Excess

Excess * THE CHEETHAM HILL ISSUE *

INCLUDING AN INTERVIEW WITH

MSA Prints

ANN THORPE

PRESENTS

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES PART 3 A WASTED SPACE

CLOSED-LOOP PERMACULTURE

GLOBALISED CONSUMERISM

HOW DO WE ADDRESS CONSUMERISM IN MODERN SOCIETY? GROW YOUR OWN

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TESCO TOWN-ED

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RETHINK

MSA Prints EDITORIAL Welcome to the MSA Prints special edition four-part series ‘Manufacturing Communities: Designing Real Places’. This series explores the social technologies in which architects need to become experts in order to design and develop socially relevant architecture in a world of rising population, rapid urbanisation and increasing social and spatial inequalities. Responding to a debilitating disciplinary focus on the physical technologies of ‘sustainability’ this series instead examines the problems of commitment and engagement which ultimately determine their implementation and success. The series tackles the relationship between the discipline of architecture and wider society in four steps, beginning with the role the architect plays as a citizen in that society; secondly, exploring how the design qualities of the city are defined by its citizens; third how the city includes or excludes its occupants through the granting of citizenship; and lastly in terms of the city as an occupant of the wider ecology of the planet.

In this edition, part 3, the issue of consumption and its global effect will be addressed. Barley, beer, aluminium ring pulls and prosthetic limbs act as a tribute to the ingenuity of Mankind and his ability to spin grain into gold. Recycled aluminium has been used in the production of light weight and cheap prosthetics by a small charity in Thailand. Such ingenuity is in demand as the world faces the problems of climate change, diminishing resources and increasing population.

Mounds of waste rise in homage to the consumer propelled global economy. Only the accompanying odour prompts complaints, not the fact that products are designed with built in obsolescence, that twofor-the-price-of one is a marketing policy destined for a bin.

In the following articles, a series of projects present ways in which design aims to promote social change and contribute to a rethinking of society’s attitude to waste. Each project proposes an intervention involving participation of local residents and devising activities which create opportunities for strengthening community capabilities. In this respect, these design proposals challenge existing ways of living, working and the inescapable process of wealth generating through consumption. Searching for solutions to locally identifiable problems, the articles uncover an extra ‘ism to add to our vocabulary; design activism. A term used by Ann Thorpe to describe the act of addressing change through demonstration artefact, visual communication, service and events. The ideas presented in this publication offer a significant shift from the traditional process of design in architecture with Ann Thorpe’s framework guiding students in their response to the issue of waste.

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CONTENTS

03

Bulletin

05

Opinion

07

Overview

09

A View From...

Cheetham Hill

13

A Wasted Space: Unit 25

31

An Interview With

35

ENGAGE: 101 Ways to Change Your City

37

Theory of Participation

39

Globalised Consumerism

42

What’s Next?

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Review

45

Collaborators

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15Grow Your Own MATTHEW SHANLEY

Urban agriculture as a system of infrastructure to address the crisis of food resilience in cities.

03Food

BULLETIN

Decomposing, rotting, decaying food turned into art.

21Tesco Town-ed MICHELE LIM

Six months of your life in a supermarket - giant retailers better or worse for communities?

25Rethink

MADELEINE MOONEY

43Adhocism REVIEW

Can our throw-away society be redefined to one of make-doand-mend?

Everyday improvisation.

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BULLETIN

Food art

Closed-loop permaculture The desire and idea for local food architects, planners and educators look production is not a new concept, and for time-tested models addressing one of the earliest city farms in the the sister issues of resource scarcity UK was Mudchute Park and Farm (and and food security, the progressive still in operation) established in 1977. urban farming work stemming from Whilst small-scale and localised food Cuba’s Special Period stands out as a production has a long history, including rare and important precedent. Widely individual allotments which have been understood to be ‘one of the most popular in Europe since successful examples of the late 18th century, it 50% of food production urban agriculture in the is the integration of world’, Cuban urban is now urban based, such farming practices farming incorporates rising to 80% in some within the economic grassroots organising, cities. and ecological system the appropriation of towns and cities that of public space for is a newer development. This means growing, and shared technical and that urban resources such as compost educational support. The scheme has from food waste and waste water been very successful, with an estimated from urban drainage is utilised, whilst 50% of national food production now urban problems such as the pressure urban based, rising in some cities to on land and development also have to 80% of all food being cultivated within be negotiated. As architects, landscape the city boundary.

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One-third of the world’s food supply goes to waste. In Europe, 50% of all edible food is wasted. Driven by the idea of food waste, Austrian artist Klaus Pichler highlights the connection between individual wastage of food and globalized food production. A vast selection of foods are set in elaborate still life arrangements and then photographed as they begin to naturally disintegrate. The project goes past the sell by date in order to document the full dimensions of the global food waste.

Pichler’s art project challenges the way we think about food waste by promoting the idea that decomposing, rotten, decayed food can be turned into a successful art project. Food waste is a global phenomena and an environmental concern, and there is an emphasis for a change in attitude towards consumerist culture. While food security has not traditionally been considered the domain of architects, landscape architects and planners, it is possible for designers to bring an important lens to urban waste and consumption driven-ways and to rethink urban growth.

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COMMENT

“

Consumerism is partly fueled by a mismatch between supply and actual consumer needs, whereby reducing the supply (assuming possible) would raise the prices and eventually reduce excessive purchase by consumers.

However, a separate matter arises, how would the poorer segment of consumers deal with the price hikes?

Would it be justified to put the poorer segment at a bigger disadvantage just to solve an issue of foodwaste?

Mak Zhing Nin via Facebook

Get stitched up Swedish denim label, Nudie Jeans has opened satellite repair stores around the world where customers can take their knackered trousers in for a free fix up. “Caring capitalism” may be an oxymoron, but Nudie appears to be shifting the public gaze towards something akin to responsible consumerism. The website claims that they “do not envisage a trade-off between profit and people, or between manufacture and environmental responsibility”. Its CEO Palle Stenberg says Nudie started out with the ethical side hard-wired into the business model. “Those ethics have always been part of us ... The look and the fit is important - otherwise nobody buys them. But the social responsibility and taking care of nature was also there from day one. We wanted to know that everyone who worked with us would go to sleep at night having an OK life.”

Essentially, in order to curb our waste, supermarkets need to become responsible for fuelling our consumerism, which of course, they wont do as they are successful at monopolising our food. it is down to the individuals, or cooperatives in our society to catalyse action and changed attitudes to urban food production, because we are often too easily influenced by consumerist propaganda. supermarkets must reconsider their long term values, as it is incredibly daunting to imagine our scenario in 40 years time, on the brink of running out of oil.

Richard Coskie via Facebook Well, I guess we cant really avoid throwing/recycling things that are no longer useful/old...what are the other options? @hopelessworld There should be no reason for wasted food if people aren’t fooled by promotions and deals...don’t buy more than you can consume. @hopeless world

”

Tesco Town-ed production plan

OPINION

The Gentle Art of Persuasion Two choices. One decision. According to Daniel Kahneman (2012) we have two types of thinking. A fast, intuitive and impressionistic way (System 1) which we use for the majority of time. On stand-by is System 2, a slow, effortful and analytical process which has little idea of what is going on with system 1 but, nevertheless, is influenced by it. This theory suggests that if we want to make better decisions, we need to be aware of these “thinking” processes.

Above: Daniel Kahneman Right: Image from Thinking Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman (2012).

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Gregory Bateson stated “all of the world’s problems are the result of the difference between how nature works, and the way people think”. If most of the choices we make are anchored in System 1, perhaps this information can influence and manipulate attitudes to “waste”. The UK Government, with its Behavioural Insight Team (Nudge Unit), is busy devising ways to change public attitude to a wide range of issues including energy saving and organ donation. How can the work of designers, and, in particular, the work of architects influence change. A very interesting article by Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schnieder points out that architects are “agents for the adding of more stuff to the world”. They argue for a move to a new way of thinking that does not involve “something

new” but something borrowed, to use the creativity and imagination of the designer to rethink consumer habits and patterns of behaviour. Examples are provided to inspire solutions to reduce waste: the creation of a new school playground from the reuse of wind turbines; easing congestion in a school corridor by the retiming of break bells so no physical design was in the end necessary; matching construction skills of self-builders with available materials to cut out the middleman to reduce economic cost of production.

If we understood System 1 and System 2, then the changes needed now to protect our future, would be more palatable. Changing attitudes to waste would be easier to accept as we all voluntarily recognise and understand that to continue with current levels of consumption, is madness.

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Artificial Efforts; Nature Does Not Exist In their article ‘Re: Going Around in Circles’, Marc Angelil and Cary Siress argue that “waste constitutes the suppressed other of capitalism, a dirty secret kept hidden”. Recycling and reuse are accused of keeping capitalism alive by prolonging the linear economy and removing the guilt factor. Revisiting Bateson’s quote and with reference to “nature”, what if we abandon our attitude to “nature”. This means taking one step further than Felix Guattari’s call to remove the link between images of the bearded nature lover and treehugging protester. It means taking on board Slavoj Zizek’s stance that our concern for nature is misplaced and is incompatible with a desire to continue our current way of living. He suggests we “cut-off ” the roots of nature and find “poetry” in the dimension of a more mathematical and mechanistic world. Whether or not he is expressing faith in a technological fix is not clear

but his criticism that environmentalism has become a new religion is very clear.

It infers that encouraging people to recycle, consume less, think green are pointless gestures and energy saving initiatives as mere symbolic acts which fail to make a significant contribution to the problems facing the world.

Pointing to a heap of rubbish, he declares that ecologists love garbage.

Whilst his future world is difficult to comprehend, so, too is the catastrophic world of climate change. As Zizek states, humankind is not programmed to think the unimaginable. It seems the doomsday scenario for changing our consumer habits may not work and the gentle art of persuasion is a waste of time and effort. This is hard to accept and feeds into a feeling of powerlessness, dependency on the scientific and technological community and the future of mankind left to the controlling minority, again.

