ancr
	PLANNING The Art Gallery has two scales of urban space which surround it; the relatively domestic scale of the area immediately surrounding it near Park Street and the large scale landscape of the canal over which the Gallery commands magnificent views. The Pub, Art Gallery and canal side building sit upon a striped carpet. The canal is cut out of the carpet. The stripes negotiate the undulating surface of the square and are parallel when viewed from the top of the Art Gallery. The stripes are a datum against which the landscape and its undulations, retaining walls and edges can be read. The carpet does not differentiate between pedestrian and vehicular surface. Animation of the Gallery Square happens when it is occupied by people; passing through, gathering to have a drink, park their bikes or eat lunch, separate from but adjacent to the town centre. Lighting is on 18m galvanised steel columns which tower over the space and relate to the scale of the Gallery, creating a large high volume of light which has a distinctively different quality and brightness to light in Park Street. The facade of the Art Gallery will be floodlit from the rooves of BHS and Woolworths. A grass slope with a grid of trees sits on the edge of the canal basin and looks back to the Art Gallery. It is the only piece of green space so near to the town centre. The intention is for the carpet to stretch along the canal tow path as a generator for new developments adjacent to the canal. This application, however, seeks approval only for the area immediately surrounding the Art Gallery and therefore the stripes in this application start to move alongside the canal with a bold stripe of planting adjacent, and finish just beyond the basin. The main pedestrian access to the Art Gallery is from Park Street where the ground slopes at 1:12 at its steepest but reduces very quickly to 1:19 and becomes flat at Wolverhampton Street. From the coach drop off point to the Gallery entrance is flat. Parking spaces for the disabled are provided behind the Gallery and in the pub car park. The 'furniture' of the square is simple and robust. Retaining walls and steps are of black concrete and they belong to the language of the surface rather than the language of the gallery which has a stainless steel base. Service routes through the site are mostly covered by removable multispan cast iron recessed covers, to allow the surface treatment to flow over them. Other manholes will have solid cast iron covers. Bollards are also of a simple metropolitan design in cast iron painted black, except as they will be required to be removed when they are in lighter weight aluminium. Cycle stands sit near the entrance to the Gallery and are made in galvanised steel.
	anchor.01
TOP