3.
Design Principles
What are we aiming for?
Before we present you with bespoke ideas for Ryde, let us introduce some key concepts and case studies that have proven to be successful approaches in other towns and high streets across the world. The schemes below feature interactive street furniture, patterned paving and playful elements to create a vibrant public realm and enrich the experience of a public place at the human level.
Here is some of our inspiration:
Patterned street paving which transformed a gloomy environment between apartment blocks into a place with identity, creating a social public space in Barcelona, Spain
Human interaction born from the colourful benches at Jissen Women’s University, Tokyo
Transformation of a marginal space at the edge of a roadway into a vibrant and green active place creating an environment for interaction and play in Hadera, Israel
Interactive street furniture encouraging children to play and facilitating social interaction in Kings Crescent redevelopment, Hackney, London
'The Shower of Lights' which uses sunlight to transform the transparent acrylic panels into colourful butterflies, serving as a playground for kids in Nanchang Kan River District, China
A new town development with a distinctive identity, integrated with children's play zones in Zhengzhou, China
Contemporary landscape play installation which uses joyful vibrant colours in a playable landscape intervention in Moscow, Russia
A spatially coherent and green open space connecting two plazas, creating a distinct urban identity in Hamburg, Germany
A Healthy and Inclusive Town Centre
The social and economic success of town centres is conditional on it being a place where people feel happy, safe, welcomed, included, valued and comfortable. It needs to be a place in which they will spend time and money and want to return to.
A healthy town centre is a space in which all members of the community feel safe, welcome and are able to be themselves. Good urban design can successfully bring together the elements necessary to create places that enable people to feel safe and happy, take care of themselves, socialise, feel included, participate, take part, voice dissent, have agency and not feel inhibited.
Key interventions for Ryde High Street that would express the principle of the healthy town centre would involve creation of an excellent quality public realm including at the town squares and creating places for people to meet and gather. Outdoor spaces should be flexible so they can be used for different types of events, and they should include street furniture, details and features that are convivial and social.