The good thing about a mixed and diverse place is that it feels a lot safer, and it's overlooked and it's not particularly bad for business. That's a way of empowering the pedestrian over the car. "Cars are at their own risk, and they drive very slowly there. "That is organised in a way that allows pedestrians and cars to be there but both, but particularly cars, need to be very aware of the fact that pedestrians could be in the middle of the street and there's nothing wrong with it. Cars can still enter it but it's interesting because it's based in a way that it doesn't have pavements. "If you think of Plymouth, and think of the area outside of Cornwall Street just outside the Marks and Spencer, that area is a mixed area. Cars haven't become great and pleasant so that also depends on how empowered you make cars. "At this point you might think if you put everyone together, cars are still unpleasant. "The underpasses were born out of this idea of creating a pedestrian environment which would separate them from the cars and the vehicle environment, but by doing that the more you separate things the more you create spaces you don't want as they only have one use. So cities are made for being together, in a compact way.Īn ideal walkway to Chaddlewood Shopping Centre (Image: Matt Gilley/Plymouth Live) "He looks at the shell of the tortoise like the shell of the city, and if you start dividing the shell of the tortoise, it dies. "He has these really nice, fun type of metaphor about zoning and these types of divisions. "In 2013 I was head of the school of Architecture and design and I invited a famous Brazilian architect to Plymouth," he said. The professor says cities are made for 'being together' in a compact way, rather than divided. "So when you are in a place like this you feel safe, you feel better because the place feels buzzing and lively so it's positive, it's nice." You feel safe when you're overlooked by not just passersby, but shopkeepers, by a variety of life. "Do you feel safe in those environments? Why don't you feel safe? Because there's no life. Boring Plymouth underpass is given an awesome makeover."For instance where should shops be? At the car level or at the pedestrian level? At the pedestrian level, as in Plymouth, there is nothing because when you are in the underpasses there's nothing. The reason is that the more you separate, the more you kill life in an environment because you limit the diversity of that environment and you limit life. "Nowadays the vast majority of urbanists see it as really bad. "But a more general point to make is that in the 1930s and then the 1950s a lot of urbanists saw this tendancy to divide and separate as good. So we'll drive people underground to make them safe from this. It's like saying cars are the most important thing in the city, more important than pedestrians and people. "One way is creating a different layer in which they move, so with underpasses it can allow them to cross the road without crossing them. At that point you have to find a way to adapt pedestrians to this. "So in other words the city is built around the motorcar, for the motorcar and for moving by car. Useful link - Plympton underpass on Glen Road (Image: Katie Timms) He explained: "You can revert the discourse a little bit and say first of all, the problem of underpasses is that it wants to separate people from cars because it gives cars priority over the city. So cars would operate at a certain level and pedestrians would be at a different level."īut the expert says the problem with this separation is the power imbalance between pedestrians and vehicles. "So it's not conducive or good and safe movement for pedestrians. 'The more you separate, the more you kill life in an environment because you limit the diversity' He said: "The idea was the car environment is not good for people, it's dangerous it might mean people could get run over but also all the fumes and all the noise and so on. The professor further explains that underpasses were another way of dividing and separating, and in this case separating pedestrians from traffic. "So the idea was if we separate all these things so no one has to live near any industry and all the industries will be in their own zones." So the industrial revolution had created situations in which parts of cities were really quite unhealthy because of heavy industry and lands nearby, so living conditions were not ideal. " This was a response to the industrial revolution. A common sight - North Cross Roundabout underpass (Image: Matt Gilley/Plymouth Live)
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