Sailortown walking tour - European Heritage Open Days 2015

The following are notes and slides developed for a walking tour of the Sailortown area of Belfast, delivered at 10am, 12/09/2015, as part of the European Heritage Open Days in conjunction with PLACE, the Northern Ireland centre for the built environment.

Start - Harbour Commissioners

Slide 1 - This is a tour of Belfast’s lost quarter, commonly referred to as ‘Sailortown,’ a different and difficult sort of tour in that Sailortown has all but disappeared. I have chosen not to discuss Sailortown as an historical artefact, but rather use it as a case study of urban planning throughout the final half of the 20th century. As such, much of what I have to say about Sailortown and it’s unfortunate fate from the late 1960s onwards is based on hearsay, speculation and a small kernel of provable data, most of which is open to debate. As such, I don’t mind anyone contributing their views and opinions on what may have transpired here, down by the docks. Initially we’re just going to walk from this end of Sailortown to the other, through some of the different conditions you find in the area, and then once we’re on the other side we’ll stop and I’ll explain a little bit about what the area used to be like and what happened to it.

Stop 1 - Whitla Street

Slide 2 - Here we are now at the northern-most boundary of Sailortown, Whitla Street. The exact boundaries of the area are blurred at best, but it it commonly agreed that this is definitely where it ends on this side. A poem by Sailortown resident Tommy O’Hara begins by saying “From Whitla Street to God knows where, now there’s an argument right there.” It is generally agreed that Henry Street was the southern boundary and Nelson Street was the western boundary, but people claim to be from Sailortown as far down as Corporation Square where we started, and there is an argument that York Street formed part of Sailortown, although here the age old ‘Irish Problem’ enters into things, with Sailortown largely being regarded as a Catholic area and York Street being Protestant.

Up to the 1960s this area was home to around 5000 people, and was called Sailortown obviously for it’s proximity to the docks. As such it was an extremely cosmopolitain area, with foreign sailors constantly coming and going, and potentially staying in the area for weeks or months at a time. Additionally, many of the locals were sailors themselves, individuals who had travelled the world and been welcomed in foreign ports, experiences which potentially gave them a different attitude to residents of other quarters of the city; an outlooking quarter which physically and socially connected Belfast to the rest of the world.

Notable residents include Rinty Monaghan, the boxer whose statue you can now see down beside the Ulster University on York St; Big Jim Larkin, the Irish trade union leader who lived and worked here in his early days, comedian Frank Carson; and Buck Alec, the policeman, loyalist paramilitary and street fighter lived here, and could be seen walking his pet lion through the streets.

But when recounting a history of a place which is now gone it is easy to get lost in the romantic nostalgia of what it was and could have been. The area was very poor and existed on the outskirts of an incredibly busy industrial port, meaning the air quality would have been pretty poor. The housing, before it was demolished, was referred to as Victorian slum housing in a report at the time, very cramped and lacking amenities - a complaint which was made about all the inner-city housing in Belfast in the pre-war years, including the lower Shankill, Falls road, and inner East Belfast - all areas, coincidentally, which could be said to have been detrimentally affected by redevelopment, something we will talk more about at our next stop.

Stop 2 - Original houses/Car park

Slide 3 - Regardless of where exactly Sailortown was, the contemporary area as I see it can be largely divided into three distinct parts with distinct feelings, which hopefully you detected on our walk here. You have this central area which is the nucleus of Sailortown as it used to be. It is dilapidated and a little bit sorry for itself, but retains a spark of authentic community feeling which is unfortunately being eroded. Then you have Clarendon Dock, which is now a far cry from what it would have been as an operational graving dock, used for repairing and maintaining the boats which serviced the dock. It could now be referred to as a sleek, 21st century commercial estate, whose employees all live outside the area. While it’s not officially part of Sailortown, it’s development is having a massive affect on the area as a whole and is worlds apart in atmosphere, financial investment and attitude to the rest of the area. Finally you have the area between Sailortown and York Street, which is a mess of roads, motorway on slips, carriageways and these derelict residual spaces rendered largely useless by the infrastructure.

