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DERBY | Projects & Construction

462K views 3K replies 108 participants last post by  NOTTZTV 
#1 ·
Derby believe it or not has some money being spent on it, its nearly xompleted its new shopping center, and its spending 100 million on doing up its decrepid bus station with bars clubs and restaurants.

ill try and post the devlopments when i hav emore time...
 
#181 ·
As Derby is finally getting some much needed investment, I wondered which areas of the city fellow forumer's would you like to see improved. Is there a building that you would like bringing back to life or one that you would like to see the bulldozers getting there hands on.
 
#188 ·
I wouldn't mind seeing the former Audley Centre at the top of East Street 'helped on its way', especially when you see what state it's in at the moment. It's a clear public health and safety risk and makes a nonsense of the recent refurbishment of the area. I usually like to stand up for more Modernist types of building as opposed to more Traditionalist ones, but when I look at old photos of the grand Midland Drapery where this building stands - or rather falls :lol: - I think to myself, "things have gone backwards, haven't they?".

I get the same feeling looking at the building next to 'my' beloved Co-Op that houses the Birds shop, dating from the period when there was a huge crisis of confidence in 'the Modern', the 1980s, resulting in a hopeless mish-mash of styles. The contrast with the Co-Op - built getting on for half a century earlier - is cruelty personified. Get rid of it and build a Modernist curved corner in its place ASAP!

...likewise the shops on the south-west side of Albion Street (the bottom end). Why there couldn't have been more architectural unity when the area was redeveloped in the early 1990s goodness only knows. I like the ones on the other side and nearer Westfield on that side, but the others are a quite frankly messy, sick joke.

As everybody on the E.M. Forum knows, in my opinion the No. 1 priority for sensitive refurbishment and re-use is the former Debenhams. It's a building that reminds any viewer just what a bright, confident, fun time the 1960s was (the first artist's impression of the building we know today appeared on the front page of the 'DET' on the very eve of the decade) and should be allowed to 'swing' (round that corner?) once again.

Other 'priority' buildings are:
Zanzibar.
The Hippodrome.
The Central United Reformed Church (in conjuntion with the former Debenhams)
The Queen Street frontage of the Queen's Leisure Centre complex (now that the former Kennings Showrooms/Garage building has been refurbished).

I'll no doubt come back to this at length.
 
#191 ·
How could we miss Cityscape around these parts:lol:

As one of the parties behind the demolition of Aslin's Bus Station D.C. can't exactly be described as a 'natural friend' of mine but they are at least allowing for the refurbishment of Aslin's Police Station/Magistrates' Court, so they can't be all bad. Since the Becket Well area falls within their ambit (and therefore, the former Debenhams) I'll believe that D.C. can indeed be a force for good only when I have definitive confirmation that they've succeeded in resisting the (oh so easy!) temptation of the wrecking ball in this instance. It's a potential case-in-point of what I describe as 'intelligent regeneration' - wielding a surgical scalpel as opposed to a sledgehammer.
 
#207 ·
Westfield UK details from westfield.com Australian parent co web site.
United Kingdom Head Office
Westfield Shoppingtowns Ltd
Company No. 03912122
VAT registration number 815 0326 63
Level 6, Midcity Place,
71 High Holborn,
London WC1V 6EA
Phone: +44 207 061 1400
Facsimile: +44 207 061 1401
Email: internet@westfield.com
They also have site for Derby.
Westfieldderby.co.uk
 
#213 ·
Went and visited the Westfield Centre today. Decent range of shops, the food court was excellent. Hate the look of the centre from the outside though completely dominates the city which is a shame. Also it was full of teenage kids, where are all of Derby's adults.... shopping in Nottingham perhaps.......????
 
#214 ·
Westfield has its good points, however I get the awful feeling the car park and cinema on top are seriously flawed, the car park seems very unpopular compared to the 'Basement' and **** Pitt - over Christmas it seemed to be the only car park with spaces (the rest were full). The Cinema may do well, but I can still see it being knocked down or externally reclad in the next few years.

I also don't like how the old and new centres mix. I'd probably have knocked down the Eagle Market, old Eagle Centre in its entirety and the Playhouse and made the development a mixture of enclosed shopping centre and open plan streets, with a wide shopping street running from the Spot down towards an open space besides the Morledge and a new playhouse building. A bit ambitious I know.

