The Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure: Cooling down
Lead Research Organisation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department Name: The Manchester School of Architecture
Abstract
In this Impact and Engagement project we will produce a series of interactive experiences and use these to gather public opinions about the value of landscapes around sites of post-war infrastructure. We will present a board game for primary school children, an interactive design experience with physical and virtual components and an immersive filmic experience at Bluedot 2021, a family orientated science, arts and music festival held annually at Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire.
This research is part of a larger project about the Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure. As historians, architects and landscape architects, we know that high quality design thinking and extensive collaboration went into the production of the landscapes around sites of power stations, motorways, reservoirs in the rapid modernisation of the country after 1945. If the landscape architect did their job really well, then 60 years on, it is hard to recognise that a professional designer was even involved. Alongside the innovative design work, a substantial programme of amenity provision accompanied the development of infrastructure. All sorts of leisure were catered for in and around infrastructural sites - nature reserves, wetlands, community halls, golf courses, playgrounds, sailing clubs. As well as these formal, programmed uses, other activities have grown in and around these sites - cycling hill climbing, kit car racing, motorbike scrambling. The value of these landscapes is not just in their use though - the massive forms of gasometers, cooling towers, generator halls, dams and bridges loom large in the imagination as many had powerful presence in the landscape and they symbolise the sweeping modernisation and optimism of the post-war period. Thousands of people were employed on these sites and in the supply chains
As we move to a carbon free economy, these landscapes are being dissembled. The association between the amenities and the sites themselves is weakened and the ties that once bound communities with their landscapes through both work and play are broken. It is inevitable that these landscapes will change. In this project we want to capture and represent the design innovation as we believe it has value to the design of future infrastructural landscapes, whatever they are made from. We also want to discover what these landscapes mean to people, how they value the landscapes, as users inside the landscapes and as viewers of the landscape. We think that these views are really important in understanding the social, cultural and amenity values that landscapes of post-war infrastructure created and how these values have evolved with the sites over time.
Our eventual reporting of our findings will show new ways of visualising value and showing quantitative and qualitative data together to enrich the readings and understandings of these sites as they change and to make sure that the hidden values are adequately represented in decision making processes. In our existing network we have a range of stakeholders from industry, academia, the heritage sector and communities. We have built in some public events to our Research Network activities, but this proposal allows us to reach a much broader section of the population and to bring more voices to the research.
The immersive filmic experience will be used to engage older children and adults and will be a form of docu-tainment that uses new oral histories, archival sound and film recordings, new music, new footage to create a narrative work that speaks of the birth, life, death and afterlife of sites of infrastructure. All of the elements will be presented together at Bluedot, where, in 2019, over 19000 visitors attended. The works will be used to generate a multi-generational discourse about the intangible values of landscapes and the results will feed into our final policy advice notice.
This research is part of a larger project about the Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure. As historians, architects and landscape architects, we know that high quality design thinking and extensive collaboration went into the production of the landscapes around sites of power stations, motorways, reservoirs in the rapid modernisation of the country after 1945. If the landscape architect did their job really well, then 60 years on, it is hard to recognise that a professional designer was even involved. Alongside the innovative design work, a substantial programme of amenity provision accompanied the development of infrastructure. All sorts of leisure were catered for in and around infrastructural sites - nature reserves, wetlands, community halls, golf courses, playgrounds, sailing clubs. As well as these formal, programmed uses, other activities have grown in and around these sites - cycling hill climbing, kit car racing, motorbike scrambling. The value of these landscapes is not just in their use though - the massive forms of gasometers, cooling towers, generator halls, dams and bridges loom large in the imagination as many had powerful presence in the landscape and they symbolise the sweeping modernisation and optimism of the post-war period. Thousands of people were employed on these sites and in the supply chains
As we move to a carbon free economy, these landscapes are being dissembled. The association between the amenities and the sites themselves is weakened and the ties that once bound communities with their landscapes through both work and play are broken. It is inevitable that these landscapes will change. In this project we want to capture and represent the design innovation as we believe it has value to the design of future infrastructural landscapes, whatever they are made from. We also want to discover what these landscapes mean to people, how they value the landscapes, as users inside the landscapes and as viewers of the landscape. We think that these views are really important in understanding the social, cultural and amenity values that landscapes of post-war infrastructure created and how these values have evolved with the sites over time.
Our eventual reporting of our findings will show new ways of visualising value and showing quantitative and qualitative data together to enrich the readings and understandings of these sites as they change and to make sure that the hidden values are adequately represented in decision making processes. In our existing network we have a range of stakeholders from industry, academia, the heritage sector and communities. We have built in some public events to our Research Network activities, but this proposal allows us to reach a much broader section of the population and to bring more voices to the research.