Above: Slavoj Zizek Left: Slavoj Zizek stands in the foreground of a waste disposal plant in Astra Taylor’s Examined Life (2010).

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FEATURES

A View From... Cheetham Hill A Wasted Space Grow Your Own Community Matthew Shanley

Tesco Town-ed

Michele Lim

Rethink

Madeleine Mooney

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Informed by a UK context and with particular reference to Cheetham Hill in Manchester, the following feature articles propose practical initiatives for changing patterns of excessive consumption. To live within ecological limits and cultivate sustainable habits is the non-negotiable basis for suggesting the ways and means of changing our consumer-driven lifestyles. Each of the proposals share the common goal of reducing waste and taking collective action to support behavioural changes, encompassing social, economic, cultural and political spheres. In the context of Cheetham Hill, the cost of living and the mental and physical well-being of the community are major concerns and are impacted by this waste culture.

Grow Your Own Community makes food the focus of a proposal to create a network of linked spaces for urban agriculture, proposing a variety of different elements as part of a growing masterplan across the ward of Cheetham. In Tesco Town-ed, food waste from a major supermarket is diverted from landfill to a community-led enterprise and reused or composted. The project also proposes to use other resources produced by the store, such as water and heat, benefitting from resources that are otherwise wasted. Rethink concentrates on the reuse of waste and tackles the issue of obsolescence. Beginning with a number of smaller interventions, repair practices will be established as an everyday feature and become part of a community-wide strategy for the area as a specialised centre for reuse, repair and recycling where materials, tools and expertise can be shared.

Although working at different scales, all three projects express a desire to provide facilities for training, sharing expertise and creating local job opportunities. All three projects acknowledge that sustainable habits can only be developed through collective action and a sense of community collaboration.

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09

A VIEW FROM...

Unit 25

Right: Map of Cheetham Hill Opposite Page Above Right: Poor condition of Cheetham Hill street with low level of maintenance.

Opposite Page Below Right: High street of Cheetham Hill 10

CHEETHAM HILL “Cheetham Hill is a place is best described as lying somewhere between ‘vulnerable’ and ‘stable’, where the structural relationships are not yet in place to develop collaborative working, but the constituent components are there.” Centre for Local Economic Strategie (CLES) Located 1.4 miles north-northeast of Manchester city centre, Cheetham Hill sits on the boundary between four wards - Crumpsall to the North, Broughton and Kersal to the west and Cheetham to the south. For the last 200 years, Cheetham Hill has been host for migrants entering the city: Jewish migrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; and migrants from the Commonwealth countries in the mid twentieth century. Cheetham Hill is renowned within Manchester for its ethnic diversity, with 48 percent of residents do not speak English as their main language. It is host to the largest percentage of non-white residents in addition to a relatively high number of residents from ‘white other’ ethnicities.

The Pakistani community is the largest of all non-White ethnic populations, making up 26.0% of Cheetham’s total population. Subsequently, Cheetham Hill is a diverse community with a rich and varied culture.

The ethnic and cultural diversity is clearly visible from the existing built-landscape made up of mosques, churches and temples. Cheetham Hill road exemplifies this diversity, with Polish delis, Irish pubs, Arab sweet shops, Pakistani markets, Jamaican hairdressers amongst others.

The diverse nature of Cheetham Hill is recognised positively as having impacted the culture of the community, being open to different

groups and change, with a long history of inward migration and incorporating new communities. However, the sheer scale of this diversity and lack of homogeneity is raised as a major challenge, and is a characteristic that stands out from other areas in Manchester.

Over 70 languages are spoken by residents and this has a serious impact on the integration within the community. Doubled with the ever increasing population in Cheetham Hill, service accessibility is a major problem in the area due to poor equity of services and cultural barrier especially for certain groups of residents visiting

the doctor. The lack of education (54% of residents are below A-Level qualification) and language barriers for many people in the area results in a lack of health literacy, resulting in reduced understanding of the most basic health issues that affect people. This is having a detrimental effect on health and wellbeing, with life expectancy 4 years lower

(76.1 years) than the national average (80.6 years). A report published in 2012 which focused on the resilience of the community in Cheetham Hill identified health and wellbeing as ‘vulnerable’.

The area requires significant levels of public sector resources, placing a great deal of pressure on current services.

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CHEETHAM HILL Interviews with the local community suggest there is little social cohesion between different ethnic groups although they do wish that there were more opportunities for multi-cultural places and events for the community to get together. While there were no publicised incidents of community tension or unrest, it suggests that mixing among the community is low. Collaboration that exists in the community tends to be bound-up, self-contained and self-reliant making it difficult for other groups to engage with them.

Fourty percent of residents in Cheetham Hill are economically inactive, primarily retired or suffering from long-term illness, homemakers and students. There is also more intense poverty across different ethnic groups, particularly within the large South Asian population. Since the operation of Tesco in the area more than 120 jobs were provided for the locals. However, it has also resulted in the closure of local grocery stores, rendering one in three shops in Cheetham Hill empty, and those that remain have seen a reduction in their income.

Despite the neglect and decline evident in Cheetham Hill, residents retain a strong attachment to the area. Research shows that even those who have long moved out of Cheetham Hill returns periodically to visit friends or to shop on the bustling high street. It is clear that there is a strong sense of identity about the locality which does not leave people, even when they have moved away. Therefore, there is a significant yet complex nature of challenges faced by the community and in the following projects.

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82%

of cheetham hill residents strongly feel that they belong to their immediate neighbourhood

89%

of residents agree that people from different background get along

62%

of residents are not satisfied with the appearance of cheetham hill high street

65%

of residents agree that having local community activities will bring people together

“Events to do with food, music and art could be a way of getting different demographics together, but it must be sensitive to certain groups.�

Cheethem Hill Resident

Statistics presented are based on data collected from Urban Living Lab event held on October 25th 2013 and a survey conducted by Madeleine Mooney on January 18th 2014.

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Urban Living Lab The Urban Living Lab represents an experimental research concept based on a user-oriented open ecosystem, a methodology which was applied in Cheetham Hill. Students of the MSAp atelier undertook this methodology to engage with members of the Cheetham Hill community to unravel the relationships and networks that shape the given space and place. City centres and neighbourhoods have increasingly been serving as regional living labs, making it an ideal platform to explore needs of users as residents and citizens as well as to uncover underlying tensions and rhythms. Three different but overlapping tactics were adopted for the event, selected based on previous precedent that took place in Old Moat, Manchester.

‘Interactive Mapping’ records information spatially, based around various maps of Cheetham Hill. Questions posed to participants were directly related to place and specific spaces. While some questions such as ‘boundaries’ were deliberately open to interpretation, other questions were more focused by identifying facilities and routes that residents use. Layers of information were built up and cross-checked against information gathered from the other activities.

‘Focus Group’ involved table discussions of a range of topics, all of which were of interest to the research such as well-being, housing, and services. Conversations held were designed to establish views of participants, confirm existing suspicions and bring to light unheard opinions. While other activities used direct questions to lead the participants, focus group was designed to encourage participants to bring to the table subjects they felt were the most important, which would highlight a hierarchy of topics and opinions.

‘Community Audit’ was a one-to-one questionnaire interview to collect specific information and quantitative data on a number of topics such as health and well-being, facilities and services as well as what is it like to live in Cheetham Hill. While the other two methods provided more qualitative data, community audit was based on a consistent set of questions and it was more effective for comparing and quantifying the data. The questionnaire was designed to be as clear and accessible as possible to ensure that all participants could understand and respond.

Right: Urban Living Lab event held in Unit 25, 40 Old Bury Road on October 25th 2013

A WASTED SPACE: UNIT 25 Between September 2013 and March 2014 Buddleia, an arts-based commissioning agency, has been located in Unit 25, an empty shop on Cheetham Hill Road. Funded through the High Street Innovation Fund and supported by Manchester City Council North Manchester Regeneration Team, the project was inspired to reactivate and reconnect communities to their high streets. The pop-up shop was run

by Kerenza McClarnan and was open to anyone to use for this six month period, from community initiative groups needing a meeting point to new businesses trialling space for their ventures. Unit 25 played host to a programme of events that promoted the cultural importance and diversity of Cheetham Hill and the surrounding area, as well as providing guidance and advice on money, health and well-

“Cheetham Hill will experience a range of events orchestrated by Buddleia, including communitywide use of Unit 25 at Cheetham Hill Precinct...

This space is open to anyone for six months, from small businesses needing a place for meetings to school groups on the lookout for a performance room.

While groups take advantage of this opportunity, Buddleia plan to put on a programme of events reflecting the cultural importance and developing life of the Cheetham Hill high street.”

James Metcalf, Mancunian Matters, Sept 2013

being. Many activities and workshops took place, including cooking classes, a music workshop, pop up libraries and a community bazaar.

A shared space of this kind is not a new concept, but its location in the heart of the shopping district and the way it has been managed has been. The project provided a shared public space to engage with local residents and pilot future projects that was centrally located in Cheetham Hill, showing an alternative to the numerous shops on the high street.

Over a number of years the area of Cheetham Hill has lost a number of important buildings and spaces that provided services of this kind, such as the former Crumpsall and Cheetham Library. Cheetham Hill is now lacking

DIY COMMONS In collaboration with Public Works , the project is seeking to bring collective and community making to Cheetham Hill. Use of Cheetham Park Bandstand for pop-up cafe, weaving, dyeing and jam making with resources from the park.

21st Sept - 20th Oct

OCT

SEPT ‘13

WHATS COOKING? A number of events including pumpkin carving and soup making, herb planting, healthy games and Shopping and Chopping with Cracking Good Food.