So what exactly happened between this map (1920) and this map (2008)? As the second world war was drawing to a close it was accepted that, as I suggested before, Belfast’s inner-city housing was deemed largely inadequate and a report and corresponding masterplan was devised which was unfortunately never enacted. It suggested a series of grand avenues with corresponding squares, and also proposed a road bridge in the location of the current flyover, but it would have been at grade rather than the raised motorway we currently have. While the masterplan was never adopted, the identification of the housing crisis was taken seriously and, along with the construction of suburban housing estates like Cregagh estate, a process of what was referred to as ‘slum clearance’ began towards the end go the ‘50s.

Slide 4 - By the early 60s, you had the rise of Prime Minister Terrence O’Neill, who was exceptionally progressive and liberal compared to his predecessors, and with him you had a considerable amount of progressive liberal civil servants, people like Ronald Green and John Oliver, and they were keen on pushing through all kinds of reforms including a brave new Modernist masterplan for Belfast. They brought in an expert architect-planner from Edinburgh called Robert Matthew and he drafted what is now referred to as the ‘Matthew Plan.’ The plan proposed to limit the outward expansion of Belfast and create these satellite towns where, theoretically, people would live and commute to Belfast to work on newly constructed roads infrastructure. Matthew himself did not go into a great amount of details on the roads, but you can see this ominous dotted line around the centre of the city, implying what was to be proposed in the future.

Slide 5 - By 1967 elements of the Matthew plan were being implemented, including the construction of Craigavon; but the element which had the biggest bearing on Sailortown was, of course, the road plans. Travers Morgan prepared the report for what was known as the Belfast Urban Motorway. Now, the majority of the houses in the York Street area had already been cleared in the interests of 'slum clearance,' the intention being that people would eventually be moved back into the area.

Slide 6 - The motorway plans, however, changed the intention to move people back into the area. The majority of the residents of Sailortown were moved up to Shore Crescent, off the Shore Road, where you can see this monument to Sailortown - testament to the amount of former Sailortown residents who ended up there. The residents were also scattered around the city, to new estates like New Lodge, the Lower the Shankill, Divis and Twinbrook, never to return to Sailortown. We’ll walk further down into Sailortown to discuss what possibly happened and to look at St Joseph’s church which stands as a analogy for the area at large.

Stop 3 - St Joseph’s

This is St Joseph’s Church which, as you can see, now lies derelict. This church is totemic for the fate of Sailortown as a whole, although it’s final demise occurred about 30yrs after Sailortown can be said to have disappeared, even though the identity is maintained by an unfortunately ever dwindling core of individuals. Much of the land that was given up for the good of slum clearance and, later, the motorway was, much like St Joseph's, owned by the Catholic Church. According to residents that I interviewed as part of my PhD the parish priest promised from his pulpit that people would return to the area after the displacement of slum clearance. That, as you have seen, proved not to be the case.

The church’s numbers naturally declined over the course of the 70s and 80s, until the church was proposed to be closed in the late 1990s. The closure was strongly opposed by a strong core of individuals, the majority of whom now comprise the Sailortown Historical Society, which has now become the Sailortown Regeneration Group. The church was taken on by franciscans upon it’s closure until 2001, who eventually withdrew putting the fate of the church in the balance. It was occupied on 2 separate occasions by local protesters, the regeneration group, trying to save the buildings as a place of worship, until they eventually relented and, in return for the 99yr lease of the building, agreed that it would never again be a place of worship. There is currently a plan to make the building into a community centre -  a plan but no funding - so the church, it seems, will remain here untouched until it needs to be pulled down due to safety concerns.

Stop 5 - Clarendon Dock

Here, we can appreciate the unique nature of this part of the city. We have the old graving dock here, with two of the oldest buildings in Belfast, and in the background you have City Quays One, one of the newest ones. This area was the site of Belfast’s first shipyard and the traces of it can still be clearly seen. This building was also, briefly, the HQ of the Laganside corporation which as you probably know, was the first round of post-conflict redevelopment and part of the process of ‘normalisation’ as John Major called it - the process of making good the city’s physical and social fabric in the aftermath of the Troubles, another fascinating subjects far as the redevelopment of the city goes.

