Created for Bradford Council, the Bradford City Park has been judged as the ‘transformative’ and ‘socially inclusive’ park, which was completed in March 2012.
Located between the retail heart of Bradford and the National Media Museum, Bradford theatres, Railway Stations and the University, the City Park is a £24.5 million ($39.18 million) scheme, which has been developed in collaboration between the client, designers and contractor.
Designed to bring a long-term benefit to the city and the Bradford district as a whole, the City Park includes water features, trees and attractive green spaces, public conveniences and office/retail space.
The City Hall reflects and showcases the 19th century Grade I listed City Hall at the centre of the park. It also features the UK’s largest city centre water feature, a 3600 square metre ‘Mirror Pool’, which includes more than 100 fountains. The water feature is installed with fountains, fog machines, geysers and the 30 metre high ‘Bradford blast’.
In order to reflect different moods of the city, the body of water can ebb and flow. At different times of the day the water surface is lowered to reveal a causeway opening, which creates an alternative pedestrian route through the space.
Dividing the pool into three individual features, the causeway can be drained independently or together to provide flexible event spaces for the community. Despite the size of the pool, the water is very shallow (260mm max) changing depth gradually, which creates a safe, flexible and dynamic space and simplifies the maintenance and cleansing operations, whilst reducing water consumption.
City Park has also included a number of sustainable features in its design like a fully accessible ‘changing place’ for all park users, improved public transport, key pedestrian and cycle routes to whole life cycle design to ensure optimum life and fit for purpose solutions.
Other sustainable features, which are included in the park are borehole and rainwater capture to supplement the water supply, optimum water depth to reduce consumption while maintaining the visual impact. Eighty nine per cent of local resources have been employed to provide training and work experience for schools and universities.
In order to deliver a flexible, playful night-time setting as well as maintaining the functional requirements, the park has employed the carefully- balanced lighting scheme. Lighting levels have been selected to best balance the differing pedestrian experiences, aiding navigation around the park and challenging the traditional ‘blanket’ lighting approach to large scale landscaped spaces.
In order to deliver well-balanced light, the park features ten 17 metre tall feature columns, which are developed in collaboration with artist Wolfgang Buttress, incorporating functional lighting equipment, lasers and interactivity sensors. The fountains and integrated colour changing LED lights are included in the lighting scheme to create a well-lighted space.
The light show in combination with Haque Design and Research’s interactive Another Life art installation creates a dramatic atmosphere through the use of low intensity laser projections onto the plaza surface.
Managed via a central control system, the lighting system has been programmed to automatically respond to the operating mode of the pool, optimising lighting provision to both the rising and falling water levels and artistic laser show requirements.
To complement the fountain feature and artistic layer, the functional lighting has been controlled, which also avoids the unnecessary lighting of areas. The integrated architectural, artist and feature lighting concept for the mirror pool basin achieves a peak consumption of less than 1kw of energy.
Designed to hold large scale events such as carnivals, markets, theatre productions and community festivals, the City Park is a multi-functional public space.
Organised by Lux magazine and the Lighting Industry Association, The Lux Award has been designed to celebrate and reward both creativity and sustainability.
