ATELIER FLUX
ARCHITECTURE FOR A STATE OF CHANGE
Contents 3
Introduction
04 - 11
Waterlab
Vilius Petraitis
12 - 19
The Sonic Exchange Cecilia Morgan
20 - 27
The Path of Time David Baraev
28 - 35
Irk Junction Brew Kyra Jennings
36 - 43
The Irk Collective Kilian Soudy
44 - 51
Feeding the City Yeung Daniel Thi
52 - 59
Generating Vitality Shreenidhi Srinath
60 - 67
Wasted Landscapes Nina Pjevac
68 - 75
Radical Parliament Grace Millie Conway
76 - 83
Sanctuary
Kjestyn Yee Shuk Mynn
84 - 91
Co:ownership Hannah Foreman
92 - 99
The Irk Lido
Kate Hargreaves Davis Cover Image by Grace Conway
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100 - 01
A FLUX Manifesto
Atelier FLUX
FLUX is an atelier at Manchester School of Architecture, UK. This publication draws together the work of all 12 final year undergraduate students in the studio. The Flux brief proposed a site and a series of provocations but did not prescribe a brief or a method. Students were invited to investigate new ways of practicing architecture for themselves and to then develop designs that respond to real-world problems as they encountered them. The primary challenge was to investigate an architecture that could bring about a state of change. The site is the Lower Irk Valley, one of the most challenging post-industrial landscapes in Manchester that, despite flowing into the city Centre, stubbornly resists regeneration. Based on matters of care developed by each student, individuals developed their own ways of working. In the first semester each student was asked to develop a series of proposals that could initiate a state of change across the whole valley and reawaken this blind spot in the Mancunian imagination.
The focus here was an architecture of the immediate future to help bring the site back to life. In the second semester, students were challenged to delve deeper into one part of the site and conduct research through design. The aim of these final projects, presented here, was to investigate an architecture that could effect a state of change over several decades. A proposal that could establish a new identity for the people of Manchester and the area that grows out of society and place. Flux students undertook selfdirected field trips to inform their projects ranging from tours through Glasgow underpasses and seeing Middlesborough through fresh eyes in the UK to pilgrimages to Peter Latz’ Landschaftpark & Raumlabor’s ’Floating University’, Berlin, Germany, Luchtsingel & Buiksloterham post-industrial transformations in Rotterdam & Amsterdam and a Brodsky installation in Moscow. Carrie Lawrence Dan Dubowitz Manchester 2020 03
VILIUS PETRAITIS • WATERLAB
WaterLab
Vilius Petraitis
E-mail vilius.petraitis11@gmail.com Issuu viliuspetraitis Instagram @green.tect LinkedIn in/viliuspetraitis
Right: Impulsive Steam Room Model Next Page: Disinfection Tanks axonometric
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WaterLab is a Public water treatment plant which uses the method known as coagulation and flocculation to treat the contaminated water of river Irk. Visitors are exposed to the six stages of water treatment where each stage is designed to catalyse interaction between people and water. The project is born from a continuous discovery of Irk Valley, its past and potential futures. Impulsive decision making in the past has led to Irk’s desertion, places which only benefited from capital growth have turned into obsolete artefacts which are studied to anticipate a healthier future for the people and the place. The journey across the water catalyses thought about said impulsiveness, everyday routines and the futures which we are building. As the
water is cleaned gradually, visitors will go through a process of un-learning routines which led to the poisoning of the natural water cycle. At the end of the journey the visitors are encouraged to interact within the idea theatre, designed for non-disciplinary discourse and debate where water is at the foreground of the decision making. The Lab is an instrument to understand the past and the potential futures of Irk Valley, where the community is thought to live with water rather than fight with it. Technology is only part of the answer to our challenges with water. What is missing is our relationship with it. How will life change as our relationship to water transforms?
