VIRTUAL Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

At Manchester School of Architecture, design studios from third year onwards are structured in vertical Ateliers that span undergraduate BArch and postgraduate MArch and MLA (Landscape) programmes. At the start of each academic year, BA3 and Masters students apply to join one of eight Ateliers, each with a unique thematic focus, teaching methods, and staff whose expertise and research interests align. The system brings with it a certain level of organisational complexity but even greater benefits in terms of peer-to-peer learning, student experience and project outcomes. Since joining FLUX Atelier last year, I have immersed myself in its core ethos which champions 1) situated practice [Starting from ‘not knowing’, work on, from and with the site]; 2) temporality [Activate urban space in ways that respond to past/present realities, future potentialities, human/natural rhythms, and perpetual change]; and 3) open urbanism [Engage with inclusive, collaborative, playful, experimental modes of city-making]. Each year group has a slightly different focus and a second brief tailored to prerequisite level-specific deliverables, but project sites and vertical activities all orbit around Mayfield, a former industrial wasteland bordering inner-city Manchester and undergoing regeneration. In vertical groups, FLUX students investigate the context using action research ‘Labs’ to arrive at an individual ‘Matter of Care’ that becomes the principal driver for their design ‘intravention’. This paper reflects upon the four self-guided labs run this year [Mayfield Voices; Field of Play; Choreographic Object; Old/New/Flux/Blue] and examines a range of student approaches and processes and their translation into final BA3 design proposals.