Every now and then you can find yourself thumbing through old sketch books. It’s usually an adventure.....Old projects, clients, ideas, concerns, positions and explorations come flooding back, encoded in the small drawings and notes that pin point moments in time. All starting points for something much bigger....
The other day I found some sketches I made while working on the Manchester city centre master plan. The frequent train journeys made between London and Manchester provided that ideal ‘in –between’ time where ideas usually flow and form. There on just a couple of pages were the first ideas of how to provide a new active street fronting skin for the Arndale. The master plan required the Arndale to look outwards, to turn it inside out; a tricky problem that required the linking different levels across a very short space while also keeping the retail viable and functional. As the sketch shows it could only be solved in section. A visit to WH Smiths now, shows how it was done and how in the end we got a much better street. Then there was the idea of new footbridge linking the upper level of the Arndale to the new M&S. We knew it had to be light, see through, and iconic. I remember working with Arups on this idea and as the sketches show we wanted a lattice, cable net type thing, appearing to be hung and stretched between the two buildings. Stephen Hodder took it on and made it something rather wonderful.
The date? Just a year or so after the bomb!
No comments:
Post a Comment