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VILIUS PETRAITIS • WATERLAB
Top left: Path to Idea Theatre Middle Left: Sedimentation Tank Bottom Left: WaterLab aerial view Right: Idea theatre model
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VILIUS PETRAITIS • WATERLAB
WaterLab site axonometric
Filtration Tanks axonometric
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Sedimentation Tanks axonometric
Flocculation Tank axonometric
Coagulation Tank axonometric
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CECILIA MORGAN • THE SONIC EXCHANGE
The Sonic Exchange
Cecilia Morgan
E-mail cecilia_e_morgan @outlook.com Instagram @what_is_cecilia_doing LinkedIn in/cecilia-morgan
The Sonic Exchange is an exchange of sounds, people, thoughts and interpretations, driven by both an understanding of sonic experience and an exchange of sonic experiences themselves. It is composed of both a tram exchange and the home of The Sonic Authority, an authority set up to promote soundscape ecology by combatting sound gentrification and researching the effects of sound and noise on the urban realm in the form of anthropophonies, geophonies and biophonies. The existing infrastructure of the Irk is incapable of supporting the population of the proposed development and is insufficient even now. The Sonic Exchange provides the wider site with new carbon efficient transport infrastructure as well as both new cultural infrastructure and a protected area of green infrastructure. To deny the Irk of any development by preserving it in formaldehyde so it remains constant forever is selfish. Stasis is ridiculous: we need homes and schools and space to live. The Irk is only currently accessible for the few.
Right: Acoustic Underpass: Anthropophonic Resonation
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However, our current and future need does not have to erase the history of this site, flatten it or destroy the environment and all its niches. This project aims to preserve the integrity and identity of the Irk in parallel to its development. The exchange is designed for human occupation but the concept is designed as a unified soundscape which acknowledges and celebrates both the elements used in its composition and also their interactions. Soundscapes are not only created by humans, nor are they only heard by us. Using sound as a tool to interrogate the site and its potential allowed for an all-encompassing proposition. Sound is political, sound is ecological, sound is part of our cultural identities and the histories of our urban environments. Our range of hearing is one-thousand times our range of vision and the ear has three times more neural connections in the brain than the eye, an occularcentric built environment is an inadequate one.
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CECILIA MORGAN • THE SONIC EXCHANGE
Integrated Infrastructure Strategy
Right: Masterplan: The Soundscape
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CECILIA MORGAN โ ข THE SONIC EXCHANGE
Faรงade Modelling: In the Tree Tops
Right: Layered Circulation: Under, Over, Through
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CECILIA MORGAN • THE SONIC EXCHANGE
Inhabitation: Clients and Users
The Building as an Instrument
Right: Masterplan: The Soundscape
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DAVID BARAEV • THE PATH OF TIME
The Path of Time
David Baraev
E-mail dbaraev@gmail.com Issuu dbaraev Instagram @ddddistant LinkedIn in/davidbaraev
Right: Path of Time
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Death does not exist in nature. What we perceive as Death is simply a state of change for molecules and cells. Thus, Death is only a human phenomenon, as it defines a state of existence and a state of non-existence. From a perspective of Nature, it is a conventional transition, but for us it is a catalyst. We love, create and fight because we fear Death. Yet we cause Death. Irk Valley was a heavenly landscape once, and we rapidly poisoned it. When we felt we did not need it anymore, we left it to rot. But it did not die. Humanity died there, the Valley went through a state of change and was reborn.Death is immensely tragic. Within those
hours of a burial ceremony, there are two occurrences: the process of the body and the reflection in the minds of those close to the deceased. The project will explore the physical and psychological states of change happening with the users. The connection with Irk Valley will provide almost accidental moments of serenity. Resonation is a new environmentally friendly alternative to cremation. By using high pressure, heat and lye, a human body is dissolved into water. The bones are later pulverised into crystal white ashes. The body is allowed to return to the natural cycle.
