An antidote to poisonous viewpoints: Manchester School of Architecture Student Show 2023

As heated discussions around ethics in architecture rage, The Manchester School of Architecture has delivered an engaging degree show featuring carefully researched and skilfully executed work addressing some of society’s most pressing issues. The city itself has a rich history of social justice and revolution; it’s a spirit that has been carried through into the university and courses themselves with focus areas such as feminist architecture, regenerative design and solutions for spatial discrimination.

University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University student show (photography: Tom Cox)

Last year saw a new start for the school with a move to a new home in the Manchester Technology Centre creating a more collegiate atmosphere. ‘It has pushed our efforts to encourage a more flexible and collaborative style of working for our staff and students,’ says head of architecture Kevin Singh. ‘We’re in an ongoing process but we’ve had really positive feedback so far.’

However, the 2023  degree show is hosted away from their new studios and takes place at the Grosvenor East Building, a relatively new addition to the city designed by Allies and Morrison. The exhibition is split over three floors and includes work from the first and second years of BA Architecture, plus BA3 and MArch students, as well as the Master of Landscape Architecture, MA Architecture and Urbanism, MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse and MSA Live, where students gain practical experience working with local community groups, charities, and stakeholders on live projects aimed at creating social impact.

Samuel Diamond's 'Retrofit for Purpose' (MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse)

There’s a huge amount of work on display from over 1,000 students. All of the projects had their merits but the students in the Praxxis, Continuity in Architecture, Infrastructure Space, and Some Kind of Nature Ateliers really stood out to me.

In Praxxis, architecture has been reflected through a feminist lens to explore inequalities in society and what they might mean for the built environment. BA3 student Nina Roscoe’s project The Feminist Factory of Sustainable Solutions explores political, social and environmental solutions to end period poverty. Her scheme explores the potential for period products to promote a circular economy helping to mitigate climate change and create new jobs.

Nina Roscoe's 'The Feminist Factory of Sustainable Solutions'

Continuity in Architecture and Infrastructure Space share a room on level 3 alongside Master of Landscape Architecture first years and BA3 Technologies presentations. The BA3 Cohort of Continuity in Architecture worked with Preston Council on the creation of a new Guild for the city. Fanta Dembele’s project The Hidden Garden creates a welcoming building that encourages multigenerational crafters from diverse backgrounds to come together to create and learn. Next door BA3 students from Infrastructure Space challenge the Romantic notion of the Lake District to design the envelope for a small modular nuclear reactor without impacting the landscape. Josh Wu’s Aqua - Bloom proposes a beautiful organic layered design that blends nature and technology to encourage locals and tourists to dispel their biases against nuclear energy.

Josh Wu's 'Aqua - Bloom' 

The Some Kind of Nature atelier tasks students to respond radically to the twin climate and biodiversity crises by decentering the human experience of buildings in favour of flora and fauna. AJ Sustainability Award winners MA2 students Amanda Lim and Jon Quail collaborated to investigate the idea of transforming Manchester's travel infrastructure to combat the effects of habitat fragmentation in the city in their project Succeeding the Network.

Alongside the ateliers there was also work on display from a timely new course MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse, an evolution of adaptive reuse/retrofit modules present in the majority of the courses in previous years. Students investigate the four main aspects to sustainable building reuse – environment, society, inhabitation and economics – while underpinning their intellectual enquiry with theoretical knowledge combined with building, industry, and workshop visits. Although the work on display is all work in progress, given that the students are only part-way through their course, all of the projects showed promise for their depth of investigative skills and critical thinking with interesting international perspectives evident in their execution.

Amanda Lim and Jon Quail's 'Succeeding the Network'

The Manchester school of Architecture degree show is an antidote to poisonous and fatalistic viewpoints around diversity and the climate crisis in our industry and a testament to how ethics in university education can inspire a new generation of talented, engaged and thoughtful architects.

The Manchester School of Architecture degree show runs until Thursday 29 June 2023 at the Grosvenor East Building and can also be viewed at www.msa.ac.uk/2023

Luke Neve is founder of Sheffield-based neve agency, a communications agency for the architecture, design and culture industries

(Photography: Tom Cox)