Cotton Field Wharf: Build-to-Invest

Figure 03: Class J41 Concentration at City Centre Periphery Source Image: (Manchester City Council, 2016:online)

Figure 04: Apartment Typologies of Cotton Field Wharf Image: (Manchester Life, 2020:online)

Figure 04 shows the mix of apartment typologies which reveal the programmatic flexibility which, in addition to ground floor commercial spaces, provides revenue securitisation through diversification. (Hydrock, 2020) Externally are canal-facing bars opening onto public space,

whilst internal amenities include: “clubroom, gym and fitness studio, 128 parking spaces, secure cycle storage.” (Hydrock, 2020:online) with “on-site maintenance, high speed internet, and a 24h concierge.” (Manchester Life, 2020:online) All of these secondary amenities are made financially viable as critical mass in this development is exceeded.

The 302 apartments are constructed using a structural system consisting of slender floor plates and “blade columns, to minimise floor thickness and maximise the size of the apartments.” (Hydrock, 2020:online) Further high quality architectural features are environmentally friendly internal fixtures and fittings, shown by the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) which measures a scheme's environmental impact. However, the guise of ‘responsible’ construction is a thin veil, as the partnership with a billionaire with vast oil reserves have facilitated Cotton Field Wharf’s ‘environmentally friendly’ construction. (Manchester Life, 2020) Additionally, evident is profitability motivating the achievement of a B EPC rating (Stroma, 2017) As:

“It is estimated that, compared to dwellings rated G, dwellings rated F sell for nearly 6% more, dwellings rated D and E sell for approximately 6% and 8% more, C rated dwellings sell for around 10% more and dwellings rated A or B sell for approximately 14% more.” (Department of Energy & Climate Change, 2013:18)

Figure 05: Cotton Field Wharf Apartment Typologies Image Source: (Manchester Life, 2020:online)

Summarising the architectural analysis of Cotton Field Wharf, figure 06 illustrates the operations of a traditional mine, which figure 07 maps onto the Manchester Life case study. As an extractive industry, PRS BtR schemes are an exploratory route of capitalism for gaining access

to capital, for extraction to financial institutions (who finance the initial excavation). As previous iterations of housing financialisation have shown, the specialist servicing infrastructures of housing financialisation are as varied as the tactics. The initial wave of financialisation connected domesticity to the financial heights, where mortgages were the mode of operation of capital. Cotton Field Wharf represents the materialisation of a far darker reality; where sociality, a key component of the human condition, becomes a ‘design feature’.

Figure 06: Summary of Mining operations Figure 07: Summary of Case Study Images: Author’s own, Mining Labels: (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020)

Conclusion

Connecting two theoretical strands pertaining to contemporary capitalism, this dissertation seeks to contribute to existing debates surrounding the role of finance in urban (re)production, highlighting the emergence of institutional investors and their centrality in the formulation of financially extractive housing ‘solutions’. Post-crisis architectural typologies de-territorialise political economies through invention and activation of financial infrastructures formalised by a capitalist State. Drawing attention to the shells of operation, this dissertation reveals that these specific architectural typologies are both a formality, and finality, as Build-to-Rent schemes are revealed as infrastructural confluences, where a sociotechnical object is revealed as a product of expanding global capitalism. An effective response to financialised urban (re)production therefore requires revisions to perceptions of resistance which disregard urban contestation as a “historical (and thus potentially winnable, or closable) conflict between oppressed and oppressors” but “as a pluralist, always ongoing (irreconcilable) contestation of terms and aims” (Laclau and Mouffe, 1987 cited in Pierce and Hankins, 2019:1530)

The Manchester Life Development Company is an extreme crystallisation of capitalist urban (re)production, and independent newspaper ‘The Meteor ’ published numerous articles on other materialisations in Manchester. (Bower, 2018). Unfortunately the restrictions imposed by the 2019-2020 Coronavirus Pandemic resulted in a lack of primary information which would have contributed to the architectural analysis of Manchester Life’s property portfolio. Despite this, the wealth of online information gathered allowed for an analysis which well connects global theories to specific materialisations of institutional investors.

To continue the research questions posed by this dissertation, further case studies would be gathered and integrated into architectural analyses to create a fluid methodology for typological identification of Build-to-Rent schemes. A stem of further research could involve typological investigations regarding financiality of schemes through dissemination of specific programmatic configurations to calculate precise financial values of specific components included in Build-toRent schemes.

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