# Nottingham:  Revamp of Old Market Square wins three awards.  Why?



## JHE (Mar 13, 2008)

OLD MARKET SQUARE SCOOPS THREE AWARDS 

The design of the city's redeveloped Old Market Square has picked up three awards in a national competition. 

The Civic Trust Awards, held in Newcastle last week, saw 30 awards handed out to a short list of 100 projects. 

Nottingham's square, designed by architects, Gustafson Porter, scooped gongs for Outstanding Contribution to the Public Realm, Hard Landscaping, and a Special Regeneration Award. 

A spokesman for the city council said: "We are delighted. It has proved popular with the public. 

"The design is working in the way we hoped it would. It works as a public space, where people can meet, and also as a place where events staged.​
Continued:  http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/d...me=yes&more_nodeId1=133951&contentPK=20141418


It's not too bad, I suppose - I've seen worse - but it's not that great either, is it?  To scoop all those awards the other candidates must have been pretty crap.

Do you think the (new) Old Market Square deserves the awards?

Is it true that it cost £7million?


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## mauvais (Mar 13, 2008)

I haven't been there for a year or so but back then it looked shite - like Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens but with no grass. It did cost a huge amount & was massively late whilst they fucked about getting the right kind of stone or something.


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## SpookyFrank (Mar 16, 2008)

It's so white and shiny you can't walk across it on a sunny day without getting half-blinded. If that's not a pretty big design snafu I don't know what is.


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## spawnofsatan (Mar 16, 2008)

Its extremely dull.


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## 8ball (Mar 17, 2008)

It's a big concrete slab


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## Fuzzy (Mar 18, 2008)

what other good civic spaces won what awards? the UK doesnt really do creating public civic space very well. maybe this was just the best of a bad bunch?


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## 8ball (Mar 18, 2008)

You could have a point.

Though the main 'innovative' feature I noticed was designing surfaces to make them no fun for skateboarders.  I guess it's a good job they stopped short of automated CS gas-grenade cannons to sort out anyone spotted smirking or chewing gum.


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## rich! (Mar 18, 2008)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's so white and shiny you can't walk across it on a sunny day without getting half-blinded. If that's not a pretty big design snafu I don't know what is.



You expect Nottingham council to *clean* it?


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## Supine (Mar 20, 2008)

Nottingham council clean it every morning. Honestly, I see them doing it on the way to work. 

The main feck up though is the 'water feature' designed by the same person who made that disastrously slippy Dianna memorial feature in London. Yet again the design wasn't quite right. The thing has needed remedial work to stop it leaking out the sides and it doesn't fill with water evenly the way it was supposed to.

The only really good feature is the line of water fountains. Kids run around getting soaked in the summer which looks like ace fun. Even better though, the fountains turn off when it gets too windy. When the wind drops they start-up without warning and soak the emo kids who congregate near them


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## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2008)

Fuzzy said:


> what other good civic spaces won what awards? the UK doesnt really do creating public civic space very well.



Quite. Methinks the revamp of Nottingham square was done to make the space more useful to various people who may wish to use it to make money. Like that ice rink they had last christmas; here you go everyone, a big public ice rink right in the middle of town. Oh, and it's seven quid a go. The fucking cheek of charging people to use something that's taking up their public space without their permission


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## lang rabbie (Mar 21, 2008)

The whole thing was done to really crap standards of detailed design and construction.   

For example, instead of making sure that all of the new locations for services fitted neatly into the paving grid, the contractors just plonked the brickwork for the inspection chambers in at the new ground levels, meaning that everyone of the covers has a jigsaw of little bits of slab to try and line them up with the slabs on either side.


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## krow (Mar 21, 2008)

It's fucking horrible. Esoteric 'lines'. Grass and a pond would have been cheaper and actually pleasant.


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## Gromit (Mar 21, 2008)

I prefered it how it was before tbh. Its characterless now.


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## JE:5 (Mar 26, 2008)

Total waste of money IMO.


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