MArch show catalogue 2012

“…the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory. This relationship between the locus and the citizenry then becomes the city’s predominant image, both of architecture and of landscape, and as certain artifacts become part of its memory, new ones emerge. .”

ENERGY COAST COVER (Arial Bold 12pt)

Aldo Rossi - The Architecture of the City (1982)

Energy Coast: To develop a spatial masterplan for the town centres of Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport. Exploring the potential of the historic urban cores to act as catalysts for regeneration.

Students generated an urban design proposal for pre-defined areas of each town centre.

Implicit within each masterplan/ urban design is a demonstration of a detailed understanding of the application of established methods of urban analysis.

From each masterplan students identified zones of intervention, locations where specific projects would achieve maximum impact.

Individual Comprehensive Design Projects (CDP) were formulated based upon the urban design analysis/propositions and these became the focus of students presentations.

School of Art & Design Liverpool John Moores University

1

Maryport Urban Design study The initial concept for our project was born out of Maryport’s unique relationship with nature, geology and ecology.

Once an innovative centre for the coal and steel industries of the past Maryport has since fallen into decline. It is our intention to re-instate Maryport as an industrial centre, a technological hub, but with a focus into renewable industries of the future, leading the way into tidal power energy production, research and development that will bring an innovative and highly skilled workforce back into Maryport.

Maryport’s unique relationship with the environment and landscape suggests that proposed buildings or developments should also forge an environmental and ecological connection, enhanced further by the over arching renewable energy research programme and our own sustainable approach to urban design.

Maryport is a place where industry and nature have previously existed at odds. In the wake of renewable energy strategies in the area, this masterplan seeks to reconfigure technology, industry, nature and ecology as a harmonised entity, which taps into all unique aspects of Maryport.

Historically forged on an industrial past of coal mining and steel craft, Maryport developed into a place of engineering innovation and trading importance. Given its industrial past and unique relationship with its environment and landscape the development proposal should protect and enhance existing features of nature and ecology, and provide new areas of outstanding natural and biologically diverse character. This falls in line with the idea that Maryport as a town has the potential to become a prime site once again, this time for the research and development of renewable technologies.

2

Workington Urban Design study Brief: _In conjunction with the Energy Coast Masterplan, the masterplan sought to reinvigorate the declining economy of Workington, Cumbria through the visions of promoting the green energy initiative.

The overal strategy explored the reconnection of the industrial sectors of the town, through to the redevelopment of the Cloffocks, with further focus on the Quayside and the Waterfront.

Key Aims: _ to create a new campus to the region, serving as a new specimum for technological advancements in green energy. _ re-establish the high skill set manufacturing economy back to the town of Workington. _ through redeveloping the waterfront at the mouth of the River Derwent, the former historic importance of the River can be restored to the town, whereby creating a new cultural identity to the town which its growth previously turned its back on. _ Divided into strips dictated from the historical grid of the town’s urban planning, the masterplan allows six different biofuels to be researched.

- To raise the public awareness of the increasing demand for green energy developments

3

Whitehaven Urban Design study After studying Whitehaven town centre, we have focused on four areas (within those outlined in the Copland Development guidelines by Paul Butler) that would be considered in our overall masterplan development.

These main areas are: The Waterfront This covers the marina and the immediate buildings and landscape that surround it. The area will have an emphasis in the leisure and tourism aspects of the regeneration through the strengthening of the built fabric along the edge and to also reconnect the town to the marina.

The Grid Iron centre The urban fabric here will be left intact, but there is a significant need for the renovation of certain properties and the overall streetscape presentation of Whitehaven which is required to update and maintain a high standard of heritage which would contribute to the North West’s international status as a place of British natural and cultural beauty.

Swingpump lane and Hillside This will be where the majority of new build urban structure will be located, running along Swingpump Lane and expanding the town back into its medieval historic centre. The organisation of this new fabric will feed off the already established grid iron layout and the new castle grid, respected the structure of the current town yet also creating a new urban condition unique to its location and topography.

