Belfast Central, A site analysis and proposal, Belfast, Northen Ireland

Abstract: Risning fuelcosts, energy consumption and environmental conserns is directly linked with the built environment and transportation habits. This paper will outline a number of methoods which will examine how these issues can be contained. Several concepts has been introduced to give cityplanners, architects among others instrument and guiedelines of how to adress these issues. The Compact city and Walkability is Both consepts that introduces guidelines counter modernistic guiedlines of how the urban environment should be formed. This paper will test how these consepts can be taken down from the abstract level, interpreted and implemented within a case study. The case study chosen is Belfast central because it is situated within a context which is not cohearent with the compact city and Walkability. Where the city of Belfaast beeing one of the most cardepandant cities in Europe and the Central station beeing situated within an area which is undeveloped and close to the citycentre. The puropse is therefore to examine the concept of the Compact city and Walkability, their guidelines and abstract recomendations for how a new development should be conducted. First guidelines of the compact city has been analysed and discussed with comparason to other reasearchers with the aim to extract relighable theoretical guiedlines. Walkability as a idea is also analysed t o explore what urban design guidelines are related to Walkability. Theese more broad guidelines are taken into considerat ion when the si te-analysis is conducted. Walkability is further anlysed to extract physical elements down to a detailed level of measurements. Which is sumerrised in the Walkability guide for urban design? Its funcuntion is to serve practical implementation of walkability in new devlopments. To be able to implement the idea of Walkability and The compact city a current status analysis has been conducted to examine factors which is important for walkability and The compact city derived from the guideline analysis of the conepts. First a superficial Lynch analysis was conducted to identify important paths, nodes and the areas intergration to the citycentre. This analysis resulted in a view on which buildings are important to preserve, paths important to analyse further. To analyse building layout and continuancy in path networks will affect how intergrated the area is with the citycentre today. Transportation networks and building layout are critcal to the consepts of Walkablity and The compact city, pedestrain, bycycle paths and public transport was mapped. The findings was failiur of walkability and The compact city guideines. For example there was servere connectivity issues wihin the pedestrain, bycycle network and boundaries that limited connections to and from the river of Lagan, City centre and The Central station. I wanted to furrther test my above mentioned findings by cunducting an observation of movement and compare it to two interviews with key persons with in the community. The observation showed that there was less usage of North-south paths in particular the connection between East bridge street and the river of Lagan. The interviews also confirmed the path limiting finings from my analysis. Now to be able to devlope the area with the concept of the compact city and walkability guidelines the site anlysis seres as where and what issues will need to be corrected. The Development of the site is set through the Compact City and Walkability, with high density, enclosure, path continuency, path context and intergration with the surrrounding cityscape. The abstract level of guidelines from the theory chapter is implemented to solve the issues which was found in the site analysis especially intergration issues and pedestrain path netoworks. Since East bridge street was identified within both the Lynch analysis, observation survey and the interviews to be critcal within the area a more detailed implementatin of Walkability indicators was done. This was done by using the Walkabi l i ty guide for urban design by implementing most o f t h e e x t r a c t e d measurments. This is sowed on several renderings and to scale sektions. The questions of how the conspets can be iplemented can therefore be considered answered.