The perfect hideout
year:
2021institution:
School of Architecture (ETSAM)[Design Studio 8]
prof. José Antonio Ramos
program:
residentialsite:
Mayfield, ManchesterManchester is a city of forms and boundaries; it is built through walls, canals, highways... Vestiges of the Industrial Revolution that shape the visible structure of the city. Manchester hides nothing, and if it does, it’s in plain sight.
The overlapping infrastructures in the city result in strange, unplanned places. Like a game, these hidden corners in the urban environment are sought after. They are drawn and preserved, and inevitably, new hideaways are imagined. Through this strategy, the urban planning of the area is carried out: preserving the oddities, adopting the language of Manchester, thinking from the inside, not from an aerial view.
During the documentation generation of the area, a zone with very little information is found: under the railway tracks. The wall created by the railway extends throughout Manchester, leaving an ambiguous line beneath it in the city. And, as often happens, the best hiding place was, in fact, in plain sight.
It is proposed to create in this area, in the center of the city, an idyllic and hidden place, and it is dreamed that perhaps it already exists...
