Centre of attention

3 March, 2010

Rock ‘N’ Roll
Project: The Rock, Bury
Client: Hammerson and Bury metropolitan council
Designer: BDP (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Lighting Design)
Opening: Summer 2010

The good folk of Lancashire could have been forgiven for thinking that the county’s latest retail development was dead and buried under a rock, after the developer Thornfield Properties went to the wall earlier this year.

But never fear. Hammerson has stepped into the breach and The Rock, a £350m redevelopment of Bury town centre, is still slated to open this summer. Good news for Lancashire and for the country as a whole, according to the British Retail Consortium, which has singled it out as one of the schemes that could breathe life back into the UK’s ailing retail economy.

Building Design Partnership is responsible for The Rock’s architecture, landscape architecture and lighting design. Overall, the development will be harking back to Bury pre-industrial past. It covers 140, 000 sq m and is retail lead, with 50,000 sq m of shopping, to be anchored by two main department stores, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams, plus some 60 other retail units, plus restaurants, leisure (a Vue cinema, bowling and bingo), residential and a 4,000 sq m medical centre.

The open-street scheme creates new streets and public spaces which link into existing pedestrian routes, with the main street aligned to link two church spires. The open streets will connect ‘a series of small, quality, public-realm spaces serving retail, leisure and residential uses based on a contemporary working of traditional materials, colours and building typologies’.

Meanwhile BDP has won a 154,000 sq m retail-led mixed-use project in Mumbai, India, with Indian developer Khubchandani. It covers a major city block and should open in 2013. BDP is opening a studio in India this year.

Desert lakes
Project: Lakeland, Dubai
Client: Lakeland
Designer: Callum Lumsden at small back room
Opening: March 2010

Here’s a poser: What do Cumbria and Dubai have in common? The answer is Lakeland, or at least it will be later this month, when the first Lakeland kitchen and homeware store opens outside of the UK in the aforementioned part of the UAE.

Currently Lakeland has 44 stores, which can be found nestling in Scotland, Wales and England, from Aberdeen to Truro. This first international foray came about when Lakeland was approached by retail developer Jawad about its Mirdiff City Centre Mall.

Designed by Callum Lumsden at Small Back Room, this 300 sq m concept is a progression of work Lumsden has carried out on UK stores. The whole store was actually created here in the UK and shipped out. ‘We’ve combined all the different Lakeland facia applications, such as the logs, bricks and tiles… It’s bringing a part of Cumbria to Dubai ,’ says consultancy founder Callum Lumsden. ‘Dubai will also feature all the main beacons that we’ve created for the stores, including the feature chandelier.’ This is made of 359 Lakeland products, including whisks, spatulas and sieves.

Lakeland is in a period of major expansion. Last year it revealed plans to double in size by 2014. Lumsden expects it to have around 50 stores by the end of this year. He adds that the Dubai store is very much a test bed and any further international expansion will depend on how this one performs.