‘City centres thrive when they are accessible, inclusive and have identity’

Up and down the country, large department stores and major retailers have shut up shop in towns and cities, leaving beleaguered shopping centres and high streets half empty and accelerating the need to reinvent what they offer.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for these once iconic buildings. If we are genuinely to improve towns, cities and shopping centres, we need large spaces that can be reimagined as something more useful or to create something that is missing from a place.

They can be repurposed to improve and enliven spaces in the heart of our urban centres, to give people new reasons to visit as well as helping to underpin trade for remaining retailers in an area.

There’s a lot of activity across the country involved in creating new spaces from redundant retail buildings, with a plethora of alternative uses being proposed.

At BDP, we have developed projects around the UK, showing that a local, targeted approach is the most successful.

These projects range from new health facilities in a shopping centre in Poole to the conversion of the former House of Fraser in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, into vibrant new workspace with further space earmarked for retail and leisure.

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How might this translate for the former Marks & Spencer store, an anchor of Bristol’s Broadmead shopping quarter for 70 years?

The company’s decision to close was driven by changes in consumer shopping habits and the shift to buying online.

The news of the high street giant’s departure sets a challenge for the retail-led neighbourhood for how it can remain a vibrant neighbourhood and economic engine for the city.

In the context of a climate emergency, it is important to repurpose as much of the existing fabric as possible. It is a well-connected site, with good transport links, which supports the principle of a 15-minute city, where people can live, work and play within a short walk or cycle ride.

City centres thrive when they are accessible, inclusive and have identity, bringing character and building a sense of ‘place’, which is already one of Bristol’s key strengths.

To achieve this, we would bring a mix of uses to the three-storey building, with spaces for living, working and smaller areas of retail and leisure.

Ambitious plans were unveiled in 2017 for the future of Broadmead – image: Hammerson

In a similar way to the results of a feasibility study we carried out for an ex-department store site in Bath, we could keep the retail element of the repurposed building on the ground floor as it provides an active frontage which will attract people into the building.

This might be combined with cafes, restaurants and other food and drink outlets and leisure spaces. Working together, these will provide a social focus inside the building, for people to gather, spend time and interact.

Retrofitting different space requirements into old and often historic buildings can be a real challenge.

The former M&S building itself is very deep, spanning between the roads of Broadmead and the Horsefair. This presents difficulties in providing adequate levels of daylight in the middle of the building, both to provide an attractive environment for people and to meet today’s sustainable and well-being standards.

To overcome this, it may be possible to carve out a courtyard in the top floor or create areas of roof glazing to let in more natural light, with homes arranged around this.

The spaces below can then be transformed into state-of-the-art offices, arranged at the front and back of the building which have windows to the outside.

Common areas such as meeting rooms, storage spaces and print rooms, which do not have such a pressing need for natural light can then be placed towards the deeper part of the building.

Deeper floor spaces can also accommodate leisure and entertainment venues for example bowling, a cinema or a gym.

Broadmead’s M&S closed in early January after 70 years – photo: Ellie Pipe

There are other options we could consider too. Some of the potential reuse can be through community functions such as healthcare facilities.

Elsewhere in the UK, we have looked at a floor of a similar building becoming a health village, which could also provide a theme for the retail outlets below to form a cluster.

One interesting example on the healthcare front is the fact that we are likely to see more community diagnostic hubs in city centres to respond to a drive to keep people out of hospital and ensure people take responsibility for their own health.

With good public transport links across the city, the former M&S building is accessible and close to other healthcare facilities such as the BRI and other hospitals.

Also, recently, the University of Bristol revealed plans to relocate its new Dental School to the city centre into 1 Trinity Quay which is currently offices, again showing the way repurposing and retrofitting in city centres is becoming increasingly common – of course feeding into a drive towards cities’ sustainability targets too.

To turn the famous and now-discarded advertising slogan on its head, maybe in the future, this will not just be an M&S store, it will be a multi-purpose place to shop, live, work and relax, with added community uses like healthcare.

A place that helps breathe new life into Broadmead, and perhaps that provides a worthwhile legacy for this much-loved icon in Bristol.

Nick Fairham is chief executive of global design practice BDP and head of its Bristol studio

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read more: What does the future hold for Broadmead?

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