The immersive filmic experience will be used to engage older children and adults and will be a form of docu-tainment that uses new oral histories, archival sound and film recordings, new music, new footage to create a narrative work that speaks of the birth, life, death and afterlife of sites of infrastructure. All of the elements will be presented together at Bluedot, where, in 2019, over 19000 visitors attended. The works will be used to generate a multi-generational discourse about the intangible values of landscapes and the results will feed into our final policy advice notice.
Planned Impact
This project will further the impact objectives of 'The Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure' Research Network. We will build on the knowledge of the multidisciplinary academic team, experts, artists and creative writers, community groups and management teams to create a series of events. The development and presentation of the works will extend the network of artists and engage a diverse range of publics. Local schools, visitors to local museums and festival attendees at Bluedot will engage with new games and an immersive filmic experience. Through these, we will affect public understanding of values of infrastructure and their landscapes, and use this understanding at various levels of education. Through its interwoven pedagogical model, the workshops and activities of the project will help primary and secondary school children and university students to discuss and develop their understanding of infrastructure, landscape, ecology, leisure, carbon futures and well-being. The results of the workshops will be introduced at public events that will help children and families to consider the value of infrastructure and their landscapes from social, cultural, aesthetic and ecological perspectives. The workshops, immersive experience and the final artwork will engage the general public in an aspect of their cultural, landscape and architectural heritage, so contributing to their knowledge. We will also raise the public awareness of archival holdings as a means to interrogate history and futures. It will benefit archival organisations by increasing visitor numbers to archival collections and online platforms. The project will further develop the School of Architecture as a major hub for external collaborations and successes in creating impact beyond academia within their pedagogic programme. By linking the research network's multiple stakeholders with an extended audience through the involvement of local schools, artists and festivals, the project will strengthen the original research proposal's multi-agency approaches to generate new solutions to assess and safeguard the future of landscapes of infrastructure. Through this extended network this project will allow cross-cultural historic research to be placed in the context of education at various levels and art and culture to help future policy and decision-making. These will be achieved through the following Impact Objectives:
i1) Stimulating interdisciplinary discourse between academia, educational institutions, heritage and cultural sectors and artists in the production of games and immersive filmic experiences.
i2) Increasing public understanding and awareness of the elements of infrastructure, their past, present and possible futures as well as their tangible and intangible values by active engagement with novel methods of consultation.
i3) Allowing artists, researchers and policy makers to create new directions in representing the past, and therefore helping the public attending the workshops and the Festival to think differently about elements of infrastructure, its histories and futures.
i4) To engage new and diverse audiences in the findings of the multi-stakeholder research network, and through this engagement allowing the wider public to feed into a policy advisory note.
i5) To create opportunities for research-led teaching and encouraging students of the Manchester School of Architecture and Film-making to take part in a live research project with impact activities beyond academia, as well as allowing local schoolchildren to meet and collaborate with university students and museums and understand some of the types of work in both institutions.
i6) To create opportunities for recording and celebrating the 'extraordinariness of the old' and creating methods of digital preservation where the traditional policy driven presentation is not possible.
i7) To encourage the use of archive sources and museum collections in contemporary discussions about landscape futures.
i1) Stimulating interdisciplinary discourse between academia, educational institutions, heritage and cultural sectors and artists in the production of games and immersive filmic experiences.
i2) Increasing public understanding and awareness of the elements of infrastructure, their past, present and possible futures as well as their tangible and intangible values by active engagement with novel methods of consultation.
i3) Allowing artists, researchers and policy makers to create new directions in representing the past, and therefore helping the public attending the workshops and the Festival to think differently about elements of infrastructure, its histories and futures.
i4) To engage new and diverse audiences in the findings of the multi-stakeholder research network, and through this engagement allowing the wider public to feed into a policy advisory note.
i5) To create opportunities for research-led teaching and encouraging students of the Manchester School of Architecture and Film-making to take part in a live research project with impact activities beyond academia, as well as allowing local schoolchildren to meet and collaborate with university students and museums and understand some of the types of work in both institutions.
i6) To create opportunities for recording and celebrating the 'extraordinariness of the old' and creating methods of digital preservation where the traditional policy driven presentation is not possible.
i7) To encourage the use of archive sources and museum collections in contemporary discussions about landscape futures.
Organisations
- Manchester Metropolitan University (Lead Research Organisation)
- Manchester City Council (Collaboration)
- Landscape Institute (Collaboration)
- Historic Environment Scotland (Collaboration)
- HIGHWAYS ENGLAND (Collaboration)
- The Modernist Society (Collaboration)
- Yorkshire Film Archive (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Museum of English Rural Life - MERL (Collaboration)
- Historic England (Collaboration)
- National Coal Mining Museum for England (Collaboration)
- Blue Dot (Project Partner)
- Soup Collective (Project Partner)
Publications
Brook, R.