30th Oct - 2nd Nov

COMMUNITY BAZAR MSA_p TUTORIALS

18th Oct

OFFICAL OPENING 10th Oct

NOV

Independent traders Bazar and Rainbow Surprise, hosting stalls and demonstrations from local residents.

4th - 8th Nov

URBAN LIVING LAB FIND YOUR FEET

MSA_p students organised and ran the research event using mapping exercises, a community audit and focus groups with residents, organisations and local authorities.

25th Oct

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Advice and support with money, housing, benefits or employment.

20th - 28th Nov

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Above: Unit 25 in use during the Cheetham Hill Urban Living Lab, organised by MSA_p 5th Years, 25th Oct 2014, Photo Tom Lyth.

in locations which are accessible, affordable and able to accommodate the diverse needs of residents.

Those aligned with the approach of Manchester School of Architecture projects (MSA_p) atelier are in support of spaces like Unit 25 as they provide a valuable community based asset that has little or no preconceived agenda and is rooted in building and maintaining social capital. It has been evident from the comments made by many of the resident and the feedback from events held in the shop that communities are

in need of this flexible type of space.

During the six months it was open, Unit 25 was used by over 20 organisations, but by the end of March 2014 the funding for the Unit 25 project had come to an end, and the pop-up shop closed, ultimately taking the short-lived asset away from the community. With that in mind is providing a space like this a sustainable possibility? How can we gauge the success of a project of this kind, one which seeks to sustain and improve economic, social, cultural,

health and well-being benefits for the specific community in which it is located? In the long run who would manage and fund a project like this?

Below is a timeline which has been produced to show the diversity of many of the events that took place in the shop, including the Urban Living Lab as organised by MSA_p 5th years, and two self-directed engagement events; There’s a Hole in my Bucket

by Madeleine Mooney, and Grow Your Own Workshop by Matthew Shanley.

ZEST HEALTH WEEK Three days of health and well-being information and activties, including Grow Your Own Workshop organised by Matthew Shanley.

10th -11th and 13th Feb

CRUMPSALL LIBRARY Pop-up library with story-telling and plans of the new library at Abraham Moss.

19th - 20th Dec

CANCER AWARENESS MacMillian Cancer charity providing advice and support for those concerned about cancer.

22nd Jan

TIME AND TRADE

JAN

CRAFT WEEK A week of craft workshops, stalls and drop in sessions at the shop, including a tea and cake stall.

2nd - 6th Dec

FEB

A portrait of Cheetham Hill’s Business Community 25th Feb - 2nd Mar

MAR ‘14

CHANGING LOCAL COMMUNTIES On-going research with CODE - the University of Manchester. 5th - 6th Feb

SOUND ON THE STREET

THERE’S A HOLE IN MY BUCKET

Brighter Sound music workshops in mixing, vocals, etc.

For 11-18 y.o.

20th - 22nd Feb

Survey outside Unit 25 asking local residents about Repair Cafes and re-use/recycle. Organised

by Madeleine Mooney.

18th Jan

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GROW YOUR OWN COMMUNITY

by Matthew Shanley

Below: Emancipation of the City Urban Sprawl. Exponential growth of the City of London 1840 - 1900 following new opportunities for food systems and transportation. Carolyn Steel.

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Food and the City The relationship between food and the city has had a long and varied existence. Historically, cities have been ‘centralised’, with the transport and production of food shaping the formation of residential and commercial space, whether this be the location of markets, the layout of housing or the creation of optimum transport routes in and out of the city. This is something that has been traced by Carolyn Steel, an architect, lecturer and writer who explores how our relationship with food shapes the city. Today the endless number of supermarkets have a monopoly on food demand and sales (as well as listless other services), and combined with easier means of transportation, have contributed to the acceleration of the decentralisation of cities. This has encouraged urban sprawl through modern planning, changing supply and demand of food to a globally transient resource, and consequently the relationship consumers have with where their food comes from. These changing habits have had a lasting impact on environmental concerns, increasing food miles, industrial production methods (resulting in a

higher need for fresh water, fertilisers and fossil fuels), surplus and excess waste, and creating the illusion of an endless food supply and a throwaway consumerist culture.

Considering urban agriculture and productive landscapes as a way of contributing to and creating more sustainable food systems, has become an increasingly common feature of cities seeking to respond to environmental, social and mental issues, as well as economic concerns.

Urban agriculture can be seen as a response to scarcity by cities seeking to address issues for resources related to food systems.

Following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989 and final collapse of the bloc in 1991, consequences were felt in numerous locations and markets around the world. Socialist Cuba had increased its ties with the Soviet Union since the early 1960’s, with trade deals created that favoured Cuban exports.

Cuba relied on chemical imports for fertiliser and pesticides from the Soviet Union; combined with a dramatic drop in oil availability, the country, and in particular Havana, its capital city of

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2.5 million people, became vulnerable to food shortages. In response, the Cuban government promoted urban agriculture at various scales in the city, including food grown in private gardens, state-owned research gardens, and the most successful model, the popular gardens on state-owned land open to the public. Beginning in 1991, the Huertos Populares (Popular Gardens), can range in size from a few square meters to three hectares and can be cultivated individually or as part of a community group. Land is provided for free as long as it is used for cultivation; the farming is organic as chemicals are expensive and difficult to get hold of. Today, Havana produces half of its fresh vegetables within the city from a series of community gardens as well as on balconies and rooftops. These gardens create fresh affordable produce within the city,

Above: Huertos Populares, Urban Agriculture in Cuba, 2002, Bohn&Viljoen Architects

helping provide food security, improve the climate and create work for local residents.

The effectiveness of incorporating agriculture as an intrinsic element of the urban fabric of cities by the government in Cuba demonstrates the ability of a top-down initiative to drive economic and ecological change.

However, without the support of local residents in the uptake of such initiatives, coupled with the necessity of the dramatic change in circumstances,

this ultimately would have failed. For the context of my design project in the ward of Cheetham, the combination of a top-down and bottom-up approach is an inherent constituent in how the proposal sees itself succeeding. It places urban growing and agriculture as a persistent element needed to tackle issues of health and well-being, cultural negotiation, societal integration, environmental concerns and economic benefits, at the centre of the argument.

Left: Residents farming a shared community garden in Cuba. Image from cubadebate.cu Below: (from left to right) Feeding Manchester, Manchester Veg People Food co-

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Growing Cheetham Hill The most detailed research and theory on the subject of urban agriculture is the architects Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen in their book Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPUL) published in 2005. The CPUL City concept proposes a strategy which introduces an interlinked productive landscape into cities, which can be seen as sustainable urban infrastructure

that contributes to more sustainable and resilient food systems while also benefiting the urban realm. Such a physical and environmental design strategy also provides a strategic framework for the theoretical and practical exploration of ways to implement such landscapes within contemporary urban design.

Creating a masterplan for urban agriculture in Cheetham that is rooted in the theory of the CPUL City has become the basis of my design proposal. Within the CPUL concept, urban agriculture refers in the main to fruit and vegetable production, as this provides the highest yields per square metre of urban ground. Key features of CPUL are outdoor spaces for food growing, shared leisure and commerce, natural habitats, non-vehicular circulation routes and ecological corridors. Its network connects existing open urban spaces, maintaining and in some cases modifying their current uses. Integration of a grow-your-own culture as a way to build sustainable and resilient communities is key. In his article Error-Friendliness: How to Deal with the Future Scarcest Resource: the Environmental, Social, Economic Security, Enzo Manzini introduces the concept of the suboptimal, a locally networked solution that considers the spatiotemporal in technological adept Above Left: Visualising the productive city, London Thames Gateway Design Research, 2004, Bohn&Viljoen Architects Left: The edible city: Envisioning the continuous productive urban landscape (CPUL), 2002, Bohn&Viljoen Architects

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Above: Proposed Growers Mess and urban landscape within the former redundant Goldstone Gardens site.

systems, working collectively towards a shared goal. As resilient propositions the suboptimal approach factors for adaptation and places the user as an intrinsic element of the solution, whilst addressing and integrating policy on a wider scale.

The masterplan encompasses the linking of existing spaces of urban agriculture through green corridors and new growing sites, intended to unite communal and private growing.

Key features within the overall concept include a design for a productive wall system and adjacent growers mess, which integrates all the necessary means to support agricultural growing such as water supply, tools and storage, recycling and composting facilities, potting and propagation space, as well as the ability for this system to be added to and expanded by the growers.

These will be located across various sites within Cheetham and provide the means for residents to grow produce, meet socially and help sustain a more self-reliant and resilient social structure.

A farmers market is proposed and is seen as the outlet for the produce and an opportunity for growers to exchange within a social, shared space, and also a continuous bench that is

Above Top: Perspective view showing Growers Mess design strategy Above Bottom: Montage Utilising redundant space at Levenshurst road

woven through the area, added to and expanded by residents over time.

Other elements include a proposed orchard and sites tailored for specific types of growing to both support and diversify the local ecological system, using a permaculture design methodology. This will include; open sites for appropriate cruciferous, cucurbits, legumes and solanaceous vegetables; introducing fruit trees, bushes and plants, as well as increasing

foraging opportunities; greenhouse and enclosed geo-dome and tunnel spaces to extend seasonal growing; utilising roof space and using vertical growing systems. There will also be sites for research to explore urban agroforestry, aeroponics and hydroponics, and development of alternate approaches for urban agriculture. The masterplan also includes a breakdown in the urban capacity of sites that measures productive output, as well as the key actors that will contribute to and help MSA Prints

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Primary Growing Corridors existing open green space Potential sites for urban agriculture Non-vehicular routes: footpaths & cycleways

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Left: Masterplan for food production infrastructure in Cheetham.

Right Clockwise: Event Poster, Discussing project with event participants, event leaflets made for the event.

