This project looks beyond the ‘standard” models of contemporary mass housing - designed to house a statistically average household - and instead argues for a more localised model, based on the needs of the existing people living within Manningham, Bradford. Regeneration doesn’t mean pushing certain communities out in order to make way for other, more economically privileged individuals, but nor does it mean ignoring local context, history and culture in order to achieve a generic ‘ideal’. The way forward lies in building upon local ambitions for a better standard of living within existing, well-loved and established communities, like Manningham.
The project aimed to update and utilise the back-to-back typology that is prevalent in Manningham to combat overcrowding seen across the area. We addressed how low-rise housing can accommodate multi-generational households, providing safe spaces for children to play, and accessible housing for the elderly to live independently in.
This all took place on the site of Lister’s Mill, once the beating heart of Manningham, now largely empty and undeveloped. The project proposed a reclamation of this land and the community’s shared heritage. By responding to the diverse voices of actors within Manningham, as well as accommodating the crumbling fabric of the Grade II listed Mill, the scheme provides 6 different housing typologies, including live-work units, fully accessible homes, small starter homes and 5 bed houses for multi-generational families.
These are all tied together by communal facilities - laundries, a nursery and a community kitchen, spread across an extension of the existing high street into the centre of the scheme. The heritage of the existing building fabric is celebrated through the incorporation of Victorian iron columns and beams into the landscaping, as well as a walkway allowing residents to get up close to the existing structure.
Claire Johnson
Max Ferguson Frost
Seyed Ilia Jalilazar Sharabiani