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DAVID BARAEV • THE PATH OF TIME
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Top left: Hall of Serenity detail Bottom left: Hall of serenity & Hall of Connections aerial view Right: Hall of Serenity Next page: Hall of Connection
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DAVID BARAEV • THE PATH OF TIME
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DAVID BARAEV • THE PATH OF TIME
Hall Of Reflections - Columbarium
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KYRA JENNINGS • IRK JUNCTION BREW
Irk Junction Brew
Kyra Jennings
E-mail kyraanne99@gmail.com Portfolio kyrajennings.myportfolio.com Instagram @kyrarchitecture LinkedIn in/kyrajennings
Right: Cinematic Brewing Next page: The Camouflaged Skywalk
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“There used to be many pubs around here – everyone knew everyone, but this is now the last one standing and there’s no where else to go.” – pub customer outside of Irk Valley. Beer, food and music has never failed to bring people together, especially with Manchester’s vibrant music and drinking culture. In a town of segregated communities, Irk Junction Brew will provide a combination of these products in the centre of Red Bank, in a way that allows visitors to celebrate the old and the new at the same time. To magnify the beauty of old structures and the natural setting Irk Valley holds, the brewery and music stages are hidden behind the existing viaduct and in the forest. This is so that visitors will experience the original land of Irk Valley before encountering the new structures proposed on the same site.
The particular area chosen for the brewery used to be a large railway site, which was abandoned since the Irk Valley Junction rail crash, in 1953. The history of motion on these rails has influenced the flexibility of movement in the pubs on railways and the pubs on scissor lifts spider mewps. The town’s surrounding communities are connected to the existing viaduct via the proposed skywalk, and are able to congregate at the brewery at this junction. This project aims to enhance the idea of freedom of mobility in order to bring back the industrial atmosphere to the town so that these memories will not be forgotten in the future.
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KYRA JENNINGS • IRK JUNCTION BREW
Over and Under
Next page: Irk Junction Brew axonometric
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The Goods Shed: Straight In, Straight Out!
Irk Junction Brew Section: Remembering the Industrial
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KYRA JENNINGS • IRK JUNCTION BREW
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KILIAN SOUDY • THE IRK COLLECTIVE
The Irk Collective
Kilian Soudy
E-mail kilian.soudy@gmail.com Issuu kilian.soudy Instagram @kiliansoudy_arch LinkedIn in/kiliansoudy
Right: the city centre of the Irk collective Next Page: Irk Collective axonometric
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The Irk Collective is a collaborative project aiming at creating a congregation of buildings in the forest to answer the needs of the local community. A deep exploration of the site and interviews with workers and residents revealed the neglected state of the Irk Valley and the loss of a sense of belonging. To reinstate this community bound, the project defines a committee composed of local actors that will discuss, decide and design their new collective story. The scheme
develops throughout time and provides five individual buildings: A forum - collaborative offices where the committee operates; the Canteen - a place of catering and evasion for employees of the local businesses; the Gymnasium responding the lack of leisure infrastructure; a library to bring a cultural presence to the valley and an auditorium and food pavilion to open up the Irk and attract the dynamic population of the surrounding quarters.
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KILIAN SOUDY • THE IRK COLLECTIVE
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KILIAN SOUDY • THE IRK COLLECTIVE
Left: Decision and Design process involving all communities Right: Gymnasium elevation Next page: Auditorium & Food Pavilion section
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KILIAN SOUDY • THE IRK COLLECTIVE
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YEUNG DANIEL THI • FEEDING THE CITY
Feeding the City
Yeung Daniel Thi
E-mail danielthi@hotmail.co.uk Instagram @dan.archstudio LinkedIn in/danielthi
What brings inclusivity? As human nature, we enjoy socially drinking and eating with friends and family. The Irk Valley Farm & Market is a proposed new active centre within the Lower Irk Valley that focuses on food. As the heart of the valley, the food and leisure destination will expand the food offering and build upon Manchester’s food & drinks culture. It provides the opportunity to socially recycle the economy. The project focuses on ‘shared ownership’ model through farming and trading, which shifts away from the ‘totalitarian’ mode of regeneration projects, benefitting the collective and encouraging a participatory-approach. The Market, the Food hall and the Vertical farm, are all productions of the this modelled sustainable economic cycle – the food is the catalyst – and the produced product is reinvested into the Irk Valley and the wider Greater Manchester area.
