Introduction. On 3rd May 2013, more than 50 students from schools of architecture across the North of England took part in the inaugural RIBA Charrette, entitled “A Northern Soul”. This project, the fantastic outputs of which are featured in the rest of this booklet, was in response to a desire to foster closer links between education, the architecture profession, potential clients and suppliers, but also to showcase the quality of the students and the Schools of Architecture across the North of England. After a period of consultation with key partners, the model of a
“charrette” was chosen as the vehicle for doing so. A charrette is an intensive design workshop undertaken in small groups over the course of a single day. Through the common exploration of a key question and site, the charrette is a method of producing a large amount of creative design thinking in a short space of time. Projects are reviewed at the end of the day with the potential for information to be progressed further by key stakeholders. The partners involved managed to turn around a fantastically organised charrette in a very short space of time, and the
participants produced responses to the challenging brief of the very highest quality. Everyone involved in the event organisation, and during the day itself, helped contribute to an incredibly successful project and have now laid down a marker for future RIBA charrette’s. The indication is that this has the partner support and most importantly impetus to become a regular fixture in the calendar for the Schools and the profession alike, and I am proud that the first of these events took place in the North West. Andrew Ruffler. RIBA Regional Director.
Context. Stockport developed at a strategically important position on a steep sided triangular promontory overlooking the Mersey Valley at the confluence of the Tame and Goyt rivers. The town developed as a prosperous market town, served by a network of roads and connected to a nearby bridging point over the river Mersey (Lancashire Bridge), one of only 3 along the entire length of the Mersey in the medieval period, contributing to the commercial success of the town. The Industrial revolution brought rapid development
in the form of silk and cotton mills and hat manufacture. As the town expanded, the pre-eminence of the historic core was partially eclipsed by the construction of Wellington Road (A6) in 1825 and then by the railway in 1842, both aligned to the west of the town centre, this area became the focus of civic, commercial and industrial development, hence the survival of the existing street pattern and large number of historic buildings in the core. In 1936 work began to cover over the river Mersey from Lancashire Bridge to Wellington Road, approximately 480m long,
to create a new road, this was done to relieve traffic congestion on east/west routes through the town centre. This route has since become a pedestrianized shopping centre. Town centre development has been defined in part by the rivers and the Mersey valley, this has been further compounded by the construction of the M60 motorway running east / west along the Mersey valley to the north of the town cutting a swathe through Stockport.
Mary Doyle. Stockport MBC.
“There is Stockport, too, which lies on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, but belongs nevertheless to the manufacturing district of Manchester. It lies in a narrow valley along the Mersey, so that the streets slope down a steep hill on one side and up an equally steep one on the other, while the railway from Manchester to Birmingham passes over a high viaduct above the city and the whole valley.� Engels, F., (1845).
Brief. The City of Heroic Fragments: Why Stockport is Like Paris Parc Monceau in Paris presents the visitor with all the styles of architecture; Egyptian, Greek and Roman. These are displayed as curated fragments in a planned and verdant landscape. These fragments reappear in Stockport, a town where the Pyramid, Viaduct and Temple within a quotidian and unplanned landscape. Their mythological character is currently lost in the banality of their context, setting up a weird dissonance with the topograghic power of the town, situated on the edges of the Mersey valley.
The development of the self-image of a town can call on numerous sources. These can provide the necessary validation for urban design actions and architectural decisions. The stylised figurative paintings of Northern urban space made by the artist L.S.Lowry in the 1920s and 30s depict a version of a past Northern urban life that has become mythologised. One of his lesser known paintings, of Crowther Street in Stockport depicts an idealised and heavily peopled version of urbanity. This street has survived radical transformations, culminating in the demolition of large sections of it in the 1960’s.
In 2012 Crowther Street was reconstructed in the image of Lowry’s painting and instantly became protected under conservation area status. The power of art makes architecture indestructible. This brief asks teams to apply the power of art to propose potentially radical transformations of Stockport. Artist’s idealised urban images were imported to trigger re-imagining and redefining the town centre and new urban visions. Professor Tom Jefferies.
Head of School. Manchester School of Architecture.
