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Aberdeen:Life On The Edge

Architectural Intentions of Torry Waterfront Project.

The following describes the architectural intentions of the Torry Waterfront

Development project. For a full description of the project refer to the project book.

Entry to Torry, having departed by tram from St. Nicholas Square at the junction of

Union Street and Market Street, is dramatised by the crossing of River Dee and the

moment of turbulence over cobbles on the crisp stone Victoria Bridge. The journey

sweeps up and left on Victoria Road, between Victorian Tenements hosting the

commercial centre of Torry. The tram turns off Victoria Road into the proposed

tram and pedestrian path which bisects the project site on approach to the

waterfront, with a view across the harbour towards historical Footdee.

Victoria Bridge Victoria Road Victoria Road Proposed tram road

The proposed arrival at the Torry Waterfront is an arrival at a square or centre,

similar to that of the origin and the one passed at the bottom of Victoria Road. The

architectural intention is to evoke the familiar experience of similar public spaces inAberdeen, for example, St. Nicholas Square, and the main shopping areas and

crossings between. A second intention is to evoke the material quality and identity

of the original Torry village. The geometry of the proposed docks implies a

congestion of activity at a crossing point over the water. The form, degree of

formality and gesture, will determine the construct of the public space, while the

treatment of materials and architectural character will render the waterfront

buildings with some sense of a vernacular presence, an identity which is perceived

to belong. It is expected that this approach is the most likely to be successful in

raising the profile of the Torry area by casting its material qualities in a celebrated

light without imported or perceivably pretentious gestures.

St Nicholas Square Marks and Spencers Proposed Masterplan

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The streets of housing adjacent to the waterfront are currently severed by the

closed site of the marine research lab. The aim of the proposed masterplan is to

make permeable urban environment and streetscapes, by relocating the contents of

large research lab buildings into blocks of buildings in more human scaled streets.

An emphasised aim is to avoid any architectural style or features and material,

which might play to negative stereotypes of the Torry area. An architecture which

may be considered appropriate or at least attractive to the layperson, will need to

display the surface quality of the crisp granite in Aberdeen with detailing suggesting

elegance in the more public areas, and in the neighbouring streets, something of

the humble unity which buildings in Wood Street and Baxter Street display.

Correction Wind Wood Street Brindley Place, Birmingham

Some buildings proposed on the waterfront have the potential to become

architectural features. Various forms and layouts of these buildings were

considered during the design process including building under landscaping, and

towers. Considering the aims of the development regarding social perception, the

preferred approach is to emphasise the presence and character of the whole place

rather than isolate and objectify single buildings for public scrutiny. The character

of Brindley Place in Birmingham is due to its formal square layout, relationship of

buildings and classical references in facades. A place whose essence depends from

the outset on the novelty value of a single or few buildings, seems destined to

degrade as those buildings descend in public opinion. But the peripheral-visual

identity imbued by a collective presence of buildings can set the social perception,

establishing the place before giving justification to a desire for greater celebration

of contemporary architectural feature buildings in the future.

Highly important in determining the quality and usage of urban spaces is the urbanfurniture and provision of elements such as sunshine, food, ledges, a defined public

flow and opportunity to linger in it. (W.H. Whyte, the social life of small urban

spaces, 1980.) As well as practicing good urban space principles, there is

significant opportunity to recall the Old Torry fishing village in the urban fabric of

the proposed docks, and likewise a danger of instigating a pastiche or clich effect.

Small fishing village in northeast Scotland with publicly accessible attractive

harbours are to be consulted, such as Stonehaven, Portsoy and Sandend, with

particular attention to what determines the material condition, as well as what is

recurrently absent from such a space.