Pavement Studios
Under a wet Mancunian sky, a group of artists assembled on North Western Street, Mayfield. They took the pavement - between viaduct and river - as their studio, and began creating on the street. To the pedestrians passing them, however, it was not the artists’ finished creations that intrigued them. Rather, it was the artists’ presence, caught in process, that stirred something in the spirits of those passing on the street. Many passersby stopped, glanced, and spoke to the artists.
By making process visible the artist and pedestrian had both found a voice.
This self-instigated FLUX Lab became the project brief. The Pavement Studio provides creative residence for Manchester’s artists in a studio whose architecture is a continuation of the pavement, encouraging empowering discourse between artist and pedestrian by making the creative process accesible and visible.
In the same vein, the building itself is a constant process, its construction and adaptation never ceasing.
A grid of stones is cut and built on site. A disused derelict warehouse on the site becomes a workshop for the construction.
In the first instance, this stone grid is left as a place for citizens to explore, their height and structure affording a place where they might build their own temporary installations, pop-up shelters, or platforms for gatherings.
Following this, a timber frame is fixed on top of the stones, providing a structure for moveable track-mounted SIPS panels and a lightweight outer envelope. This forms a highly adaptable spatial arrangement for the studios to accomodate varying scales of artwork.
Throughout all this process, the permanent stones have been canvases, collecting a palimpsest of layered marks and identities. Splashes of paint, holes for new structures, or paper posters pasted on. They outlast all else, remaining a legacy to the voices and identities of Mayfield
