THE FUTURE STARTS HERE...

The images above are of a scheme that we produced some 2 years or so ago at RCA Interiors for a site in the Northern Quarter, Manchester. It had strong links to both the musical and bar culture of the city. The current owner had approached us with a view to converting the upper floors of the site, currently empty and in poor state of repair, into a boutique hotel of some 30-odd rooms together with a re-vamped bar and club on the ground and basement floors. The idea was then to thematically structure the design around the Manchester music scene.

Having spent a good 12 months developing the project, opening up the centre of the long thin site with a full height glazed atrium and finally achieving the nod of approval from the City Planning department, the client then decided to pull the plug on the whole project on the grounds that it wasn't what he wanted at all and we were wasting his time; refusing, needlessly to say, to pay us. Immensely frustrated, the plans, sketch, model and ideas went back into the cupboard to rest alongside other lost opportunities, and there they would have stayed...

At around this time, completely independently, I had started to consider applying for an M.A. course at University. I had completed a B.A. course in Art History - mainly on Renaissance Art - some 12 years previously and realised that I was missing the mental stimulus and the buzz of ideas. Or, I was thinking, maybe I should apply for an M.A. at the old Poly, in the Art Department - brush up my artistic skills? Hhhhmmm...

Then, via Jonathan at Artistic Type, I was introduced to the dynamic of the 'Design and Art Direction' M.A. course at Manchester Metropolitan University - a course that seemed to combine both the rigours of intellectual discourse and thought processes with the hands-on approach to creative development. A number of thoughts and ideas then began to coalesce ...what if? ...could I? ...maybe if?

The upshot was an application and subsequent acceptance onto the course, starting in September 2011.

So where do the pictures posted above fit in? My submission for the M.A. is essentially to re-visit 4 or so sites that I have worked on in Central Manchester over the years. Outside of the real-world parameters dictated by practicality, commerciality and the wherewithal or otherwise of clients, an alternative past and future would then be constructed for these sites, investigated through the dynamic of architectural presentation but with the opportunity to overlay texts, narrative, artworks and illustration to create the experience of an alternative reality.

A House for an Art Lover, A House for a Book Lover... the site in the Northern Quarter? A House for a Music Lover...

The future starts here...