Designer Thomas Heatherwick's studio has proposed retaining and rewilding the frame of a partly demolished shopping centre to form a new mixed-use development and public leisure space in Nottingham.
The development focuses on the site of the former Broadmarsh shopping centre in Nottingham, UK, which was abandoned mid-demolition when developers Intu went into administration at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a plan devised by Heatherwick Studio together with development company Stories, parts of this ruin would be retained and integrated with new structures as both a creative response to the site and a way of reducing carbon emissions from construction.
The Broad Marsh development will bring an acre of green space along with shops, businesses, homes and leisure facilities to the Nottingham city centre The plan for this 20-acre area of the city centre incorporates 750 new homes, office and conference space, high-quality ground-floor retail, an acre of wildlife-rich green space, an event space and a rejuvenation of the entrance to Nottingham's cave network.
Heatherwick said that the project had been a chance to think about "the failure of our city centres" in the wake of the pandemic.
"They should be about bringing people together, not just about retail," he said. "Rather than demolish the structure, we are proposing to keep the frame and breathe new life into it, creating a place that can hold the diversity and vibrancy that is so lacking from ...