Exa in the AJ
Shedkm Creates 200 homes on listed cotton mill site in Manchester
Crusader and Phoenix, shedkm’s regeneration of several 1840s Manchester cotton mill buildings to deliver a residential community set around a landscaped courtyard Photography by Daniel Hopkinson, Jack Hobhouse and Capital & Centric
Some of you may remember the 2020 BBC Two documentary Manctopia: Billion Pound Property Boom. The four-part series documented the massive ongoing redevelopment of Manchester city centre, where the population had doubled to over 60,000 (as of two years ago) since 2014 when the then chancellor George Osborne announced his ‘northern powerhouse’ plan. The programme detailed the city council’s focus on building market homes, turning swathes of wasteland into clusters of high-rise apartment blocks while razing pockets of still-affordable housing in the process, and highlighted the fast-moving effects of gentrification and transition in the city.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://bit.ly/408pi25
READ ABOUR CRUSDAER WORKS HERE: http://bit.ly/3wxuY8e
Client’s View
A big part of the brief at Crusader Works was to retain and respect as many of the mill’s stunning original features as we could while elevating their beauty at every turn.
The response was a perfect harmony between old and new – the imposing brick walls around the internal cloister providing a stunning backdrop to the new, vivid yellow lift shafts, resident walkways, and hidden garden (once a car park).
There’s so much focus on new builds achieving sustainability standards, but we’re massive retrofit advocates. Repurposing historic buildings is not only essential in maintaining the social heritage of a city, it also needs to be part of the national sustainability story. Converting Crusader has saved over 2,400 tonnes of embodied carbon – the equivalent of around 20 million car miles. The design also minimises operational carbon, with the open cloisters and resident courtyard meaning no heating is required for the common spaces. All circulation spaces are finished in hard wearing, easy-to-clean floor finishes, avoiding the need to replace carpets. The generously planted garden and planters provide opportunities for increased biodiversity that were previously non-existent.
Part of the challenge for us and shedkm was to create spaces where people were drawn to be part of a community, even though the area was rough around the edges at the time. We both really had to do a lot of heavy lifting to convince people Piccadilly East was the place to be, a lot of that was down to the appeal of the design and architectural merit, and the respect it showed the industrial nature of the area.
Adam Higgins, co-founder, Capital & Centric
Landscape Architect’s View
The brief for the landscape at Crusader Works was to transform the courtyard into a green oasis while creating a series of flexible social spaces for use by the new community. Shedkm’s proposals for the building, setting the apartments back from the courtyard wall and creating cloisters, were part of the inspiration for the design language that developed for the landscape.
The ideas of sanctuary, rhythm and formality that are prevalent in the hortus conclusus of abbeys and monasteries, were taken forward and playfully overlaid with a materials palette that responded to the industrial heritage of the building. Robust materials, including Cor-ten steel edges and large-format concrete slabs, were used to define the series of routes and dwell spaces that fill the courtyard and building surrounds.
To soften this, abundant planting was introduced throughout the scheme. Tree planting comprises a grove of multi-stemmed Persian ironwoods (parrotia persica) complemented by ground cover planting that draws inspiration from the self-seeded plants found growing in cracks and crevices in the pre-restored mill.
In order to maximise the areas of planting, the boundaries between hard and soft landscape have been blurred, resulting in the grass creeping through the paving, and trailing plants cascading from the window boxes that are within the cloisters on each level. This reinforces the courtyard as a place to escape the city and a garden for the residents. Communal seating, fire pits and barbecues allow the community at Crusader Works to mix and socialise in their garden space.
Shaun Lyons, associate landscape architect, Exterior Architecture
Architect’s View
The initial space planning studies looked to use all the existing structures, however the opportunity to replace the unlisted mill structure with a more efficient new build gave a balance to the project appraisal which would facilitate the regeneration of the dilapidated listed buildings and make the overall scheme viable.
The circulation strategy for Crusader uses a cloister typology. This generates a number of advantages, including dual-aspect apartments, bedrooms located on quieter zones and activated courtyard façades. The external envelope is enhanced by the new courtyard façade, which allows more exposure of the original listed building brickwork. Similarly, locating the new cores within the courtyard rather than within the existing building generates increased net area, separates the living accommodation from the lifts and refuse stores and is less destructive to the original listed structure.
Thus the combination of the new cores located within the landscaped courtyard and the cloister circulation affording views into the courtyard celebrates the journey for the resident from the pavement to the front door, in contrast to a traditional internalised route.
The primary steel frame to the Phoenix new build carries the building in a traditional way, however the expressed precast concrete frame carries the vertical load of the brickwork thus significantly reducing the weight of the steel frame.
Mark Sidebotham, director, shedkm
