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plug and work/live/play

Part 1 Project 2007
John Dent
Manchester School of Architecture Manchester | UK
The illustrated project is a generic pilot scheme for live/work communities for creative industries.

The proposed concept it is to be regarded as a generic ideology which could take place on any canal in any city. The site chosen to illustrate the concept lies to the west of Castlefield, Manchester.

A radical concept in living, working and playing, the concept evolves around regenerating post-industrial brown field sites as ‘urban farmland’ and re-instating canal networks as creative incubators and major elements of the urban infrastructure.



John’s proposition is a radical concept in living, working and playing that evolves around regenerating post-industrial brown field sites as ‘urban farmland’ and reinstating canal networks as creative incubators and major elements of the urban infrastructure.The illustrated project is a generic pilot scheme for live/work communities for creative industries, in Castlefield, Manchester. The proposal is both intrinsically site specific and yet universal, as it could take place on any canal in any city.

The interest and emphasis of his work lies within the process. John developed an outstandingly intuitive way of working, using software and digital modelling truly as a design development tool to set up methodologies for generating architectural form.He continually evolved his models to respond to an increasingly complex set of parameters.

Conceptual acuity is sustained through articulate and refined realisation studies: a radical concept in modular / prefabricated construction comprising of simple, clever, widely available technology. Time is treated as a design item and the necessity of change, becomes a value, which has been built into the thinking of the project. It is a system of mass-customisation; the proposed pilot scheme is not viewed as a finished product, but as a continuously negotiated collection of products and their accommodation.

John’s work challenges and extends the accepted boundaries of instrumental competence in architecture.
2007
Site analysis – project conception
Initial design intentions
Scheme development – computer sketch models illustrating possible evolution of prefab live/work communities
Scheme development – computer sketch models used to develop self-constructing mechanism and modular construction strategy
Urban farmland – sustainable city – brown field sites with good connectivity with the urban infrastructure become urban farmland integrating sustainable technologies. Existing canal networks are reinstated as major transport networks. Prefabricated susta
Site plan illustrating creative live/work communities forming along the canal at a currently derelict brown field site. Rather than being developed brown field sites, become urban farmland, organic allotments, forests, fields, parkland, a green lung among
A radical concept in modular construction comprising of prefabricated components. Constructed by means of self-levelling foundations and a self-constructing/deconstructing mechanism based on an adaptation of existing climbing formwork equipment used in th
Integrated environmental strategies – passive heating, cooling and natural lighting strategies are integrated into prefabricated modular live/work units.
Three-dimensional section.
Three-dimensional section illustrating possible interior arrangements. Prefabricated live/work modules allow for a variety of internal programmes
Elevations
Visualisations
Creative communities forming along the Manchester Ship Canal
Urban Farmland
Existing canal communities’ form alongside live/work communities forming unique and exciting urban communities
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