Opinion: Walkin' the Mat and reimagining Union Street

It has been over 200 years since the city fathers conceived of a radical new neoclassical street, driving westwards from the medieval heartland across a series of bridges to a ‘new town’ on the other side of the Denburn valley.

The conception resulted in the near one-mile-long Union Street, which is the city’s most famous space, graced with some splendid examples of granite neoclassical architecture, designed by some of our most famous architects. It has evolved over time to serve as north easts premier regional shopping street, a place to live, a place to play.

The cultural importance is abound, rooted in the very psyche of the place. It’s the place where we met, it’s the place that we laughed or cried and it's even the place that has had a board game named after it, 'Walking the Mat’, which refers to the past practice of promenading along the street on a Sunday evening hoping to meet that someone special.

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the discovery of oil in the North Sea, a relative period of prosperity and stability is coming to an end, heralded by changes in shopping practice, Covid and climate change. A general feeling of decline engendered by empty shops, empty upper floors, plants growing from rooftops, pollution, rubbish and even the wrong sort of shops now occupying the street has brought about this work, in a manifesto for change.

Aberdeen residents have been asked to engage with the recently launched ‘Our Union Street’ campaign and to offer their suggestions on how to improve the Aberdeen’s granite mile. Students at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment at Robert Gordon University are also undertaking a project to imagine how the city of Aberdeen could be in the future. This year’s project focuses on a new vision for the city centre, ‘a people centred city centre’, with students being asked to create new ideas on how the street could look in a reimagined future.

Aberdeen has some wonderful assets, and in its city centre, Union Street must be seen as one too. The beautiful heritage of the material and its architecture distinguish it, but perhaps we have taken it too much for granted. We need to clean it up, respect the heritage and protect it, we need to prioritise the right type of shops (low rents to encourage the best), cafes and working spaces for people to live, work and play in the city centre and remove the necessity to have every diesel powered bus travel along it.

We need to have a new design from and for the street, that will remove all the intrusive signage and generic street furniture. The proposal suggests a new linear tram that runs along the length of the street connecting to bus hubs located off street. Giving back the space and priority to the people.

We propose that the very surface of the street is re-imagined as a new, designed (in collaboration with leading architects and artists) interactive granite surface, contemporary and imaginative to show of the quality of the magnificent material that is the city’s very bedrock, granite.

We propose that the new surface herald a revival in the city’s granite industry and by using new techniques establish new skills and practice that can be showcased in a design for a new street surface. The project could be seen as impetus to revive interest in a sustainable local building resource. A new surface to complement the streets wonderful granite facades and if there is to be the best granite public space in the world then that should be in Aberdeen.

With the arrival of the first tourist cruise ship recently, the prospect of an increase in tourism bodes well for the local economy. We propose that Union Street is the place of destination and orientation for tourists. Shops, cafes, restaurants, and experience centres can all be part of a place that can truly celebrate the wealth and diversity of food and drink in the northeast. High quality North East produce could be celebrated, taught and served on Union Street.

The wealth of the North Sea is enjoyed by European countries and the quality is renowned, could we learn to enjoy and celebrate this better? Aberdeen Angus is world renowned as one of the finest meats in the world and deserves a place where this can be celebrated and taught.

The whisky industry could be promoted with an experience centre as well as a broader collection of the fineries of the North East that we see in local markets. Imagine if we could use this to train a new generation of young people to jobs and careers in future industries.

All this points to an imagined future. Above all, we hope that a collective plan is created for a long-term future for one of Aberdeen’s best loved places. You don’t need to look to far to learn from other cities that have taken what they have and made it better.

The ‘feel-good factor’ results, and we look forward to creating a better place not just for visitors but for Aberdonians, particularly the young people, for it is their future for which we are planning as well as our own. We need to invest in our city centre, in the right type of ideas for a truly sustainable, long-term future so we can look forward with conviction, as our city forebears did some 200 years ago.

The above visual was created by Cameron Duncan and Alexander McLeman from the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture & Built Environment, Unit 1 Master of Architecture, who worked on the final year project, with the support of Visiting Professor, Bill Black, Director of Richard Murphy Architects.