This project seeks to physically and programmatically restructure the former UMIST Campus, balancing the economic imperative for reinvention with the environmental imperative for retention. Judicious decisions concerning the value of the existing buildings drive this project. The design emerges from over a year’s research into the spatial qualities of modernist architecture and postwar campuses, producing an informed alternative to comprehensive redevelopment.
The ambition for the project is to create a city micro-district, reprogramming the single use university campus in favour of a heterogeneous mix of uses and an amplified sense of urbanity. New uses are found for old buildings: lecture theatres become cinemas, large labs become sports halls, towers become communal apartments - saving a vast quantum of embodied carbon. At the heart of the campus a new civic and cultural centre - the Aula - anchors public activity within the district. The former UMIST Campus is transformed into a city within the city.