GROW YOUR OWN COMMUNITY

manage the productive landscape in Cheetham. Calculations and a by timeframe for the future phases will provide a plan for the step-by-step process that will build the agricultural elements within the urban realm of Cheetham.

Grow Your Own Workshop, an event organised as part of Zest Health Week at Unit 25, was an opportunity to share both growing and design experience with local residents and bring a unique perspective to the event that had been explored and developed through the design project process. The need to consult with local residents and visually demonstrate the possibility of the proposal and what it could achieve is seen as key to its development and success. Along with this is also a continued amount of research is an element that has been explored alongside the CPUL theory toolkit.

This event was the culmination of a continued process of participation that can be seen in the film Growing Cities (http://vimeo.com/80285542) that had engaged with a number of organisations including Zest, Cracking Good Food, Hulme Community Garden Centre, URBED, Crumpsal and Cheetham Model Allotments.

Through interviews, questions, and personal research the intentions of the project have been able to develop because of this participation. It has provided the foundations and building blocks to manufacture a more resilient, homogenous and healthier community in Cheetham Hill and its surroundings.

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TESCO TOWN-ED

by Michele Lim

In 2007, Tesco alone gained £1 out of every £7 spent by British shoppers

providing every product and service imaginable - schools, homes, petrol stations, holidays, medicines and financial services.

Tesco, and other giant retailers, have institutionalised towns, homogenising business, shopping, farming, food, environment and our lifestyles.

Above: Location of Tesco in relation to Cheetham Hill context.

An average British shopper spends

6 months

of their life in a supermarket

The research into Tesco stems from comment received by Cheetham Hill residents during the Urban Living Lab event conducted as part of the engagement activity.

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Tesco Towns Tesco town is a British phenomena where one retailer has a large market share and dominates an entire town.

The term comes from the retailer Tesco.

The idea of a supermarket can be traced back to its American roots. What once started as the promise of choice has turned into something altogether different. In 2009, 74% of UK’s food retail market is controlled by the big four - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. Supermarket chains, Tesco in particular, no longer focus on retail as their main commercial growth strategy.

They are providing vast amounts of services equivalent to a ‘nanny-state’,

In his book Tescopoly, Andrew Simms divides British towns in three categories; the first is a “home town”, where a high street has a unique and individual character; the second is a “clone town”, a term coined by Simms, in which the high street of the town has been replaced by a monotonous strip of global and national chains; the third is a “border town”, which is a cusp between a home town and a clone town. Almost half of British towns falls in the category of clone town and only one-third can be called a home town.

Tesco, though not the only guilty party in spreading clone towns across in Britain, is its largest driving force. In 2007, Tesco alone gained £1 out of every £7 spent by British shoppers. Of the 121 UK’s mainland postcode area, 100 percent of them have a Tesco.

Town councils have long sought to invite Tesco as part of their town’s regeneration schemes, claiming to provide employment opportunities and take poverty off the streets. In fact, planning policies are pushing supermarket chains in this direction.

Under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act, local authorities may grant permission for construction of supermarket chain stores as long as they are accompanied by houses, schools and sports facilities, which MSA Prints

councils do not have funds to provide themselves. Ironically, while Tesco may boast about creating more jobs, they hide the fact that jobs are lost as a result of smaller retail shops being shut down and their suppliers running out of demand. While Tesco promotes their low-prices, elsewhere, low pay, long hours and casualisation of workforce along the supply chain takes place. The impact of Tesco, while supposedly regenerating towns, in fact, pushes a social and economic culture of poverty.

Tesco and Community Communities are held together by countless social, economic and cultural interactions. Networks of facilities in town centres such as shops, cafes and services promotes face-to-face relationships between members of the community. Supermarkets such

as Tesco are remote and automatic in service and logistics. Unlike local shops where we may be able to share local gossip with the shopkeeper, in a supermarket we are more likely to grab our shopping basket, walk along the well-organised shelves picking our groceries and pay for them with selfcheckout machines - all without a single

human interaction being necessary. An economic system that is meant to be our servant has instead become our master and sees people as costly and inefficient. Local shops are unable to compete with the competitive prices and one-stop services offered by Tesco and other large retailers, putting them out of business. People need food, and if most other grocery shops have been put out of business, there is little choice but to shop at a supermarket.

Over time, we have become distant from our local communities, hence, we feel less inclined to invest time and energy into them. This results in social breakdowns and the disintegration of communities as people retreat into their electronic world.

Above: The owner of Kashimir Mart in Cheetham Hill claims that his income has halved since the opening of Tesco.

Left: Typical high street of Cheetham Hill in various states of derelict. According to Manchester Evening News, one in three shops in Cheetham Hill is vacant.

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Tesco and Sustanability Cheetham Hill Tesco is the first ‘sustainable’ Tesco store format in the United Kingdom, which first opened its doors in 2009. The 52,000 square foot store designed by Michael Aukett Architects is said to have reduced carbon emissions by 70 percent. The construction of Tesco was to be part

business strategy, in ecological terms, it can be said that these are merely technocentric. Improved ambience and lighting brought on by the design has merely improved people’s shopping experience and has no benefit whatsoever on the overall community.

The main environmental concern for Tesco is that of waste and consumption.

In the first half of 2003, Tesco revealed that 30,000 tonnes of food was thrown away of the town’s regeneration program, offering services such as a banking, a pharmacy, cafe, clothing and an online delivery service. The driving force behind Tesco’s initiative for creating sustainable stores had apparently been climate change - improving energy efficiency and reducing utility costs.

Ironically, the issue of food waste did not make it to Tesco’s strategy for sustainability. In the first half of 2003, Tesco revealed that 30,000 tonnes of food was thrown away (equivalent

to 18kg of food wasted per store per day). Of the 30,000 tonnes of food, 41 percent were bakery goods and 21 percent were fruit and vegetables.

When food is wasted, two other vital commodities also go to waste; the energy used to produce food and water used for producing and cooking food.

In large retailers such as Tesco, where turnover is high and fresh produce is brought in on a daily basis, food that is wasted is not always bad food. In fact, most waste is actually food that has yet to reach its expiration date.

Above: 52,000 square foot sustainable Tesco store format in Cheetham Hill .

Below: Pull-out stand illustrating the various environmental features of Tesco found in store.

Cheetham Hill Tesco boasts seven environmental features that make it a more environmental friendly store, which are the incorporation of roof lights, installation of wind catchers, use of timber framing, signages made from recycled materials, installation of on-site generators, incorporation of a lobby to reduce heat loss and using fridges with doors. While all these features do have some benefit to the environment and create an excellent 24

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Tesco Town-ed Influenced by the term ‘parasitic retail’ used by Andrew Simms, which he defines as socially indifferent cloned stores that kill communities, the design has gravitated towards parasitic architecture, which is the personal, informal and unplanned use of a larger structure. The program is based on the idea of reusing and recycling the available resources from Tesco, primarily the 180kg food waste produced by the store on a daily basis, along with water, heat and gas sources - parasitizing from Tesco to benefit the community. Contact with FoodCycle, a volunteer-powered charity that works towards reducing food poverty and social isolation in the UK, has enabled full understanding of the programme.

Particular interest in this organisation in their interception of supermarket waste in the UK, which drives the project. Contact with them has helped

gain a deeper understanding of food waste and how their mode of operation can be adapted into the project.

‘Tesco Town-ed’ will be a communityled enterprise that will deal with food waste collection and management.

Members of the community will also pick up gardening and landscaping skills, using compost to cultivate fruit and vegetables. The facility will provide jobs for aspiring youths and the unemployed as well as tackling food poverty in the area. Driven by the program, which includes a compost garden, kitchens, workshops and a grocery store, the plan adopts a linear circulation to emulate the process of

receiving wasted food, recycling them in a compost garden, using the produce for cooking, packaging and selling the produce in the store, and providing teaching in these processes.

Above: Section through kitchen illustrates the relationship between timber cladding, internal space and existing Tesco building.

Below: Curved timber ribbed cladding matches the existing timber facade and emulates the idea of a ‘parasite’. Gaps between ribs allow a level of transparency between internal spaces and the exterior as well as allow passage of natural light.

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RETHINK

by Madeleine Mooney

The Circular Economy Mighty oaks from little acorns! This is the case for Repair Cafés, emerging as a popular grassroots approach for fixing objects; a movement which has the potential to contribute to the drive towards a circular economy.

Originating in Amsterdam, the idea brings “fixers” and owners of broken items together. The fixer (repairer) offers their time on a voluntary basis and coaches, demonstrates and advises on how owners (repairees) can mend their stuff. The repairer has the satisfaction of using his or her expertise and special interest, a repairee can save money,

meaningful, make it particular, and then apply it to a purpose has never been more important”.

Global volumes of e-waste, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), are expected to grow in the next four years. The fact that huge quantities of e-waste end in the sprawling dumps of places like Agbogbloshie in Ghana hardly figures on the radar of the buyers of the 1.18 billion mobile phones made in China in 2012, mobile phones that will quickly be disposed of as the next technical innovation comes along (Hirsch, 2013). Only 12.5% of e-waste is currently recycled and a lot of this

“in a world that is over-full of commodities... the ability of the individual citizen to intelligently adapt that which is served up by corporate culture and make it meaningful... then apply it to a purpose has never been more important”

Above: A Repair Café at De Meevaart, a social space run by the community in Amsterdam. Image by Lectro Leevin.

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learn new skills and gain confidence to tackle other challenges. Events take place in a variety of venues including libraries pubs and schools to encourage participation by local residents. Food and drink help to create an informal and convivial experience where people can meet and share the rewards of a make-do-and-mend activity and feel part of a much wider movement. The Repair Café idea has spread all over the world, for example, the concept has been adapted as Restart Parties in the UK, Fixers Collectives and Fix-it Clinics in the USA. As Glen Adamson states “in a world that is over-full of commodities that seem to exert more and more psychological pressure on us, the ability of the individual citizen to intelligently adapt that which is served up by corporate culture and make it

is not actually waste at all, but rather whole electronic equipment or parts that are readily marketable for reuse or can be recycled for materials recovery.

