engineering

North Street Arcade

North Street Arcade is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand North Street Arcade rather than just read about it. In short: The North Street Arcade is a 1930s Art Deco shopping arcade in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the only example of a shopping arcade from this decade in Northern Ireland, and is one of only a handful left in the whole of Ireland or the UK.

Key takeaways

North Street Arcade belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect North Street Arcade to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of North Street Arcade from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The North Street Arcade is a 1930s Art Deco shopping arcade in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the only example of a shopping arcade from this decade in Northern Ireland, and is one of only a handful left in the whole of Ireland or the UK. A Grade B1 listed building, it has been derelict since a fire in 2004.

History The site on which the North Street Arcade was built, situated between North Street and Donegall Street, was originally occupied by a number of small premises, of which the most significant was the Brookfield Linen Company warehouse, built 1869–1881. According to architectural writer Marcus Patton (1993), in the mid-19th century, North Street mainly consisted of "small businesses, shoemakers and publicans, grocers and haberdashers, leather and iron merchants." The linen trade was also prominent in the area, particularly on Donegall Street (which was known as "Linnenhall Street" in the 18th century). The Brookfield Linen Company Ltd were flax spinners and power loom linen manufacturers and merchants who operated from their Donegall Street property from 1869. In 1936 the Brookfield Linen Company warehouse was demolished, along with the various less significant properties, to make way for the North Street Arcade. A handful of architectural details remain from the warehouse building.

The North Street Arcade was designed by architectural firm Cowser & Smyth. A Belfast-based architectural partnership between Benjamin Cowser (1897–1981) and Valentine Smyth (active 1930s–60s), Cowser & Smyth was formed in 1935, making this building one of the partnership's first major contracts. Construction was carried out by F. B. McKee & Co. between 1936 and 1938, in what was at the time a deprived area of the city. The construction made use of high-end, luxurious materials, and according to Marie McHugh (1990), the arcade was not initially successful due to the high rent of shop units. After the Belfast Blitz and World War II, and the loss of retail spaces elsewhere in the city, the arcade began to fill with shop owners and the building became a commercial success. The building was first valued by the government on the Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland (1956–1972), by the end of which, with at least 20 occupied shop units and one café, the total value of the property came to £5,321 10s. During The Troubles, the building sustained damage from at least two bomb attacks including an IRA bomb on 13 January 1976 which also killed two civilians and the two bombers. The building subsequently fell into decay. In May 1990 the building gained Grade B1 listed status. During the 1990s, in part due to low rent prices for shop units, a number of artists and creative organisations made their home in the arcade. By the early 2000s the building had developed into a creative hub, including a café, record shop, recording studio and the offices of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, among others. In 2004, the building was owned by William Ewart Properties, who had plans in the area for a new £120-million retail development.

2004 fire On 17 April 2004, the building was subject to an arson attack using incendiary devices, which destroyed all of the business units inside. 23 businesses were directly affected by the blaze. No people were injured as a result, however all the animals inside a pet shop were reportedly killed. According to BBC reports, members of the arts organisation Factotum were still present in the building up to an hour before the fire broke out. The fire destroyed the floor and glass roof, but as of 2023 the basic structure of the units remained intact. A number of suspects were questioned by police in relation to the incident, but no one has been prosecuted for the attack.

Redevelopment plans

Before the fire, new plans were already under development in the area, and the owners of the North Street Arcade had drawn up a proposal in 2003. These plans were reviewed by the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development (DSD) against their Regeneration Policy Statement (RPS) for Belfast city centre, published July 2003 and adopted April 2004, and found not to be meeting the required objectives of the document. As a result, in 2005 the DSD published a masterplan for the area, developed in conjunction with Drivers Jonas and Benoy. This provided guidance for potential developers of the area, and two concept plans: one which retained only the façades of North Street Arcade (Option 1) and another which also retained the original alignment of the building (Option 2). The subsequent development proposals for the "Royal Exchange", later renamed "North East Quarter" and then "Tribeca Belfast", produced initially by Ewart Properties and then by new owner Castlebrooke Investments, met with strong opposition from local artists and heritage organisations such as the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society as they included either partial or full demolition of the North Street Arcade, rather than the potential restoration put forward by Option 2 of the masterplan. In February 2017 the organisation "Save the Cathedral Quarter" was formed, aiming to hold the developers to account and to reach a development which paid respect to the established architectural and artistic heritage present in the area.

Architecture

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with North Street Arcade

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what North Street Arcade claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to North Street Arcade before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about North Street Arcade ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of North Street Arcade

In research: North Street Arcade appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses North Street Arcade in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: North Street Arcade is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Art Deco architecture in Northern Ireland, Buildings and structures completed in 1938, Buildings and structures in Belfast, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for North Street Arcade outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study North Street Arcade in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what North Street Arcade means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain North Street Arcade out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is North Street Arcade in simple terms?

Why does North Street Arcade matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study North Street Arcade?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on North Street Arcade.