Interview with Stuart Mosscrop
Stuart Mosscrop says: ‘the Milton Keynes Masterplan interested me enormously’ so when invited to head the City Centre team, he didn’t hesitate. Derek Walker had assembled ‘a fantastic team of talent’. Stuart talks about the initial design of the City Centre structure on Bradwell Common: ‘a bean field, literally’, with nothing between the Grand Union Canal and the railway line apart from a few rural tracks. The team reconsidered the design in the Masterplan, looking at influences from Chicago, the work of Mies van der Rohe and Buchanan, and concluded that they would use ‘a proper orthogonal grid’ to organise this large area of land. Stuart says: ‘The evidence for the grid, as a way of mankind organising his physical land, is very deep’. The design was aligned to the grid roads, with the assistance of David Jamieson, engineer; they also considered the ancient tracks, and position of sunrise. Within the main grid, Stuart describes the hierarchy of grid roads, Gates, Boulevards and Streets, and their functions. Other matters considered were use of granite, gravel, the trees, the underpasses and car parking. Stuart talks of the members of his team at this time, and acknowledges the enormous support from Fred Roche and Derek Walker throughout the infrastructure design process.
The team saw the shopping centre as a series of covered streets, with no doors into the building. It was in fact twice the size indicated in the Masterplan: Stuart notes that Fred Roche secured agreement from the Board to this size, partly due to the decision of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) to invest in Milton Keynes from the start. Stuart drew up designs for Harry Legg, the development boss of JLP at the time; the position of JLP was a strong influence on the design. Another key decision was to use first floor servicing of the building; it was less costly than underground servicing. In response to a question about the cost of the building and its quality Stuart says: I do remember talking to people in the finance department saying, ‘Look, we’re not spending money here. We’re investing money. … It was people like Mike Roberts and Fred Roche who had to deal with all the DoE people about money and so on’.
Stuart has strong views about the recent partial closure of Midsummer Boulevard… ‘sinful, absolutely outrageous and unforgivable.’
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