Project Info:
Among the first elements to be completed within the development were Fairgate's transport interchange, car park and pedestrian link bridge to the southern end of the site. These provide the logistical anchor to the development, their design helping to reinforce new routes between the riverfront and the heart of Paradise Street, with the spaces between each building in the composition becoming almost as important as the volumes themselves. The car park design is refined to the simplest and most efficient of layouts: a stack of orthogonal parking floor plates with pedestrian bridge, ramps, lifts and other services plugged into the façades. The movement of vehicles and pedestrians inside is celebrated with the addition of a translucent fibreglass screen to the west elevation. Nearby, the bus station is signalled by two elegantly twisting, timber-lined canopies that geometrically reference the shape of a ship's hull in response to the location, which is on the site of the original Liverpool Old Dock.