Streetspace

PROJECT OVERVIEW

StreetSpace is a research and teaching project at the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen's University Belfast. StreetSpace works in collaboration with academia, government and local communities to analyse streets and fulfil their potential to be people-centred, accessible and inclusive public places.

This project investigates the significance of local mixed streets through their urban form, histories and experiences. It establishes links with other disciplines and seeks to enable the dialogue between academia, policy and the public thorough the organisation of local workshops, symposia and exhibitions. Mixed use streets are complex and connect diverse areas of the city. They have evolved slowly through history, but can be radically transformed by redevelopment. Scholars value their plurality, diversity and authenticity; while urban designers and planners value their physical aspects, often overlooking the social construct of the people who use them. On the other hand, policy makers look for the social, economical and political value of mixed use streets. To be able to bridge this gap between academia, practice and policy we need to understand all these values. So, how can we study streets beyond the usual tools of built environment professionals? StreetSpace seeks to understand the significance of mixed use streets, by analysing their physical, historical and experiential aspects. The project particularly uses methods of ethnography and graphic anthropology to tell the stories of a place and find out where the value is in those places. It explores streets with a rich mix of uses, with complex histories and especially those that risk losing their distinctive character.

Dr Agustina Martire (Principal Investigator, QUB)

PhD Students:
Anna Skoura
James Hennessey
Thomas McConaghie
Chris Karelse

Teaching Assistants:
Pat Wheeler
Kayla Rush (Anthropology)
Federica Banfi (Anthropology)

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Impact of Research

The project has been funded since 2017 by the Department for Communities to deliver workshops, design studios, a website and a series of publications. The project is a platform for collaboration between QUB, the Department for Communities, Belfast City Council and local NGOs such as Participation and the Practice Rights, Sailortown Regeneration, PLACE, UAH, Sustrans, Right to the City Alliance, Healthy Cities, Friends of the Earth, and Seedhead Arts. The project has held workshops in Belfast (2015/16/17/18/19), Buenos Aires (2012), Edinburgh (2013) Kilkenny (2013), London (2017), Naples (2017) and Ljubljana (2018).

As co-chair of the SaveCQ campaign, Dr Martire built on the principles of her research, to propose new methods of analysis and intervention for the development a sustainable, fair and accessible city, specifically in Belfast Cathedral Quarter. The campaign, through social media, deputations in Belfast City Council and local media, has managed to raise public awareness of the importance of this area to the city and to challenge the brief of Castlebrooke developers. The campaign attracted 4000 objections to the proposal in the pre application process and more than 200 unique letters of objection to the planning application to Council. In June 2019 the developers have radically changed their brief, encompassing the form and use of the whole 12-acre city centre development in the Cathedral Quarter from an office and franchised retail scheme, to a primarily residential, local retail, and public-space based development.

Major grants and funding

Department for Communities (Northern Ireland) funded the following:

Street Space Studio - Workshop and Public Exhibition
Martire, A.
Department for Communities: £5,483.00
01/02/2018 → 31/03/2018
Award date: 20/03/2018
Award: Other Government Departments (OGD)

StreetSpace Studio 2018-19 – workshop, documentary and public exhibition
Martire, A.
Department for Communities: £6,395.00
01/01/2019 → 30/06/2019
Award date: 21/12/2018
Award: Other Government Departments (OGD)

StreetSpace Studio 2018-19 – workshop, documentary and public exhibition
Martire, A.
Department for Communities: £756.00
01/01/2019 → 30/06/2019
Award date: 17/04/2019
Award: Other Government Departments (OGD)

StreetSpace Studio 2019-20 – workshop, documentary and public exhibition
Martire, A.
Department for Communities: £13,184.00
15/10/2019 → 31/07/2020
Award date: 28/10/2019
Award: Other Government Departments (OGD)

Publications

Recent papers published by the Research group:

Keeffe, G. and Cullen, S. (2021) ‘A flexible scaffold: design praxis and the FEW-nexus’, in Roggema, R. (ed.) TransFEWmation: Towards Design-led Food-Energy-Water Systems for Future Urbanisation. Switzerland: Springer Nature. p. 95-106.

Cullen, S. and Keeffe, G. (2021) ‘Spatialised method for analysing the impact of food’, in Roggema, R. (ed.) TransFEWmation: Towards Design-led Food-Energy-Water Systems for Future Urbanisation. Switzerland: Springer Nature. p. 107-124.

Cullen, S. and Keeffe, G. (2020) ‘Effective food: design and urban agriculture in the post-carbon city.’ Planning Post Carbon Cities: 35th PLEA Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, A Coruña. 1st-3rd September 2020: Proceedings. Rodrigez Álvarez, J. & Soares Gonçalves, J. C. (eds.). A Coruña: University of A Coruña & Asoc. PLEA 2020 Planning Post Carbon Cities, Vol. 1. p. 736-742.

Cullen, S., Keeffe, G., Campbell, E. and Logan, K., 2020. ‘End-of-the-line urbanism: reprogramming the FEW-nexus of the city-region for a post carbon society’. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET 2019) 20-22 August. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 2. p. 386-394.

Collaborators

This project collaborates with the following organisations:

Department for Communities (Regeneration Division)

Department for Communities (Housing Division)

Belfast City Council (Regeneration Division)

Belfast City Council (Local Development Plan)

Sailortown Regeneration https://www.sailortownregeneration.com/

Household https://householdbelfast.co.uk/

Ulster Architectural Heritage https://www.ulsterarchitecturalheritage.org.uk/

Participation and the Practice of Rights https://www.pprproject.org/about-ppr

PLACE https://discovernorthernireland.com/things-to-do/place-p689851

SaveCQ https://savecq.wordpress.com/

Sustainable Development Goals

The project has at its heart the following goals for sustainable development:

- Social sustainability for a fair future. In the progress towards greener cities and streets, their development needs to consider all the people that live in them, especially those more disadvantaged. StreetSpace uses ethnographic and anthropological methods to understand the stories of people and place, to give them value and consider them in the future development of Belfast neighbourhoods.

- Heritage as a social, cultural and sustainable asset. Our approach always aims to preserve as much of the built fabric as possible, to keep the carbon footprint of our proposals to an absolute minimum.

Find out more

https://streetspaceresearch.com

Contact details

Augistina Martire, a.martire@qub.ac.uk

https://www.streetspace-sailortown.com/

https://twitter.com/agusmartire

SaveCQ

All info on: https://www.facebook.com/saveCQBelfast/

Achievements and highlights:

by June 2019: 3747 followers on Facebook/1027 followers on Twitter.

April 2017

2262 unique letters of objection sent to Castlebrooke developers to comment on the form, program, process and content of the proposal submitted.
Media: Slugger O’Toole, BBC, Belfast Telegraph

July 2017

1464 unique letters to object to Phase 1b of the proposal by Castlebrook Piece on The Guardian.

February 2018

Predetermination hearing in Belfast City Council Planning Committee

March 2018

A. Martire - Predetermination hearing in Belfast City Council planning Committee https://minutes3.belfastcity.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=43051
Irish Times

November 2018

Tribeca Belfast all over the news:

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/northern-ireland/developer-unveils-apartments-plan-for-listed-belfast-city-centre-building-37385966.html

http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2018/11/30/news/save-cq-says-tribeca-belfast-superficial-branding-exercise--1497490/?fbclid=IwAR2eK9Ycn5HhlWPKJWtzglfIOm4nvdgeLOwUcq1PCRz0pz7UrQoP_MjBGFk

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/belfast-is-not-new-york-plan-to-call-city-centre-project-tribeca-met-with-derision-37579695.html

January 2019