The Venue
Year 1 introduced the relationships between people, site and space through the uniting theme of Music, which has a rich history and relationship with architecture in our city. This, and the site for the year were consistent and allowed students to accrue an in-depth understanding of the situation in addition to their own individual and shared interests. Projects tested ideas at a number of scales on urban sites in Manchester stretching along a section of the deeply diverse Rochdale Canal between Oxford Road and the Castlefeld Bowl. The site and theme afforded students the imaginative capacity to develop interventions at a number of incremental scales. Through the design of a series of spaces and starting with a specific piece of music, chosen by the student, ideas concerning the interface between audio and visual senses were introduced, with a particular emphasis on examining how the relationship between music and space has manifested through time. By researching the qualities of the urban environment and its influence on music, some interesting themes were uncovered, including the complex social, economic and political cultures that give rise to music and its architecture.