City Quays is a proposed 20 acre £250M mixed-use redevelopment of lands bound by the M3 Motorway, River Lagan, Dock Street and Corporation Street by Belfast Harbour Commissioners. In July 2010 the Harbour Commissioners submitted an outline planning application seeking permission for a "mixed use development comprising120 residential units, a hotel, 123,170 sqm of officespace, retail, cafes and restaurants and multi-storey car parking.

Belfast 400 Easter Festival

April 27th 2013 marked four hundred years since Sir Arthur Chichester read out Belfast’s Royal Charter received from King James I and granting Belfast’s town status, a moment immortalised by John Luke’s fantastically vibrant mural under the dome of City Hall. Belfast City Council took the opportunity of this date lying so near the long Easter weekend to throw open the doors of the City Hall and host an array of events celebrating this anniversary, all absolutely free to anyone who wanted to come along. For a self-confessed ‘Belfast geek’ (or should that be ‘enthusiast?’) such as myself this was an opportunity too good to miss.

I kicked off the weekend with Ruairí Ó Baoill’s’ ‘Hidden History’ archeological walking tour, taking a look at the often overlooked and invisible parts of Belfast’s past which it turns out extends far beyond the 400 year remit of the festival. We met at the front of the City Hall, where I had a few minutes to take in the extent of the celebrations before we set off. There was a collection of remarkable classic cars lined up beside Victoria, which a small sign informed me were courtesy of the ‘Banbridge Old Vehicle Club.’ On the other lawn, to Victoria’s right, were a crowd of ribbon dancers passing out ribbons to excited youngsters and encouraging them to join in. Crowds of people thronged around the entrance to the building, waiting for the doors to be opened for the host of events within.

I located Ruairí at the front gates, wearing in a high-visibility jacket and waiting with his son, similarly attired, who was to be his dad’s ‘glamorous assistant’ for the day. Each of us was given a copy of Thomas Phillip’s famous 1685 map of Belfast (often credited with being the first map of the town) annotated with the contemporary street names enabling us to orientate ourselves. The tour took us from the City Hall to Arthur Square, St George’s Church, Cotton Court off Waring Street and finally Writer’s Square in front of St Anne’s Cathedral. Along the way we were provided with snatches of history, unique insights, fascinating anecdotes, images of archeological digs and the beguiling objects found just beneath our feet.

As a perfect counterpoint to this tour, the next one kicked off at half two from the same spot. This one was the Architectural walking tour, hosted by PLACE and ably lead by Gary Potter of PLACE and the Future Belfast website. The route was similar to Ruairí’s, but provided a totally different set of insights into the city. Looking specifically at the existing buildings this was the visible history of Belfast, pointing out what there is to see even if we don’t see it in our day to day interactions with the city. I must confess that I feel rather ashamed to admit I had never looked up at the fantastic Art Deco facades in Ann Street; neither was I aware of the one original 18th century house still standing in Donegal Place nor the oddly incestuous nature of the competition to design the Albert Clock. Just some of Belfast’s architectural quirks highlighted on the tour.

After four hours of tours I really felt I’d earned my pint in the Washington Bar before heading home to warm up.

The next day I made my way to the Harbour Commissioner’s offices off Corporation Street. The unpleasant walk under the motorway and rail bridges, through eerily deserted car-parks, proved more than worth it to get a rare glimpse inside this magnificent building. The tour was hosted by a blue-badge tour guide, who informed us how woefully under-attended the tours had been over the weekend (perhaps a lack of advertising). This, however, made for a fascinating and intimate tour of this breathtaking building. I would urge anyone to include this on your list of places to visit in September’s European Heritage Open Days.

That night I attended the evening tour of the City Hall. Entering through the back gate (an entrance I had previously used only once before, on my wedding day), I waited patiently under the City Hall’s dome for a few minutes as my fellow tour-attendee’s gathered. The tour was guided by Michael Livingstone, an official guide for Belfast City Council, who started off by pointing out some historical artifacts and documents arranged around the reception area (including the original 400 year old copy James I’s charter). We ascended the grand stair case and all stood around the rotunda beneath John Luke’s previously mentioned mural. It was here it became clear this was not your standard historical tour. A man in 18th century garb was suddenly standing before us, animatedly reading a description of the old White Linen Hall. The tour continued in this way for just over an hour; a standard (if not fascinating) tour with these unexpected, humorous and at times moving dramatic counterpoints which breathed life and emotion into the history which surrounded us. All together an excellently put together tour/production which was over far too soon.

