This site is part of Cabot Circus, a major regional redevelopment project in the retail heart of the city of Bristol. The shared space site was originally master-planned with traditional highway treatment of carriageway and footway, leaving an awkward open space that no one wanted to adopt. 

Relatively late in the process an idea arose to treat the whole as "shared space" with pedestrians, vehicles and cyclists all occupying the same surface. This opened up the possibility of creating a new city square with its own identity and suitable for a variety of uses and events. New Leaf Studio were already working on the adjacent hotel site and were appointed late in 2007 to progress design proposals.

The challenge was to:

• Fully incorporate shared space principals: Surfaces and routes for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles not differentiated in any way
• Provide legible pedestrian route to the slightly obscured entrance to the new multi-storey car park.
• Design a flexible space with its own identity able to accommodate a range of uses.
• Work within constraints placed by underground services almost entirely filling the space
• Retain existing mature trees
• Accommodate the culverted River Frome passing below
• Fit in with the pre-determined time frame dictated by a legal agreement in place before the shared space idea arose
• Work within existing budgets allocated to the previously intended, traditional highways scheme
• Work with the Council's in-house Landscape Architects to co-ordinate with their proposals to extend and restore the adjacent St Mathias Park.
• Include for consultation with local residents and surrounding business users.
• Overcome problems of legibility for visually impaired users (many of the usual tactile cues,such as kerbs being removed as part of "shared space" principals