‘How is this made? ‘

This was the question the Continuity Atelier returned to repeatedly over the course of our year in Crewe, Cheshire. The nature of all human endeavour is in the deployment of resources, skills and systems to will something into being. This applies whether it is a lychgate, a labyrinth or a locomotive – and all featured in our discussions across BA3, MArch1 and MArch2. A productive partnership with Crewe Town Council afforded us access to some of the town’s most intractable challenges, but also to the warmth of the community, and the underlying pride in being long associated with excellence in manufacturing.

Many of the projects picked up on this heritage, both tangible and intangible. Students imagined a future for the town containing multiple versions of a new Heritage Centre (BA3), new insertions in the shell of Christchurch (MArch1), and then diverse thesis projects (MArch2) interrogating the terms ‘craft’, ‘context’ and ‘future heritage’. ‘How is this made?’ was applied as much to investigations into the past as to Crewe’s exciting projected future.

Under the overarching title of ‘Seeing the Join’ the various discontinuities of the town were explored whether social, infrastructural, cultural, or administrative. The language of repair predominated, as projects stitched, connected, tied, linked, bound.

And in the end … we made it.