(2020)
Why the landscapes of post-war infrastructure matter
in The Journal of the Landscape Institute - Building Infrastructure in the Age of Climate Crisis
Brook, R.
(2020)
Land.Arch.Infra: Synergies between teaching and research
Brook, R.
(2022)
Machining the Moors
in The Modernist
Brook, R.
(2020)
An Infrastructural Landscape II - photo 'zine. LTD 150 copies
Csepely-Knorr L
(2022)
'Conditions in landscape which the public as a whole wishes to see and enjoy' - electricity generation, amenity and welfare in post-war Britain
in Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography
Csepely-Knorr, L.
(2020)
The 'Public Relation Value'. Welfare Landscapes of Post-War British Power Stations
Csepely-Knorr, L.
(2022)
Drakelow: A Natural Concern
in The Modernist
Csepely-Knorr, L.
(2021)
Landscape Legacies of Power Generation. Drakelow and the Central Electricity Generating Board
Csepely-Knorr, L.
(2021)
The 'Public Relation Value' - Landscapes of Infrastructure in post-war England
| Title | Powering a Nation |
| Description | The symbolic and iconic qualities of power stations in the landscape, their meaning and their value to heritage organisations, artists and the public has driven the content of our network meetings and it is this that we invite exhibition viewers to consider as they engage with models and drawings produced together with our masters students from the Manchester School of Architecture. The National Coal Mining Museum has supported our research in the loan of material from their archives to Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collections in between various phases of lockdown - including a mad dash across the Pennines in advance of the second lockdown in November 2020. This museum-to-museum loan enabled us and our students access to artefacts that would otherwise have been impossible to work with. The exhibition presents a historic timeline of the Yorkshire Coalfield, a summary of its geography and networks and a series of case studies of the architecture, landscape and environmental qualities of Kellingley Colliery , Gascoigne Wood Mine, Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations and the ash mound of Gale Common. Together these show the interrelation of huge industrial processes in extraction, power production and waste management and their combined impact on a landscape, its cultures and societies. A series of models focus on particular themes that we have used to consider the changing landscape - the visual relationships between the infrastructure of motorways and power stations; the international, national and regional networks involved in power production; the planning and reality of processes of landscape formation over extended periods of time; and the work of landscape architects to integrate recreational functions with infrastructure. Alongside the models and drawings, a short powerful film captures the spirit of the birth, life and death of these sites and asks about the landscape futures as an industry fades with little attention to its heritage. The exhibition runs from Saturday 9th April until Sunday 2nd October at the National Coal Mining Musuem, Caphouse Colliery, New Rd, Overton, Wakefield WF4 4RH |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Exhibition opens in April 2022. |
| URL | https://www.ncm.org.uk/whats-on/powering-a-nation/ |
| Title | Silent Cursors. Punctuated Journeys : Jen Orpin Exhibition |
| Description | Silent Cursors. Punctuated Journeys : Jen Orpin Exhibition - Tuesday, April 13, 2021-Saturday, June 26, 2021. The Modernist Society Gallery and Shop. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Jen's paintings were exhibited at The Modernist Society's gallery and featured in The Observer, where she disclosed her reasons: After Jen Orpin's father had a stroke in September 2015, the Manchester-based artist became very familiar with the journey to Surrey to visit him in hospital: M56, M6, M42, M40, M25. After he died, driving down these motorways evoked visceral feelings, which she has captured in a series of paintings. "I've had so many conversations with people recently," she says, "about childhood memories and nostalgic feelings attached to a special bit of road or a bridge they used to go under, passing a tower or service station, all telling them they were close to home or a loved one." In an interview with The Spaces online digital platform she went further: 'I got to know the route well,' explains Orpin, who has completed more than 140 road paintings over the past three years. 'It ended up being an unexpected time of thinking and reflection before the grim reality of walking through the hospital doors. What occurred to me throughout the years, after this devastating event, was how many feelings, emotions and memories were sparked by the various sections of the motorway and the landmarks and bridges along the way. These liminal spaces were places, all significant and the feelings they provoked so visceral.' |
| URL | https://modernist-society.org/events/2020/12/19/jen-oprin |
| Description | The research has identified deficits that act to prevent the 'value' of landscapes of post-war infrastructure being recognised and thus recorded and / or protected and preserved: • British definition of heritage is particularly rigid and other nations have more flexible criteria, are more inclusive • climate debate and heritage debate are not effectively interlinked in policy considerations • public and governmental lack of appreciation of built heritage (post-war specifically) • overturning of listings and demolition of industrial heritage • higher threshold for listing for post war architecture and especially landscape architecture • lack of understanding of vulnerability of post war landscape/architectural examples amongst statutory bodies • lack of skill set amongst assessors to consider complexity within common, community, industrial landscapes • a lack of representation for landscape within the group of buildings under the definition of 'built heritage' - narrow definition • the ways in which heritage has value ascribed to it is top down and does not take into account the views of communities • lack of support for communities during demolition/re-development. lack of consultation, lack of collaboration on commemoration/legacy • commemoration of community life/value/usage not taken into account in developers' approach to commemoration • industrial landscapes are not adequately appreciated as potential tourist/leisure destinations • the listings system does not take into account fluid boundaries of industrial landscapes (are biased against them?) • private spaces are given more cultural value than public spaces • communal value is complex, needs more attention to nuance in methodology - this does not currently exist • practitioner knowledge not in line with research based around co-creation with communities • enmeshing of complex infrastructures and networks arrives at barriers in the ways that protections are adjudicated (organisational silos) • complexity of infrastructure / networks within re-developments are not currently taken into account |
