Better Than Trees
Better Than Trees interprets Hulme as a “compost city” by incorporating principles of circular metabolism and industrial
ecology theory. Hulme’s urban history has been shaped by cycles of social and physical demolition, reconstruction and
adaptation, reflecting the neighbourhoods resilliance and regerativive capacity for urban growth. The approach positions the
neighbourhood as a system of inputs, processes and outputs where waste from one system becomes feedstock for another.
The project sits above Princess Parkway, reusing airborne waste from the carriageway as a primary input in the
building’s metabolic process. Above Princess Parkway, direct air capture units (DACs) are placed in the tunnel,
where vehicle emissions are collected and transferred to a filtration laboratory to be processed. Above this layer,
the building opens into glazed cultivation halls where captured CO₂ and NOx combine with wastewater from as
x combine with wastewater from as
nutrient input for algae growth. These cultivation halls are elevated for greater s
nutrient input for algae growth. These cultivation halls are elevated for greater sunlight exposure, creating naturally
lit atmospheres where algae photosynthesises in bioreactor tubes. The material then passes into biomass processing
areas, an energy plant space and algae-brick production workspaces before heat and power return to Hulme. The
building’s public cirrculation is organised around this sequence through bridges and external walkways that flow through
and around the building programme, creating an educational route that explains how waste becomes a resource.
This architectural metabolism redefines the civic role of the institution by treating energy as a shared resource
within the city. For MMU, it extends the university’s 2030 carbon and energy strategy into research infrastructure
testing biological forms of decarbonisation. For Hulme, it expands the boundary of institutional energy provision by
processing biomass into heat and energy to supports residents outside the campus network. In this way, environmental
research and decarbonisation become shared public infrastructure between the institution and the neighbourhood.
