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Digital Viaduct, Pomona Island, Manchester

Part 2 Project 2004
Peter Morris
Amy Crellin
 Manchester School of Architecture Manchester | UK
Manchester Digital Viaduct is located on Pomona Island on the southern edge of the City Centre. The 2k long island has been created over 200 years by layers of cutting edge urban infrastructure, the site has been derelict since 1950. MDV crosses the site along a digital axis that connects the key physical nodes of Manchester’s digital network linking Manchester to Salford and reconnecting the city and the redundant infrastructural networks. The viaduct is an interface between the city and digital network providing space for cutting edge cultural and commercial digital activities, the contents of the shell are infinitely upgradable.


The 'Big Ditch', as the Manchester Ship Canal is known, is one of the seven wonders of the industrial world. It is not only an amazing feat of engineering but also a massive piece of urban design, which turned an inland city into the second biggest port in the UK. Since the seventies the relic remained empty near the city centre. However, by stealth, new technology was creeping under the pavements of the canal towpath: the Atlantic fibre-optic superhighway of the internet. Pete’s scheme concretises this invisible strand and makes an event-place out of disembodied time in a mechanical landscape.
Tutor(s)
Mr Russell Light
2004
Manchester Infrastructural Evolution - 1800-2003 The scale maps show the massive and rapid growth of the worlds first industrial city. The Site, Pomona Island, lies directly on the edge of the inner city.
Pomona Island: 2003 The site is a 2k long island created by 200 years of industrial infrastructural layers, all of which now bypass the site which is derelict, accessible only by canal towpath.
Manchester Digital Axis: An urban axis runs through Pomona docks connecting the Northern UK internet hub at Manchester Science Park to the Northern Transatlantic data cable at Southport.
Masterplan: Infrastructural re-integration. New infrastructures reconnect existing layers within the site. A viaduct along the digital axis creates an environment to house cutting edge digital functions. A linear park re-connects the site-city.
Manchester Digital viaduct: The viaduct provides an interface between the unseen digital network and the physical urban environment, and a physical bridge between Manchester and Salford.
Design Development model. The viaduct connects to the ground and network(pink) providing a shell for cutting edge digital landscapes to slot into (green).
MDV: Aerial from the North showing the Bridgewater canal and Metrolink line.
MDV: Aerial from Salford showing the Ship Canal Pedestrian link.
MDV: junction with landscape route and leisure routes
Digital travel capsules: installation / removal
Digital Travel Hotel: central circulation route.
Digital Performance surface: Lobby to cinemas, gallery and theatres.
Vertical circulation cores: interior view.
Digital Recording Studio Pods: Cutaway showing aluminium monocoque construction.
Pod interior.
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