Right: Pit stop along the line
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YEUNG DANIEL THI • FEEDING THE CITY
Structural assembly axonometric
Market street elevation
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The Marketplace
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YEUNG DANIEL THI • FEEDING THE CITY
The Valley promenade
The Marketplace and Farm aerial view
Right: Vertical Farm elemental build up Next page: Market elevation
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SHREENIDHI SRINATH • GENERATING VITALITY
Generating Vitality
Shreenidhi Srinath
E-mail shrins97@gmail.com LinkedIn in/shreenidhisrinath
Right: Biogas energy plant view
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Flooding the Irk valley into a vast man-made reservoir in the heart of Manchester. Growing the potential of the botanical inhabitants that claim the land. Generating a local source of energy for the surrounding community. All these effects cumulate to birth an architectural landmark for Manchester, that will act as the first node to interconnect the local ecological diversity and to provide a leisure area with a natural and sustainable interface. This first ripple will cultivate a revolutionary mindset to ignite awareness of the Anthropocene, primarily within the people of Manchester and then further communicating globally. The heart of the park is a porous building with the function of spiritual purification and nature of curiosity. This is a sensory experience between water, irk valley and its foliage. The flux of water and geometric form as the visitors pass through, invoke a response to the rich history of the site as well as currently ill fate of our Earth.
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SHREENIDHI SRINATH • GENERATING VITALITY
Irk Valley underwater
Right: Empowering the Irk Valley collage
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SHREENIDHI SRINATH • GENERATING VITALITY
Left: Water Transportation view Right: Biogas Energy Plant plan collage
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SHREENIDHI SRINATH • GENERATING VITALITY
Left: Water transportation section Right: Seeds of inspiration, process models
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NINA PJEVAC • WASTED LANDSCAPES
Wasted Landscapes
Nina Pjevac
E-mail nina-pjevac@live.com Behance Nina Pjevac Instagram @ninapjevac LinkedIn in/nina-pjevac
Right: Waste to Energy plant sectional model Next Page: Site section
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‘Wasted Landscapes’ is about establishing a state of change at Irk Valley. The area that once was heavily industrialised with cotton mills, and was densely populated with workers housing, today is overgrown suggesting the possibility that Irk might remediate itself. Hence, this project focuses on climate change, environment and social sustainability. The design is a waste-to-energy plant located underneath one of the heavily contaminated hills at Irk Valley - that would digest and remediate the contaminated land. Moreover, its program would be delicate enough to include the community into the learning process of how one
place can be remediated. Besides Vauxhall Gardens being an electricity-generating hill, the over ground is a calm, urban park with a matrix of networks that promote the benefits of recycling, phytoremediation as well as cater to the physical and mental well-being of its users. What highlights the underground building and will become the next landmark of Irk is the 80m tall chimney rising above the residential buildings. While usually it is linked to pollution, the chimney of Irk will be integrated into society as it will be covered in vegetation, as well as act as a climbing wall for sports enthusiasts.
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NINA PJEVAC • WASTED LANDSCAPES
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NINA PJEVAC • WASTED LANDSCAPES
Top left: Public space study models Bottom left: Waste to Energy process diagram Right: Site axonometric
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NINA PJEVAC • WASTED LANDSCAPES
Left & Right: Chimney / Vertical garden / Climbing Wall
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GRACE CONWAY • RADICAL PARLIAMENT
Radical Parliament
Grace Millie Conway
E-mail conway.grace17@gmail.com Instagram @gmc_arch LinkedIn in/grace-conway
Right: Debating Chamber axonometric
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The Irk Valley is on the brink of change. Extensive luxury housing developments are swiftly being assembled on the Irk’s periphery, in keeping with the marketled expansion of Manchester’s city centre. This post-industrial wasteland teetering on the edge of neoliberal Manchester will soon be unrecognisable, with new buildings constructed for dwellers the city wants but doesn’t have, for activity the city demands but doesn’t subsidize. Manchester’s growth is currently regulated by top-down investment not government, the Radical Parliament attempts to reverse this.