There were of course many more events over the weekend and I really do regret not making it to more; particularly the lectures in the great hall and the film screenings in the QFT and the Lyric Theatre. There was a fantastic atmosphere around the City Hall and in the city centre in general which personally proved a tonic for the city’s uncomfortable and unfortunate start to 2013.

Loving Belfast is never easy, but after a few difficult months the Belfast 400 festival gives us license to be proud again.

Critical Writing Part 2 of 2 - Belfast of New

The following was written as part of a critical writing workshop held at PLACE, run by art and architecture critic Marianne O'Kane Boal. This is a critical article on the new MAC theatre, meant as a companion piece to a critique of St George's Church, found here.

I remember watching the MAC being constructed from the architecture studio of the neighbouring University of Ulster. I distinctly recall the surface of my black coffee shimmering as the building’s piles were driven down into the sleech upon which most of central Belfast rests. I later remember observing the jutting cast concrete forms and, comparing them to the drawings and renders of the building, thinking ‘too complicated, too much going on, too busy.’ In retrospect I see I was becoming ‘Architect,’ and ‘Architect’ could always do better, ‘Architect’ is always cynical.

Now the MAC is open I am a regular visitor; be it for coffee with friends, visiting an exhibition in the galleries or informal tutorials and meetings as part of my research. It’s a building I make use of regularly, all of my initial reservations being erased by the elemental act of utility. In mid January 2013 I was lucky enough to be part of a group to receive a guided tour of the building by project-architect and associate of Hall McKnight (previously Hackett & Hall) architects Nigel Murray. This gave me opportunity to sort through my contradicting thoughts.

The new MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre) replaces an older Georgian building referred to as the OMAC (Old Museum Arts Centre), updating the slightly beleaguered building while significantly expanding the theatre’s capacity as well as relocating to the Cathedral Quarter; Belfast’s greatest hope for a vibrant, bohemian district. The building’s brief fills a definite gap in the city, providing an alternative theatre space to the formality of the Grand Opera House, acting as a companion piece both architecturally and programmatically to affluent South Belfast’s Lyric theatre in not-so-affluent North Belfast.

The MAC is a hopeful building.

The theatre/galley, which completes the fourth edge of the much derided St Anne’s Square, has two entrances. The red brick mass which faces the university (in anticipation of a future adjoining development) wraps round the corner and steps back at a right-angle, inviting pedestrians of Exchange Street into the building. Facing St Anne’s Square, a black basalt mass gives way to a sliding glass door, enhancing rather than shaming the previously odd and uncomfortable plastic classicism of the plaza. Both entrances lead to a broad public concourse, providing an alternative, and arguably preferable, route through the square.

The MAC is a public building.

The building is comprised of three forms; the imposing block of the main theatre and ‘Upper Gallery,’ the floating wedge of the smaller theatre and ‘Tall Gallery,’ and the residual space caught between the two which forms the public concourse. It was this third space which concerned me the most when gazing out from the University or pouring over the drawings and images made available online. The space seemed too awkward, the angles too severe; a space already complicated by the difficult site further abstracted by the positioning of the two hulking forms. Ironically, this is the part of the building that, for me, works the best. The vaulting brick piers and long, high windows lend a vaguely religious aspect to the building. The subtle material changes, from bare concrete, slick terrazzo, warm wood of an almost burnt hue, suggest but don’t prescribe journeys and activities. The seating areas feel like intimate retreats from the bustle and business of the cafe and box office; a range of booths allowing you to step away for a moment while the low ceiling height of the open-seating area offers a sense of enclosure.

The MAC is an intimate building.

As we wind our way upwards, the obtuse angles become quite disorientating. We walk up the main stair, across a landing overlooking the bar and up a more intimate set of steps and for a moment I feel lost. This feeling, however, is never unpleasant. As our journey ribbons through the building the building wraps around us. We enter the tall gallery and all feeling of disorientation is exploded as we are confronted with a huge picture window. Where another designer would have centered this window on the squat yet majestic bulk of St Anne’s Cathedral, Hackett & Hall invite us to look beyond it. The church features on the periphery of a magnificent view of the city itself.

The MAC is a civic building.

