In Hanley, the huge new Tesco super-hyper-megamarket covers acres of territory just outside the town centre. For all the tens of thousands of pounds spent on the building and its environs, the architecture is plainly uninspired; and I guess that comes down to money. Fair enough.
Yet this pathway, along one of its sides, linking the supermarket back to the town centre, drives me to despair , because it is such an example of total lack of regard for our environment.
It could have been a wonderful corner, or vista, or community 'piazza', but it ends up being unfriendly (in my humblr opinion).
This side-pathway was a positive chance for Tesco to show some real urban, creative imagination in the design of a small but self-contained, redundant space - but they came up with this dull...virtual nothing. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
They have gone for the low maintenance, easy to hose out model, haven't they? I thought the squiggles on the left were graffiti, but on closer inspection it appears to be slightly more artistic versions of an quasi-asian script.
ReplyDeleteGreenery would have required trimming and watering etc.
Yes, I agree, greenery would have been labour intensive, so i don't blame them for that. The squiggle was the closest they got to blue-sky thinking (tho this squiggle is used elsewhere in the city - not sure why exactly).
ReplyDeleteI guess what bothers me is that this little corner could have been turned over to an urban design group or even placed out to a public art competition, but certainly just more imaginatively approached. And they missed the opportunity.
The really sad thing is that this could be almost anywhere in the world (I live in Sweden).
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely, meandering path!
ReplyDelete