Shoreditch Works is a development the whole of London should seek to replicate
Plans for Shoreditch Works show it is possible to build beautiful places that people actually want. The whole of London should take note, writes Nicholas Boys Smith
At present, only two per cent of the British public trust developers to improve existing places with their works. And only seven per cent trust the planning system. These are not good statistics. If the British are to fall back in love with the future and we are to improve the productivity and beauty of our existing towns and cities, we need to re-learn how to create new buildings which the public can instinctively accept, not reject.
This has been brought sharply home to us at the town builder and think tank Create Streets by just published research we’ve been doing into a superlative new proposed development, Shoreditch Works, in historic Shoreditch.
Brits want beautiful buildings
The review shows, first and last, that when you make places better, people prefer it. Design is not subjective. There are statistically predictable and fairly consistent relationships between how we design our streets and squares and the quality of the air we breathe, our propensity to walk, to support new development, to speak to our neighbours and to feel happy and safe as we move around our towns and cities.
What people like is also highly predictable. The results of our proprietary Visual Preference Survey done with Delta Poll could not be clearer. We vsisually asked a representative sample of the British population if they preferred the shorter uglier status quo or the more handsome and taller proposed future. The taller future won 76 to 78 per cent support over three very carefully controlled image comparisons. And this was consistent across all demographics of age, politics and place. This is the fastest path to growth: using new buildings to make old places better, as judged by the public.
Create Streets Visual Preference Survey. Respondents were asked: ‘Here are two alternative designs for the same street in a city centre location. If you had to choose, and all other things being equal, which one of the streets do you prefer?’
For full disclosure, Create Streets’s Three Eyes critical friend review was funded by the developer but it was contractually fully intellectually independent. And frankly I don’t think many developers would dare hire us to conduct such a review on their often miserabilist concoctions. We examined the design at the three scales of Bird’s Eye (beyond the red line), Adult’s Eye (streets and geometry) and Child’s Eye (materials and design). We set out the considerable merits and the few demerits of this excellent scheme. Every word is our own.
Shoreditch Works is an example for all of London
Shoreditch Works doubles the level of usable internal space for offices, shops and homes. It creates 78 new homes, 35 per cent of which will be affordable. It makes the neighbourhood better, improving the height, texture, variety and material quality.
London’s long property boom has changed Shoreditch beyond recognition. Some of this site’s near neighbours will scar the city lumpishly for many years. Joyfully, this development is different. Preserving all of the old buildings and improving and intensifying all of the new, the Shoreditch Works proposal is exemplar. This is the way. This is the right approach to the growth and beautification of our capital city. The bricks and arches echo the past and speak to the future. Here is a place where we can mingle traditional wisdom with modern rebirth. Here is a place that ‘fits in’ and feels right.
I want my fellow citizens to embrace the future, not fear it. But the future on offer needs to justify this. If it is to do so then schemes like this must become the norm, not the exception. Let us hope that the planners and councillors of Hackney Council agree and that common sense, hope and ‘love of London’ can win the day.
Nicholas Boys Smith is founder and chairman of Create Streets