In time of global change, another Belfast was imagined by Building Design Partnership in their unbuilt 1969 Belfast Urban Area Plan.

The city that prevailed though, was one blighted by The Troubles, and divided by peace lines for years to come.

"It was proposed to be a pedestrian shopping area with offices, a health centre, maternity unit, a library with youth centres, a large carpark and a green courtyard with trees – it sounds too good to be true and unfortunately as things panned out, it was ...

The word that sums this sound piece up for me is ‘almost’: I wanted the sound to represent this ‘almost’ utopian idea sewn together with an underlying anxiety and unrest.    

Almost an idea, a hope that falls so short of what was aimed for, but a hope that still continues to burn nonetheless. 

The Belfast Urban Area Plan was a plan for the entire city centre, seen as a plan for a ‘Belfast for the future’. The Plan was only partially initiated, with the remainder scrapped due to The Troubles.

One aspect of the Plan that was fulfilled was the building of a new urban motorway system [the Belfast Urban Motorway] that was going to ‘transform’ the City.

What was actually built has had a catastrophic impact on the city of Belfast, displacing people and interrupting the City design.

It does make you wonder what social impact would have been achieved if more of the plans were realised – like the plan for the proposed Shaftesbury Square building, the subject of this piece. The Plan for Shaftesbury Square floats on the idea of a ‘better’ Belfast, but that was destroyed by The Troubles. 

The sounds that make up this piece are all from Belfast and include recordings of motorway traffic, a shopping centre, an industrial lift, fluorescent tube lights, everyday streets, and parks."

– Helena Hamilton