Manchester test
Abstract
This paper will look at the application of the ‘Design Thinking’ that takes place within an Architecture Atelier over three vertically aligned academic years (BA3, MArch1 and MArch 2), and how this can be used to solve real world problems. In the academic year 2019-2020, and informed by earlier work in selected Northern Towns of England – Bollington (2016), Bakewell (2017) and Rochdale (2019), the Atelier, Continuity in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture, was invited to collaborate with Shrewsbury Town Council on ‘The Big Town Plan’. This project addressed real challenges being undertaken by the Local Authority in the synthesis of ideas for the ‘Shrewsbury Test’. This unique legislation asks whether a development is uniquely ‘Shrewsbury’ in its character, whether it strengthens the identity of the town and thus supports the wider vision to make life better for people who live there (The Big Town Plan, 2016). The project produced design proposals with a broad range or themes including a new urban code, creative uses for a vacant prison and two redundant shopping centres, responses to recurring flooding, and additions to the distinctive skyline.
Continuity in Architecture is grounded in the theories of Contextualism. This is an approach to the design of the urban environment that uses the process of analysis and understanding of the nature and qualities of place to develop new elements (Schumacher, 1971). The use and re-use of a constructed site creates a direct connection with the past – it is a strategy that establishes an explicit relationship not just with the site, the building and its immediate surroundings, but also with the society that constructed it. The architect or designer can uncover the meaning within a place which can be used to activate, liberate and instigate a new future for the already built.
Sally Stone is the Master of Architecture Programme Leader and Director of the Continuity in Architecture Atelier; a studio for research, practice and teaching, at the Manchester School of Architecture. The atelier seeks to find ways of deriving delightful, rigorous, and measured responses to small settlements and historically sensitive contexts. Sally lectures on installation art, connections between art and architecture and building re-use and as such has a wide knowledge of art practice especially in the context of the built environment. Sally is an internationally recognised expert on the subject of the interior and the interpretation and remodelling of the existing situation. She has written extensively about the subject, and her research profile includes a number of published books, inclusion in edited books and journals, invitations to keynote or speak at international conferences, and requests to direct European workshops. Her forthcoming monograph, ‘UnDoing Buildings’ will be published in the summer of 2019, followed by ‘Remember Reveal Construct: Reflections upon the Contingency, Usefulness and Emotional Resonance of Architecture, Buildings and Context’ (with Sanderson, L