Paris
Rome
Eygpt
Stockport
Greece
Group 1. Sam Sedgewick [Northumbria] Lucy Owen [Huddersfield] Vlad Georgescu [Huddersfield] Emma Naylor [Manchester] Samger Aftab Sial [Liverpool John Moores]
“Our interpretation of the brief was that perhaps a town or a city shouldn’t actually have other towns and cities within it. It should be based upon its cultural roots. We analysed our photos and it became apparent that each photo was based on a utopian view. We went and visited the site and it was strange how busy it was, it was dominated by the cars and there was massive difficulties with pedestrians crossing the road. So we tried to solve that problem by creating suspended walkways which could be attached to existing buildings. The idea was that gateways would be generated from the train station towards the civic buildings over the A6.” Group 1 (2013)
Group 2. Laura Brown [Northumbria] Monika Marinova [Manchester] Kahe Lang Liverpool John Moores] Raphae Memon [Manchester]
“We picked out key themes from our images of Vienna, Venice and Paris which all looked at public space in a different way and all had a landmark. We were thinking of defining a landmark in Stockport and we found certain aspects of the town which were quite unique, like the viaduct, which we thought could act as more of a gateway into the town. When walking across the town there were arches that framed certain views of key landmarks and we thought that these should be featured in the routes of people visiting Stockport.� Group 2 (2013)
Group 3. Dan Goodricke [Northumbria] Baljit Panesar [Manchester] Louis Speelmans [Manchester]
“For our project we used framing as a vehicle to introduce escapism and to provoke imagination in Stockport by aiming to reconnect the disconnected river. We started off earlier this morning by taking a walk into Stockport and looking through the maps to find that the river was completely disconnected from the town. We explored where the river goes underground and there was a bridge that came over the point where the river disappears from sight and this encapsulated and captured just the river and the immediate context of the brickwork and sheltered out the more industrial views, we thought this captured quite an idyllic scene and different from what you see in the concrete jungle. So this made us think about framing.� Group 3 (2013)
Group 4. Kim Whitfield [Northumbria] Mariam Iqbal [Manchester] Ryan Millar [Manchester] Mohamed Musie [Liverpool John Moores] Sam Eadington [Huddersfield]
“When we went to Stockport we started talking to people and walking around and we realised that Stockport is made up of lots of smaller clusters that were quite disconnected from each other with numerous nodes and centres which where not connected either. A very large metropolitan borough made up of different bits and bobs. We asked lots of people, what is the centre of Stockport? The general perception was that there were many centres and we highlighted those that we mentioned, the Railway Station, Grand Central, the Bear Pit, The Viaduct and the Merseyway Shopping Centre. So we connected these key nodes.� Group 4 (2013)
Group 5. Sean Normington [Northumbria] Matthew Chamberlain [Northumbria] Victoire Liagre [Manchester] Connor Templeman [Manchester] Viola Kreczmeig [Liverpool John Moores]
“We all gathered around the table this morning and we were looking through our photos and were particularly interested in a painting of Stockport in the 16th Century which had a number of people gathered around a well. Stockport is quite disjointed so we wanted to create a central junction which will form the new attraction in Stockport. So we started looking at the junction between Great Underbank and Little Underbank. The idea behind this is to create four different streets which will each represent some of the vibrancy from our images of London, Paris, New York and 16th Century Stockport. The idea was not to replicate the architecture of those cites but the feeling and atmosphere.� Group 5 (2013)
Group 6. Taniya Ittan [Manchester] Aimie Griffiths [Liverpool John Moores] Fabian Danker [Northumbria] Aida Rodriguez Vega [Manchester] Juliana Silvi [Huddersfield]
“We wanted to take an idea of Stockport to an extreme so that then maybe the idea could be distilled down. We started by looking into the past, all the industry that supported the city was aligned next to the river and over time the industry fell into decline and the new buildings started to face away from the river with many of the old industrial buildings on the riverside now vacant. Stockport has what lots of cities would like, shops, heritage and infrastructure so we propose to bring the river back to Stockport. We are thinking of a possible future where a dam is built further up the river so that the water levels rise in Stockport and the people can interact with the water and energy can be harnessed from it.� Group 6 (2013)
Group 7. Jamie Nicholson [Northumbria] Haroon Noon [Manchester] Rostislav Pazaitov [Manchester] Tom Sharlot [Huddersfield] Libby Edwards [Liverpool John Moores]
“We have called this event Stockport Submerged. There is a moment of intervention which is where we are currently at, in between where Stockport is now and where we want it to be. Our concept started by thinking about using the things that Stockport already has and so we began looking at the way the river had been covered over and we decided to punch holes in the High Street to connect this back to the underground river. When we started looking at this relationship in section we decided that we wanted to add a new layer to it which would provide a walkway and a timeline through Stockport.� Group 7 (2013)
Group 8. Jake Boardman [Northumbria] Daniel Mclean [Manchester] Ian Kerling [Liverpool John Moores] Rachel Bellwood [Huddersfield] George Williams [Manchester]
