Bristol
Abbey Wood Retail Park
The aim of this project was to rejuvenate the existing retail park at Abbey Wood and create more natural and landscaped public realm links to the surrounding business parks and MOD offices. The existing southern portion of the site was re-planned with the demolition of an existing full depth retail store to allow for a development of a 32,000sq. ft ASDA store with café.
Challenge
A collection of A3 restaurant units were established to enclose two sides of a large public realm area, that can be used for a multitude of events as well as providing external dining to A3 unit and a tensile fabric covered break-out space, for the employees and visitor of the park to enjoy.
The first floor of one of the restaurant blocks was designed to allow for the location of a crèche or other recreational tenant.
An artistic commission was granted to create a feature of the rear and side elevation of the unit that greets approaching visitors to the park and the use of dichroic glass fins were used to bring vibrancy and interest to the large elevation, along with screen printed glass encapsulating local views of the area.
Solution
Further hard landscaping works were completed to extend the retail park public realm links to regional transportation hubs and transport links to local and central Bristol areas.
An improved car park layout was introduced to suit the new buildings and was constructed with new kerb lines, drainage and wearing surfaces. This introduction was also required to ease the flow of traffic in, around and exiting the park, which had previously been an issue.
The existing retained retail terrace to the north of the park was kept operational throughout the refenestration works completed to ensure that trade and public access was unhindered. These works included a new covered walkway with dedicated tenant signage provisions and feature elements to improve the aspect of this building and complement the artistic influences introduced into other parts of the building elevations.
A sustainable drainage system was introduced within the redevelopment works to support all the new (non-carpark) hard landscaping and roof areas, bringing improvements to the local and regional drainage catchments.
To both increase the amount of usable building and servicing land and to enhance the aspect of the surrounding waterways, a gabion basket retaining wall was introduced into the existing brook and this combined head walls which supported the new surface water outfalls from the site.
A timber bridge was introduced across this enhanced brook to introduce a natural and landscaped link between the nearby MOD offices and the park. This improved link has seen much use and the site is visited by uniformed personnel on daily basis.