Significantly, Repair Cafés can prevent waste, which, in the whole hierarchy of waste management, is a relatively achievable goal. The movement is helping to change people’s attitudes and, potentially could change behaviour if events become so commonplace they are viewed as a “social norm”. As one of a number of bottom-up steps it could create sufficient momentum to change a linear economy to a successful circular economy. Of course, some people don’t throw stuff away and contribute to the £500 million revenue of the self-storage industry, the brightly coloured warehouses springing up as MSA Prints

witness to the belief of an after-life repository.

Ellen MacArther Foundation identifies two stages, a pioneering phase and a mainstream phase. In the pioneering phase, the circular economy will be “a niche in a linear world” and this is the phase we are currently in.

The concept of the circular economy is not new. Cradle to Cradle considers, like the circular economy, “all material involved in industrial and commercial processes to be nutrients, of which Manchester and the north-west are there are two main categories: technical home to a wide range and diverse and biological.” In contrast to the linear number of enterprising activities and economy where inspiring projects the circular economy will be that fit into this products create waste streams, the circular pioneering phase “a niche in a linear world” economy advocates and make up part a completely of the wider global different approach to movement towards consumption. The economy is based on the circular economy. The Mustard a “functional service” model in which Tree, a charity in Ancoats, work with manufacturers or retailers increasingly homeless and marginalised people, retain the ownership of their products organise supporting services and have and, where possible, act as service established two shops offering preproviders – selling the use of products, loved furniture, clothes and household not their one-way consumption. goods for a low price. Creative Recycling, an art gallery in Chorlton, Such a change will take time. The provides space for items made from

37%

of waste was recycled in Greater Manchester in 2013

Statistics presented are based on data from the Manchester City Council Report for Resolution: Waste and Recycling Update 2013

Left: Two branches of the circular economy, a continuous flow of technical and biological materials.

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reusing waste. Co-owner and resident artist Fiona Norton wants to inspire people to recycle through art. While running a picture framing service she discovered that huge amounts of glass were being wasted. This led her to create new works of art by reusing the glass and allowed her to gradually expand the gallery to accommodate a wide variety of artefacts. Recycling Lives in Preston specialise in the recycling of scrap cars, scrap metal, WEEE, household and commercial waste, bulky waste and plastic materials.

A Queen’s Award-winning commercial recycler, the commercial services arm help to support a social welfare charity, which helps vulnerable people to work their way back to independent living. In Openshaw, EMERGE works in partnership with the National Community Wood Recycling scheme supporting Construction Companies and other organisations producing significant quantities of redundant wood. As part of its core ethos EMERGE seeks to employ paid or voluntary members of the local community.

28%

of waste was recycled in Cheetham Hill in 2013

Above: Pre-loved furniture and goods for sale in one of the Mustard Trees shops.

Below: Creative Recycling art gallery in Chorlton. Waste glass from framing pictures is turned into creative artefacts.

Statistics presented are based on data from the Manchester City Council Report for Resolution: Waste and Recycling Update 2013

Small Steps At first glance, the condition of the urban environment in Cheetham Hill appears poor; dumped waste lines the edges of many side streets, graffiti stains the walls of alleys and open spaces are unkept. A number of participants at the Urban Living Lab in October 2013 highlighted their environment as a key problem, with a number mentioning fly-tipping and litter. Inspired by this, I set out to investigate whether or not the issue of waste could arouse a common interest from the residents of MSA Prints

Cheetham Hill. How could I form a connection between individuals and waste? Can it create a ripple of community togetherness? Can the small steps of reuse, recycle and repair in Cheetham Hill change behaviour and support a global movement of people calling for change? How could I contribute to the pioneering stage of the circular economy?

The first step was starting a conversation through a street survey outside Unit 25, beginning to make individuals aware of waste and environmental issues. The results were very revealing; people were concerned about waste, recognised the extravagance of current consumption levels, but acknowledged the lack of incentive to make-do-and-mend. As one respondent commented, it was cheaper to replace than repair, that is, if you had the skills to successfully repair items. As individuals, 78% were interested in the Repair CafÊ concept. With the intention to maintain this conversation, the next step was to become a litter lout and leave litter letters with anonymous graphic messages on fly-tipped heaps – not quite Banksy, but, the lack of identifiable authorship, a topic of discussion in its own right. Following preliminary conversations, the organisation of a one-off repair event will aim to bring like-minded people together to facilitate the founding of a common interest group, which is seen as fundamental for launching further interventions. Substantial evidence suggests new social norms are negotiated in groups and social learning is an effective tool for encouraging new behaviours. Furthermore, the creative ability of individuals can be supported

Above: Conducting a street survey outside Unit 25 in Cheetham Hill.

Left: Anonymous litter letters left on flytipped items in Cheetham Hill, aiming to raise awareness and make individuals think.

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and encouraged and an opportunity for delivering skills training.

Once established, the Repair CafÊ concept will be expanded to include the wider community through Repair Stops and Repair Vans. Inspired by the bus service, which is part of peoples’ daily routines and a regular feature of the public realm, the Repair Stops are workshops attached to bus stops. The facilities provide a service where people can drop off broken items and pick them up at a later time, for example at the end of the working day or after shopping. Repair Vans provide a mobile equivalent, but can operate flexibly, travelling to less accessible residential areas or to collect items to transport 30

to the Repair Stops. Eventually, the benefits to the environment, people’s pockets, upskilling of the community and value-based principles will help to change the consumer habits of several generations.

Collectively, these repair services could become established practices with the make-do-and-mend attitude firmly embedded as a feature of day-to-day life in Cheetham Hill. It is proposed to introduce additional programmes into the area, such as Found Shops, where artists or designers, amateur or professional, can display and sell items made from recycled/upcycled/waste objects. The Patch Works, a facility for making and repairing, will be created to

enable people to share materials, tools and expertise.

The above proposals contribute to the overall strategy of establishing Cheetham Hill as a specialised centre for reuse, repair and recycling, a place where a community actively participates in a sharing society piloting new ideas for the pioneering stage of a circular economy, and becoming a destination for others to visit and experience.

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RETHINK Opposite page: Repair activities taking place inside a Repair Van. This page: Detail of Repair Van fittings and equipment.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ANN THORPE

by Matthew Shanley Published in 2012 Architecture & Design versus Consumerism: How Design Activism Confronts Growth discusses the gap between design’s potential for social growth and the issues of consumerism. The book explores this gap and how we address these issues through design.

We spoke to the author Ann Thorpe, a collaborative design strategist currently based in London.

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MS: Your book talked about how social activism starts when a problem or issue is identified and those affected by a problem might not always recognise that a problem exists. Do you think that social activism can be initiated from the top down as well as from the ground up?

notion that you can innovate spatially without permanent structures that cost a lot of money to build is eyeopening for communities. This is where people that work with spatial manipulation whether that be products or architecture have the ability to quickly show people alternatives that they like and what you are maybe AT: That’s a really good question, and trying to get at. These are things they I think you can argue it both ways. I otherwise wouldn’t really be able to think people are under-powered and imagine or think about much. What’s see people towering over them and this less comfortable is when you have been means they don’t present a stand, but put into the situation where people then equally there is the case that unless say that this neighbourhood has all people feel something themselves, they different kinds of problems why don’t won’t carry it forward. That’s where you go and offer them something. It’s a you get a complaint about the service; little hard because you think how do we the social services know what approach that are working to take when we’re “This is where people to help make the there. I think the that work with spatial situation better. It’s a other interesting real catch 22. thing in that arena manipulation whether that be and it’s something products or architecture have MS: As designers that has been used the ability to quickly show and architects we in community want to come up organising for a long people alternatives...” with active solutions time which is asset that engage with based development. people but we don’t want to force this Which is instead of going there and upon them. We want people to enable listing all these problems you go there themselves in a way. With that in mind and you say look at all these assets what do you think the relationship that we have how can we make them is between activism and architects intrinsic, and what we can bring that engaging with the community? will amplify those so that other things start to happen.

AT: I guess the question would be, is there a role for architects MS: The asset based development and architecture in the community is something that we first tried to do organising arena? And yes I believe whilst working in Cheetham Hill, there definitely is and that it has not identifying what people value within maybe been missing but has not the community, things which they see been explored as fully as some other as almost landmarks for them. I think avenues. This probably is because that became quite an interesting and architecture in the past is costly big and important process for us. slow moving, but in the last decade the MSA Prints

AT: The struggle for you and anybody else looking at the urban environment and trying to improve things is on the one hand you are roped into the system that is very hard to manipulate and change on many levels, but then on the other hand you have a much more fragmented population.

MS: It’s a very interesting and diverse community but at the same time this diversity is causing some levels of tension between the different groups.

This creates a tricky playing field to work on because you want to help as many people as you can but often there is a very varied opinion of what needs to be done and what needs to be changed.

AT: Yes this is often the case, and I know too that having talked to people that

control everything and that’s also hard from the designer’s perspective. I don’t know if you know Jeremy Till and his dialogue on how architects want to control everything and they don’t want to have the wheelie bins out front of the house because it doesn’t look nice, but that’s the problem of life and the urban environment brings that back to the forefront.

MS: Other than actually being involved in producing active solutions themselves, do you think there is a role for architects and designers to highlight issues of consumerism and un-sustainable economic growth through active solutions? Or does this go beyond something we need to be involved in?

AT: I think it is a perfectly legitimate

“You may organise the community and they produce a pocket park or something else that does add measurable quality to the environment but then it can trigger unforeseen events...” have worked in different urban settings that sometimes success, someone who is successful, from the outset sees different kinds of problems. Another idea I talk about in the book, that is harder to keep in mind when you are in the middle of a particular project, is that the notion of active improvement is a constantly moving bar. You may organise the community and they produce a pocket park or something else that does add measurable quality to the environment but then it can trigger unforeseen events, such as others that aren’t as desirable hanging out in the pocket park and doing drugs.