| Exploitation Route | • consider the empowerment of communities, persistence of communities, genuine legacy/survival • challenge an assumed focus in heritage protection on aesthetics as the central criteria deny both contested views on aesthetics and clashes with climate change needs • inform change in public and policy attitudes to industrial heritage - 'value' per se and in relation to community needs and environmental climate concerns • encourage and influence changes to approvals processes to incorporate wider range of issues • aim to inform the connection of organisational silos where adjudications are made for protections |
| Sectors | Construction,Creative Economy,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | Exhibition: Powering a Nation National Coal Mining Musuem, Caphouse Colliery, New Rd, Overton, Wakefield WF4 4RH. Saturday 9th April until Sunday 2nd October 2022. C.20K visitors - await project report from museum. We worked with the NCMM to contribute to their 2022 flagship exhibition, 'Powering a Nation'. Our research has examined the environmental conditions of the wider landscape of coal power and the Yorkshire Coalfield as it has transitioned through two phases of closure - the closure of the mines and now the decommissioning of the power stations. We have also looked at the landscape architecture of the post-war period to understand the massive changes to the profession and the huge scalar shift as landscape architects were appointed to design entire visual fields, not just through processes of visual mitigation, but by the integration of massive forms into landscape compositions and what lesson this might have for future infrastructural landscapes. The symbolic and iconic qualities of power stations in the landscape, their meaning and their value to heritage organisations, artists and the public has driven the content of our network meetings and it is this that we invite exhibition viewers to consider as they engage with models and drawings produced together with our masters students from the Manchester School of Architecture. The exhibition presents a historic timeline of the Yorkshire Coalfield, a summary of its geography and networks and a series of case studies of the architecture, landscape and environmental qualities of Kellingley Colliery, Gascoigne Wood Mine, Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations and the ash mound of Gale Common. Together these show the interrelation of huge industrial processes in extraction, power production and waste management and their combined impact on a landscape, its cultures and societies. A series of models focus on particular themes that we have used to consider the changing landscape - the visual relationships between the infrastructure of motorways and power stations; the international, national and regional networks involved in power production; the planning and reality of processes of landscape formation over extended periods of time; and the work of landscape architects to integrate recreational functions with infrastructure. Alongside the models and drawings, a short powerful film captures the spirit of the birth, life and death of these sites and asks about the landscape futures as an industry fades with little attention to its heritage. Exhibition: Silent Cursors. Punctuated Journeys: Jen Orpin. The Modernist Society Gallery and Shop. Tuesday, April 13, 2021-Saturday, June 26, 2021. Jen was one of our artists who participated in our second meeting. With our network partners The Modernist Society we curated her work in a small exhibition at The Modernist Society's gallery which featured in The Observer, where she disclosed her reasons: After Jen Orpin's father had a stroke in September 2015, the Manchester-based artist became very familiar with the journey to Surrey to visit him in hospital: M56, M6, M42, M40, M25. After he died, driving down these motorways evoked visceral feelings, which she has captured in a series of paintings. "I've had so many conversations with people recently," she says, "about childhood memories and nostalgic feelings attached to a special bit of road or a bridge they used to go under, passing a tower or service station, all telling them they were close to home or a loved one." In an interview with The Spaces online digital platform she went further: 'I got to know the route well,' explains Orpin, who has completed more than 140 road paintings over the past three years. 'It ended up being an unexpected time of thinking and reflection before the grim reality of walking through the hospital doors. What occurred to me throughout the years, after this devastating event, was how many feelings, emotions and memories were sparked by the various sections of the motorway and the landmarks and bridges along the way. These liminal spaces were places, all significant and the feelings they provoked so visceral.' Teaching We promised the funder that we would embed the research in our teaching at the Manchester School of Architecture. We developed two modules, one with final year undergraduate students and one with first year post-graduate students. The final year undergraduates had a series of lectures and seminars and were tasked with writing an essay, but the module also has an 'appendix' worth a further 5 credits in the assessment and this varies between the elective courses. In ours, we asked the students to work in groups to design board games with support from a games designer with experience of working in education. From the 5 games produced we selected two for further development and we intend to use these as a way of gathering views from younger participants about changing landscapes and carbon economies. The work undertaken for the 5-credit appendix was facilitated by Dr Paul Wake, Reader in the Department of English at Manchester Met and co-director of the Manchester