URBAN DESIGN FRAMEWORK The University of Liverpool - Urbed

University of Liverpool: UDF2:1 - LocationThe University occupies a strategic site on theedge of the city centre and in a location at theheart of the city region.Alongside its leading academic reputation, thelocation in a spacious campus on the edgeof the city centre is one of the University’sprimary competitive advantages. The campus isunambiguously part of the city centre, with bothcathedrals, the Royal Hospital and Lime StreetStation just a stone’s throw away.The University lies at the heart of the Liverpoolcity-region, which is home to 1.3 million people.The University’s ‘travel to work’ area stretcheseven further than this – south/west into Cheshireand Wales and north/east as far as Preston andWarrington.The location plan shows Liverpool’s metropolitancore - the area broadly within the Queens Driveintermediate ring road. The blue circle covers thecity centre and its immediate context, with theCampus boundary outlined in red.On a city centre scale (see plan opposite) itbecomes clear that the Campus is actuallydistinct from the core retail, commercial, civicand cultural uses that lie further ‘down the hill’,sitting equally close to the established residentialneighbourhoods of Liverpool’s inner-city.This ‘edge of centre’ position means the Campusenjoys the access advantages that come withcentrality, but without the intense pressures onspace and environmental quality associated withthe very heart of the city.Its generous 25 hectare site and favouredtopographical situation on the ridge overlookingthe Mersey give the campus its own discreteidentity within Liverpool’s urban structure.This offers the potential to establish theUniversity Campus as a ‘bridge’ between themany different roles and functions of the city, anidea which reconnects with the original essenceof a ‘Civic University’.The Campus is the largest element in Liverpool’sstrategic Knowledge Quarter, a unique collectionof learning and cultural assets that account forsome 15% of the city’s annual GVA. This hasbeen subject to a separate study (also by URBED)which sits the University masterplan within thewider context of Knowledge Quarter together withthe plans of Liverpool John Moores Universityand the development plans of the Royal LiverpoolUniversity Hospital.A Figure Ground Plan of Liverpool showing the University Campus well within a 1km radius of the city centre.10