Sheppard Robson's Design For Manchester Eye Hospital

Image courtesy of Sheppard Robson

Images have just emerged for the design of an extension and refurbishment to Manchester's Eye Hospital, situated on Oxford Road. The design looks to link the current grade 2 listed building with a new contemporary structure directly behind, the two will then be joined by a large glass atrium.

The £21million project generates are beautifully crafted facade which takes elements of the old victorian hospital brickwork, and works it in to a matching stencil detailing. The new build looks to revolve around a centre for bio-medical research, which includes laboratory space, offices, cliniacal testing wards, teaching facilities and other specialist space. 100,00 sq ft in total will be added to eye hospital.

Image Courtesy of Sheppard Robson

The design follows a recent flurry of new builds within the oxford road health campus. Recently St Mary's hospital was demolished to reveal the recently built children's hospital, and current ground works are taking place.

Overall Sheppard Robson's design works well as a modern approach to a traditional style, helping to keep to the Mancunian masonry style, but with a modernist twist.

Hodder + Partners New Wakefield Street Tower

The recession is officially over, well 0.1% less worse, and with it architecture appears to be rising out of the vast chasm it has been stuck in for the past few years. A number of projects are being released and old projects are starting up again. The latest is a new 111m tall student apartment block by Hodder + Partners, erupting out of the relatively timid Oxford Road Station.

A total of 525 bedrooms will fill the tower, generating a new centralised student hub a stones throw away from the student corridor that Oxford Road is. The building sits close to Stephenson Bell's new Hotel that is currently under construction, which will lay in it's shadow.

The design is similar to Unite's Sky Plaza in Leeds, which shares a similar programme, however Hodder + Partners design is much less of a monstrosity as Carey Jones' tower that sticks out like a sore thumb in Leeds' skyline.

Construction on the building is due to start in June of this year if planning permission is granted by Manchester City Council.

Images Copyright to Hodders + Partners and Chris Brink

The Corridor Vs The Maze

The Leech:

Manchester has inflicted a great tragedy upon it’s self in the last 50 years. Like all universities their student community has metamorphosed into a seasonal leech that instantly embodies a vast area of the city for 9 months before dispersing into a much sparser area for hibernation. The “Leech” substantially fluctuates the city’s population, however they do not appear to be affiliated to the city, they are a separate entity that follows it’s own rules and style of life. Except the “Leech” is a necessity, without it Manchester wouldn’t be able to support itself, as much as it’s unusual behavior and profound lack of awareness of the neighboring communities disrupt the social make up, it is an investment, that will eventually be dissolved by the city and become apart of the machine.

The student community of Manchester that sprawls across the corridor of Oxford Road neglects the permanent communities that make up the rest of Manchester and as as a result live an isolated life that could benefit greatly by becoming a key component in the wider context. However I do not believe that it is the individual students persona that causes the fragmentation, in fact this vast social divide has nothing to do with the social landscape, instead it is down to the simple geographical location of the University.

The Corridor:

Campus based Universities isolate themselves within a specific boundary, these work in outskirts of cities, but when a city adopts a university campus within it’s heart the student community is forced to accommodate the nearest residential zones and stay as close to where they study ignoring it’s surroundings. In the case of Manchester’s Oxford Road everything needed to live can be found on this one “Corridor”, stretched from Fallowfield directly in to the City Centre, which immediately causes the social separation of the communities. If one has everything in one place, why would one purposefully travel further to get what is already so close? Manchester is not the only case, Leeds for examples harbors the same problem along it’s Otley Road, although it appears to be a few years behind Manchester in terms of it’s severity.

The Maze:

The “Corridor” problem isn’t destroying Manchester, on the contrary, it harmless resides in it’s place, but a city is a single entity and in order for it to develop and improve the issues of the student community have to be dealt with. The occupation of the “Corridor” needs to disperse and fan out in order to be absorbed by the surrounding communities except the promise of a better city isn’t enough incentive for such a vast group of people. My solution, although abstract in form, does address the issues raised if Oxford Road was eliminated from Manchester and in it’s place lay a vast maze of roads that forced you to explore other areas of Manchester, perhaps then Manchester could evolve as an individual city.