The impact of Designing Out Crime can't always be assessed immediately. Completed in 2000 after a period of collaboration with local people, Hulme Park was of immediate benefit to local people, a high proportion of whom lived in social housing and needed somewhere to enjoy open space and feel safe while they did.
This case study investigates the design process behind Hulme Park and how its designers wanted the space to be crime free. We update the story with details of how the area has changed in the ten years since Hulme Park was completed and look at whether a design approach to community regeneration has had a lasting impact in Hulme.
Parks do make a difference in a city centre. They are a vital relief from the claustrophobia of terraced high-rise life. They are havens of freedom and peace in the heart of constriction and clamour, they are oases of vibrant natural colour against a desert of pavement and concrete grey. They are balm to the mind and to the soul.
Which is all very pretty. But they are also great places to score drugs, mug passers-by, swap stolen goods and bully children. They’re a boon to vandals, because people have to cross large, open spaces to stop you spray- painting the wall, breaking the swings, etc. There’s plenty of room to leg it.
The transformation of Hulme, one mile from Manchester city centre, is fast becoming a legend in civic renaissance. The area was notorious for muggings, burglary, robbery and poor housing. As life there deteriorated during the 80s into a kind of living hell, it was decided that something had to be done. The local council and its partners secured substantial EC funding and began planning a total reconstruction of the area. The £2.2 million project to create a new park at its heart fell to Neil Swanson, the Practice Principal of Landscape Projects.
Neil Swanson: ‘It was a visionary project. Nothing like it had happened in Manchester for 50 years. We were being given the opportunity to build a park from scratch, to think: ‘What should a park be?’’ The brief was to design a safe and attractive park in the city centre that could be used by a range of different groups.
In short they wanted a park that was a wonderful place to be, rather than a dangerous place to be. But how was it possible to make the park open and welcoming, and yet secure?
The answer lay in the creation, not of physical, but of psychological barriers. The first technique was size. The park was never more than 70 metres wide at any point.
Neil Swanson: ‘A park should not be too deep, as this makes people feel uneasy. We can pick out figures at a distance of 70 metres, recognising age, gender, even perhaps facial expression. You can recognise people and, perhaps subconsciously, one is aware of not being anonymous.’
The second technique was surveillance. It was agreed that new housing would be built facing on to the park, partly to give residents a good view, and partly to increase the sense of security. Landscape Projects were happy to keep the road running through the middle of the park, and encouraged parking around the perimeter to increase the sense of busyness and watchfulness. For safety reasons the road needed to be fenced on both sides.
The type of fencing became a contentious issue. Neil: ‘You have to think of how it’s going to be abused. You have to be able to repair a small area, without needing to change the whole lot.’ Neil opted for a low brick wall, topped with black, horizontal steel railings built in removable sections. ‘You can see through horizontal railings much more easily than vertical ones. There used to be ‘sod off’ railings here. But this park is about welcome and inclusiveness. The council were concerned that children would hurt themselves if they sat on (and then fell off) the top horizontal bar, so we set it at an angle. They can climb the railings, but it is uncomfortable to sit on the top one. So they don’t do it.’
Landscape Projects prevented cars from entering the park with attractive stainless steel bollards. They cut small water-recycling trenches which also serve to stop bikers riding at high speed across the park. The firm developed a very open-plan style with pathways and roads connecting the park to other parts of the city. They wanted people to use it and so contribute to the sense of security and passive surveillance. Neil: ‘The more people about, the less is your fear of crime. You feel safe with people about.’
For Neil, it was vital that the park served all ages, especially children and teenagers. ‘It was important that we could create a space for young people to hang out.’ But who was he to say how their part of the park should be? ‘I felt it was vital that I got alongside the people who were going to use the park so we could design it specifically for them.’ So he set up a series of meetings with young people from the area. ‘The teenage group was extremely boisterous and enthusiastic. But it soon became apparent that the boys wanted loads of macho equipment in the park, and the girls really weren’t that bothered. So I tried bringing an artist in to work with mosaics and to see if he could capture their imagination. Frankly it was going nowhere and this whole part of the project began to look a bit sad. We had to rethink. ‘We realised that there was a big difference in the three age groups we were catering for. Adults like parks to be like big landscape gardens, children like lots of bright colours and playful stuff, and teenagers want something more provocative than a garden and not as ‘babyish’ as bright colours. And the girls wanted something different to the boys. Nightmare. But we eventually hit on a winning theme – swimming and surfing.’
‘We created a ‘swimming pool’ out of vandalproof resin-bonded glass that was coloured blue through to green. It’s beautiful to look at. We built two long benches out of tough laminated timber which look like surf or diving boards. And we brought in a boat builder from Bristol to create a ship-shaped rain canopy. It created a sense of beach fun, relaxation and colour that everyone enjoys. We also created play areas for children, including an exciting ‘treasure island’ near the school, complete with dunes, shipwrecks and ‘monsters’. Dogs are kept out by the doggie equivalent of a cattle grid. The kids love it and use it regularly. It’s a great place to be on a summer’s day – or night. And they care about it. There’s been no vandalism.
‘Next to the existing Proctor’s Youth Centre, we created an area designed specifically for sports coaches to train a whole team. It is a circular area, next to the football pitch, just five metres across so the coach can see the entire team. We have a skateboard area too, of course, with half pipes and jumps.
‘I’m very proud of this place. The Manchester Mardi Gras is going to start from here. And Rolls Royce are going to use it for a vintage car rally – well, the park is built on the site of the first Rolls Royce factory where they made the Silver Ghost. Parks are one of the last nonprivatised spaces where your activities are not proscribed by the owners. You’ve got to treat that seriously. It’s very important to people.’
The park has been relatively free from crime and was described by a local police officer as ‘a triumph of design’.