The Clyde as a tourist hub, buzzing city lanes, vibrant parks and eyesores regenerated ... the plan to reshape Glasgow as a world-beating metropolis

SPECIAL REPORT

GLASGOW needs to be remodelled. On this, almost everyone from the public through to urban designers agrees. The city needs to be more walkable, greener, more liveable, more attractive to tourists. It needs to fill up its vacant spaces and empty wastelands. It needs to populate its city centre with a wider demographic, and create a truly 24-hour city. It needs to make the Clyde and its quays the kind of centre point, the public heart, that rivers provide in so many other European cities. Abandoned lanes need to be turned into thriving hubs for restaurants, bars, artists and entrepreneurs.

As the Sunday Herald reported exclusively last week, Susan Aitken – the SNP politician tipped to take over as leader of Glasgow City Council if she ousts Labour, as suspected, in May’s local elections – wants to see the city become the next Barcelona, Berlin or Copenhagen. Some big changes are already being planned through the Glasgow City Centre Districts Regeneration Framework. Currently leading this vision are Winy Maas, architect at the innovative Rotterdam-based MVRDV studio, and Graham Ross of Austin Smith Lord, Glasgow-based architects. They speak of a Glasgow in which a “great linear park” might run along the Clyde, in which wasteland and vacant spaces are put to use, in which there are markets, street food festivals, buzzing city lanes.

But, they point out, this is not just their vision. Key to creating it are the people of Glasgow. This is, and has been, about consulting Glaswegians for big ideas, in a collective brainstorming and engagement process. Ross says: “The key thing has been engaging with Glaswegians – the local communities and the passion that Glaswegians have and that gallusness and creativity, is something we’re really trying, through the process, to be faithful to. We want to come up with a distinctively Glaswegian response to the issues.”

Many changes are planned, and most urban designers are in agreement about what needs to happen, though not necessarily how. Ideas are coming from many places: from the urban designers involved in the regeneration strategy, from other architects, and from the communities themselves. Here are a few of the big ideas, some of which are already in the pipeline, and some that are still just dreams yet to be fleshed out. This is just a taste of the Glasgow to come.

SOMETHING needs to be done about the Clyde. During recent consultations with Glaswegians, says Graham Ross of Austin Smith Lord, the river front was the number one issue that was raised. “Everyone,” he says, “relays their own anecdote on other cities where the river becomes a natural gathering place rather than a place which divides.” Among the challenges is making sure that people can get to the water’s edge and along the river, since the city is designed for traffic and cars rather than walking. The current strategy will aim to create “a city which is highly walkable” and in which “people are enabled to get right from the city centre down to the water’s edge in a far more intuitive, more pleasant and safer environment.” Once they get there, Ross says “there may be bars, restaurants, trim trails and activities on both banks”.

One of the ideas being floated is of a “great, linear park” along the Clyde, stretching from Glasgow Green to the Riverside Museum and then up the Kelvin to Kelvingrove Park. “Why not,” says Ross, “have that continuous public open space with different points for cultural events, a playful destination for young and old, a joyful place where people gather and a natural place to congregate? We feel in Glasgow there’s scope to use the different character that you’ve got through Glasgow Green, the historic quay, out to the docks and the harbour to really create something that is quite a distinct experience.”

WINY Maas, the innovative Rotterdam-based architect who Glasgow City Council brought in to bring some international perspective on the city centre strategy, says making Glasgow greener is a big aim. “To be honest,” he said, “I think the city centre is rather ungreen. There is a relatively low amount of trees, lawns and parks, compared to other cities.” Maas sees a range of possible approaches to change all this. “You could do it in a grand manner, dedi- cate Broomielaw to be a park instead of buildings. Or you could do it in a more diversified way, which may be more ideal.” He describes this as the “pocket parks method,” where small green areas are opportunistically dotted across the city. However, Maas’s most favoured greening site is also the “river front park”. he said: “It could work if you manage to have another kind of traffic system. But there’s a lot of resistance to that, so I don’t know yet when this would happen.”

MAAS is keen to test some ideas out as soon as possible. “It would be great if on one Friday you could decide to close the quay to traffic and to simply organise