The rest of our tour reinforces these initial impressions. Stepping out from the dark warmth of the main 350 seat theatre, a large window reconnects you with the square. Ascending the stair you note the feeling of warm leather under your palm, enclosing the industrial handrails. The confusing warren of corridors connecting the teaching spaces, offices and dance studios are relieved by occasional, sometimes tantalising views of the city or neighbouring buildings. These dichotomies, public - private, warm - cold, light - dark, lost - found, all brought forth by the difficult site and complicated brief, are reconciled harmoniously within this envelope; achieved by the delicate balance of spatial requirements, careful consideration of thresholds and impeccable detailing.

The MAC is a complex building.

Critical Writing Part 1 of 2 - Belfast of Old

The following was written as part of a critical writing workshop held at PLACE, run by art and architecture critic Marianne O'Kane Boal. This is a critical article on the listed St Georges Church, meant as a companion piece to a critique of the MAC, found here.

Sometimes I get a peculiar feeling when I walk down High Street. I imagine the Farset bubbling away beneath my feet from it’s source high up in the Black Mountain, now demeaned to flowing through a sewer pipe to join the Lagan. I imagine the broad avenue as it would have been; a dirt track running along the south bank of the stream connecting the motte and bailey of Belfast’s original castle and the ‘Chapel of the Ford’ situated at the sandbank formed by the confluence of the Farset, the Blackstaff and the Lagan, giving Belfast it’s name.

Map of Belfast in 1300 (showing Castle and Chapel)
compared with 2008 map

The peculiar feeling intensifies standing in front of St Georges Church at the top of High Street, at what would have been the site of the original Chapel. The city of Belfast is around four hundred years old; there has been a place of worship on this site for over seven hundred.

The original building was demolished in the late 18th century after a checkered and colourful history, from becoming the choice of church for town officials to being used as a Cromwellian stockade, and the current building’s foundation stone was laid in the early 19th century when the newly constructed St Anne’s church was deemed too small. Despite this lively past, the church itself is a tranquil oasis from the traffic-heavy junction of High Street and Victoria Street. Set back from the road, I would assume the building goes largely unnoticed most pedestrians (and certainly motorists). The church is designed in the classical style popular in the early 19th century and was originally intended to be a simple rectangular plan with a slightly curved facade at the entrance, perhaps looking similar to the First Presbyterian Church in Rosemary Street. However, the entrance was further enhanced by the introduction of the portico, acquired from the house of the Bishop of Derry, in Ballyscullion, after the Bishop’s death. This lends the building a much more grandiose air, an imposing and proud presence on Belfast’s oldest thoroughfare.

Stepping through the front door, the visitor finds themselves in an octagonal porch full of the periphery of worship, stacks of hymnals, prayer cushions, boxes of candles, etc; reminding the architectural tourist that this is still an operating Anglican church. Flanked on either side by winding staircases leading to the gallery the porch also acts as a final threshold between the city and the sanctuary of the nave. Stepping through the double doors into the space of worship beyond is a significant act. ‘The silence is deafening,’ goes the cliche. The total absence of the incessant sounds of urbanity is at first disconcerting.

As I walked up the centre of the nave my footsteps felt incredibly conspicuous. I settled into one of the timber pews and allowed myself to relax. Only then could I begin to observe the interior without that feeling unease. The nave itself a simple rectangular plan surrounded by squat, round-headed stained glass windows. A U-shaped gallery, supported on columns with ornate composite corinthian heads painted gold. Tall upper windows left unstained allowing bright natural light to flood the space, also allowing glimpses of sky (and the occasion modern apartment block). The room is lined with timber pews, all pointing toward a grand, and rather fussy, chancel.

The Victorian chancel almost stands in direct opposition to the clean, classical Georgian nave, almost demanding your attention. Adorned with paintings dating from the early 19th and 20th centuries and paying host to a grand pipe organ, the space is dominated by a full height stained glass window, enhancing the exuberant decoration and giving everything a slightly ethereal glow. This makes the space seem like an add-on to the simplicity of the

nave and the styles seem to clash nosily, once the urban visitor's ears have got use to the silence.

