RECLAIMED
RECLAIMED xplores how waste can become a foundation for architecture, learning and collective making. Situated within the post-industrial landscape of Mayfield, Manchester, the project responds to the material waste generated through ongoing demolition and redevelopment, questioning how discarded resources can instead be recovered, experimented with and returned to use.
The project proposes a material reuse and learning hub where materials from local demolition are collected, catalogued and redistributed for testing and construction. The proposal is organised around four interconnected parts. The Material Bank collects, sorts and catalogues materials from local demolition, creating a resource for future construction. These materials feed into The Assembly, a series of workshops and student studios centred around learning through making. The Commons opens these processes to the wider community through exhibitions, events, public workshops and shared spaces. Extending beyond the building, The Framework provides permanent infrastructure for temporary student-built pavilions and installations, allowing ideas to be tested at 1:1, inhabited and dismantled as new uses emerge.
Material experimentation and making became central to the design process. Reclaimed demolition rubble was physically tested as a new construction material, while a demountable timber system inspired by Japanese joinery explored reversible methods of assembly and disassembly. These investigations informed the architecture from material and detail scales through to the wider spatial proposal.
Through RECLAIMED, I developed a wider interest in material experimentation, reuse and making, particularly where the process of testing and constructing can become a way of generating architectural ideas. I am interested in architecture that remains open to adaptation and reinterpretation and in how materials and components can retain value beyond the lifespan of a single building.
