Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

This is not strictly an URBED project. It was commissioned from the Hulme Community Architecture Project which was run at the time by Charlie Baker who enrolled David Rudlin to help. Nevertheless the guide was used as one of 10 case studies in a 2006 study for government by the Bartlett School of Planning and was considered still to be one of the most effective. The printed versions of the guide are now rare and change hands for vast amounts on the black market while the original computer files are buried deep in an archive. Due to popular demand we have therefore copied one of the copies in the URBED vault which is made available here as a PDF.

The guide was the third to be commissioned in Hulme, the first two having being rejected following acrimonious argument. It is important to remember that this was the early 1990s, a time when the principles of urbanism were still hotly contested. There were many in the housing association sector, the highways department and the police who thought the contents of the guide (much of which is now government policy) to be highly irresponsible. However within 6 months of its publication the council had passed a temporary resolution applying it to the whole of Manchester until such time that a city-wide guide could be written.

The full Hulme and Manchester story can be found in Chapter 13 of our book – Building the 21st Century Home: the Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood.