Downtown Liverpool is an advocate of contemporary urbanism. Our goal is to encourage high quality urban development which intensively mixes uses and generates a sustainable increase in Liverpool's downtown population - across all social groups and backgrounds.

5 PRINCIPLES OF DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT

1. Intensification of site development, taller buildings, mixed use that generates vital critical mass
2. Good urban design practice. Urban block, active ground floor street frontage, de zoning, pedestrian and public transport priority, good downtown neighbourhoods.
3. Contemporary architecture, conservation of the best, no extrapolating out into 'heritage' landscape development
4. Celebrating the big, the eclectic, incongruous and avant-guard
5. Emphasis on quality, diversity and complementary design.

Bold Street Vibrant active street frontages

Church St predominantly retail multiples

Houghton St but what happens above the store?

 

Architecture and Building Archive

Infrastructure and good Urbanism
Building is the physical manifestation, not just of the activities going on in the city, but also of its self-image and its aspirations. Central to our campaigning is for a holistic approach to redevelopment that reconciles comprehensively, heritage with contemporary design, maximises the repopulation of downtown and encourages small and medium sized enterprises.

Primacy of the urban block as the basic arrangement of streets and building underpins our approach.

Issues regarding height must be considered within broader analyses than currently envisioned and should, by enlarge, be encouraged. City centre development does not occur in a vacuum, the human network of the city is vital for both planners and developers to understand when considering choice of location, issues of quality and profitability. This is all the more so in Liverpool which is a notoriously independent . We see this as a positive, not a negative - we provide the essential downtown Liverpool knowledge.

Intensity and mix of development
Downtown Liverpool campaigns for the best urban environment in Liverpool. The type, mix and intensity of development will have a fundamental effect on how the city grows. Broadly speaking downtown Liverpool campaigns for each new site to be developed to its optimum capacity. Without this, what the city can develop business and amenity-wise will be diluted and further growth is hindered. Mixed-use complexes and general de-zoning of Liverpool city centre must be a central policy focus and aspiration.

Tall buildings and skyscrapers will greatly benefit downtown, functionally and visually. Liverpool has a tradition and landscape of the large scale and a pride in our superlatives, we see no reason why this tradition should not continue.

Residential growth is the central plank for successful long term revival. Every effort must be made to greatly increase current population levels and especially, the diversification of tenure and demographic make up. Family apartments, through the spectrum of affordability, must form a major component of new growth, along with the services and support structures to make life comfortable. All downtown districts should encourage as large and varied population base as development and demand can provide.

Conservation
Liverpool has an unrivalled stock of buildings and landscapes of historic and architectural note, borne of it's commercial supremacy and civic aspirations. Downtown Liverpool supports initiatives that protect the best of this stock. It campaigns for imaginative restoration and preservation of buildings of architectural or historic note.

In the main Downtown Liverpool only supports demolition and replacement when new proposals show a clear material, aesthetic and functional improvement to the city district. It will expect these initiatives to contribute to a viable future existence for the city. Conservation and continued use of old buildings are vital in providing diversity in tenure, cheap rent alternatives and eclectic uses (good 'urban grain')as well as their obvious historic, architectural and emotional value, and so must be encouraged where conducive to contemporary needs. Moves to create false, heritage based landscapes and limiting of new development for spurious ‘conservation reasons' though, will be vehemently countered.

The city always has developed organically, developing the most appropriate infrastructure for the uses at the time and this must be continued. Downtown Liverpool is not interested in relegating the city to a 'non-future' set in heritage aspic.

Neighbourhoods
The downtown area of Liverpool comprises a number of distinct though thoroughly integrated neighbourhoods. These range form the vibrant and historic Exchange district, which includes the areas around Castle and Water Street, to the sublimely attractive mainly residential neighbourhood of Canning.

Each of these areas have a primary function, which every good downtown neighbourhood must have, with tremendous potential to take on more mixed activities. Downtown Liverpool celebrates all that is best of the districts at present and helps identify ways in which to improve them even more!

Campaigning for the Contemporary, City-Scale, Hi-Quality.
Fighting against Mediocrity, 'Heritagisation', Compromise.

Liverpool has always been a brash, confident and forward-looking city; a city of superlatives, essentially modern and this has been reflected in its great architecture and architectural innovations.

Liverpool's development tradition has always been to use the latest designs, best architects and cutting edge technologies.

The city has now regained confidence and has a surety in its future after many years of timidity. We believe this renewed confidence and vigour must be reflected in its attitude to new development downtown. The city's skyline must reflect it's 21st century role and aspirations, not be preserved in aspic as if our present buildings will remian the sum total of our future building stock. Contemporary design will be supported by DL where quality is self-evident - wherever new development is happening.

Downtown Liverpool is an organisation rooted in New Urbanism, we therefore campaign for the maximum mix and intensity of building we will also support developments which use the best architects, materials and facilities. One of our goals is to facilitate the city's landscape to continue evolving rather than stitching itself into a fictitious heritage netherworld. This is of course essential to Liverpool's image as well as it's ability to actually function as a dynamic, commercial city.