FROME GATEWAY

Research aim: TO ENGAGE IN DISCUSSIONS WITH THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN AND THE AROUND THE AREA OF EAST BRISTOL WHICH IS IDENTIFIED AS THE FROME GATEWAY AND TO ESTABLISH A RANGE OF DESIGN PROPOSALS FOCUSSED ON ENRICHING THE EXPERIENCE OF THE AREA’S DIFFERENT USER GROUPS WITH THE AIM OF BEING ABLE TO PROVIDE A MENU OF SHORT, MID AND LONG TERM ARCHITECTURAL POSSIBILITIES AND PROPOSALS WHICH COULD BE EMBRACED INTO FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMUNITY PROJECTS IN THIS PART OF THE CITY.

THE TEAM: ALEXANDROS CHARALAMBOUS, DANIEL SMITH, ELLIOTT MORTON, HUSSAIN AL – SAFI AND MATTHEW NORRIS

THE Client: STUART PHELPS (COMMUNITY ACTIVIST IN BS5 BRISTOL)

Project outcomes:

Stuart Phelps, a community activist in the east Bristol area was our client representative for this project and required us to produce a series of ideas focussing on how to improve pedestrian connections and engagement between the communities of Easton / st. Jude’s and the area classified as the Frome gateway which encompasses riverside park and the land to the east of the end of the m32 motorway. Our brief was defined in accordance with our findings from talking with different site users and establishing what their experiences of the existing site were. From our findings we focussed on a series of contemporary issues which could be translated into architectural proposals. The issues outlined to us verbally included: “the Frome gateway area is more of a place you pass through, you don’t stop here there is not anything to stop for” as well as; "sharing a path with cyclists can be a problem, particularly if they don't ring their bell, it can be dangerous". These are just two examples which form a larger list of existing issues that site users and the local community feel strongly about and have been embraced into a menu of design proposals across short, mid and long term scales. These different scaled proposals can be implemented according to how much community funding is available in the future, as well as how much they appeal to developers and the local authority and how our proposals may fit into a larger framework of future urban design that is to be built in the east Bristol and bs5 areas. In summary the design concepts of our proposals provide theories on how to improve relations between the people living and working in the bs5 community and their architecture, setting a precedent for design to be more community minded as we move forward into the future.