We are talking about a narrow strip of land in the New Islington area, until recently the poorest part of the city with the highest level of criminal activity. It is now being rebuilt according to Will Alsop's master plan, and Urban Splash developers hope to make the area attractive to the middle class.
The plots to be fully redeveloped include the former territory of Manchester's Little Italy, once the center for the production and sale of ice cream in the city. Therefore, the 15 m wide strip of land along the new canal, which became the subject of the competition, was named Tutti Frutti.
According to the task of the competition, the participants had to develop a house project for one of 26 parts, into which the building territory was divided. Each of them was slightly different from the neighboring ones in width - and, accordingly, in cost - from 160 to 200 thousand pounds. Also, each architect who submitted his project to the competition had to confirm the possibility of buying land and paying for the cost of construction, that is, the presence of a customer. This became the most difficult for most: the organizers received 180 applications for participation, but as a result, only 20 ready-made projects. Therefore, the jury chaired by Alsop had no choice but to approve all 20. "Unclaimed" six plots will go on sale.
The idea to create a whole street of very different looking residential buildings of approximately the same size was borrowed from the Dutch workshop West 8, who applied the same approach to the development of the Amsterdam dock area in their Borneo Sporenburg project.
To give some organization to the row of adjoining houses, in Manchester, developers decided to place two large buildings along its edges: a pub and the building of the local church council.
Considering that plots with a length (depth) of 15 m are only 4 or 5 meters wide, the plans and sections of most houses are quite similar. The fact that it was impossible to make any window openings from the ends also played a role in this, therefore almost every project provides for one or another version of the light well. Since it is impossible to break up any garden at ground level due to the small size of the plots, another common motive was the “green roof” terrace. Most of the houses are four stories high, but among the projects presented, one can see three or even six stories.
As a result, the facade of the house became the only field for free expression of the architect's ideas. All 20 are very different from each other: you can see curtain walls of glass and steel, drapery of metal mesh, orange plastic panels, "vertical landscaping". What is surprising is the lack of variations on the Georgian style and Tudor architecture, which are very popular with the British public.
