Briggate > Define.

Briggate, today and historically, is the main retail-shopping street in the commercial heart of the city of Leeds. The street completes its primary function as a commercial entity well, but for a place with such a wealth of history and important role within the city, it does little to evoke an emotive response from its users. The more architecturally rich building elements and interesting spaces in and around Briggate seem to be overlooked and underused as a result of the dominance of commercial advertising and chain store shop fronts that dominate the street.

As well as being an important destination in itself, Briggate is a key axis in the city of Leeds. It is an active route connecting transport hubs, education centres and civic areas of the city. Briggate enjoys huge occupancy during the majority of the day and is no doubt a primary draw to the city for both visitors and workers. Despite the large numbers of people using the street each day, gathering spaces and areas of respite are few and far between on Briggate, excluding the retail coffee shops and fast food restaurants. In stark contrast to the busy, pressured and stressful environment during the day; in the evening, after the shops close, Briggate is almost completely abandoned, with very little or no occupation of the street apart from those using it as a route through the city. This seems to occur as there are no evening business or activity generators operating after the trading hours of the stores in the main commercial zones.

Through further group analysis of Briggate, the richness of the architectural context was further underlined; however the dominance of the retail shop fronts and almost ignorance of the average user to the historic buildings still in operation above the ground level of store entrances was a key feature of our analysis. Also the spaces that seemed to be the most comfortable and pleasurable to move in and around were those that seemed

Among our group of architecture students the greater value and level of interest was found in the facades above ground level. This was highlighted to us in the sketches each member of the group chose to focus on, as illustrated below.

Perhaps the apparent ignorance toward the value of architectural context is due to the very busy nature of activities and movement that take place in Briggate. This also relates somewhat to the fact there is little or no areas of respite along the street, there are a few benches but no shade or shelter other that the shops. There is also a distinct lack of greenery and planting. Aside from the under used arcades feeding into Briggate, there is no enclosed or semi-enclosed space that can be used and enjoyed informally without having to spend money.

Thinking toward a possible proposal for the street, an informal gathering space, providing shelter and respite would do well to relive pressure on Briggate, slowing the transition of people and providing a space where a person is able to stop, chill out and appreciate the full richness of context that surrounds them.

Group Design Narrative > Circuitry of Briggate.

Briggate and the city of Leeds operate much like a circuit board. Functions and information are stored and transferred through the many methods of communication programmed into the system. The code of Briggate fulfils the requirements of a modern retail/commercial system but does little to spark and emotive response. The landmarks and many distinctive architectural features of Briggate are dominated by the commercial programs in action. Through a redefinition we would seek to change the perspective and experience of the average person passing through Briggate by, in some way, altering the focus of the street.

In our group definition we identify the buildings as the chips on the circuit board; where functions and information are stored and activities are generated. Next we identify a series of nodes or gathering points where the functions stored in the chips is accessed and information is dispersed and shared. Finally the circuits on the board are the lines of communication between nodes and chips allowing the collective functions and information to transfer through the whole system that makes up Briggate and its immediate surroundings.



Breaking the Code >

As stated in the design narrative; through a redefinition we would seek to change the perspective and experience of the average person passing through Briggate by, in some way, altering the focus of the street. We have begun to explore this changing of perspectives by breaking the code that exists in the facade arrangement along Briggate by identifying areas of architectural significance and rearranging the established pattern of retail shop frontage on the ground level with the historic context above. This improvised process of simply placing the mixed building elements in different combinations produces interesting results in exploring what comprises our expectations of a typical high street scene. This would be a worthwhile exercise in comparison with other shopping streets in other cities, to see whether there are distinct patterns in both the existing layouts and the rearranged combinations exist.

The activation of the elevation above street level would go some way to connect the ‘high street’ formula with the varied development of a historic and important commercial centre in cities such as Leeds. Introduction of evening activities or social generators would encourage occupation of such spaces after store trading hours and are a possible solution to the evening abandonment of Briggate and similar commercial/retail areas. During the day, and the streets main occupation, encouraging a greater interaction between users and context would go some way to encourage the appreciation of the built environment and architectural quality that exists, which is very much taken for granted in Briggate. This could be done is such ways as altering the way we access such buildings or through interventions in the way we navigate the street itself.