The Rise of New Design in Old London

Milestone 2: Regent Street

by Jacob Dupuis

Photography / Architecture

Place Holder

Abstract

The paragraph should give a three to five sentence abstract about your entire London HUA experience including 1) a summary of the aims of your project, 2) your prior experience with humanities and arts courses and disciplines, and 3) your major takeaways from the experience. This can and should be very similar to the paragraph you use to summarize this milestone on your Profile Page. It should contain your main Objective, so be sure to clearly state a one-sentence statement that summarizes your main objective for this milestone such as "a comparison of the text of Medieval English choral music to that of the Baroque" or it may be a question such as "to what extent did religion influence Christopher Wren's sense of design?"

Introduction

I suggest you save this section for last. Describe the essence of this project. Cover what the project is and who cares in the first two sentences. Then cover what others have done like it, how your project is different. Discuss the extent to which your strategy for completing this project was new to you, or an extension of previous HUA experiences.

As you continue to think about your project milestones, reread the "Goals" narrative on defining project milestones from the HU2900 syllabus. Remember: the idea is to have equip your milestone with a really solid background and then some sort of "thing that you do". You'll need to add in some narrative to describe why you did the "thing that you did", which you'd probably want to do anyway. You can make it easy for your advisors to give you a high grade by ensuring that your project milestone work reflects careful, considerate, and comprehensive thought and effort in terms of your background review, and insightful, cumulative, and methodical approaches toward the creative components of your project milestone deliverables.

Section 1: Background

In the heart of London you can find the ever so busy Regent Street, built with the purpose of being a path for Royalty and the first shopping district in the world. The street holds some of the most popular shopping destinations for tourists today. Regent Street sees millions of visitors every year and is one of the only places in London where tube stations are shut down due to being too crowded. (Footnote). Originating in the start of the 1800s, the street was one of the first develop and planned commercial space suring as a passage between parks. Mostly contained between Oxford and Piccadilly Circuses, he street brings many firsts to the city of London including the first area to allow later storefront hours, which shops being allowed to stay open until 7pm, in order to provide for the shoppers that would normally be caught in congestion.

The Street

Historical

Development

In 1810, John Nash began developing plans for the street, as commissioned by the city, previously the space was used for houses, but many surveys had been made under the order of Prince Regent (who would become King George IV), who was hoping for a link between his residence and the park now known as Regent Park. Building this link would allow for reduced traffic on existing paths, and this royally commissioned space would hopefully lead to improvements made to the surround areas of the city, cleaning up the divide between royal upper-class neighborhoods and the abutting impoverished working citizens. [John Nash John Nash] was commissioned to develop the plans for a connection between Oxford Street in the north, and Piccadilly below it. From Oxford Street an existing road connected to Regent Park, and Nash was instructed to connect his design to this road. Difficulty came with the Crown Estate unable to acquire the land in the desired site, causing a north-west curve at the Piccadilly end of the proposed road. The meeting locations on either end of the streets were to be developed into large circular junctions, which would be called circuses (derived from the Latin word circus ) These circuses, Piccadilly and Oxford, would help relieve traffic congestion and provide more open spaces for gathering and would go on to be prime locations for the inevitable development of the London Tube system. Looking from Piccadilly Circus, up the curve of Regent Street would be an area Nash called the Quadrant; this was his vision of where shopping and commercial business could occur, becoming a central hub for the wealth as they travel from their homes to the park, linking the upper class areas together in the city. To ensure that this was a high quality shopping area, Nash prohibited the real estate being used for butchers or any food processing businesses.

The plan was submitted to Parliament for consideration in 1813 after being finalized by Nash. The House of Parliament approved greatly of the idea as it would generate much needed jobs at the time and hopefully increase spending in the overall economy. 600,000 pounds (29,800,000 today) were assigned to Nash who would over oversee the development of the street and buildings surrounding it. The government would oversee him as he managed and assigned leases and drew in commercial businesses, while they gathered income from the costs of the initial proposed 99-year leases. Rental income began after 1819 when initial construction was complete on the street. Over the course of time the street would become a booming hub of fashion and imported or upper class products and see several redesigns of the facades upon expiration of the starting leases. Redesign plans have occurred many times by the Crown Estate who hoped to always keep the street looking as best as it could. While the street layout and patterns have remained the same, Nash’s original building designs have all been replaced, save for the All Soul’s Church, with the most recent reconstruction occurring in 2011.

Current

Facing declines in visits, the Crown Estate began a 10 year plan of redeveloping the street in the start of the 2000s. Part of this plan included selling some of the Quadrant Area and the Northern Area. Together with the Crown Estate, Regent street’s owners now include the Norwegian Government (Pensionary Oil Fund) and Hackett London. To avoid the sales of these areas leading to radical changes to the building fronts, the Crown Estate formed the Regent Street Conservation Area, which lists all of the buildings on the “Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.” The buildings in the Conservation are considered Grade II which means special care must be taken to preserve the exterior facade of the buildings. Part of the listing also prevents the buildings, or any new buildings in the area from being built any taller than the existing 5 story ones, and also requires architecture that is matching. Current leases on the street include commercial storefronts for brands such as Ferrari, Apple, H&M and other large luxury good sellers. The space is used still primarily for shopping, but also includes restaurants, luxury apartments and business space. Because of the listing of the Conservation area buildings, retailers and architects are incorporating modern design in their storefronts and commercial spaces, blending the traditional looks with new and exciting concepts.

Regent Street Gallery

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Retail Spaces / Offices

Apple Store

- Regent Street flagship is designed by Foster & Partners. Open courtyard like space is used not only as a retail space but for interactive community events and workshops. Contains spaces such as The Forum and the Boardroom that allow for many different types of gatherings to occur inside the space. The store initially launched in 2004.

Liberty

- Arthur Lasenby Liberty started in 1874, developing into the large department store that exists there today. Detail expansions and movements

H&M, Bose, Cos and Lululemon

These stores fit into the Grade II storefront listings,, and they have developed their own interior architecture styling that allow them to draw in customers.

221 Regent Street (Furla)

How this serves as center point for the street.
The design of the Information Kiosk and how the Princes Street space provides valuable space for development, and the Crown Estates plans for this space.


This section would go over existing spaces on Regent Street and how they have integrated new design into the existing buildings, and how the could have improved the integration. Will also go over the history of the spaces that these places now occupy.

Section 2: Deliverable

Additional Image

Re-envisioning / Designing the future of Regent street. Integrating commercial space into the existing buildings that is modern, while preserving the traditional feel of the area.

Street Layout

Envisioned Princes Street Space Replanned Efficient Travel

Retail Space

Reenvison/Blending Information Kiosk 221 Regent Street

Gallery

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Conclusion

In this section, provide a summary or recap of your work, as well as potential areas of further inquiry (for yourself, future students, or other researchers).

External Links

If appropriate, add an external links section