Urbanism
Environment
Design

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URBED were excited to be involved in Mayfield Imaginarium: a weekend of workshops and events to get the public thinking creatively about how Manchester’s Mayfield railway depot site should be redeveloped. The site is adjacent to Piccadilly Train Station and is being developed by London based U+I with The Mayfield Partnership (Manchester council, landowners London and Continental Railways and Transport for Greater Manchester).

The event took place independently of the developers and was funded, organised and run by volunteers who are passionate about involving Manchester citizens in developing plans for the future of the city. The findings will be written up and presented to U+I in the hope that they will influence plans for the site and demonstrate the value of positive public engagement.

URBED’s workshop took the form of a fun and informal masterplanning session. We started with a whistle stop introduction to the site and some basic masterplanning principles, then participants worked in groups to create their ideal vision for the Mayfield site in plasticine. At the end groups presented their designs, which prompted some great discussions about our aspirations for the site, highlighted key constraints and generated a host of exciting ideas. URBED will be writing up the findings in a short report which will be presented to the developers and made available on our website.

{Images by URBED and @Mayfieldlam on Twitter}