Academic
Academic
Academic
Academic
YEAR ONE
COMPILATION
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 1 -
Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016
First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.
Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.
YEAR ONE
COMPILATION
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 1 -
Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016
First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.
Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.
YEAR ONE
COMPILATION
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 1 -
Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016
First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.
Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.
First year focused on the relationship between music and architecture, our first project stipulated that we design a listening chamber on the Rochdale Canal for a specific song with the proviso that its dimensions don't exceed the span of a human arm. I chose to emulate the echoic nature of a choral cathedral aria in a space no larger than a phone box, the ensuing project was an investigation into amplifying acoustics and maximising echo, the final listening chamber is an ode to Manchester's industrial past by appropriating the form of one of its no longer existent chimneys to create the necessary internal reverberation.
Subsequent projects involved the design of a transient home and artist's studio, through which the relevant themes of anthropometrics and ergonomics were explored. The final project for the year engaged a Manchester based digital platform, Manchester District Music Archive, and we were given the task of designing their new home. The brief was extensive and called for three primary programmes, an archive, a repository and a performance building, I decided to allocate each programme a dedicated building thus profiting from the existing site geometry and invigorating an inert space between each of the buildings, creating a harmonious collective and enhancing the public realm.
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 1 -
Work carried out at Manchester School of Architecture 2015-2016
YEAR ONE
COMPILATION
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 3 -
Atelier Common Ground
Atelier Leaders:
Stephen Connah
Ronan Connelley
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 3 -
Atelier Common Ground
Atelier Leaders:
Stephen Connah
Ronan Connelley
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 3 -
Atelier Common Ground
Atelier Leaders:
Stephen Connah
Ronan Connelley
BA [hons] ARCHITECTURE
Year 3 -
Atelier Common Ground
Atelier Leaders:
Stephen Connah
Ronan Connelley
CANTEEN AEDICULE
THE URBANISM OF THE POSTWAR CAMPUS
The UMIST Campus is a rare example of a complete postwar campus in a British urban centre. A cohesive cluster of campus buildings designed according to common ‘canons of design’ created in the UMIST Campus a total modernist environment. These urban principles which governed the design of the campus established codes and constraints which reconciled truth to building technology with expression of form; ensuring that the campus would retain a sense of continuity across time and in the hands of different architects.
The White City which rapidly superseded the postindustrial squalor of Manchester’s inner city industrial belt presented a bright vision of modernity, contributing to the city’s title of ‘Shock City’ of the modern age. Tall monumental buildings interspersed amongst low perimeter buildings created a varied skyline and visible symbols of a new Manchester; a technopole of faith in science and technology. At the time of its construction, the campus represented more than the estate of an emerging university, but furthermore a standard bearer for urban renewal in the postwar period. This is a history which today is fated to fade following the departure of the university to a consolidated facility, abandoning the campus to extramural market forces to determine its future.
THE URBANISM OF THE POSTWAR CAMPUS
The UMIST Campus is a rare example of a complete postwar campus in a British urban centre. A cohesive cluster of campus buildings designed according to common ‘canons of design’ created in the UMIST Campus a total modernist environment. These urban principles which governed the design of the campus established codes and constraints which reconciled truth to building technology with expression of form; ensuring that the campus would retain a sense of continuity across time and in the hands of different architects.
The White City which rapidly superseded the postindustrial squalor of Manchester’s inner city industrial belt presented a bright vision of modernity, contributing to the city’s title of ‘Shock City’ of the modern age. Tall monumental buildings interspersed amongst low perimeter buildings created a varied skyline and visible symbols of a new Manchester; a technopole of faith in science and technology. At the time of its construction, the campus represented more than the estate of an emerging university, but furthermore a standard bearer for urban renewal in the postwar period. This is a history which today is fated to fade following the departure of the university to a consolidated facility, abandoning the campus to extramural market forces to determine its future.
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
Project site
Former university campus
Manchester City Centre
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
Project site
Former university campus
Manchester City Centre
CANTEEN AEDICULE
Academic
BA ARCHITECTURE
Year 3 -
Atelier Common Ground
Atelier Leaders:
Stephen Connah
Ronan Connelly
-
Museum
Chorlton St, MANCHESTER
-
Architect's Journal Student Prize [nominee - 2018]
-
Outstanding Academic Achievement Award
METROPOLIS ARCHIVE
HOUSE OF THE CAPTIVE GENIUS LOCI
Analogous to the ouroboros, the self-devouring snake, the city exists in a state of perpetual self-annihilation and resurrection. Acts of destructive acupuncture sweep away the fabric of the city to be replaced by a contemporary equivalent, the predecessor is consigned to memory. This process of attrition against the city fabric is the primary actor in the degeneration of the city’s specific sense of place - the genius loci.
This project proposes the modification of urban transfiguration to reclaim the obsolete form of the city, demolition becomes a transitional incident rather than a lethal coup de grâce. The city’s forma urbis is retained and concentrated in the house of the captive genius loci: the Metropolis Archive. The project, in capturing the city’s genius loci both literally - by containing urban fragments, and figuratively - by abstracting the prevailing architectural typology of the area, seeks to embody the architectural specificity of the site whilst asserting its autonomy in respect to the city.
