Tottenham Court Boulevard

M@
By M@ Last edited 200 months ago
Tottenham Court Boulevard
WoodsBagot.jpg

We adore Milan, Vienna and Paris for their littles piazzas and street cafes, but with our weather becoming warmer every year there is no reason not to enjoy a nice caffe latte on the streets of London.

You might not realise it at first but Tottenham Court Road offers the perfect setting: a never realised traffic improvement scheme in 1960s left the pavement widened, and the streetscape underused since.

Architects Woods Bagot are proposing to revive it with a line infrastructure of street furniture. Its spine element is an undulating canopy of umbrellas that complements and enhances the existing line of trees, fitting around them and integrating them into it.

It can host benches, coffee stalls and telephone booths, and provides the waiting area for bus stops. It'll never be Soho but the end results should see the pavements cleared of randomly cluttering street furniture and given back to the cafe drinking man- or woman-about-town.

By James Newman

Last Updated 05 July 2007