2 east ISSUE TWO Still Making It East Expo The Hidden Gem ISSN 1745-8277 SUMMER 2005 Pace Setters the magazine about regeneration in east manchester three pounds 4 east FAT boy, Charles Holland, chosen by local residents to design their new homes. East Expo A showcase for brave new design or a repetition of past mistakes? Phil Griffin assesses the architectural talent invading East Manchester. 4.30 am on a January morning is no time to be settlement, legitimised by the Dutch at John Lennon Airport. But it’s work. Well, government as part of a deal over land you wouldn’t do it for pleasure would you? rights on a disused airfield. The Cardroom A dozen people from Ancoats are here, and in residents see the best of new Dutch less than an hour they’ll really regret it. architecture on Borneo Island in Amsterdam. Their flight over the North Sea to Schipoll was This is reclaimed land and former docks, more like a storm-tossed crossing in a barrel. imaginatively planned and built by a stellar They are the Cardroom Estate Residents’ collection of architects selected through Committee, and they’re here to tour Dutch international competitions. housing schemes. Their guides are Sean Architects and people who write about Griffiths and Charles Holland, known in architecture (like me) can get quite excited architecture circles as The FAT Boys. by places like Borneo Island, whilst most Their host is Matthew Harrison of Manchester people are more or less unmoved. That’s Methodist Housing Group (MMHG), preferred because fashionable architecture isn’t at the social landlord in the transformation of the top of everybody’s wish list. A house would be Cardroom Estate into New Islington, a good; a secure affordable house in a nice Manchester government designated Millennium place close to some proper shops, a decent Community in Ancoats, East Manchester. FAT school, a doctor and a dentist would be even dares to be are architects, chosen by the residents, to better. Cities have always been full of bad different, design the first 23 houses on the new estate. architecture. Maybe now, there is less and original, modern. Like the flight, their day is whirlwind and less excuse. Bad architecture ends up costing Architects know windswept. They visit a residential scheme us dear, in hard cash, and in dire social the size of a small town, outside Delft. They consequences. Which is why New Islington, this about the see award-winning houses variously clad in Ancoats Urban Village and New East place. red and green polyurethane, timber shingles, Manchester will become the show place and corrugated zinc. From the tour bus they architecture expo that the city and the rest of glimpse a street of timber and white-brick the country needs. The plain fact is we can no dormer bungalows, Dallas-style: “Those are longer afford to repeat the mistakes of the Previous spread: like what we want!” The driver pulls over. past. We must respond to new technologies Will Alsop, masterplanner On closer inspection the white bricks are and the highest design standards, and we of New Islington, on the moulded plastic and these bungalows have must create genuinely sustainable site of his forthcoming wheels tucked under their skirts. They are communities now. It is unlikely that another Chips building. mobile homes and this is a Romany cycle of housing renewal will happen in our Bad architecture lifetime. Hence the pre-dawn rendezvous at architecture, to the highest ecological and ends up costing John Lennon Airport. sustainable standards. This is an ambition Manchester is the centre for all things shared with Nick Johnson, the Urban Splash us dear; both in groovy. Musicians know this, students and Development Director driving New Islington. hard cash, and in young singles know it, Big Issue sellers know “The prospect for New Islington is simple: we dire social it. Most people are aware of the reputation want to transform an area perceived as being consequences. Manchester has built over the last ten or a one of the worst places in the city to live, in dozen years, for city centre regeneration and to one of the best. And we want it to be the trendy apartment living. It might not be your greenest, most sustainable community we cup of tea, and it might not be anything you can achieve.” Architects and developers who would wish to share in, even if you could. It come in to New Islington will share the vision. may not be what you might call ‘affordable’, Will Alsop, the man who created the Strategic but it is undeniable. I bet you wanted to Framework for the Millennium Community site share in the success of the Commonwealth is clear that its green credentials will be a big Games. The city walked tall in July 2002, part of that vision. buoyed by the sense of a show well made, a