LETCHWORTH; some observations October 2013

City of Manchester 1945 plan; a necklace of more than 10 huge roundabouts

This 1945 plan clearly indicates the projected "necklace" of totally futile, functionless green islands on the urban periphery. There were to be at least 10 of these bizarre pieces of empty turf. Was the creation of these oversize roundabouts an attempt to create public parks but parks with no access? Or were they intended to create visual breaks in the urban sprawl; a sort of pastoral splay? Or were they seen as a contemporary use of abstract shapes that looked good from the modeller's point of view? Were they a piece of Urban Modernism? Were they to be the focus of contemporary sculpture,yet to be commissioned? The legacy of this planning seems to be the vast amount of unusable turf and planting in the area indicated in my previous post.

MANCHESTER; urban patterns/urban splay

Urban Splay: this a roundabout on the A57(M) on the south west stretch of the Mancunian Way. This is the maths to calculate its current land value at 2013 property rates:

125 x 112.5 = 14062.50 square metres  £1,480.04 cost per sq metre of a Manchester appartment x £14062.50  =  £20.613.062

Architectural vision at Chapel Brow Greater Manchester 6 October

Some rusting fence wire has become a seriesof rustic interiors and spatial possibilities

This little stack offers the most brilliant solution to the eave/cornice problem by creaing a colossal scaled up form. The courses are also very beautiful.

Architect's vision at Chapel Brow Greater Manchester 6 October

a stone stack that has already been divided into walls floors and sort of entrance. There is a small terrace. This formation handles the corner extremely well as a foft curve

urbanist vision at Chapel Brow Greater Manchester 6 October

where the conurbation spreads towards rhe hills in all its complexity. Most of this area was a quarry so it counts as an industrial zone now devoted to herding sheep and countryside pursuits.

and here is little farm starting to grow under pressure to gain more space in a highly controlled countryside park context: trailers and temporary building to become fairly big footprints