THE PEOPLE’S PARLIAMENT
Recasting Infrastructural Memory As Civic Ground
The People’s Parliament reclaims the forgotten spaces beneath and around the Mancunian Way, transforming a landscape shaped by division, protest and infrastructure into a new civic framework for collective life. Built from the salvaged concrete beams, columns and rubble of the motorway itself, the project turns the physical material of exclusion into spaces of assembly, reflection and democratic participation, giving marginalised communities a visible and permanent voice within the city. Inspired in part by La Haine, the project reflects upon the absence of shared civic space for forgotten communities, where abandoned buildings and leftover urban spaces can become sites of gathering, mirroring their social and political exclusion.
Drawing upon civic typologies including the ancient stoa and the medieval cloister, the architecture combines historical forms of gathering with the raw conditions of contemporary protest culture, infrastructural ruin and graffiti, creating a civic landscape that is simultaneously ancient and contemporary. Spaces for debate, contemplation, cultural identity and public encounter are woven throughout the project, allowing political anger and social fragmentation to be transformed into dialogue, memory and collective action.
In an emerging digital age increasingly defined by inequality, privatised platforms and the erosion of physical public space, the People’s Parliament argues for the continued importance of architecture as a place of embodied democratic visibility, where communities can gather physically, exchange ideas openly and participate directly in shaping the future of their city.
