Descending the Armature.

The exposed Beck now a structure to the city enclosing islands along with itself, informing development and revival of the communities and forgotten histories.

Canal Road as Archipelagos.

Using John Hejduk’s (Masques) and Mathias Ungers (Berlin as Green Archipelago) as a precedent to interpret our site as an enclaved set of islands. The Canal road site however lacks connectivity of the precedents. A route to be explored within our proposal.

Completing the Lost

Our S1 concepts apply to many places within the city here more than most, with the beck thought to be covered up along the lineal route through. Part of the old, worsted warehouses have been lost through time, with parts of the remaining being left vacant and derelict. By completing the facade of the lost warehouse and uncovering the beck a more lineal route is created framing the view to the end of the road and the landscape beyond. There is then opportunity to add more control of the horizontal axis, through openings in the facade and connections via bridges.

Riding the Beck.

The beck has such a significance within Bradford yet has been cast below the city. Our intentions with S1 to uncover the beck will be continued throughout the course of the project. Another key concept was the mass of vacant buildings, that lie redundant and derelict.

Combining these ideas of vacancy and following of the beck have brought about a vacancy study of the buildings that run along it.

Combining the Artefacts.

Combining the artefacts in layers like a palimpsest, showing the journey we have uncovered through the existing spaces of the city, with glimpses of artefacts creating connections between the spaces. Artefacts create individual memories and remembered through experience.

The Spectator and the Spectacle.

The spectator and spectacle is the start of our journey along Bradford’s Beck, the uncovering of the river allowed a path to be carved out of the existing creating an enfilade of spaces aimed at revealing lost, hidden and forgotten artefacts whilst continuing the idea of perspective.

Setting the Stage

Our studies into the city unveiled various layers of history that have been covered up, forgotten, or lost. The streetscape of Bradford also provided various perspective views allowing for a theatrical interpretation, looking into theatre stage sets of Serlio, Vitruvius and Inigo Jones. Researching further inspired us to create these montages that illustrate a collection of past artefacts and perspective.

Conceptual Sketch.

Through researching Bradford, we have found out that the city consists of many elements that were hidden, lost or forgotten. With our recognition of the loss of vitality and character in the city, we have come to believe that such features are crucial to explain the identity of the city it used to have. The idea is explained by the phrase “a city as a palimpsest”, influenced by Rumiko Handa, which reading indicates how such traces in the physical environment can work as a catalyst to recall past deeds and events. We are going to use this theory as a reference to firstly reveal the hidden, lost and forgotten artefacts in the city and consequently reconstructing them to regenerate the memory and the vitality of life in Bradford.