Resilient Urban Futures and parallel collaboration with the MMU Estates team were key design drivers for the CPU atelier, in which computational design tools were implemented to explore the future of food on the MMU campus.
For my personal project, I proposed the design of a bakery specifically aimed towards providing a refuge for Manchester's ever-growing homeless population. As the city grows, so do these demographics and the inevitable events of hunger. A critical global shortage of bakers has emerged in recent years, as older, more experienced bakers retire and state-of-the art machinery and modern techniques take over and replenish the dying trade. The baker’s experience of the city is, however, changing as they continue working through the night. Where bakers used to work through the early hours of the morning to provide the rising city with fresh bread, the working day is no longer determined by daylight hours, as cities operate on 24-hour cycles. The presence of the bakers inside at night-time illuminates the Oxford road corridor and acts as a beacon of light within the city.
In order to reinstate the baker’s ownership of the artisanal craft and shed importance on the bread as a symbol of peace and food to feed the hungry, the project corresponds to both short and long term resilience and adopts an adaptable, flexible and mobile nature. Employment is provided to the homeless in the form of apprenticeships to relearn and revive baking and mobile stalls are placed around Manchester to distribute bread to various communities. The building includes the bakery, growing and production spaces to educate the community and modular shelter pods are provided, so that the homeless can finally adopt a ‘sense of place’ within the city.