A space was created for people that wasn’t there before but you just can’t

role. From an activists stand point, I talk about this in the book, there is always the debate about whether raising awareness is enough and what the step beyond raising awareness is. You have to come to a point of where am I and what can I do from where I am? A lot of activism is about taking action when you know what the answer should be, but I think that often design activism comes before the right answer is decided as that’s what they are trying to do. They try to explore and innovate and they iterate. By exploring how you frame the question, it’s another classic design problem, what kind of question are we trying to answer? Designers sometimes

Above and Below: Folly for a Flyover, Hackney Wick, London by Assemble Studios demonstrates the potential for a disused space to become an innovative temporary assest for local residents and visitors.

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feel repulsed by activism because they sustainable, compared to those who see it as people campaigning for a don’t consider it within the spectrum right answer, and most designers feel of their day to day life. It’s very difficult pretty uncomfortable with that as they situation but what do you think our wouldn’t want to step forward and role is in getting to these types of say they have the right answer. They people? Because often governments want to step forward and local authorities and say I want to help struggle to engage with “They try to explore and explore what the right certain people and a lot answers are or even innovate and they iterate. of these communities how we frame the have resentment By exploring how you question. Designers can towards politics and frame the question, it’s of course make things government authority. another classic design look better which is I wonder if our role is another key thing they also of value within this problem, what kind of bring to the table, the spectrum. ability to show rather question are we trying to than just to tell.

AT: I think at this point answer?” it’s a good question, MS: With this in mind without a good answer. how do we begin to reach those who One of the things I would take away are hard to teach? If you consider is that people are heavily influenced recycling and for example those people by their peer networks. I think that the who are diligent and see themselves group that is the hardest to reach is the as part of a wider effort to be more group that is the least connected. The

Above: Surplus oranges discarded in California, USA - Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis Right: Potatoes rejected for cosmetic reasons at a potato farm in Kent that supplies Tesco - Photograph: Tristram Stuart 34

type of research that has been done by the community group projects shows that there is a small portion of society that’s really isn’t connected much at all. So it is very hard to influence that group as they don’t have a peer network that can help influence them.

Again it’s about how you as the spatial designer or architect come in to the community. Are you coming in through the channels of the city council or are you coming in through the channels of the local church which is very popular, or other organisations within the community. You have to consider your entrance and to think about the different ways this is possible. This again is about framing, how you frame the question, how you frame the entrance in, and this is a strategic part of activism.

MS: One of the other students involved in our publication has been looking particularly at Tesco, and interestingly in Cheetham Hill they built, what has been named, the first sustainable Tesco in 2009. This student has been looking at the consumerism of Tesco and the waste culture of how they practice as a business. With that in mind how do you think this battle for change can be considered for these business’ without them losing profit?

AT: I think in a way that is the billion dollar question. I am of the cynical view that businesses can’t lead us out of this dilemma. They can do a lot to demonstrate possible approaches that look to innovate but in order to push things along you have to have civil society like the Ellen McArthur foundation and their ideas about the circular economy, or different public agencies because businesses MSA Prints

AN INTERVIEW WITH can’t, without an accounting system that legitimately covers all the areas, possibly look at the value in costs in the same way that civil society would.

The role of design in all this is of the question because designers historically haven’t been that comfortable in getting engaged in politics and so forth. Part of me thinks design schools should have a better opportunity for students to understand the bigger picture so that when they go out and work they have an understanding of all these forces that are at work behind the scenes, and it sounds like you guys have certainly got that [at the school in Manchester].

But there are other people that see other material that needs to be covered in a design course, so why would you spend time on this? Will this help them to get jobs?

MS: Finally if I may, your book was of course published in 2012, and if in the future you might be considering another book, possibly in 2022, what do you think you will be writing about then?

AT: I’m never going to write another book! [Laughs!!] That’s interesting to think about. I have heard people say that by 2020 all systems will be social businesses or social enterprises. And a part of me really wants to believe that.

The thing that I think will come into its own is the next 10 years is distributed systems, particularly for banking and sharing economies. Because people will be able to use peer-to-peer lending systems and they will be able to have much better digital systems through having of materials and assets. We’re going to see old systems like banks radically shifting in what they do.

And this will be pretty rough in the

transitional period with a lot of people falling through the cracks, but that we will come out the other end with a more distributed system where people are in general have more capability than they do now. Some of these things that we have talked about have become more distributed. If you look at sustainably it seems to call for things to become more distributed so that locally you can invest in conditions and you can look at what’s required for ecosystems and social systems and for longevity in a local way rather than a global system.

But the global system and local system need to interact to have a distributed system, and 3d printing falls into that category too. It gives people the power to do things they wouldn’t have been able to do before. So, I hope I am writing about how distributed systems have taken us leaps and bounds in creating more sustainable societies.

MS: Well thank you for speaking with us, and we look forward to reading your next book in 2022!

Above: Re-cover, Re-pair, Re-use.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has partnered with the Schmidt Family Foundation to create a fellowship programme, including students at Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, Imperial College and the London Business School.

Below: Peer-to-peer distributed social systems. Interaction between the global and local social, ecological, and economic systems to increase resilience and longevity in the future.

Ann’s book Architecture & Design versus Consumerism: How Design Activism Confronts Growth is available from all good book shops.

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ENGAGE

101 WAYS TO CHANGE YOUR CITY

Overproduction and waste management issues. Seeking alternatives to a proposed incinerator in North Manchester.

Upcycling

Working with Action For Sustainable Living and unemployed 18-24 y.o. at Rusholme jobcentre. Skills sharing and volunteering.

Wardrobe

Training Weekend

Davyhulme Wetlands

These 12 examples show the diversity and depth of projects undertaken by previous MSAp students. Each of these is relevant to the Excess publication in relation to addressing consumption, waste and renewal through an approach that values participation.

Exploring the spatial barriers between people and place.

Highlighting Irk Valley to residents in Cheetham through an interactive wardrobe.

In collaboration with the Wesley Community Furniture Centre, a charity who upcycle furniture and household goods in Moss Side, Richard Coskie produced a number of upcycled pieces of furniture to put back into the local community. The project was derived from the street rubbish and dumping of unwanted household goods in South Manchester that highlight the throwaway culture of modern consumer society, and the lack of skills for people to repair or reuse goods.

This pull-out is the third from a collection of four that deatail projects from Engage: 101(ish) ways to change you city. Collect each edition to create your own network of participation techniques and engagament ideas.

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Healthy Living Manchester

Edible Pavilion Working with St James’ school and Brighton Grove allotment to design and build an ‘Edible Pavilion’, a space for students to learn where food comes from.

Using ‘Good food, Good Health’ to connect the people of Old Trafford and MUFC through the creation of space to learn, cook, eat and share.

Working with a mix of co-operatives who were seeking to purchase Hydes Queens Brewery in Moss Side, Tiago Luxton helped Brewery & Co. create a proposal to redevelop the space as a micro-industry production site for artisan food and drink. Through a number of meetings with the contributors Tiago spatialised the site with the co-op and also helped compile a business plan to be put forward in the bid.

Longsight Market Exploring the relationship with the ‘hub’ market and local residents. Considering alternative uses for the site when market was not open.

Manchester Brewing Co-operative

Engagement with a wide variety of community groups, policy makers and residents to develop a project with the help of staff from Food Futures.

Something to Chew on

Food Futures

A research lead project that investigated the long waiting lists for allotment and community plots, alongside the disconnection of people in the Cheetham and Crumpsall areas with healthy living, resulting in alternative solutions for urban growing. Tom Petch helped engage allotments growers in conversations with ZEST about their shared goals of promoting and improving healthy living. This included mapping derelict and under-used sites for potential growing.

Long-term, local-scale regeneration in Miles Platting Newton Heath, focusing on proposed health facilities along the Rochdale canal resource.

City Growing

Scott Avenue Allotments Proposition for an alternative, more sustainable growing model for allotment growers.

Creating a masterplan to link schools to growing facilities.

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THEORY OF PARTICIPATION ‘C’est I’exception qui est Za regle generale’. Lucien Kroll

Daliana Suryawinata, How Much Space Can We Save? A Comparison Between an Average Welfare City and Austeria, The Why Factory, TU Delft, 2010 The human needs illustrated in the diagram opposite top are here further projected into what they mean for the size of a city. Comparing the average world city with Austeria reveals a major difference in consumption levels in spatial terms. Austeria would require 33 per cent of the current city’s footprint, focusing only on necessary consumption and making savings across all needs: food, clothing, water, energy, housing, facilities, and even leisure. This implies the introduction of many policies. Agricultural produce is limited to oats, orange and soya beans, which provide necessary diet and nutrition, but consume the least space, water and energy. Beef is forbidden except for very special occasions. Since arable and pasture land consume the greatest area, adjusting diet can save a considerable amount of space. There is an allowance of seven T-shirts, two trousers and one pair of sports shoes per person to reduce cotton fields and factories. Private cars are forbidden; car sharing, public transport, walking and biking are encouraged. Schools, churches and sports facilities are used on a 24-hour basis and are built in XL sizes to greatly reduce maintenance and management costs. Yoga and tethered swimming are encouraged since they require the least space.

Above: Anarchic architecture. Maison Médical (MéMé), Lucien Kroll, University of Louvain, 1970-72.

Below: Austeria: City of Minimum Consumption

To suggest that the Belgian Architect Lucien Kroll was the exception to the rule in the way he approached his work is to put it mildly, an understatement.

Often critiqued for the aesthetically anarchic design of his buildings, Kroll’s approach can be seen as an attempt to create a collaborative exchange with the users in the design of the building.