Walking around the nave, the engaged visitor will once again be put in direct contact with the very roots of Belfast as a city. A number of memorial plaques flank the chancel, the newest dating from 1938, the oldest being 1856. This oldest plaque is a memorial to Sir Henry Pottinger, who’s family played a prominent role in the establishment and development of the city of Belfast. Again, walking in the churchyard and examining the scattering of headstones, one gets an acute sense of the church’s embedded nature in the history of Belfast. While all relatively new when compared with the church building itself, the earliest one I could see was dated 1968. This year will resonate with a few as the year the idea of the ‘Westlink’ was conceived, and many others as they year the most recent incarnation of ‘The Troubles’ began; two events which have fundamentally defined the contemporary city of Belfast.

Despite it’s hotchpotch nature, an inevitability given the age of the building, St George’s Church is not only an important piece of architecture but is firmly embedded in the urban history of Belfast. It’s history is Belfast’s history, something which sends a chill down this otherwise level-headed architect’s spine.

Review of 'Building Stories' by Chris Ware

The following was originally published on the PLACE blog as part of the'Urban Library Lecture Series.'

The medium of the comic book has long been derided as a medium for children, the ‘nerd,’ or the intellectually impaired. Despite the best efforts of writers such as Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, combined with the broadsheets rebranding of the rather untoward sounding ‘adult comic book’ with the haughty term ‘graphic novel,’ the perception of the comic as a conveyor of nothing other than empty-headed titillation still holds sway. A new epic graphic novel by Chris Ware stands in direct opposition to this.

‘Building Stories’ is a collection of stories originally published in a host of US publications including Nest Magazine and the New Yorker, beautifully presented in a fantastically cumbersome box measuring 40x30x5cm. The presentation, along with the intricate story within and the diagrammatic nature of many of the drawings, renders the collection instantly architectural (at least it does to me). Engaging with building stories is a profoundly physical undertaking, a real statement when considering the rise of Kobo, Kindle and the eBook.

The box contains 14 individual ‘comics’ in a variety of media and formats from conventional comic books to newspapers, hardbound tomes, posters and leaflets. The reader is given no clear start or end point, you are merely left to your own devices to rummage through the box, starting wherever you feel is right and navigating your way through the objects as they catch your attention. This way the narrative is gently uncovered, excavated from the box which contains it, much like the apartment building which serves as both backdrop and protagonist in the story.

The story details the lives of the denizens of an apartment building in Chicago. We meet a young couple expecting their first child who have recently moved in to the second floor apartment, a lonely, disenfranchised middle aged disabled woman living on the top floor and struggling in every way conceivable, and finally the old landlady who lives on the ground floor, standing face to face with her own mortality. I probably don't need to tell you that their lives become intertwined, however this occurs in an unexpected and revelatory fashion.

Chris Ware has crafted a narrative so unique it can only be fully understood by experiencing it. The box as an object and as a metaphor bestows ‘Building Stories’ with an architectural air which transcends the possible pretentious nature of such a phrase. This is architectural with a small ‘a’; the experience and individual interpretation of the reader is given priority while the day-to-day grounding of the narrative, dealing with normal people with normal problems in a profound way, makes the story instantly accessible to anyone who opens the box.

Alleyspace Intervention, Belfast's Holylands

The following was published in RSUA Perspective magazine, July 2009.

The word ‘student’ has become a four-letter word in Belfast’s Holy Lands. The events of St Patrick’s Day three months ago served to underline years of strife between the student population and local residents of the South Belfast neighbourhood. A fledgling Architecture student society based at the University of Ulster decided to try and turn the tide of local opinion in student’s favour.

Born out of an RSUA organised student forum held at PLACE, the idea was not established as a direct response to St Patrick’s day, but rather sought to re-evaluate the vernacular Belfast terrace, paying particular attention to what the society’s members regarded as it’s biggest design flaw, the rear alleyway. This leftover, utilitarian space has become synonymous with anti-social behaviour, including drug-use and fly tipping, and is often used by burglars to gain discrete entry into properties.

After talking with the local residents of University and College Park Avenue the students came to the conclusion that this was mainly due to the lack of surveillance. One local resident recalled the days when, instead of being confined by nine-foot high walls, private yards were enclosed with two-foot fences over which gossip and chat were exchanged, intended to simply demarcate ownership rather than create an aggressive fortification.

