13b Paradise Street, Liverpool One

Paradise Street, Liverpool is the centerpiece of Grosvenor’s masterplan to extend and complete the city’s retail core and connect it to the Albert Dock. With a footprint of over a hectare and a complex brief of layered uses, the block contains over five levels some 50 shops, 20 cafes and a cinema entrance.

These are organised around a series of stratified public routes which connect into the surrounding street pattern at a number of levels. It has two distinct sides. The urban side on Paradise Street has three-storey shops with a ribbon of cafes above and a large solid wall screening the plant from the central car park. The park side connects via two bridges to Chavasse Park, which faces the Mersey and is some 14 m higher than the level of Paradise Street. Here the elliptical geometry of the park is imposed on the form of the block, held by a grand over-sailing cornice and emphasised by the use of zig-zag glazing bays for each restaurant unit. Below this, South John Street offers multi-level shopping linked to department stores at each end.

Between these two sides, a major cross route, aligned with College Lane, rises up from Paradise Street to the Park. This cut in the urban frontage holds escalators and a zig-zag stair which leads to a covered galleria, the arrival space for the cinema and its associated cafes.