Establishing A state of Change
Who is the city for? To build tomorrow's cities in a way that can mitigate climate change address inequality as well generate prosperity architects, urbanists and developers will need to develop a new way of doing things. This year Flux atelier came together with U&I Plc (part of the largest UK development company), to co-author a brief for Flux atelier students to investigate transforming the cities we have, with their Mayfield site in Manchester as a live urban regeneration laboratory.
Students have each been developing their own way of working and discovering what kind of practitioner they would like to become. These projects investigate, through speculative designs, how architecture could establish a state of change and reconnect a part of Manchester that has been a post-industrial wasteland to the bustling city all around it. The Mayfield area witnessed the birth of the industrial revolution. Adjacent to Piccadilly train station, this post-industrial wasteland has been a blind spot in Manchester's mind's eye for over 50 years, walled in by the high railway viaducts and the Mancunian Way.
Studio has been informed by weekly vertical teaching, in clusters of 6 across BA3, MArch1 and MArch2 to engage weekly with a peer-to-peer discussion and a broad range of built environment professionals and practitioners all immersed in the transformation of Mayfield; from archaeologist to artist, to conservation architect, to client, to film maker, to psychogeographer, to challenge their proposals on the go each week and provoke a rich discussion along the way.
