UPDATE (24/04/16): Following this article, amongst others elsewhere in the local media, the Great Northern Strategic Regeneration Framework has been withdrawn for further review.
ROWS frequently start as one thing and end up as another.
Someone somewhere leaked a picture of a typically flamboyant Will Alsop design for Great Northern Square and now there's a petition with 200 plus signatories.
It's these sort of things that underline the need for people to not give up and not bother to respond to the suggestions
The design concerns the Great Northern. This is a huge series of buildings in the city centre running from Peter Street to Great Bridgewater Street which were acquired a couple of years ago by Tobermory Sarl, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Peterson Group. They include the former railway buildings which hosts the casino, Manchester 235, and the 'leisure box' which hosts AMC cinemas. There's also the long and striking 1890s facade along Deansgate filled with various businesses.
Councillor Joan Davies's reaction is typical.
“A giant sci-fi insect, dwarfing and marching between the wonderfully restored Albert Halls, and the grandeur of the Great Northern Warehouse is not the way to modernise this part of the city," she says. "There’s room for modernity, but the scale has to be right.”
“Great Northern Square is public realm for all, and not a corporate space. It’s been badly used recently and the businesses concerned need to get their act together, restore the damaged grass which followed the unpopular ice-rink and revive the beautiful flagging currently hiding below the planning-refused decking. I really welcome the the city's Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) suggestion of more homes in the Great Northern Warehouse but the it fails to pay regard to existing residents. This needs to change.”
One of those existing residents is Lesley Chalmers who kindly supplied the picture below taken from her flat in the Great Northern Tower adjacent to the site.
View from the Great Northern Tower
Chalmers agrees with Joan Davies, "This proposal is the height of Sunlight House nearby on Quay Street. It would dominate the junction here, cut off views and compromise the square and we need all the quality public realm within the city centre we can get. The opportunity should be taken to improve the public realm here which has been damaged by ill-advised initiatives such as the ice rink last winter. The scale of box and pod designed by Alsop would grab a third of the width of the square and steal the sunniest side of it as well. We have to remember all this is taking place within a conservation area. Does that count for nothing?"
Sunlight House, the white building in the background here, from Great Northern Square We'll come back to Chalmers shortly but Tobermory Sarl seem flummoxed by the fuss and the petition.
They told Place North West: "The image is one of several conceptual designs submitted during an architectural competition we held in 2014, in which a number of different architecture practices took part. We have not made a decision on any building design and will not start the detailed design process until the Strategic Regeneration Framework has been agreed by Manchester City Council and we have consulted with stakeholders.”
They're clearly irritated by the leak, but the scale of the structure shows how they want to 'add commercial value' as Chalmers says. As for the conceptual 'piloti' building ('piloti' is a modernist word for thin modern pillars or in this case stilts), then if nothing else it creates a discussion point.
Will Alsop's designs always do. His flawed but racy CHIPS building in New Islington is a case in point. His is not the architecture of deference.
Speaking to Confidential previously Alsop said: "We’re in an exciting period in architecture. I love the diversity that can be delivered. I want to embrace that freedom we have as designers and my way is to engage with people, hopefully give them something to talk about and also something they might want to live in."
This approach hasn't always met with approval from his peers and when this is mentioned he told us: “I’m not interested in what other architects think about what I do. Many architects don’t want to have that freedom I just mentioned. They want rules, possibly this lets them off applying their imagination.”
Ouch.
CHIPS on the Ashton Canal, New Islington At Confidential we don't mind a bit of Dutch craziness and experimentation. Manchester could certainly cope with a few more buildings that show variety of form such as the Civil Justice Centre in Spinningfields. Indeed in terms of general greyness and lack of appeal then the Great Northern Tower where Lesley Chalmers lives can't be bettered across the city, despite the generosity of its internal spaces. Alsop's design is forthright and intriguing.
But a row about one thing leads to other points of conflict.
If the suggested changes at Great Northern were limited to the northern end of the site, the square and the type of building required there, then it might be less rancorous. But there's a lot more in that SRF. Redevelopment could also include an extra 265,000 sq ft of retail, restaurant and leisure, 400,000 sq ft of apartments, and a 200,000 sq ft high-rise tower.
The car park might also leave the upper floors of the main Great Northern Building and move above the 'leisure box' of AMC. This is a good suggestion as, at least, the windows in the old railway building would be glazed and not stare out like empty eye sockets. The car park would make way for more apartments. Alsop would like to see (and it's shown on the plan above) a retractable roof over the centre of this building. He's thinking gardens and performance spaces.
Shame that at the southern end of the site, nothing would alter the awful way the present 'leisure box' communicates with Great Bridgewater Street and Beetham Tower.
Given the scale of the proposals with tower blocks protruding from the site there have been muttered rumours and allegations that the whole framework seems to be setting the site up for a further re-sale, maximising the potential so to speak for the next investor.
Impressive but bringing life to the upper floors of the old railway building wouldn't go amissBack to Lesley Chalmers and the final big issue.
"I really have problems with the consultation process. It's been poor. As a big city council fan generally, I found that disappointing.
"First, the link in the Council’s letter didn’t take us to the correct document, Deloitte report - but to a page on which there was no mention of the Great Northern - and the search facility didn’t bring it up, either. Then, for those who persisted (or asked their councillor) there were 63 pages to read and try to digest - long and repetitious, with drawings too low-res to see the type clearly, inconsistencies, platitudes, and misspellings. Not so great for the average citizen with a life? It's these sort of things that underline the need for people to not give up and not bother to respond to the suggestions. I have found that every time I want a sensible conversation with somebody, they evaporate."
"The petition was set up to try and counter some of that deficiency," continues Chalmers. "It’s simple and straightforward and focused on single-issue disagreement - the commercial development and diminishment of the public space - it asks the Council to stand up to the developers and say no. City centre public space is for everyone who visits the city, not just the people living next door to it."
Confidential agrees. Active participation in the development of cities by residents, visitors and workers is imperative in civic life. I often get the whiff with some developers and architects that they'd rather people take their ideas on the chin, because after all they're the experts and the professionals. The recent surge in citizen fightback is welcome, it means people are thinking about the city for themselves and not passively accepting change.
The fact I personally like the zany Alsop design for Great Northern Square is irrelevant.
What is encouraging is that across the city centre from Cutting Room Square through London Road Fire Station to Castlefield Basin and out to Pomona, residents and users of the city centre are getting shouty. Whether they are being properly listened to, just yet, is another question. The tide is changing though and local government and business will have to start paying attention as the clamour gets louder. The words of Councillor Joan Davies at the beginning of this article are welcome in this process, showing some at least in the city council are in tune with the mood.
"All we want is a better thought-through city centre," says Lesley Chalmers, summing up what should be the endgame for all those who love and are concerned about Manchester.
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