Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

This year we ran two projects with 3rd Year students from the University of Sheffield. The first project explored the the notion of local production within Todmorden. The second project set in Huddersfield looked at the different ecologies running through the town.

The briefs are included below.

Semester 1: Made in Todmorden

Unlike many towns in the North, Todmorden has retained much of it urban character. The steep topography of the surrounding area has served to limit the growth of sub-urban sprawl. As a result, the town continues to retain a strong relationship to its surrounding landscape.

Todmorden is located in the Calder Valley, on the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The town originally achieved prosperity by combining farming with woollen textiles. The town rapidly expanded during the industrial revolution with a concentration of industry and settlement along the valley bottom, and a switch from woollens to cotton.

After taking a leading role in the radical agitations of the 1830’s and 1840’s (especially a successful resistance to the New Poor law), Todmorden developed a social order based upon the Co-operative movement and nonconformity.

Current projects in the town such as incredible edible, a project aiming to increase the amount of local food grown and eaten in the town continue to maintain this tradition.

Building upon the historic and existing culture of co-operation and production within Todmorden we will develop strategies and proposals around local production and collective action, across a number of sites in Todmorden

Participating StudentsJenny BullenEmma CrostonRosie EveredIan GriffithsEdmund Harrison-GrayAlexander HullMichael PirrieHuan RimingtonZacahry RootsStefan PriorSimrita ShaheedChristina StapletonClaire TaylorLorna Watmore

Semester 2: Made in Todmorden

There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds.(Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind)

Huddersfield is situated at the confluence of the rivers Colne and Holme. The town is situated on a spur of land at the meeting of two deep valleys which are prone to flooding. Durring the late 18th century the town started to prosper as a woolen centre. The construction of the Huddersfield Broad canal to Hull in 1774 and the Narrow canal to Ashton in 1794 gave the town access to international markets and allowed woolen business to grow. These conditions led to the exponential growth of the town and its trade following the opening of the railway in 1846. For the second half of the 19th century Huddersfield prospered rivaling the great textile centre’s of Bradford and Manchester.

Today the historic core of the town remains untouched surrounded by an industrial hinterland located on valley floor. It is here, within the industrial periphery that we will locate ourselves for this project.

We will investigate and reveal the multiplicity of different ecologies (environmental, social and economic) that flow through the urban edge.

Explorations will include water flows, urban streams, stealth ecologies , interdependencies and growth.

Participating StudentsOliver BleetPeter DykesArtemis HoholiNickolas MaksimenkoJoe MartinNeil MichelsMathew MitchellNatalya PalitEmma PowellM. SimpattananontJuile TangOlivia Jane WhitworthKatherine WongXinzhu Zhu