With the intention for the building not to impose on the inhabitants but to support their lifestyle, Kroll displays an ecological sensitivity that is grounded in a contextual process. As a response to the Modernist Movement’s failure to address social issues through the creation of large scale ‘utopian’ developments, a new discourse during the late 60’s and 70’s sought to rethink the relationship between the architect and the user. Kroll was a pioneer of this type of participation methodology, carrying out workshops and consultation sessions with students

in the final design for Maison Médical (MéMé) student accommodation at the University of Louvain in the 1970s. Inhabitants of these spaces were carefully considered in the design process, relating to construction and the creation of layouts that would allow adaptation by the users, and potentially create resilience and sustainability through flexibility.

We are reminded, not least by Giancarlo De Carlo, that the act of participation in producing the built environment is a complex matter. The communication of architecture is essentially available to all, but is inherently political. Kroll sees the architect as a catalyst of a social dynamic and creative process, as their knowledge is available to help mediate relations into spatial output. Architects must stimulate participation by stepping out of their comfort zones and step into the shoes of residents. Focussing on participation, architectural exclusivity must be diminished, with “an action open to new necessities and to decisions that are always provisional and incomplete”- Giancarlo De Carlo.

Beyond the aesthetic criticism Kroll’s work has received the specificity of his design approach has also come under fire. Essentially the issue is once the users move out and new ones move in, the design becomes irrelevant as it is too specifically tailored to needs of the original inhabitants. So how can design through participation address the issue of a constantly moving bar?

The use of Post Occupancy Evaluations and the assessment of the afterlife of a building is seen as part of role of the Architecture proffesion. However, architects often don’t play a major role once the keys are handed over, even if

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Text © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © 2012 The Why Factory

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the RIBA Plan of Work stage 7, Use & Aftercare, suggests that they do. Can architects ever truly become part of a continuous approach to the after-life of a building that supports and enables for greater ecological considerations?

Ones which go beyond the standard application of systematic technologies such as solar, rainwater harvesting, and the green wall applications, which fulfill BREEAM standards but often don’t achieve a great deal and are superficial.

The Three Ecologies by Felix Guattari, asks us to broaden our understanding of what ecologies considers, tackling the social and mental to reduce environmental issues. The need to re-address this imbalance, which has become polarised by capitalist systems and consumerist ideals, has to be part

art, humanities, social sciences and medicine. Finally ecologies is seen as relational as being shaped by spatiotemporal, socio-political and also sexed difference. Relations are essential for communities to enable production of the built environment that address the ecological issues we face today; “overconsumption, resource depletion and pollution, and the environmental rights of the community.” Architecture has to be seen as more than the profession but encompassing the value of the social and material relationships in the manufacturing of our ‘built’ environments. Rawes suggests that action through these means needs to urgently take place, as a result of failure of dealing with the complexities of ensuring biodiversity

Focussing on participation, architectural exclusivity must be diminished, with “an action open to new necessities and to decisions that are always provisional and incomplete” of architectural ecologies approach to design.

Relational Architectural Ecologies: Architecture, Nature and Subjectivity, a book edited by Peg Rawes examines the relationships between architecture and ecology within modern cultures. The collection of essays seeks to contribute a new perspective for those engaged in the socio-cultural biodiversity of our built environments, with three fundamental aims. Firstly to extend architectural thinking about ecology beyond current design strategies; ‘green building design’, ‘sustainable architecture’. To think of architectural ecologies as interdisciplinary – from architecture practice and theory, and outside the discipline to consider

in our environments by market-let and technocratic approaches. This is an essential undertaking if architectural and relational ecologies wants to truly deal with the complexities of sustainable living and environmental action.

Austeria: City of Minimum Consumption proposes a societal model that drastically reduces individual, group and commercial consumption as a solution to our impact on world resources and climate change. The paper discusses and presents the basic needs for human beings to survive, from physiological, to access to fresh water and a toilet, and self-actualising needs of participating in community life. Resource use is only when

necessary, living to excess is in the past, and austerity is a “new standard of living, sufficient yet healthy, and without excessive consumption.”

Austeria, p.115.

Design activism, as discussed by Ann Thorpe in Architecture and Design versus Consumerism can play a role in highlighting issues related to excessive consumption. Orientating the design process towards participatory methods is required to not only help curb waste, energy use, and overall consumption but to be aware of societal habits as these will ultimately affect the way the technological or passive design systems address the environmental concerns.

Understanding or even changing the habits of groups or the individual is a complex, intricate and seemingly impossible undertaking. As a society we are inrooted to the consumer ideals, perpetuated by governments, advertisers and the media that damagingly associates consumption with happiness and prosperity.

Involving more people in the creative process, whereby simple solutions can bring about powerful social transformation. This is possible even with the poorest and most isolated groups and individuals and is a major task that can be addressed through the architecture profession. By the use of their design skills and ability to communicate ideas, the creativity of individuals and community groups can be harnesed through a collaborative and particaptory approach to design.

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“Pathological consumption has become so normalised that we scarcely notice it.�

Our desire for the latest gadget or piece of clothing are seemingly endless. Coupled with the often utter pointlessness of many goods, the cryptic puzzle you get in your Christmas stocking or the branded coffee mat you are given at your last CPD talk, this is having a devastating impact on world resources and ecological wellbeing. Whilst researching for her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard learned that of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale. One of the most damaging changes that has resulted in climatic shift is our relationship with food. As we have become more global so has our choice of food, with imports and exports across the world impacting on every process inw the food supply and demand chain.

We are truly part of an exhaustive and throwaway culture of wasteful consumerism. Focussing on goods and food, we can observe the various factors that contribute to how and why these levels of consumption are evidently out of control. There are a number of key factors involved and these include; the production process; the use of greater amounts of packaging (sometimes necessary, often not); global transportation; increased levels of waste; and the culture and habits which impact of each of these other factors.

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PRODUCTION

We produce and use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago.

PACKAGING

Each UK household generates 23 kg of waste each week, of which 4 kg (18%) is packaging.

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GLOBALISED CONSUMERISM TRANSPORT

WASTE

CULTURE

Above: Map and images from Every Little Helps: Can architecture help modern food practices be sustainable, CCCP, N. Dunlop, Z. Markandy, O. Osman, H. Spilsbury, C. Wren, 2013.

Every Year 333 Mt of food is moved across the UK, generating 41.5 Bt Km of Transport.

Consumers throw away 7.0 Mt per year of food & drink – most of which (4.2 Mt) was avoidable.

Sources Left - Right: WRAP, DEFRA bettertransport.org.uk, WRAP.

STATISTICS MSA Prints

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ADHOC BENCH A wooden pallet, a broken folding chair, a cable drum and various other scraps have been recycled to create a unique bench.

Taking an adhoc approach, the bench is a collaboration between Matthew Shanley and Madeleine Mooney. In Grown Your Own, the bench will become the first piece of a ribbon of continuous seating woven within the growing spaces. In Rethink, the bench encapsulates the aims of reducing waste, reusing materials and moving towards a circular economy.

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WHAT’S NEXT? Whilst the trending topic on the future of capitalism continues to divide opinion, when climate change proponents provoke cynical responses from climate change deniers, the long term vision for the future of waste is already taking hold. Whether we are on the “cusp of something great or the edge of a cliff ”, only time will tell, but what has been recognised is the need to re-evaluate waste in the design of products and in the management of supply chains. Biological and industrial waste can no longer be ignored as acceptable by-products of our globalised population.

There are signs of a tangible shift in consumer behaviour and a momentum for change at “grassroots level” as can be seen in the example of car sharing schemes such or Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). Changes in individual patterns of behaviour need to run alongside changes in the behaviour of businesses but, businesses such as Tesco, are commercially driven and the culture of financial profit presently outweighs environmental, mental and social concerns despite the plethora of corporate social responsibility policies. Government continues to laud increases in growth output as a sign of a recovering economy but fails to explain how we can maintain our current appetite for consuming resources without depleting natural resources. Individuals, businesses and government are the three corners to a triangle of change where shared responsibility for living within the ecological limits of our planet.

Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimates around 540 million tonnes of products and materials enter

the UK economy each year, but only 117 million tonnes is recycled. Based on the principles of closed-loop design, the idea is to re-design manufacturing processes from a circular perspective.

In other words, 423 million tonnes is diverted from landfill, incineration or export and can usefully re-enter the economy. Designers are being challenged to let the material recovery principles guide the process of design and to “re-set” their definition of beauty. The aim is to design products for longevity, for material recovery, and ease of repair. Biological components can be composted, used in biomass conversion processes and anaerobic digestion. This is part of a much bigger picture – the sharing economy, or collaborative commons, is seen as a new way of valuing wealth and ownership of products, not only by individuals but by businesses.

“If economic consumption can be decoupled from material consumption, if people purchased high-value services instead of resource-intensive artefacts, if consumer commodities become value heavy and materially light, then

Top: A child sifts through electronic waste at te Agbogbloshie dump in Ghana.

Bottom: Growing in leftover urban spaces.

we could preserve economic stability and still meet environmental and social targets” (Stevenson & Keehn, 2006).

by Madeleine Mooney, Matthew Shanley & Michele Lim MSA Prints

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REVIEW Austeria Austeria: City of Minimum Consumption proposes a society based around reduced consumption and more frugal habits, suggesting that less consumption instead of higher productivity might be a solution for the future. Discussing what is necessary for humans to survive, from basic physiological needs of access to fresh water and a toilet, to self-actualising needs of participating in community life, the paper argues that if everyone had those basic things, society may be more equal and everyone might be better off. Using resources only as necessary would lead to the minimal creation of waste, and although necessary needs for humans would be met it would mean living without luxuries and the excessive consumption of many societies today.

Austerity is perceived differently in different countries and cultures, in some it is a highly respected quality, to be simple, precise and having only what is needed. The paper questions how austerity should be recast as a positive force rather than a negative imposition.