“We started with the idea of picturesque. Within the picturesque there is an inherent value. We started thinking about the Lake District and Liverpool which are both very different but either have world heritage status or are seeking world heritage status which starts to validate the status of the picturesque. Particularly in the National Park there are certain activities that draw people to the area such as extreme sports and water sports. So we thought with the idea of the picturesque we could make an urban National Park in Stockport.� Group 8 (2013)
Group 9. Alistair Speak [Northumbria] James Anderson [Huddersfield] Sheel Doshi [Manchester] Alfie Stephenson-Boyles [Northumbria] Emma Jane Dawson [Liverpool John Moores]
“Our initial concept came from a painting of the imagined city of Babylon. This new Babylon is constructed or reconstructed by inhabitants who construct their own personal space or their own bound and then move on and then someone else will deconstruct that environment and reconstruct again. An ever evolving and ever moving landscape. So the existing landscape is compounded by the density and the existing topography which is visually dense but not physically dense. Our concept was to create a route which break down the layers and allows inhabitants to interact.� Group 9 (2013)
Group 10. “As we explored the town centre we found Princess Street which is just off from the main shopping area and we found that it had lots of positive features Dimitrios Strathoulopoulous and was well connected to the town and had a [Manchester] relationship with both edges of the river as it went underground. We started by making diagrams Abby Tidswell [Northumbria] which showed the accessibility of the space from pedestrians and we proposed an intervention based Charlotte Snell on Stockport’s main feature, the river, which we [Northumbria] wanted to make the most of by making it visible. So we decided to design a canal in place of the road Yusef Shegow with two landmarks at each end.” [Manchester] Jennifer Cogley [Huddersfield]
Sachi Pozani [Liverpool John Moores]
Group 10 (2013)
Judges Comments. Themes, Variations and Points of Departure:
from across the whole of the North of England. Urban identity, engagement with context and the challenge of infrastructure to inhabitation reappeared as issues that developed a series of radical, yet believable proposals. Professor Tom Jefferies The overarching issues Head of School. Manchester of connectivity and School of Architecture. distinctiveness within a legible urban structure The charrette is designed to are critical to the future identify key themes within of Stockport. The need to a question and develop re-engage with the River initial responses as part of a Mersey was a consistent fast process. The important theme and could form aspect of all the schemes the basis of a strategic presented on 03/05/2013 reappraisal of the town is that the challenges centre urban space. The facing Stockport were winning proposal developed repeatedly and consistently this convincingly and identified and tested by radically, re-engaging the students of architecture historic city core with
the river, recasting the Merseyway Shopping Centre as Atlantis.
centre. They also identified and confidently addressed issues such as the barrier that the A6 presents, the wasted opportunity of having a river in the town centre that has been built over and the challenges of ‘reading’ and navigating the town Nicola Turner centre. Their solutions were Head of Economic Development thoughtful, imaginative & Regeneration. Stockport MBC. and inspirational (if commercially challenging). I loved the fresh creative The winning proposal approach that the teams to dam the Mersey and brought to real regeneration flood the town centre challenges that we are isn’t a proposal that we’ve tackling. They quickly previously given picked up on some of the consideration to … USPs of Stockport such as the source of the river Mersey, the iconic railway viaduct and the hidden historic parts of the town
and while some teams were stronger at presenting, all of them gave the judges Observing the students plenty to critique. It was a throughout the day I was very stimulating day to be amazed at how fast ideas part of and I really enjoyed and their realisation in the challenge of judging. model and sketching form While the winning team’s came together. There concept was radical and was a great diversity thought provoking I think of designs, some more it’s fair to say that the scale complex than others but and ambition of many of the each addressed very similar designs were practical and perceptions of the issues deliverable for the city. facing Stockport. Chatting to the teams at various stages of the process gave me an opportunity to question some concepts and hopefully help them fine tune their response to the brief. The presentation Rob Hopkins of ideas was interesting. Director. Aedas. Some schemes needed more explanation than others Through a series of models Mike Clarke
RIBA Regional Director.
and drawings, the students conveyed some excellent observations of Stockport which were presented with confidence and style. Each group seemed to tackle the brief from a different angle but it was interesting to see some common themes emerging which showed how a place can be understood and analysed in a short space of time and with a high level of enthusiasm and sophistication. It was great to see such diversity in presentation technique with a series of sketches, orthographics and some interesting conceptual models. Schemes were equally varied and ranged from the boldness of the dam to the subtlety of secret
underground walkways and lightwells punctuated through the city.
Geoff Brooks Ibstock.
I thought the schemes represented a fantastic level of excitement rooted in a good understanding of Stockport as a place and a destination. It was wonderful to see so many creative young minds working together on drawings, sketches and models throughout the day which were presented exceptionally well. Solutions were courageous and awe inspiring.
Book Edited by Laura Sanderson and Amber Roberts ÂŁ3.00