Nobody denies that people in East job well done. The heritage of the 17th Manchester have been pushed around in the Commonwealth Games for Manchester is past and have been variously lied to and let precisely what’s happening now, east of the down by politicians and civil servants of every city, in Ancoats, New Islington and the rest of shade and generation. What’s so different East Manchester. now? Amongst other things, Manchester is on Manchester dares to be different, a roll. What seemed impossible ten years ago original, modern. Architects know this about now feels utterly achievable. Ancoats was a the place. Some of the best and boldest wreck. Every night was bonfire night. The mills architects in Britain and, increasingly, in were stripped of everything that could be Europe are attracted by the partnership flogged or melted down. A few people, approach the city is famous for. Architects including architect Ian Finlay, planner Paul such as Will Alsop, whose ‘Big Blue’ building Butler, Marilyn Steane of Eastside for the city council in Marseilles, South of Regeneration and Peter Pemberton of Express France, revolutionised the way such Printers started to kick up a fuss about the commissions are seen today. Architects like state of historic mills, St Peter’s Church, the FAT and de Metz Forbes Knight (dMFK), who Gun Street Warehouse and others. Ancoats have been chosen by the residents of the Buildings Preservation Trust was set up. Funds Cardroom to design the first two lots of social were raised, important buildings enveloped, housing provision that will spread throughout architect Owen Williams’ glorious Express New Islington. On the 16th July 2005, a building was refurbished and the extension magazine called The Architects’ Journal behind it bought by Carol Ainscow of Artisan published an important and influential list. It Holdings as the first phase of Express is called ‘40 under 40’, and it’s a survey of the Networks. In 1996, Beehive Mill on Jersey What’s so best young architecture practices in the Street, home of Sankeys Soap, was the first to different now? country. The Cardroom residents could have be converted for modern use. Ten years on Amongst other done the job for them. FAT and dMFK are on and Ancoats is in a phase where some would things, the list, so are quite a few other architects argue - with questionable credibility - that who the residents interviewed for their gentrification has already gone too far. Manchester is on schemes. The early morning John Lennon Urban Splash (‘the best property a roll. What Airport team proved they are on the case. developer in the Universe’, according to The seemed On their trip to the Netherlands they saw Guardian, 25th May 2005) was appointed lead impossible ten schemes by Mecanoo, a high profile practice developer of the Cardroom, soon to be New based in Delft. Mecanoo are now working on a Islington, in 2001. They made Will Alsop their years ago now New Islington scheme with a new developer masterplanner and, though things may feels utterly called R-Gen, set up by Fiona McCauly and appear to go slowly, in fact the pace is achievable. Phil Summers to specialise in ‘green’ picking up. The new canal arm is in, Alsop’s 6 east Roger Stephenson of Stephenson Bell: delivering a new NHS health centre for New Islington. Ian Simpson and Rachel Haugh of Ian Simpson Architects: converting the listed Ancoats Hospital Dispensary into 12 apartments and adding two new apartment blocks alongside the canal arm. MBLC partners survey the own Chips apartment building is on site in Director at Alsop Architects was the main site of their new eight September, with a building by local big noise author of the Strategic Framework for New storey mini tower in Ian Simpson soon to follow. FAT and MMHG are Islington. Ancoats. well on with the first houses. Looking north Ancoats associations are beginning to run over the Rochdale Canal into Ancoats, the deep. MBLC, a leading Manchester practice conversion of the Royal Mill complex is well that designed the gleaming white Siemens HQ underway, and Murrays Mill will soon be building on Princess Parkway has just reconfigured in a scheme by Scottish designed a brand new HQ for itself. Their architect Richard Murphy. Looking the other eight storey mini tower, three storeys for way, south across the Ashton Canal, and Carol themselves and five for apartments, will be Ainscow, and Arconia architects headed by on Bengal Street in Ancoats and is potentially Kim Ebling are creating a development that a mould-breaking development. Mould- looks almost as big as New Islington itself. breaking because the white render tower rises Here Andrew Wallace, an up-and-coming from a base of Cor-Ten steel – rusty metal to Manchester architect may well have you and me.