This vision of the alleyways’ halcyon days inspired the society to attempt to recapture this atmosphere, and use it in an attempt to address the anti-social behaviour that takes place in such spaces. Hugh Magee, one of the event’s organisers remarked “No space is provided for interacting with your neighbours any more while the alleyway would be perfect for this. If we can make landlords and residents rethink this space a greater sense of community and security could be created.” Time and budget restraints made any permanent intervention unrealistic, so the group decided upon attempting to transform the existing alley space into a social area, creating a positive interface between the Holy Land’s permanent and temporary denizens. 

This was the thinking that led to the student collaboration invading one of these alley spaces on the 5^th of June. A series of simple plywood partitions created a sense of place along the linear spine of the alley. A basic roof structure combined with overhanging foliage proved effective in creating the perception of an urban garden. And most importantly a bottle of beer, free food and a warm greeting created a welcoming atmosphere for anyone who turned up.

Despite initial fears that the event would be treated with suspicion and apathy in the wake of St Patrick’s Day, the intervention was greeted with overwhelming positivity from all who attended. Over sixty people turned up over the three hours the intervention was in place, and even the PSNI made an appearance condoning the positive student action within the area. Local resident and psychology lecturer at the University of Ulster Professor Peter Weinreich gave his thoughts on the intervention, saying “the evening transformation of part of this space by this group of students was a lively encouraging event, successfully bringing together students and local long-term residents for lively chat. Music, food and beverage outside in the open contributed to a pleasurable occasion.”

The group is currently planning further interventions within the city.

Contributors

Daniel Bell

Rory Caithness

Conor Gallagher

Janet Hall

Dean Johnson

Ian leinster

Hugh Magee

Chris Weir

Thanks to Able Builders for providing materials

Respecting Buildings in NI

The Following was published in September edition of The Ulster Folk arts magazine and also on the PLACE blog.

I was brought up in the tail end of 'The Troubles,' so much so that I never really felt affected by them. It's only in retrospect I see that it has entirely defined the relationship I have with the city I call home.

'The Town,' as Belfast city centre was ominously referred to in my youth, felt like another country; full of danger, glimpsed only in grainy news reports and rushed shopping trips. This is why I found the Urban Design Summer School hosted by PLACE, Belfast's centre for architecture and the built environment, so refreshing.

 Based in an empty shop unit in the Obel Tower, this week long summer school was open exclusively to people aged 14 to 19. Activities over the week included presentations by local designers, theorists and built environment professionals, tours of contemporary iconic architecture around Belfast such as the MAC, the Lyric and the newly renovated Ulster Museum and sketching and model making workshops. A particularly revealing workshop asked 'what is Belfast missing,' prompting a diversity of responses from 'more appreciation for historic buildings' to 'warehouse raves.'

I believe initiatives like this enable the young participants to have a dramatically different relationship with the city than I did in the years leading up to and immediately after the 'peace process.' But further than this, it also tackles an unforeseen product of peace; the widespread attitude that, because the city was so starved of civic progress during the violence, any development is good development. So much of our built environment is judged purely from the view of short term financial gain rather than the long term goal of a quality urban condition.

Director of PLACE and local architect Aidan McGrath describes the intentions of the school. "It’s not our objective to encourage these 30 young people into a career in architecture or town planning. We're just hoping to make them...more discerning, more critical of the built environment, and more demanding of those professionals and politicians who deliver it."

The recently approved Royal Exchange scheme, which includes bulldozing North Street Arcade and the disruption of the unique grain of warren-like alleyways, and the decision to demolish the Athletic Stores are examples of financially led decisions which get the go ahead despite being largely opposed by all apart from business concerns which stand to make a lot of money, to hell with the city! Yet the only groups speaking up seem to be the built environment professionals, so often viewed as being intellectually warped or biased. Perhaps a more knowledgable populace would feel confident enough to join these debates, paving the way for more considered urban development.

An informed, proactive, critical and involved populace is key to the development of a quality public realm. Initiatives like this, 'somewhereto_' and the 'I Wish This Was...' workshops will hopefully arm the citizens of Belfast with the knowledge and confidence to demand better from those with the power to shape the city.

Now that we've started to heal our social situation perhaps it's time to heal our urban situation.