4

New Castle Grid The area to the south of Catherine St has become somewhat unordered and has no formal structure to speak of. Here on a larger strategy for Whitehaven we want to establish a new grid based on the orientation of the Lowther Castle, which can be used as an organisation principle to aid the development of the area in the future.

Whitehaven street School Stuart Everatt The past decade has seen an unprecedented shift in the public attitudes to the way in which the High Street experience is perceived, an increased mobility alongside a increased online sales presence has seen smaller town centres often bypassed in the retail experience, in search of the larger, out of town retail parks or simply online barging hunting. A trend which meant even prior to the economic downturn, in-town vacancy rates were rising [1], following the first economic contraction in early 2009 the problem has only escalated, With the Portas Review suggesting that less than half of our retail spending currently takes place on the high street and a drop in town centre stores by almost 15,000 between 2000 and 2009, a change that even the most unobservant of people will have noticed with the loss of such household names as Woolworth’s, Borders and Zavvi.

The effects of High Street Decline therefore stretch much further than the street itself.

As suggested in the BRC report 21st century high streets; a new vision for our town centres; There is a bright future for high streets as the focal point for local communities.... The high street is more than a shopping location, playing a crucial role at the heart of the community. As our communities continue to evolve, the high street of the 21st century is likely to be a very different place to that of 20 or 30 years ago.

With nearly one in six shops in the UK currently standing vacant [7], the high street experience is in need of a breathe of fresh air and a shift from the ‘retail-centric’ view it currently holds.

My suggestion is that the school system becomes fully integrated within the local economic fabric, in a situation where one stabilises and enhances the overall experience of the other. A system not just restricted to larger more successful businesses that operate from large out of town business parks, but those of the high street.

5

The Terrarium Dan Hanna Everything is evolving, nothing is stable - nothing can stay the same. However, the rate at which things evolve, shift or change is relative to the circumstance encountered and dependent upon the artefact in time‌ One thing is certain though - in time everything as it is today will eventually be lost.

So then, how does one say ‘I was here’?

This project is about lifespans, and the importance of the footprints they leave behind -The lifespan of a person, the lifespan of a building, the lifespan of the ground on which the building stands and of the natural world that surrounds it.

In this sense, the immediate idea that springs to mind is a time capsule or archive - the idea that we protect the most important relics of our present so that future generations may learn, understand and relate to their ancestry - however, what if we could archive a piece of nature, preserve it and utilise it in the future?

The project is set on a dynamically shifting coastline in Maryport in Cumbria, where the insertion of a new tidal barrage will impact upon the rate of erosion in an important place of special scientific interest. This onslaught of erosion alongside the threat of rising sea levels will mean that in as little as 200 years, this place and the rare natural vegetation it is home to will be lost, forever.

The building then acts as a marker, a point of reference, of not simply a lost place, but of a time, an ecology, and the life of a man who has devoted his existence to ensuring that future generations can discover, understand and utilise what he has left for them - a scientific archive of a lost world.

Through the architecture there is an opportunity, not just to preserve, but allow one to read the story of several points of existence which once coincided.

500 - 1000 years in the future, then, our successors can discover the derelict overgrown ruins of this place.

6

Archaic Purification Gavin Watts ar-cha-ic (adjective) “marked by the characteristics of an earlier period; antiquated”: an archaic manner; an archaic notion pu-ri-fi-ca-tion, (noun) of pu-ri-fy: ‘to make pure; free from anything that debases, pollutes, adulterates, or contaminate: to purify metals” The Project... to create a Research and Application Facility to study the application of hydrogen to the freight industry and provide significant improvements to the local infrastructure through the means of Workington Station.

With the site’s historical connections to the railway and the demand for new infrastructure and development of alternative fuels within the local region, the CDP intends to utilise this opportunity by exploring the application of hydrogen fuel to the diesel locomotive and bus fleets of Cumbria.