The Parliament presents a new space for all members of the wider community to debate and examine the development of the city within a space that is free from neoliberal pressure. The Parliament is situated within a public baths in order to disarm the users through the act of undressing, reducing prejudice and preconception, and to promote calm before entering the debating spaces. By resting within a woodland and going deep underground, the overbearing presence of gleaming glass skyscrapers is removed. The multi-purpose nature of the architecture will bring a wide range of community members to the Irk Valley to take part in a revised process of Neighbourhood Planning.
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GRACE CONWAY • RADICAL PARLIAMENT
A Flooded Parliament
Steam Room model
Right: A Bathing complex
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A view of debate
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A Plan for Bathing
Derobing Next page: Architectural language of resistance
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Exercise
Frigidarium
Tepidarium
Calidarium
Leisure
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KJESTYN YEE SHUK MYNN • SANCTUARY AND PROGRESS
Sanctuary
Kjestyn Yee Shuk Mynn
E-mail kjestyn@gmail.com Issuu Kjestyn Yee Instagram @justanotherarchistudent LinkedIn in/KjestynYee
During a fateful visit to the Irk Valley, a man walked into the site as I walked out. When asked what he uses the site for, he explained that he found his space here, away from the city centre. The valley is his sanctuary. The project is developed to rebuild life and to move forward into another phase. Life is about movements, making meaningful connections. It is about moving ahead towards a goal and about taking chances. The project will collaborate with present associations which aid the homeless, providing hostel and formal communication by providing workstations and mailboxes.
Right: Sanctuary model plan view
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The buildings allow opportunities for exposure to work participation, social life and skillsets. The programme will provide its inhabitants with a sense of achievement by being involved within the community. One of the essential aspects is dislodging the uncertainty and grow a comfortable state of mind. Overall, the project will lead its users to build a sanctuary, to strive to their aspirations
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KJESTYN YEE SHUK MYNN • SANCTUARY AND PROGRESS
Left: Private building entrance Right: Sanctuary plan
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Sanctuary model
Bottom left: Private building section Bottom Right: Public Building section
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KJESTYN YEE SHUK MYNN • SANCTUARY AND PROGRESS
Available roles within the Sanctuary
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HANNAH FOREMAN • CO : OWNERSHIP
Co : Ownership
Hannah Foreman
E-mail hannahlouiseforeman@gmail.com Issuu hannahlouiseforeman Instagram @hannahsarchitecture LinkedIn in/hannahforeman
The Irk Valley, dominated by commuter traffic and fly tipping sites, is also an area of copious green space, a meandering river and a rich industrial history. It is both unique and beautiful. The residents, travellers and workers who occupy the valley each have their own community, but there is a lack of integration. With a large-scale development on the horizon, the Irk Valley is now getting some attention, but in the process, will it lose its identity? In my view the key for successful development lies in a focus on the area’s unique landscape and its existing communities. A sense of ownership and pride is first established through community-led interventions: a junk playground, a mobile garden and a weekend market – all created from reclaimed, local waste materials. Following this, a community-led building of biophilic design.
Right: co : ownership aerial view
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Using timber with Japanese joinery, the jigsaw-puzzle like structure, that can be put together by local volunteers, features three main spaces: coworking, community and café. These spaces work together in a spirit of co-ownership to connect people back to place.
