Whatever else Liverpool gets from its year as the European Capital of Culture, one legacy it will be left with for the long term is the new, £1billion Liverpool One shopping and leisure centre visited by Princess Anne on 1 October for its official opening. Said to be the largest development of its kind in Europe, a defining feature of Liverpool One is its walls of red Locharbriggs sandstone and bright Scheinsberger Muschelkalk limestone on plinths of Balmoral red granite, fixed by main contractor Laing O’Rourke’s subsidiaries of stone company Vetter UK and precasters Malling Products.

Although some of the 160 shops in Liverpool’s major new Liverpool One district have been open since May (see the June issue of NSS), the general public only gained access to the whole development, including its high level multiplex cinema, bars and latest shops, in October following the grand opening by Princess Anne at the start of the month.

Acclaimed as Europe’s largest city centre redevelopment project of its kind, the opening of the £1billion Liverpool One was a proud moment for all those involved, not least stone specialists Vetter UK who were responsible for the hand setting of the vast red Locharbriggs sandstone and German Scheinsberger Muschelkalk with Portland limestone walls of various buildings, many standing on load bearing, 75mm thick Balmoral red granite.

During two years on site with as many as 100 people at a time, Vetter UK, a subsidiary of Laing O’Rourke, the main contractors on the project, also laid 21,500m2 of Chinese granite paving on the three levels of streets, as well as 1,100m2 of Jura limestone paving in areas where the public enter Liverpool One proper from the 2,000-space multi-story car park concealed beneath the five-acre Chavasse Park. A more slip resistant bush-hammered finish provides extra slip resistance at the entrances where it might get wet, leading to a honed finish further in.

The new buildings of Liverpool One are arranged around Chavasse Park, their facades curving seductively to contain the oval of the planted area.

There are some 3,000m2 of the Scottish Locharbriggs stone, supplied by Derbyshire-based Stancliffe. There are also 1,235m2 of Scheinsberger Muschelkalk from Naturstein Vetter in Germany, and 1,100m2 of Jura from Neumeyer & Brigl, while the Portland stone was supplied by Albion Stone.

There are also 21,500m2 of Chinese granite paving, that for the lower street level was supplied by Stonepave at between 150mm and 200mm thick, while Hardscape supplied 40mm thick paving to the Plateau and Galleria areas at higher levels.

Philip Moss, Landscape Architect Director of BDP, says: “At the outset of the project Grosvenor’s aspirations for the public realm was for the differing environments of the streets and spaces to be of the highest quality in terms of design, materials and management.

“In addition, the new streets and spaces also needed to follow the design principles and construction standards already established in the City Centre by the Liverpool City Council Public Realm Implementation Strategy document that called for, among other things, the use of good quality natural paving materials.

“Following a significant period of research and design development into a wide range of natural materials, it was decided to use two differing palettes of stone – one for the streets and one for the environs of the main open space (Chavasse Park).

“The streets fell into two sub-categories, a range of flame finished pale grey to black granites for the streets formed by the new buildings and flamed sandstone for the streets associated with the Conservation Area and several important listed buildings. The ‘world of the park’ needed to contrast with the character of the streets, so a palette of predominantly buff flame finished granites with occasional grey and black granite banding was selected. This buff granite also complemented the use of buff resin-bound gravel in areas of the park that required a material capable of being laid in a more flexible manner.”

The most technically demanding part of the whole project, says Nigel Gorrell, site manager for Vetter UK, was that shown on the front cover of this issue of NSS and the pictures here, where the Muschelkalk clads the area around the escalators.

Known as the Cut, it is a predominant feature of Liverpool One. The handset stone cladding to the slopes on each side of the elevators are positioned under a continuous overhead zig-zag staircase. The design was undertaken in-house by Vetter UK and the challenge was to convert the architect’s concept into a buildable solution. And the architect’s concept was to have “sides to the Cut which slope at a variable angle, radiate about an axis yet, when viewed from the front, are perfectly horizontal and line up with the joint pattern of the adjacent right-angled walls”.

The solution resulted in every stone being unique in terms of size and shape, while still being fixed to the steelwork substrate in a standard fashion.

A prototype was made to test installation techniques and support fixings before the go-ahead was given for full manufacture. The lessons learnt were invaluable when it came to the site installation of the individual stones, which had to be winched up an incline and fixed in position on stainless steel adjustable pedestal fixings making sure that the three dimensional alignment of slope, height and radial was achieved.

The limited space and restricted access under the zig-zag staircase, coupled with the varying weights and shapes of the stones did not make this an easy task. 

As well as the contribution of Vetter UK, some of the stone was supplied as facings to precast panels by another of Laing O’Rourke’s subsidiaries, Malling Products, and some of the hard landscaping, including the fountain visited by the Queen earlier in the year, was laid by Miller Druck working with landscapers Willoughby.

While some commentators have been a bit sniffy about a retail-led development being considered a contribution to the Capital of Culture, Liverpool One was intended to be a long-lasting statement about the revitalisation of the city.

Driving into Liverpool along roads lined by terrace houses whose boarded up windows have been decorated with brightly coloured posters proclaiming the European Capital of Culture status gives you an idea of the level of decline of what was once England’s second city and the hope that has gone into its celebrations this year.

One part of its decline has been the migration of shoppers away from the city centre to Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Cheshire Oaks in Ellesmere Port. Liverpool One is intended to reverse that migration, not to mention creating 5,000 jobs and adding 600 apartments to the city centre.

The City Council employed retail experts Healey & Baker to assess the needs of the city to attract shoppers back to it. In their report of 1999 they identified a requirement for 100,000m2 of additional retail floor space.

In fact, Liverpool One has supplied 150,000m2 of extra shopping space – although that only accounts for a little over half of the whole development, the rest providing  accommodation, restaurants, cafes and pubs and the multiplex cinema. It gives a vibrancy to a large part of the city centre that has remained semi-derelict since World War II, although it was partially cleared in the 1970s for redevelopment that never happened.

The 42.5acres of Liverpool One connects the city centre to Albert Dock, re-opening a much needed link between the historic reason for Liverpool’s success and growth that started 300 years ago – namely, its docks – and the city centre.

And it has achieved it not with a single, covered mall but by 30 buildings designed by 25 different architects referencing the original street layout of the area and re-opening old thoroughfairs closed off by 1960s developments. The architects for the different buildings have included Pelli Clarke Pelli with Brock Carmichael, Groupe Six, Dixon Jones, Page & Park and Wilkinson Eyre, to pick out just a few.

The council’s plan was not only to redevelop this area, but for Liverpool One to act as a catalyst to the development and improvement of the surrounding areas, which it says is starting to happen.

Although the development involves different buildings with different architects, there has, of course, been a master plan. It was developed by Building Design Partnership (BDP). And there was one developer overseeing the work in the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estates, chosen from among more than 30 companies that responded to a brief from the council in 2000. The Duke accompanied Princess Anne to the official opening last month.

Terry Davenport, Director at BDP, explains: “A key strategy for the success of the masterplan has been the creation  of six quarters, each with its varying character, both in terms of scale and use.

“The overarching ethos of Liverpool One is to create seamless movement between the established retail core, the surrounding districts and the new development. On entering Liverpool One, visitors will recognise the original street pattern of the city, while finding an entirley new urban landscape of genuine high quality.”

He said: “Liverpool One’s mission statement is to be the most successful city centre destination in the UK.”