The Common Ground
The Common Ground reimagines the political building as a platform for inclusion, transparency, and public voice. Rooted in a personal sense of uncertainty, the thesis explores how architecture might offer civic certainty through enabling participation, negotiation, and visibility within democratic systems. It focuses on reinterpreting Manchester’s Townhall which has been a historically hierarchical and sociofugal structure, and proposes its relocation to London Road Fire Station, reinforcing its image as a space of public service through diminishing spatial thresholds.
The architectural intervention introduces three key components: an infrastructural platform that legitimises protest, a reconfigured administrative core that breaks down internal hierarchies, and a series of public spaces that invite interaction and oversight. A central staircase becomes a spatial connector where the public can observe, engage, and occupy what were once exclusive political spaces. The council chamber is reoriented with the city as its backdrop, placing public life behind the decisions made within.
The design transforms the townhall from a sociofugal typology to a sociopetal one, focusing on bringing people together rather than keeping them apart. It imagines and supports a new civic cycle of voicing, negotiation, and mediation.
This thesis asks: What if political buildings no longer stood above the public, but with them? In doing so, it repositions architecture as a tool to mediate power and construct a shared, democratic ground.