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HANNAH FOREMAN • CO : OWNERSHIP
Left: Process Right: 1:1 playhouse prototype
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HANNAH FOREMAN • CO : OWNERSHIP
Left: Structural model Right: Riverside entrance
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HANNAH FOREMAN • CO : OWNERSHIP
Cafe: Indoor planting area
Community Fitness Room
Right: Cafe functioning as an events spce at night
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KATE HARGREAVES-DAVIS • THE IRK LIDO
The Irk Lido
Kate Hargreaves-Davis
E-mail katedavis118@gmail.com Behance katedavis2 Instagram @katehargreavesdavis LinkedIn in/kate-hargreaves-davis
Right: Collage visualising the Irk Lido reclaimed in 30 years time
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I knocked on the door. A wary lady answered. “Can I ask you a few questions about the area?” She agreed to speak to me even though her dinner was ready on the table. She told me a distressing story of how she was born, married and widowed in the same house, on the same road. Throughout her years she witnessed the rise and fall of her community. Urban sprawl has slowly transformed her suburban life into a forgotten backwater. “It’s a social cleansing” she said her voice quivering. As I was leaving the site it became apparent that not only is Irk Valley abandoned and isolated but also the people living there. The wounds of Irk Valley have been scarred into its narrative throughout time. How do you heal a wounded community and a post-industrial wasteland?
In many countries bathing is an integral part of their social culture. There are specific places to bathe, swim, socialise and feed body and soul. Many cultures have a long tradition of bathing. In England the art of public bathing does not have the same traditional roots embedded in our culture. These social bathing aspects appear to be missing in England’s privatised bathing etiquette. This project proposes that building a thermal water facility into the natural landscape, will re-align the disconnect between people and place. Bathing creates a shared experience with others, whether verbal communication is exchanged. The Irk Valley requires a cleansing of the bathing kind.
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KATE HARGREAVES-DAVIS • THE IRK LIDO
Level up - Irk Lido circulation route aerial view
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KATE HARGREAVES-DAVIS • THE IRK LIDO
As told by the community - member no. 1
Irk Lido model collage
Right: Irk Lido exploded axonometric
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the programme corresponding to the sun path
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KATE HARGREAVES-DAVIS • THE IRK LIDO
juxtaposition of the dynamic pool against the still reception.
Right: Circle pool collage
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A FLUX Manifesto
Staff
Guests / Collaborators
Dan Dubowitz Carrie Lawrence
Ricardo Marini (Marini Urbanismo) Prof Oren Lieberman (Portsmouth) Elisabeth de Brezenac (Lancaster) Ian Miller (Archaeologist, University of Salford) Jack Davies (Irk Valley photographer) Eddie Smith (Director of Strategy, Manchester City Council) Zoe Bruce & Nick Cherry (Glasgow tours) Mathew Davies (Kier) & Ben Wolstenholme (Morgan Sindall)
Students Kyra Jennings David Baraev Grace Millie Conway Hannah Foreman Kate Hargreaves Davis Cecilia Morgan Vilius Petraitis Nina Pjevac Kilian Soudy Shreenidhi Srinath Yeung Thi Kjestyn Yee Shuk Mynn
Design: Vilius Petraitis Typefaces: Franklin Gothic Sabon LT
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FLUX IS A STATE OF CHANGE our name suggests a primacy of time in our work, temporality is as important as spatiality
FLUX PROPOSES A SLOW URBANISM as an alternative to the conventional masterplan
FLUX IS AN ECOLOGY we will develop an archaeology of duration and consider the systemic implications of our work
FLUX UNDERSTANDS THAT CREATIVITY IS UNDERSTANDING IN PRACTICE developing practices is essential; considering the process rather than the outcome
FLUX WILL WORK TOWARDS AN ITERATIVE AESTHETICS we are committed to beauty in the built environment but aim to recast this in light of our contemporary world
FLUX UNDERSTANDS THAT INFORMALITY IS AVANT-GARDE meaning a broad range of precedents must be drawn upon
FLUX IS A STATE OF CHANGE and this means we will improvise, instigate, intervene, and act
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ISBN: 978-1-9163899-1-5