Rupert Street

Landmark Co-Living and Student Accommodation Approval

Alec French Architects were approached by Greystar to design and submit a planning application for a mixed-use, large-scale purpose-built shared living (co-living), student and multi-storey car park development. The site is located on Rupert Street NCP Car Park in central Bristol. It is in a prime city centre location, benefiting from access to a wide variety of amenities and transport links. Currently the site provides car parking for 498 cars on six storeys above 3 retail units.

The co-living accommodation has developed from the growing demand for a new residential offer, targeting a demographic that otherwise would be within a house-share scenario. Providing this managed accommodation will help to ease the pressure on the more traditional forms of housing within the city. Student accommodation is also in demand in the Bristol area, given the two large Universities located within the city. The new development will provide much needed accommodation in a central Bristol location, providing easy access to University of Bristol and University of the West of England.

The building will provide 249 Co-Living Studios, 120 Student Studios, 208 en suite study bedrooms arranged in 6,7 and 8 cluster flats, and a large variety of shared spaces including a gym, high quality communal kitchens, laundry, cinema, co-working areas, well-being space and plenty of external amenity in the form of gardens and roof terraces. The building will also be replacing the existing car park with a new version capable of supporting modern vehicles with 400 spaces and some additional retail units on the ground floor.

[Night time CGI]

Context

The existing multi-storey car park is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The building itself, designed in 1959, is restricted internally. The façade is largely open to the elements with the concrete structure of the car park dominating the public realm. Visually, this language does not sit comfortably with its surrounding context which has evolved in recent years to include a number of taller blocks, largely brick fronted or cladding façade systems. The existing structure provides limitations for retention and renovation. As it was built in 1960, the structure has been designed for loads associated with 1960s cars, where modern day cars (and in particular electric cars) have got significantly heavier. The continuous ramping arrangement of the floor slabs makes it impractical to renovate and reuse for alternative purposes beyond parking. The way the structure is arranged means it is not feasible to remove the original ramped parking slabs and replace with new flat slabs for better use.

Design Development

1. New Proposed Car Park
2. ‘H’ block plan
3. Reduce height of East block to avoid ‘canyon effect’
4. Shear East block due to culvert
5. Focus on public realm & entrances
6. Step blocks back to create top, middle and bottom
7. Accentuate the top
8. Byzantine arches and elevational design
9. Car park and top decoration
10. Focus on external amenity green space
11. Final design

The design had to retain the same amount of car parking as well as achieve a number of co-living apartments and student accommodation rooms which did prove very difficult to design. The residential accommodation is split into two blocks, one co-living, one student residential, that are aligned north-south on top of the new car park design. The two towers are set back, uneven in height and chamfered in order to respond to the context, public realm, the hidden culvert and the large scale setting.

A lofty colonnade runs the length of the elevation on both sides of the street providing covered entrances and net-gain additional public space that was otherwise uncomfortable and unappealing. The two blocks rise above their neighbours to create a centrepiece in a collection of tall buildings but boasts a stronger, byzantine-style-inspired, character and architecture.

Extensive and playful green spaces have been provided at level 07 for all residents of the building to enjoy and escape into. The facades are full of references to Bristol’s byzantine style with a mixture of classical and gothic arches, bronze perforated panels and topped off with a spiky brass crown that bleed into the sky and are reminiscent of Bristol’s historic towers.

[Level 07 Floor Plans]

Co-living layouts provide single occupancy studios, consisting of an en suite room and micro kitchen. The resident then has access to a rich variety of internal and external shared amenity spaces, creating a strong community and strengthening the already established neighbourhood. Similarly the student accommodation has all of the same amenities as the co-living but organised around cluster flats of 6,7  & 8 that share communal kitchens.

Futureproofed Design

The scheme has been developed to consider the future uses of the current structure. The spans on structure and locations of the cores lend the car park to be shifted into a commercial space for studios, shared workspace or public recreation. Peckham levels is an example of where this has been very successful, and where we believe the Rupert Street development could adopt the same strategy.

The scheme is  also designed in a way that would allow for a change of use from students / Co-Living to family dwellings where reorganising the layout to provide for larger family homes is possible while ensuring compliance is adhered to.

Finally, to adjust the use of the current car park to work for the future, the scheme has allowed for substantial EV charging for electrical vehicles.