Game Studies Network, and Matteo Menapace, and independent game designer and educator. Key to the project is the understanding that games provide a way of modelling systems and that in doing so they are capable of constructing arguments and offer distinct rhetorical possibilities. These affordances allow games to function both as research method (requiring of students a sophisticated level of comprehension of their research topic) and as research output (in a form that invites interaction). Four of the potential benefits of game design as research/learning as they relate to our work with our architecture students, are: • The requirement that users and designers engage systematically with the underlying dynamics of situations (in this case specific conflicts, in ours the realities of architecture in post-war Britain). • The engagement of users and designers in an active learning process through the engagement with the decision elements of historical, or indeed hypothetical future, scenarios. • The improvement of feedback, for both instructors and students, as to the level of understanding of the user and player's understanding of the situations modelled. • They provide broader transferrable skills, including teamwork, design skills, and the dissemination of ideas. In order to connect our student's research with the game design process, this appendix ran in tandem with the Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure module, with each group meeting their tutors to discuss their work in progress at five points across the term. Early workshops covered the fundamentals of game design and set out a method of hacking, reworking, or reskinning, existing games, while later sessions focussed on playtesting and refinement of the students' prototypes. Given the complexities of meeting in person during the pandemic, these meetings took place online, with game development and playtesting taking place on the free-to-use platform Tabletopia. The final submissions were assessed against four criteria: Depth (a measure of the game design process); Information design (the quality of the game's language); Metaphors and mechanics (the modelling of real-world events/systems); and, Teachable potential (how well the game might work for its target audience). Given the aims of the module were on communicating research, the emphasis was placed on the latter two criteria. Games design is perhaps more of a complex task than we imagined, but it has been a dream of Luca's to develop these types of learning devices through research for a while. The original games were visually seductive, but needed work to develop the rules and playability. Again, we called on our students. A group of first year Masters students directed first and second year undergraduates in the further play testing and design of one of the games - Connection - and were able to produce a physical version using access to workshops and studios that was not available to the original designers. The development of this game was recorded through this blog: https://live.msa.ac.uk/2021/group/24/ A second game - New Town Power - has also made it into physical form after two further rounds of development by the original designers and then by another Masters student. New Town Power is set in the post-war period and imagines the development of New Towns as requiring connections of roads and power to enable their development. Between 2 and 4 players take turns and play cards to connect their New Town to existing cities and new power infrastructure. This game was play tested at two events, one with university students and one with school children at a local high school. The second playtest, which took place at St Peter's RC High School (a Widening Participation School on the Longsight Gorton border) involved 18 pupils of mixed ability drawn from years 7, 8 and 9. Of the two playtests this event was the most significant in terms of forward planning. Beyond identifying a number of areas for improvement in the game's next iteration, the engagement with this group of young people suggested that presenting our games as works in progress rather than as finished products is a productive way to engage future participants. Rather than presenting research as 'finished' this approach allows us to invite critique and to recognise the knowledge, experience and expertise held by children and young people and going some way to dismantling the perceived hierarchy of expert/non-expert. Our first year Masters students, in their Research Methods course undertook case studies of four specific sites in Yorkshire - Drax, Ferrybridge, Eggborough power stations, Gascoigne Wood and Kellingley collieries and Gale Common ash mound. We worked with our partners, the Yorkshire Film Archive, National Coal Mining Museum and Historic England to introduce the students to working with archive sources and fieldwork photography. Their case studies had to have a critical framework and ideas of networks, shifting ownership, changing professional practice, amenity provision, https://rmw2021.show/workshop/the-landscape-and-architecture-of-postwar-british-infrastructure-coal In so doing, they developed masses of materials that might be useful in communicating with the public. Clearly, the demands of a research based academic course are not immediately transferable to forms of public engagement and, as an onward initiative, a select group of students synthesised some of this information for a proposed exhibition. As with the games development, our Masters students directed a group of first and second year undergraduates in the exhibition preparation. Given the Covid circumstances, this became a web based resource for school children aimed at one of our partners, the National Coal Mining Museum and in collaboration with a local primary school. The website, we feel, is a superb resource and finished to a professional standard. Following this presentation we invite you all to have a look at the work and the way in which it was reported. https://power-trip.wixsite.com/msalive https://live.msa.ac.uk/2021/group/01/ The Masters students also designed (and in some cases built) models to explain some of their thinking in relation to their research question and the approaches that they took to each case study. This year our final year undergraduates have also produced models of some of the Yorkshire coal field sites. We expect to take some of these models to our public consultation event in January and wonder how we might put them to best use. Public Engagement: Pontefract Library, January 2022 Following our third network meeting we presented some of our research findings in a one-day event at Pontefract Library. This was intended to test some of the feedback methods for our major event in summer 2022 at Bluedot Festival. Public Engagement: Bluedot Festival, June 2022 Over three days we play tested three different board games for children and young adults that brought awareness to the relationship between vital infrastructures, landscape and ecology. In tandem we presented a 15 minute edit of our film. |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | Women of the Welfare Landscape |
