With 35% of Belfast’s population aged 25 or under, Belfast City Council recognised the need to place the youngest in the population at the heart of city planning. With support from the Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities), and working closely with Belfast City Council, Arup developed a framework and design strategy that creates a more healthy, inclusive and child-friendly city centre in Belfast. 

Arup’s team of urban design, landscape architecture and urban resilience experts created a design strategy for Belfast that responds to the specific needs of the city, while prioritising children’s needs. We involved children from 6-18 years of age in the design process, to understand their perceptions of and needs from the city. And we built a system by which grassroots initiatives are given a chance to thrive.

The design strategies proposed include physical interventions that address existing constraints in the city centre and create an environment where families and children can live, work and play. These include new and affordable housing, green open spaces, traffic improvements and sports facilities. And through this process we developed the Urban Childhoods Design Toolkit to add child- and family-friendly interventions to masterplanning and design processes.

Masterplanning and urban design

The design strategies proposed are made up of a number of physical interventions that aim to address existing constraints in the city centre and create an environment where families and children can live, work and play. These include new and affordable housing, green open spaces, traffic improvements and sports facilities. The interventions were supported by a collection of more than 50 global case studies that demonstrate how interventions have contributed to the vibrancy of different cities across the world. These can be used as sources of inspiration and as a resource for future city planning.

Creating an environment where bottom-up grassroots initiatives can be given a chance to thrive was equally important. Utilising empty plots and underutilised spaces to test new uses and diversify the land use was recommended to improve the vibrancy of the city. Small scale meanwhile-use interventions including a pop-up play park have been used to test some of these ideas, and change people’s perceptions of Belfast’s city centre prior to permanent implementation.

Temporary and permanent interventions include pop-up play areas and traffic calming measures to promote a greener environment

Supporting Belfast City Council’s aspiration to replicate the ideas, we developed an Urban Childhoods Design Toolkit to initiate masterplanning and design processes by assessing, prioritising and proposing child and family-friendly interventions. The design toolkit provides a range of different tools and practical templates to be used as a guide to assist the design process and implement lasting change.

The project was recognised for its uniqueness and importance at the Landscape Institute Awards 2020 winning in the 'Excellence in Place Regeneration' category.

Video thumbnail for urban childhoods design toolkit

The project places children and young people at the heart of the city’s work to become more resilient as we address future city challenges 

Richard McLernon

Resilience Project Coordinator, Belfast City Council