Bristol in 50 years: Rob Gregory

As part of a series of articles and opinion pieces looking at how Bristol is shaping up for the future, Bristol24/7 asked head of Architecture Centre Rob Gregory for his thoughts.

It is exciting to consider the future of Bristol and to form a vision of what sort of place the city could become. But I am biased. I was born here and have more than just the professional connection with this place that comes with my role as Architecture Centre programme manager.

I have lived here most of my life and over four decades have seen positive change. It’s hard to believe, for example, that my school bus used to hurtle through Queen Square at pace, when one of our most impressive urban spaces was bisected by a four lane dual carriageway.

Harbourside has been transformed. Our public spaces are thriving and the connections between them have been made more legible. High streets and independent trade have a new lease of life. The list goes on.

None of these things, however, have happened by chance, as each of these individual successes have a complex back story and a long list of heroes and villains. What connects them all and what is essential to future improvements is that each step, large and small, has required vision; be that the vision of an individual, or a larger community of placemakers.   

The city council – despite the pressures of extreme budget cuts – holds great potential. We are asset rich in terms of land ownership and with this comes the ability to control and shape better places. The council’s staff, hidden away, too far from sight, includes many talented and committed people.

Our creative sector of designers, architects and landscape practitioners provides another innovative resource. And the city also benefits from an abundance of grass roots organisations that add richness to the mix and help ensure the vision for Bristol does not become a generic mission based purely on growth and servicing the needs of an ever increasing population. 

Over the next fifty years, the city will undoubtedly face more challenging growing pains. Where will we build the new homes that we increasingly need? How will we care for our ageing population? Should we expand beyond the city boundary? What about transport, energy production, and waste?  

The city is a complicated creature. It lives, breathes, thrives and gets sick. Over the last few years the Architecture Centre has worked to help more people understanding how Bristol works.

In 2013 three annual exhibitions culminated in a programme entitled, Living City, which compared the anatomy of the city with that of our bodies, drawing an analogy between healthy places and healthy people.

This year we continue our work with a year-long programme called City Ideas Studio, which considers how the architecture of the city relates to the five core themes of Bristol2015; food, nature, resources, energy and transport.

If I were to be step back however and be self-critical, too much of this has focused on the components of the city – the mechanics and the measurable, the diagnoses and the remedies. For this reason in 2016 we want to make a radical shift in perception, as we set out to consider more fundamental, emotional, and heartfelt responses to this city.

As we celebrate our 20th year as an organisation, we will look back at what has already been achieved in order to understand what vision we want for the future. What is this place? How did we get the city we have? Who or what shaped it? And what sort of city do we want to be in fifty years, and beyond?