating a new “city village” in the area once the Oastler Market in demolished following the opening of the new Darley Street Market.
It will feature hundreds of homes and new areas of public open space.
It is hoped that the Civic Society’s design- focussed project will enhance the Council’s emerging masterplan for the area, and will encourage greater public participation in the Bradford Council planning process.
The City Village plan has been mooted for a number of years, but so far little has emerged about what it will look like.
A spokesman for the society said: “The project aims to continue conversations about the future direction of Bradford’s Top of Town, while offering inspiring
visual proposals to highlight the potential of a vibrant and sustainable creative quarter.”
Kieran Thompson, of Bradford Civic Society, welcomed the scheme, saying a historic part of the city stood to benefit.
He said: “We’re thrilled that the Architectural Heritage Fund and Manchester School of Architecture see Bradford as such an exciting prospect for sustainable, heritage- led regeneration.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm for the proposed City Village and the new market project, but also a view that public consultation on big projects like this could be more meaningful, and take place much earlier in the planning process.
“This new project will bring together creative thinkers of different backgrounds to come up with inspiring designs and innovative solutions for some of the challenges facing this historic part of town.”