| Amount | £202,128 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/W00397X/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2022 |
| End | 08/2023 |
| Description | Highways England |
| Organisation | Highways England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Invitation to participate in network meetings, with particular focus on meeting 1 that concerned heritage values and infrastructural landscapes. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Attendanc at netowrk meetings and follow on presentation to undergraduate students working on taught module related to the research. |
| Impact | Contribution to taught undergraduate module related to the research. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Historic England |
| Organisation | Historic England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Invitation to participate in network meetings, with particular focus on meeting 1 that concerned heritage values and infrastructural landscapes. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Attendance at meetings and contribution to discourse. |
| Impact | None |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Historic Environment Scotland |
| Organisation | Historic Environment Scotland |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Invitation to HES to be part of our research network and attend meetings and advise. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Attendance and feedback at Meeting 1. Chairing breakout groups at Meetings 2 and 3. Contribution to post-graduate taught module related to research. |
| Impact | None. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Landscape Institute |
| Organisation | Landscape Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Inviting the Li to participate in our network meetings and writing articles for their journal. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Participation in our network meetings. Publishing our writings. Marketing our events. |
| Impact | Csepely-Knorr, L. (2021) 'Landscape in the Making' Landscape: The Journal of the Landscape Institute, Summer Issue 3 2021: The Landscape of Power p.18-21 Brook, R., Coucill, L., Csepely-Knorr, L., 2020. 'Why the landscapes of post-war infrastructure matter', Landscape - The Journal of the Landscape Institute, 2, 6-11. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Museum of English Rural Life |
| Organisation | Museum of English Rural Life - MERL |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Invitation to MERL to provide expertise to the research network. Request to host our first meeting at their site. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Hosting our first meeting. Providing archive materials to the research. Giving talks to undergraduate and post-graduate students on taught modules related to the research. |
| Impact | Brook, R., Coucill, L., Csepely-Knorr, L., 2020. 'Why the landscapes of post-war infrastructure matter', Landscape - The Journal of the Landscape Institute, 2, 6-11. Csepely-Knorr, L (2021) 'Drakelow: A Natural Concern' The Modernist Magazine Issue #41: Landscape Csepely-Knorr, L. 'Landscapes in support of "the growing demand for an improved quality of life'" - Electricity generation, welfare and environment in post-war Britain' EAHN 2021 Edinburgh |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | National Coal Mining Museum |
| Organisation | National Coal Mining Museum for England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We have worked with the NCMM to make a contribution to their 2022 flagship exhibition, 'Powering a Nation'. Our research has examined the environmental conditions of the wider landscape of coal power and the Yorkshire Coalfield as it has transitioned through two phases of closure - the closure of the mines and now the decommissioning of the power stations. We have also looked at the landscape architecture of the post-war period to understand the massive changes to the profession and the huge scalar shift as landscape architects were appointed to design entire visual fields, not just through processes of visual mitigation, but by the integration of massive forms into landscape compositions and what lesson this might have for future infrastructural landscapes. The symbolic and iconic qualities of power stations in the landscape, their meaning and their value to heritage organisations, artists and the public has driven the content of our network meetings and it is this that we invite exhibition viewers to consider as they engage with models and drawings produced together with our masters students from the Manchester School of Architecture. The National Coal Mining Museum has supported our research in the loan of material from their archives to Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collections in between various phases of lockdown - including a mad dash across the Pennines in advance of the second lockdown in November 2020. This museum-to-museum loan enabled us and our students access to artefacts that would otherwise have been impossible to work with. The exhibition presents a historic timeline of the Yorkshire Coalfield, a summary of its geography and networks and a series of case studies of the architecture, landscape and environmental qualities of Kellingley Colliery , Gascoigne Wood Mine, Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations and the ash mound of Gale Common. Together these show the interrelation of huge industrial processes in extraction, power production and waste management and their combined impact on a landscape, its cultures and societies. A series of models focus on particular themes that we have used to consider the changing landscape - the visual relationships between the infrastructure of motorways and power stations; the international, national and regional networks involved in power production; the planning and reality of processes of landscape formation over extended periods of time; and the work of landscape architects to integrate recreational functions with infrastructure. Alongside the models and drawings, a short powerful film captures the spirit of the birth, life and death of these sites and asks about the landscape futures as an industry fades with little attention to its heritage. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The National Coal Mining Museum has supported our research in the loan of material from their archives to Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collections in between various phases of lockdown - including a mad dash across the Pennines in advance of the second lockdown in November 2020. This museum-to-museum loan enabled us and our students access to artefacts that would otherwise have been impossible to work with. |