Daliana Suryawinata and Winy Maas “Austeria: City of Minimum Consumption.”

Architectural Design 82, no. 4 (2012): 114-17

Invisible Agency “Architects are the agents for the adding of more stuff to the world”.

Under conditions of scarcity, Till and Schneider argue for a move to a new way of thinking that does not involve something new, but something borrowed, redefined, redistributed and reinvented; for architects and designers to use their creativity and imagination to rethink consumer habits and patterns of behaviour. The paper highlights the 44

work of practices who have already begun to operate in this way.

Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider “Invisible Agency.”

Architectural Design 82, no. 4 (2012): 38-43

Adhocism Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation is a timely reprint of a book written

by Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver which was originally published in 1972.

Its themes continue to resonate today, questioning how to “consume in an overproductive world without dying of consumption”. It identifies that the standardisation and homogenisation of products born of a creative process is a destructive force in relation to the inherent and unique creativity of individual human beings. Written at a time when it could not be envisaged that information sources could be

so easily accessible, it does pose the challenge of initiating creativity of the individual on a large scale – a problem that is partially addressed in design activism. Citing a number of examples including the platypus, the Mars Rover Curiosity, the New York High Line and Arcimboldo’s satirical figure composed of fruit, adhocism is defined as a production or concoction of old parts into something new, where the individual elements remain recognisable in form and function. As a methodology for design, adhocism can contribute to the conscious shift towards recycling, reuse and reduction of waste.

Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver Adhocism: The Case for Imporovisation (2013)

Tescopoly “A poor man’s field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. Proverbs, 13: 23” Tescopoly is an essential read for all supermarket shoppers considering the devastating impact of Tesco locally and globally. Simms, policy director of New Economics Foundation and a board member of Greenpeace UK investigates and analyses how jobs and communities are lost as a result of supermarket chains such as Tesco, and introduces the term ‘clone town’. He tackles a subject of retail dominance and exemplifies the social and economic impact with the use of anecdoctes and real-life accounts. Although the book MSA Prints

specifically targets Tesco, he reveals all the prejudices against modern society and working-class.

community cohesion, food initiatives and integrated urban agriculture. If we can re-think the process of our local food systems and consider the positive impacts of people, communities and politics, we can pave the way to a more equitable, post-carbon society.

Andrew Simms Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why It Matters (2007)

The Gleaners and I The Gleaners and I addresses wastefulness in today’s society, where products not seen to have any commercial value are thrown away before they are actually unusable. Travelling the French countryside with a hand-held video camera, documentary film-maker Agnes Varda searches out people who scavenge harvest left-overs, urban markets and supermarket rubbish bins. Motivation for these actions vary; some, appalled by wastefulness in society, pick up leftovers and disposed of goods and give them back to the community. Others are desperate just to feed themselves. One man even uses items of rubbish as inspiration to make pieces of art.

The Gleaners and I Directed by Agnès Varda (2000)

Ecology As Slavoj Zizek stands in the foreground of a waste disposal plant he calls for radical new thinking about the results of our consumption habits.

“Our perception of nature is a reality without waste”. He strongly advocates for more artificiality, believing that

whilst we live with ecology as a principle, an ideology, then we will never realise the problems we are facing. He uses the metaphor of toilet waste, which once flushed, is forgotten and removed from our consciousness.

Waste, once collected, is out of sight and out of mind, it disappears from our reality; because we cannot see the direct problems it causes, we do not fully acknowledge them. He believes if we became more dominant and callus over nature then we would not be able to pretend that these problems are not taking place, and therefore be able to tackle them.

Examined Life with Slavoj Zizek Directed by Astra Taylor (2010)

Farming the City Farming the City focusses on how to use food as a tool for today’s urbanisation by employing effective and achievable small-scale local solutions. It is estimated that by 2050 75% of world’s population will be urban dwellers, and we are faced with the ultimate consequences of escalating food miles, CO2 emissions and larger ecological foodprints. These issues are often a regurgitated dialogue and seem outside the scope of what we can each practically achieve. This book is able to propose affordable, simple and attainable solutions that have been shown to be successful. It demonstrates

Francesca Miazzo and Mark Minkjan (Editors) Farming the City - Food as a Tool for Today’s Urbanization (2013)

Error-Friendliness Enzo Manzini, professor of Industrial Design at Milan Polytechnic, where he is Director of CIRIS (the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on Innovation for Sustainability), focuses on innovative processes in the system of production and consumption and, in particular, on the relationship between product strategies and environmental policies in the perspective of sustainable development. In his article ErrorFriendliness, Manzini introduces the concept of the suboptimal as a resilient and temporally oriented proposition that is driven locally and as part of a connected network. These networks allow for adaptation, and place the user at the heart of the solution, whilst integrating wider policy at a larger scale.

Ezio Manzini “Error-Friendliness: How to Deal with the Future Scarcest Resource: The Environmental, Social, Economic Security.

That Is, How to Design Resilient Socio-Technical Systems.”

Architectural Design 82, no. 4 (2012): 56-61

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COLLABORATORS Preston

Recycling Lives

Greater Manchester

The Mustard Tree

The Kindling Trust

Food Cycle Manchester

Cracking Good Food

Head and Haft

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Falmouth

Buddleia Project

Crumpsall Park Community Garden Revive Community Cafe ZEST Crumpsall and Cheetham Allotment Model

Cheetham and Crumpsall

Hereford

Hereford Repair Cafe

FoodCycle London

London MSA Prints

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Buddleia

The Mustard Tree

ZEST

Hereford Repair Cafe

FoodCycle

Head & Haft

Hulme Community Garden Centre

Cracking Good Food

The Kindling Trust

Crumpsall and Cheetham Model Allotments

Kerenza McClarnan http://buddleia.co.uk/about/ 18 Sparkle Street, Manchester, M1 2NA info@buddleia.co.uk

Caron Martin http://www.zestactivities.blogspot.co.uk/ Abraham Moss Centre, Crescent Road, Crumpsall, M8 5UF zest@manchester.gov.uk

Robyn Stone http://foodcycle.org.uk/ Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, London, E2 6HG hello@foodcycle.org.uk

Helene Rudlin and Katherine Kennedy http://www.hulmegardencentre.org.uk/ 28 Old Birley Street, Hulme, Manchester, M15 5RG

http://www.kindling.org.uk/home Unit 19, 41 Old Birley Street, Work for Change, Hulme, Manchester, M15 5RF

Revive Community Cafe

Simon Dean http://www.thestreammanche ter.co.uk/#/ community-cafe/4556542577 22 Ash Tree Road, Crumpsall, Manchester, M8 5AT info@thestreammanchester.co.uk 48

Graham Hudson http://www.mustardtree.org.uk/ 110 Oldham Road Ancoats, Manchester, M4 6AG info@mustardtree.co.uk

http://www.herefordshirenewleaf.org. uk/repair-cafe-barrels The Barrels, 69 St Owen Street, Hereford, HR1 2QJ kate@herefordshirenewleaf.org. uk

Chris Thorpe http://headandhaft.tumblr.com/ The Mill Yard, College Hill, Penryn, Falmouth chris@headandhaft.co.uk

Kim Irwin http://www.crackinggoodfood.org/ 8 Napier Rd, Manchester, M21 8AW

Crumpsall Park, Ash Tree Road, Manchester, M8 5RX

Creative Recycling

Fiona Norton http://www.40beechroad.co.uk/creative_recycling_gallery/HOME.html 40 Beech Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M21 9EL creativerecycling@mac.com MSA Prints

MSA Prints Editor in Chief Stephen Lovejoy

Associate Editor Konrad Koltun

Design Editors

Madeleine Mooney, Will Priest, Tuan Viet Pham, Tim Spiller, Amaobi Ike

Content Editors

Dammy Fasoranti, Adrian Coelho, Matthew Shanley, Alexander Watts, Emma Naylor

Communications Team

Maliha Ramiza Ramlan, Nawal Nabila, Michele Lim, Wan Syafiqah, Nedelcu Adelina, Archontia Manolakelli

EXCESS Edition Contributors

Madeleine Mooney Matthew Shanley Michele Lim

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES A five-part series from the students of the MSA_Projects atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture, the final part being a special Housing edition.

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Assemble MSA Prints PRESENTS

MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES PART 1

Territory INCludINg aN INTErvIEW WITH

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mOrag rOSE

prESENTS

maNuFaCTurINg COmmuNITIES: dESIgNINg rEal plaCES parT 2

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN IN SINGAPORE

FrEE CHaT

HOW PARTICIPATORY DESIGN WAS USED IN BIRLEY FIELDS

publIC, prIvaTE Or COmmONS?

LECTURE FROM TORANGE KHONSARI

gaTEd publIC SpaCES

dO CITIZENS OWN THE CITY?

HOW DOES ARCHITECTURE GET PEOPLE INVOLVED? THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT

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COMMUNITY MEETING PLACE

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SUBOPTIMAL DESIGN MSA Prints

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Citizens * prioritizing the uSerS *

including an interview with

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louiS woodhead

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NEIgHbOurHOOd pOTENTIal

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OpEN EvENTS

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Housing+ * SPECIAL EDITION *

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Manufacturing coMMunitieS: deSigning real placeS part 4

StudentS lead the way on food criSiS

THE GAME

favela riSing HOUSING CRISIS engaging the hoMeleSS LIFESTYLE + GENDER

PUBLIC / PRIVATE Should the deSign proceSS begin with the uSerS?

the triage centre

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youth wrecKreation

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the coop

RE- APPROPRIATION

PRAXIS | HOUSING | COMMUNITY | EVERYDAY | PARTICIPATION MSA Prints

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MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING REAL PLACES A five-part series from the students of the MSA_Projects atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture, the final part being a special Housing edition.