The image shows Quay Gardens, running along the north bank of the Clyde in Glasgow city centre, photographed looking eastwards around 1990. Running parallel in the background is Clyde Street, including the frontage of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, with the Merchants’ Steeple in the distance. The largely un-inhabited site offers little more than a cycle route through and the occasional pass
ing tourist looking for the river frontage. The area has been faced with issues of loitering and vandalism though its structure offers an amphitheatre, water front access, cycle paths, connections to the Southside via the suspension bridge and forgotten closed up units. Direct access to Quay gardens is offered over a crossing to the south of St Enoch Square at the bottom of Buchanan Street. On paper the site has everything that an area needs to become a hub of city centre activity. Quay Gardens has been “identified as a major redevelopment opportunity that could introduce a mix of activities and upgrade of the riverside promenade”. somewhereto_ and icecream architecture are creating a 4 week long design group residency that will work with the lighthouse, the MakLab, students, local enthusiasts and the public to create a series of grassroots events, workshops and research activities that will offer a strategy and partnership framework for the en-livenment of the area. The event timetable will tie in with the Olympic Torch Relay which passes the site on the 8th of June. The weeks willbe peppered with a variety of events offering opportunity for creative intervention, performance and design. The focus of this project will be to increase visibility of the area and highlight the potential of the existing spaces through on-street intervention. As Glasgow 2014 approaches we see the need for this process to begin with an integral part of the strategy being to fabricate temporary interventions to Quay Gardens in the summer months of 2012 with a view to reviewing and reinventing these for the planned design week in 2013. This will set a basis that could inform a strategy for Quay Gardens in 2014