| Impact | Exhibition: Saturday 9th April until Sunday 2nd October at the National Coal Mining Musuem, Caphouse Colliery, New Rd, Overton, Wakefield WF4 4RH |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Partners |
| Organisation | Manchester City Council |
| Department | Manchester Central Library |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | As a team we brought architectural, archaeological and computational expertise to this collaboration. In a VR project, working with tangible and intangible heritage assets a range of knowledge was essential. As an architect and architetural historian, my skills in recording buildings, dealing with planning processes, archival research and project managment were all deployed during the course of the project. The Co-I, Dr. Ben Edwards, brought his experience of photogrammetry in historic environments to the project. The Co-I, Dr. Kevin Tan, brought his expertise in porgramming virtual reality environments and working with animation to bear on our final outputs. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Modernist Society helped to recover privately held archive materials, directed the oral histories aspect of the project, disseminated project findings and managed our launch event. Manchester City Council, specifically the archives service at the Central Reference Library, aided our search and recovery of extensive archival records and provided space in their estate for meetings and some of the administrative tasks related to scanning and recording materials. Oxford Archaeology North undertook the drone based survey and the production of a 3D photogrammetric model for use in the VR app. Fablr developed and designed the web and digital interfaces for the site and the app. |
| Impact | Output: website Output: VR application Outcome: New relations between project partners and client - Manchester Reform Synagogue. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC showcase event in York. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC/JPICH Workshop on Re-use and continued use of historic buildings, urban centres and landscapes, Leicester 26 Nov. 2018 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Partners |
| Organisation | The Modernist Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | As a team we brought architectural, archaeological and computational expertise to this collaboration. In a VR project, working with tangible and intangible heritage assets a range of knowledge was essential. As an architect and architetural historian, my skills in recording buildings, dealing with planning processes, archival research and project managment were all deployed during the course of the project. The Co-I, Dr. Ben Edwards, brought his experience of photogrammetry in historic environments to the project. The Co-I, Dr. Kevin Tan, brought his expertise in porgramming virtual reality environments and working with animation to bear on our final outputs. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Modernist Society helped to recover privately held archive materials, directed the oral histories aspect of the project, disseminated project findings and managed our launch event. Manchester City Council, specifically the archives service at the Central Reference Library, aided our search and recovery of extensive archival records and provided space in their estate for meetings and some of the administrative tasks related to scanning and recording materials. Oxford Archaeology North undertook the drone based survey and the production of a 3D photogrammetric model for use in the VR app. Fablr developed and designed the web and digital interfaces for the site and the app. |
| Impact | Output: website Output: VR application Outcome: New relations between project partners and client - Manchester Reform Synagogue. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC showcase event in York. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC/JPICH Workshop on Re-use and continued use of historic buildings, urban centres and landscapes, Leicester 26 Nov. 2018 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Partners |
| Organisation | The Modernist Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | As a team we brought architectural, archaeological and computational expertise to this collaboration. In a VR project, working with tangible and intangible heritage assets a range of knowledge was essential. As an architect and architetural historian, my skills in recording buildings, dealing with planning processes, archival research and project managment were all deployed during the course of the project. The Co-I, Dr. Ben Edwards, brought his experience of photogrammetry in historic environments to the project. The Co-I, Dr. Kevin Tan, brought his expertise in porgramming virtual reality environments and working with animation to bear on our final outputs. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Modernist Society helped to recover privately held archive materials, directed the oral histories aspect of the project, disseminated project findings and managed our launch event. Manchester City Council, specifically the archives service at the Central Reference Library, aided our search and recovery of extensive archival records and provided space in their estate for meetings and some of the administrative tasks related to scanning and recording materials. Oxford Archaeology North undertook the drone based survey and the production of a 3D photogrammetric model for use in the VR app. Fablr developed and designed the web and digital interfaces for the site and the app. |
