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Academic

Academic

Academic

Academic

YEAR ONE

COMPILATION

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 1 -

Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016

First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.

Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.

YEAR ONE

COMPILATION

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 1 -

Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016

First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.

Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.

YEAR ONE

COMPILATION

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 1 -

Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016

First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.

Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.

First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.

Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 1 -

Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016

YEAR ONE

COMPILATION

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 3 -

Atelier Common Ground

Atelier Leaders:

Stephen Connah

Ronan Connelley

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 3 -

Atelier Common Ground

Atelier Leaders:

Stephen Connah

Ronan Connelley

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 3 -

Atelier Common Ground

Atelier Leaders:

Stephen Connah

Ronan Connelley

BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE

Year 3 -

Atelier Common Ground

Atelier Leaders:

Stephen Connah

Ronan Connelley

CANTEEN AEDICULE

THE URBANISM OF THE POSTWAR CAMPUS

The UMIST Campus is a rare example of a complete postwar campus in a British urban centre. A cohesive cluster of campus buildings designed according to common ‘canons of design’ created in the UMIST Campus a total modernist environment. These urban principles which governed the design of the campus established codes and constraints which reconciled truth to building technology with expression of form; ensuring that the campus would retain a sense of continuity across time and in the hands of different architects.

The White City which rapidly superseded the postindustrial squalor of Manchester’s inner city industrial belt presented a bright vision of modernity, contributing to the city’s title of ‘Shock City’ of the modern age. Tall monumental buildings interspersed amongst low perimeter buildings created a varied skyline and visible symbols of a new Manchester; a technopole of faith in science and technology. At the time of its construction, the campus represented more than the estate of an emerging university, but furthermore a standard bearer for urban renewal in the postwar period. This is a history which today is fated to fade following the departure of the university to a consolidated facility, abandoning the campus to extramural market forces to determine its future.

THE URBANISM OF THE POSTWAR CAMPUS

The UMIST Campus is a rare example of a complete postwar campus in a British urban centre. A cohesive cluster of campus buildings designed according to common ‘canons of design’ created in the UMIST Campus a total modernist environment. These urban principles which governed the design of the campus established codes and constraints which reconciled truth to building technology with expression of form; ensuring that the campus would retain a sense of continuity across time and in the hands of different architects.

The White City which rapidly superseded the postindustrial squalor of Manchester’s inner city industrial belt presented a bright vision of modernity, contributing to the city’s title of ‘Shock City’ of the modern age. Tall monumental buildings interspersed amongst low perimeter buildings created a varied skyline and visible symbols of a new Manchester; a technopole of faith in science and technology. At the time of its construction, the campus represented more than the estate of an emerging university, but furthermore a standard bearer for urban renewal in the postwar period. This is a history which today is fated to fade following the departure of the university to a consolidated facility, abandoning the campus to extramural market forces to determine its future.

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology

Project site

Former university campus

Manchester City Centre

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology

Project site

Former university campus

Manchester City Centre

CANTEEN AEDICULE

BC

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Historic literature focus

benjamin-carter
May 8, 2021
1 min read

Cambridge, UK

I am currently focusing my readings around expansion in Post-war Higher Education and the resulting era of 'Utopianist' university campuses spawned out of varied political motivators from the Cold War to the Robbins Report.

Here are a few readings I'm working my way through:

- Utopian Universities: A Global History of the New Campuses of the 1960s

- The Plateglass Universities: Sussex, York, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Warwick and Lancaster

- The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain

- Free University Berlin: Candilis, Josic, Woods, Schiedhelm, Architectural Association Exemplar Projects 3

- Architectural Review 923: January 1974: University of Leeds (pp.2-30)

- RIBA Journal, Vol 71, Issue 1, January 1964: Higher Education: The Significance of Robbins (pp. 12 -18)

The satellite 'plate glass' universities are comprehensively recorded, less well documented are post-war urban universities meaning institutions such as UMIST tend to fall through the gaps. An information deficit this thesis seeks to address.

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