The CDP intends to provide Research & Development and Application facilities for the process behind hydrogen fuel cell technology to be further explored and applied to the UK freight industry. This need for an alternative fuel comes after it was stated the ability to electrolyse the diesel freight industry was an impossible solution. With 80% of power being lost from generation to track and the need for each carriage to be independently powered, the electric train is unable to meet the demands of freight transportation.

By exploring the methodology behind applying hydrogen to the transportation industry and creating a new transport interchange for the town of Workington, the CDP therefore questions the future of the global transport industry whilst providing significant changes to the poor infrastructure to the town of Workington.

7

Workington Steel Centre Mark Yates The new industrial quarter of Workington aims to support the long standing industrial skill base of the local populous; whilst becoming a leading research and development base for new and existing industries within Britain. The towns well established relationship with heavy industry makes a suitable choice for this new development and for the relocation of the steelworks The relocated steel mill lies to the south west of the site. This allows the new mill to be part of the new industrial quarter of Workington whilst the road and rail layout defines this area as a separate entity, allowing the steel centre to be both integrated and stand alone.

The finalised project brief goes beyond relocating the steel works, but creating an entirely new public face for TATA steel.

The new centre has three core objectives: • Firstly to serve it’s primary industrial function as a secondary steel mill. This process involves recycling scrap steel and using it to produce rolled steel sheeting.

• To become a centre for education and research. The new centre will house a metallurgy college in the form of a University Technical College or UTC. The UTC is a new government initiative to create a hands on educational experience, in this case directly linked to industry and employment.

• Finally the building will have a substantial public element. In preserving the historic significance of the old Workington steel industry, there will be both temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, an archive and library dedicated to the history and future of British steel, as well as an element of public interaction with the current industrial process.

8

Maryport Cookery School Robin Graham Maryport feels like a town forgotten on the peripheral edge of the Lake District’s wondrous landscape. However, being located on the coast of such a place means that it is an ideal location for sourcing both fresh land based food and fresh seafood. A school to teach about cooking in Maryport can utilise this produce in a high quality venue and become a draw to Maryport and a landmark for the town.

The thesis for the project is to create a design of ‘slow architecture’ that reflects the slow food program advocated in the cookery school.

“In the fast modern junk food environment, Slow Food is the voice of calm reason and quality. We work to promote the greater enjoyment of food through a better understanding of its taste, quality and production, Working with local member groups across the country, our network of chefs and artisan producers we deliver educational projects and events to reconnect people with where their food comes from, how and where it is produced and the implications of the choices we make on the environment, biodiversity and our own health.”1 The architecture of the school is to reflect that program. Most architecture created today is the equivalent of fast food – quick and cheap. The cookery school will be the opposite; using locally sourced, high quality materials; developing in phases to allow the school business to grow organically; be carbon neutral to minimise its footprint on the earth; and to reconnect people with where their architecture comes from by maintaining a close relationship between the building and nature. This is the very embodiment of sustainable architecture. Having an understanding of the implications of the choices we make on the environment, biodiversity and our own health is essential to sustainability.

The slow architecture should be of high quality and be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment.

9

Whitehaven Forum Martyn Jones The group masterplan proposed to introduce a new Specialist Energy Campus (SEC). It focused on the development of renewable and sustainable energy in the following faculties; nuclear, geo-engineering, oceanic and experimental & alternative sustainable energy research.

The specialist Energy Campus is an attempt by the government to guide the Big 6 Energy corporations to consider renewable energy as a key resource in their companies development. It is the governments attempt to pay back to the individual by reversing the dominance of corporate capitalism in the energy sector.

It promotes corporate social responsibility in an attempt to calm the tensions between the public and the energy companies.

The CDP project proposes the introduction of Whitehaven Forum. The building encompasses a new social enterprise model, driven by the need for educational development in the region and embodies the introduction of a new civic heart to the town.

The envelope of the building encloses symbolic programme of the corporations, state and individual. The functions within will express the current tensions, while attempting to highlight the intertwining of their function for the mutual advancement of Whitehaven town and as an extension, society as a whole.

10

Field Study Trip Lisbon & Porto - oct 2011

11