Middlehaven

• Location:

  Middlesbrough, UK

• Site Area:

  4 Hectares (phase 1)

• Client:

  Tees Valley Regeneration
  BioRegional Quintain Ltd

• Architects:

  SMC Alsop
  Studio Egret West
  FAT

• Engineers:

  Martin Stockley Associates
  Buro Happold

• Quantity Surveyors:

  Davis Langdon

• Project value:

  £20 million (phase 1)

Middlehaven is currently planned to be the largest Zero Carbon project in Europe using the principles of One Planet Living as the basis for all development.

Grant Associates were commissioned to produce the public realm design for the first phase of the Middlehaven development. The strategic framework plan vision for Middlesbrough Dock was a bold statement – The Land of Giants. This was to be a radical landscape of pattern and colour, populated by giant built forms including ‘Sugar Cubes’ and ‘Prada Skirts’ (mixed-use buildings).

Our design includes an armature of giant lighting columns leading into the site from Middlesbrough city centre. These ‘oversize’ elements are complemented by giant arbor structures and semi-mature street trees. Public art is woven into the scheme with narrative tactile paving, chevron cubes (incidental seating) and giant ‘paint splat’ benches, all alluding to the site’s industrial history. The imaginative paving pattern binds the public realm together and cements its distinctive urban character.

Middlehaven was announced overall winner of the Big Urban Projects category at the MIPIM Architectural Review Future Project Awards 2007.