The Adelaide Street Project, Belfast – Belfast City Council and Department for Infrastructure (Collaborative Project) with OGU Architects and MMAS

Located in the Linen Quarter of Belfast, this masterplan has reactivated the street frontage of Adelaide Street by creating a new half-kilometre linear public park. A lane of vehicular traffic was removed and replaced with incidental play, planting and age-friendly accessible public space including various structures and arts installations.

Who is on the project team?

OGU Architects + MMAS.

 Delivery: FP McCann (DfI MTC)

 Supply Contractor: Fabrite

 Structural and Civil Engineer: Design ID

Describe the context of this project and its neighbourhood and people?

Adelaide Street has a varied profile of ‘users’ - residents, shoppers, tourists, office workers and commuters. Despite being situated in the Linen Quarter conservation area with many fine buildings, the street has suffered with loss of active street frontages. The team was commissioned in Autumn 2020 to explore how a city centre street could be improved as a route and a public space and destination in its own right. Prior to the start of the project, on street parking had been removed along one side of the road to allow pedestrian space to expand temporarily for social distancing in response to the pandemic. It was done quickly using plastic barriers and sand bags with limited resources. The team won the commission with a strategy that would draw attention to the existing architectural heritage and mature trees whilst adding light, playfulness and greenery in a really contemporary way. Space for outdoor seating, incidental play for all ages and sheltered areas are interspersed with year-round planting in bespoke containers. ‘Linen Lanterns’: tall, lit, timber structures that reference the looms and machines of the linen industry for which this part of the city is famous, punctuate the street. They are used to draw people into the street as they are visible from afar, but they also provide sheltered spaces to rest and a safer feeling street. Internal mirrored surfaces that reflect the surrounding architecture and people passing underneath invite people to interact playfully with their surroundings and view the street with new eyes.

Tell us what you did and how the project enlivened the place?  

The impact of the Adelaide Street project in Northern Ireland cannot be overestimated. In Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) is the key decision-maker concerning the public space of our streets (unlike many parts of the UK where local authorities have more control). Locally the movement towards a pedestrian-friendly city has been notoriously slow. Removing a lane of vehicular traffic and replacing that with incidental play, planting and age-friendly accessible public space was unprecedented: a brave and inspired act of collaboration between the DfI, Belfast City Council and the design team. The process has required people across a huge number of organisations to step out of their comfort zone in order to set a new example for people-centred place making. 

Another key success was the balancing of differing and varied priorities from stakeholders. The requirements across residents, traders, businesses and users of the street were varied, from more space for greening, play and commercial activity, to retaining the public transport link, retaining access for vehicles, deliveries and on street parking whilst maximising the public space. The architects, engineers and public bodies worked collaboratively to achieve what is an innovative, unusual and playful solution. This collaborative approach was the greatest success - testing a new way of co-designing a vibrant new route into Belfast and a more sustainable place for the many businesses and residents along Adelaide Street to enjoy.

Did the project make a positive social and environmental contribution? 

elfast is one of the most car-centric cities in the UK with associated problems of pollution and health effects. It also has one of the most under-populated city cores, a hangover from ‘the troubles’. There is a strategy to repopulate the city centre, but presently the existing inner-city communities have very few amenities. The team saw an opportunity to =, no small ambition with significant local challenges. A key objective of this project was to provide solutions for a very wide mix of stakeholders, residents, businesses, transient commuters and office workers. The team worked hard to align these multifarious requirements with best practice in terms of accessibility and inclusion for people of all ages and abilities. 

Adelaide Street is one of only a few city centre streets in Belfast with a small but emerging residential population, made up of a mixed demographic of young professional and many young immigrant families. With the ‘Belfast Agenda’ growth strategy recognising that our largely uninhabited core is perhaps our most critical challenge, it is vital that we nurture city core streets as living spaces. Residents of Adelaide Street live primarily in a single large apartment building that offers no communal or private outdoor spaces to support inner urban living, with children sometimes playing in the undercroft car park. By successfully proposing that a lane of traffic be replaced with public space, the scheme increases the public realm on Adelaide Street by 1400m2 and creates spaces for residents in front of their building. Combined with reduced tarmac, enhanced pollinator planting, biodiversity, playful structures and reduced traffic presence, the space is designed to enable people to adopt part of a city centre street as theirs, with their presence in turn bringing much needed vibrancy to the wider streetscape.