Studio 2.1 Slicing & Stitching Stockport

In recent years, Stockport town centre has undertaken a process of reinvention, characterised by the installation of independent businesses and celebration of gastronomic, artistic and other forms of creative enterprise. A town of two ‘halves’, the old town revolves around the marketplace with its nineteenth century market hall, and numerous characterful shops and townhouses, whilst the ‘new’ part of town follows a distinctly twentieth century concept of retail, concentrated around a large concourse, with post-war brutalist insertions into the ancient townscape.

Interesting transects can be followed along its streets, steps, varied urban levels and topography, the semi-hidden River Mersey, railway lines….and even its position in the flight path to Manchester Airport.

Given the current spotlight on Stockport as Greater Manchester Town of Culture for 2023, students were asked to research and design a small number of dwellings with associated creative workspace on a vacant plot in the old town. The creative workspaces were to draw on Stockport’s past and current entrepreneurial nature. Suggested activities were textile and food production, but other related creative processes could be considered.

The design of the dwellings was to create sensitive yet exciting dialogue, both with each other and with their context, and could explore different types of creative workspace, live-work typologies or the changing nature of living and working in an era of climate emergency.

Studio 2.2 Guardians Of The Goyt – Who Owns Our Water

At the edges of the topographically and architecturally varied urban centre of Stockport is a less visible landscape formed by river valleys and historically heavily shaped by industry and infrastructure. It is in this hidden zone that the Rivers Goyt and Tame merge to form the Mersey, with remnants of industrial heritage sitting in sharp contrast to brutalist 20th century architecture and road networks.

Given its setting and position on the edge of the town centre, en route to the more open landscape of Reddish Vale Country Park to the north, students were asked to design an architectural ensemble for the use of a small team of ecologists or hydrologists to carry out their environmental work on the given site adjacent to the River Goyt. In addition to space(s) for scientific and conservation work, there is an opportunity to engage the public with the importance of environmental awareness. The architectural intervention was expected to feature both open and enclosed spaces that interact with the surrounding land, water, and cityscape, and the design should further explore the notion of transect.

The site offered an opportunity for students to engage with the water’s edge whilst providing alternative public route through the site as well as negotiating level change.

Studio 2.1 Stockport Pop-Up Exhibition

Studio 2.1 Pop-Up Exhibition in Miru Mill, Stockport