Buildings I dislike in Derby are the Audley Centre, BHS and the former Littlewood's, unfortunately it seems highly unlikely that any of those buildings will be demolished in the near future.

I do however would like to see more tall buildings in Derby as our Skyline just looks so boring with just Cathedrals - Jury's Inn, the flats on the Derwent opposite the Silk Mill are really promising. Cityscape wants a 10 storey office on Liversage Street Car Park - that in my opinion would fill the void at the **** Pitt Junction.
 
#215 ·
One of the good points about Westfield is that one can get to see views of the city that one would not ordinarily see thanks to the roof-level car-park. It was nice and empty when I went up there a few weeks back so walking about wasn't much of a problem!

If they do re-clad the Cinema I hope it won't be in a colour any more visible against the backdrop of the sky than it is currently. Actually, in that respect I think they've made the best out of a bad job.

Sounds like quite a dramatic fantasy scheme you had there for the parcel of land between The Spot and Morledge, thompski. It could have opened up a hitherto unseen vista, which may have been a nice addition to Derby's streetscape.

Although it may seem perverse to say this on a forum on a site called 'Skyscraper City' I think some contributors to the local media (print- and Web-based) are wont to get carried away by the idea of more high-rise architecture in Derby City Centre, as if this would improve the profile of the city. I happen to think that the city's 'sense of place' is more horizontally aligned but that this in no way should make the city think itself 'small' because of that. The city planners of Washington DC have imposed a vertical limit on proposed building schemes, but I don't think anyone thinks of DC as a 'small' city.
 
#216 ·
I keep hearing rumours about a rooftop garden on top of the 'Grey box' I was hoping for a glass/stone clad when the box was just a mere frame of girders. I dread to think what it'll look like after ten years of average British yearly rainfall!

I agree with what you say about tall buildings, and I don't think a 20 storey office block would look right in Derby, I think we are going the right way with the Riverlight's development, Jury's Inn and Castleward.
(
Anyway's heres some images of various developments (with plenty of 'curves'!)

Offices on Cathedral Road (opposite Queen Street baths)


Riverlights


Citygate House (to the rear of the Joseph Wright Centre)


Derby College's Roundhouse Campus


Concept art of Bold Lane regeneration


Redesigned Jury's Inn, this was approved last week.
 
#219 ·
I don't mind the offices adjacent to the Joseph Wright, though it does bring back memories of 1960s office blocks though with the modern twist of "dark grey metal and terracotta tiles" which is been overdone in every city in the UK at the minute! I'd have loved to have seen the original plan but I bet the Civic Society would be up in arms over the views of the cathedral obstructed.

I hated the bus station with a passion - it was not fit for purpose and quite frankly an embarrassment to the city. Some would say a lick of paint and some new windows might bring it upto date but the designs of the Bus Station Action Group to me was comparable to a 1960s tower block with 1990s reclad - just plain tacky. The new bus station from its initial designs looks light, open and certainly somewhere I would feel safe catching a bus from.
 
#220 ·
You mean THESE designs?

http://users.whsmithnet.co.uk/ceedeebeegermantranslators/madmodernist/CABS.html

With the best will in the world one cannot produce quite the same level of 'bells, whistles and knobs on' graphics when one was looking at a small band of people, some on very limited incomes (I was struggling, unsuccessfully but manfully, while at the same time trying to save the Station to get a translation/interpreting business off the ground, knowing that I'd probably alienated many in the local business community who may have been my clients, but I had to do what was right...I wouldn't have been able to live with myself otherwise) and also some elderly people with all the computer-phobia that entails (they aren't all the proverbial 'Silver Surfers', my mother, although I do sing the praises of the Web, thinks of anything to do with computers as empty and soulless and would not touch them with a bargepole, which some may see as a rather ostrich-like approach but one has to respect that point of view) when compared with all the battery of video presentations that the other side had at its disposal. I think we did very well under the circumstances and gave many in a lot more powerful a position than we were one almighty fright.

