2010 Pier Head canal link, Liverpool
Architect: AECOM Design + Planning
Client: Liverpool City Council / British Waterways
Contractor: Balfour Beatty
Structural engineer: Arup
Services engineer: Liverpool 2020
Contract value: £22m
Date of completion: June 2009
Gross internal area: 270,000 sq ft, 25,000 sq m
The regenerator, Liverpool Vision: The idea of a new waterway connecting the Leeds Liverpool canal with the Liverpool South Docks was conceived by British Waterways in 2000. This was the year when Liverpool Vision's Strategic Regeneration Framework for the city centre highlighted improvements to the Pier Head as vital to the development of the city centre waterfront.
A masterplan prepared by planning consultants EDAW established the basic configuration for the new development. Initial plans were refined in discussion with the planning authority, English Heritage, CABE, landowners and developers. Funding to deliver the scheme was obtained from NWDA, Homes and Communities Agency, Peel Holdings and the Merseyside Objective One programme.
Jointly managed by British Waterways and the City Council, the project highlights the importance of effective working relationships between partners and landowners and a tightly managed, multi-disciplinary project team to deliver coherently a complex pattern of uses in a heritage setting.
The judges
It also creates a new point of entry to Liverpool through the extension of the canal. This has been dramatised by the landscaping. Spaces akin to amphitheatres sink into the ground around the canal turning the waterway into a kind of stage.
Meanwhile the Pier Head has become a large urban park, drawing on its heritage, that can accommodate big public events but which also has its more intimate spaces with planting used to create softness.