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METROPOLIS ARCHIVE
The archive is a distillation of the city - the museological programme belies the dynamism of the project, whose mission is to house the fabric of the city effaced by the march of development and demolition.
Within its many halls the archive becomes a mortuary of defunct architectural form, resilient to stagnation due to the ever changing rotation of new material. Halls of varying sizes house equally immense and minute artefacts, opening them up for study and comparison in their new abstracted scenography.
PRINCIPAL ARTEFACT HALL
The largest hall, the principal artefact hall is designed as an evocation of archetypal architectural spaces, namely the baronial hall.
UNDERCROFT GALLERY
The subterranean galleries house the archaeological material of the Metropolis Archive, whose centrepiece is the Roman Hypocaust from Wigan, north Manchester.
- RAUMPLAN -
LIBRARY STUDY ROOM
The library level recognises the English archetype of the timber panelled library - stacked above the archive, it is dedicated to documenting the city in two dimensional artefacts.
RAUMPLAN
Using the theory of raumplan, a sequence of spatially contiguous volumes are staggered through the building's X and Y section threaded together by the route of the processional staircase. The staircase, in negotiating the spatially unpredictable raumplan arrangement, becomes a visual device by which to materialise the spatial sequence.
HYPOSTYLE HALL
SECTIONAL ARRANGEMENT
The section is defined by the monumental scale of the artefacts housed within, generating a magnitude of architecture commensurate to the city itself.
VISUAL ENFILADES
The raumplan arrangement subverts the classical, linear enfilade to create spontaneous spatial/visual sequences across spaces. The scenographic qualities of the raumplan are enhanced by the repetition of the grid and in turn enhance the setting of the artefacts when viewed through layered framing devices.
ACCESS STAIR - MEZZANINE - CABINET CHAMBER
STUDY ROOM - READING ROOM
UPPER GALLERY - LONG GALLERY - OBSERVATORY - CITY
CARTOGRAPHIC GALLERY - PRINCIPAL ARTEFACT GALLERY
RECONCILIATION WITH THE GRID
Unlike the looseness of the section, the plan arrangement internalises the city grid and produces a strict tripartite arrangement with a central axial processional route along which a ceremonial staircase is aligned.
GROUNDPLAN
- URBAN ARTEFACTS -
HOUSE OF THE CAPTIVE GENIUS LOCI
The Metropolis Archive is an analogy of the city itself, a vessel for the vestigial fragments of the defunct architecture of the city - becoming urban by housing artefacts as part of its anatomy.
- INSTAURATIO URBIS -
RICHMOND STREET - MANCHESTER
COMPLETING THE STREET WALL
The Metropolis Archive, by building to the pavement line, restores the discernibility of the street wall which historically defined the appearance of the warehousing district - reviving the lost spatial qualities of the area.
RESTORATIVE URBANISM
The current profile of the immediate study area lacks a sense of place, the genius loci, due to the prevalence of vacant plots of land within the gridiron arrangement of streets. The architecture of the archive seeks to remedy this as an evocation of the massing and morphology of site-specific archetypes.
BLOOM STREET - MANCHESTER
EVOKING THE GENIUS LOCI
Typologically, the archive refers to the italianate palazzo warehouse which defines the broader study area and indeed Manchester itself. The Metropolis Archive, in capturing the genius loci both literally, by containing fragments of the city, and figuratively, by encapsulating the prevailing architectural typology the archive addresses the Rossian proposition that a building is a small city.
CHORLTON STREET - MANCHESTER
ITEMISED COLLECTION
- 40,000 books
- 10,000 drawings and paintings
- 2,000 building records
- 1,000 maps
- 1,000 periodicals
- 1,000 models and small scale objects
- 200+ large scale architectural artefacts
- disassembled artefacts up to 12m height
- TECHNICAL SPEC -
ANCILLARY PROGRAMME
- Temperature-stable underground closed climate archive
- Temperature-stable mobile shelving archive [624 total number of shelves with allowance for 25% growth]
- Conservation and documentation studios
- Armature workshop for large scale artefact scaffolding
- 72 seat lecture theatre, 20 seat seminar room
- 1st floor ceiling mounted loading crane
- Closed climate special collections archive
- Building records archive
TECHNICAL DESIGN STRATEGY
- Archives located within insulated concrete 'inhabited beam' with access lobbies to reduce air changes. Temperature set at 18.c with relative humidity maintained at 40%
- North facing library to reduce direct light on material, operable blinds to mitigate glare reducing light levels to 50 lux if necessary.
- Ventilation ducts for air intake and distribution
- Gas fire suppression in climate sealed areas [archives, repository]
- Architectural artefacts located in south facing galleries due to greater material resilience
- Conservation studios and manuscript archive receive no direct sunlight
- Central and local plant rooms to modulate HVAC for individual archives.