You may ask me whether or not I think it was worthwhile for ME to have apparently wasted nearly a decade or so of my life on the losing side, but I wouldn't have exchanged it for anything. We all grew in stature on our side while the opposition shrank...from their responsibilty to Derby's architectural heritage and to its efficient public transport.

All 'they' have succeeded in doing is to create several thorns in 'their' side. The Debenhams building campaign is the first exquisitely sharp prick on its way! (Of many!)...and this time I think there'll be powerful allies.

This is going to hurt them more than it'll hurt me:lol:
 
#222 ·
The Hoardings around Riverlights are being relocated to include the extended area as a result of changing the **** Pitt... hopefully work will start on that soon. Next week when i'm free for a day i'll go round and get photographs of various developments in Derby.

On another note Mr Curves Man have you ventured around the Joseph Wright Centre part of town? Theres numerous modern curved buildings in the vicinity in the form of the Magistrates Court, the Joseph Wright centre, Friar Gate Studios and i'm positive there's an older example on the corner of St Mary's Gate. With the other office development on Cathedral Road and Jury's Inn its going to be Curvetopia round there!
 
#223 ·
I'm strongly thinking of adding the JWC to my DDCCDDMM virtual tour of the City Centre, especially since its designers, Cedar House Investments, is a Peter Gadsby company and he's one of the parties interested in the former Debenhams. Did you know that he's been on BBC Radio Derby saying that it may NOT be necessary to knock down the existing building for what he'd have in mind for the Becket Well area? If that turns out to be the case then he's my man as things stand. Of course, these are early days, so things may change.

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/d...uleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch

While Friar Gate Studios are reasonably pleasing aesthetically the edge is somewhat taken off them when one considers what one hears about the occupancy rates. I hope they aren't going to be a white elephant.

You are indeed correct about the building at the junction of St. Mary's Gate and Bold Lane. That was designed in 1935 by T.H. Thorpe, who three years later went on to design the much grander Royal Telegraph on the corner of Traffic Street and London Road. It was, as the Star & Garter, one of the shortest-living pubs in Derby history, since it was requisitioned by local government at the outbreak of WWII and has remained in public hands ever since. If one looks at the two buildings the similarity in style hits one in the eyes straight away. Ironically the one whose use was changed seems to have remained more faithful to the initial design than the one which is still a pub. Oh why oh why didn't the owners do a better job of replacing the low-slung, Crittall glazing at the RT?:bash:
 
#225 ·
On Tuesday I had a trip up to Doncaster to see the fomer Co-Operative Department Store building on St. Sepulchre Gate that is something of a Streamline Moderne icon and a Grade II Listed Building (now T.J. Hughes) and when I was at the railway station in Derby I took a look at the leaflets showing the proposals and was rather underwhelmed myself. The impression I gained was that there would be an air of the temporary about the place since the proposed canopies don't look all that substantial to me. My only hope is that, in this case, appearances can be deceptive.

I was very impressed by Doncaster's new bus interchange, BTW - THIRTY bays (as opposed to TWENTY-FOUR at the Riverlights station) in the middle of a place of about Chesterfield's size - AND a drive-through as opposed to Riverlights' tightly-packed pull-in/reverse-out layout...and in many respects (though admittedly not in ALL) the new Frenchgate Centre trumps Westfield Derby, I'm afraid to say. One does have to keep in mind that Doncaster is not only competing with nearby Sheffield, but also Meadowhall, which I suppose concentrates the mind wonderfully!
 
#227 ·


I've been trying to find some new images of Derby developments, the only new one I've found is of the Ramada Encore Hotel which is opening late 2008.

Does anyone know any new info on Riverlights, I'm worried this is going to be a bad development in terms of architectural design. The last designs I saw were done over 4 years ago, will they be updated?
 
#229 ·
They recently resubmitted the application and the residential blocks are going to be increased in size to eight storeys each. If you look around on the council website the planning application and plans are on there.

The Ramada Hotel is going to be on Pride Park, probably near the station as that's the only bit of land left, might look quite good if its built close to the railway line.

The Jury's Inn looks the most promising, its quite different to most Jury's Inn's built in recent years and fits in well with the architectural style in that area preceded by the Joseph Wright Centre and Friar Gate Studios. Pity the council couldn't tell Westfield to redesign the mess that is that shopping centre.
 
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