Mayfield is a 9 hectares urban void equipped with two elements: an abandoned train station and the unattended Medlock River.
The collaborative proposal is linked to both components by two radical interventions. The first one: the river’s renaturation through a controlled flood, creating artificial islands and inserting local vegetation. The second one: the abandoned structure’s rehabilitation. A logistic centre that allows the sustainable supply to Manchester historic centre is proposed. The former train station roof is now a great surface that collects the pedestrian flows. It also allows, through the equipped walkways, the access to the proposed habitats, each of them linked to one of the collaborative interventions.
How would a perfectly supplied habitat look like? Where does an isolation-seeking person live?
The project development is based on an investigation regarding these questions. The habitat for an isolated person in a globalised society, the so-called hikikomori. People who run from social interaction and embrace a virtual life powered by the new technologies. They need a logistic infrastructure that permits the total supply and a spatial order that allows social isolation. Therefore, it is a habitat linked to the logistic centre.
The tower is conceived as a minimum dimension and logistically equipped habitat machine. The automatised industrial shelves, the walkways and the isolation capsules are all connected through a helical ramps sand conveyors system.
A bridge crane embeds the isolation capsules to this technological structure. The access to these living spaces is accomplished by an individual lifts system. Once inside, a multi-positional device waits for the hikikomori to never separate again. All necessary action is conducted without the need to move, thanks to rail system that allows the device movement.
The hermit no longer seeks loneliness and isolation in nature, as it always has been. On the contrary, influenced by the new technologies, the hermit prefers to isolate himself within the city.
Living insulated yet surrounded by people.