| Impact | Output: website Output: VR application Outcome: New relations between project partners and client - Manchester Reform Synagogue. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC showcase event in York. Outcome: Work shared at AHRC/JPICH Workshop on Re-use and continued use of historic buildings, urban centres and landscapes, Leicester 26 Nov. 2018 |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | The Modernist Society |
| Organisation | The Modernist Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We curated the artists conversations, exhibition and editing a follow on book publication that was marketed and retailed by The Modernist Society and sold out in two weeks. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Modernist Society hosted and marketed a series of online Artists' Conversations over a period of three weeks in January 2021 attended by over 300 people. These were subsequently edited and archived online as a permanent record of the events. The outcomes of the conversations formed the intellectual agenda for our second network meeting where we considered the value of landscapes of infrastructure to artists. With the Modernist Society we curated an exhibition of one of the artists' (Jen Orpin) paintings that received over 300 visitors and attention in the national press. They have alos published and retailed a photobook by the PI related to the project. |
| Impact | Output: Conversations published online Output: Curated exhibition Output: Book Output: Photo book Outcome: Changing perceptions and understanding of the role of landscape architects in historical and contemporary society Outcome: Raising the profile of artists Outcome: Advancing dialogue between different arts sectors |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Yorkshire Film Archive |
| Organisation | Yorkshire Film Archive |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Working with YFA to locate and support the digitisation of archive films relating to the landscapes of coal and power. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Search support. Digitisation support. Presentations to post graduate students on taught module related to research project. |
| Impact | Film will be completed in Summer 2022. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | 'Absolute Simplicity to Knit the Landscape Back Again' - Nuclear Landscapes in Post-War Britain. This talk was part of the Situating Architecture public lecture series at UCL, Bartlett. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 50 people attended the talk. The role of female landscape architects in infrastructural projects was revealed to an audience largely unaware of such contributions. A lively Q&A about hidden histories of women designers and landscape architecture followed the talk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2022/nov/absolute-simplicity-knit-landscape-back-... |
| Description | Artists' Conversations |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We convened three artists' conversations between visual and literary artists who work with the subject of infrastructure. Each event was held during an evening in January 2021: 19 January 2021 - Martyn J Bull with Brian Lewis, compèred by Mark Thomas 21 January 2021 - Kevin Crooks with Helen Angell compèred by Luca Csepely-Knorr 26 January 2021 - Jen Orpin and Gareth Rees, compèred by David Cooper The conversations were delivered with one of our project partners, The Modernist Society and each one had c.100 attendees from around the world. The conversations were recorded, edited and published and have since received more than 500 online views. The outcomes of the conversations were used as the basis for our second network meeting, where the nature and relationship of artists and landscapes of post-war infrastructure was under discussion using 5 thematic prompts: Connection Proximity and first person encounters with infrastructural landscapes seemed common to all of the artists' conversations - of course this is traditional. However, traditional forms conventionally represented landscapes as 'beautiful' or 'picturesque', what terms or ideas are reflected through the work of artists who engage with infrastructural landscapes? Legacy What are the connections of the infrastructure and the landscape with people who lived around the infrastructure and used the landscape - and what will happen when it's gone? For example: Didcot nature reserve: created at the time of the infrastructure and is still there, but are not on 'full capacity' - e.g. no teacher wardens, no school visits organised, but instead used by locals as a popular green space - how do these sites change and how is their value changing? Monumentality How does infrastructure change the focus on a landscape? Does infrastructure act as a landmark, or, is it more than that? Can infrastructure be a destination in its own right and, if so, how does this give new views of and on the landscape? How are these notions changing over time? Can this be a legacy that lives on? Accessibility Infrastructure opening up the landscape and how we understand it: this came up especially in relation to motorways. We think that they change the landscape but also make the landscape available for more people - similarly with power infrastructure in creation of service roads in hitherto hard to reach places - what is the link between accessibility of the landscape - 'landscape justice' - in terms of creating open freely accessible spaces and the creation of infrastructure? We tend to see these as the ones that 'ruined the landscape' but did they actually make it a more equal space that is more accessible? Nostalgia How does nostalgia for the twentieth century affect the artistic interpretation of infrastructural landscapes? The outcomes of the network meeting will be reported in the following period. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://vimeo.com/showcase/8138634 |
| Description | BA3 Humanities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | BA3 Humanities Elective - Manchester School of Architecture - 18 students In this elective you will learn about the historic and contemporary settings for design professionals working alongside engineers in the delivery of large-scale schemes. The historic context is the period between 1945 and 1980. During this time massive public investment was made in new motorways, power stations, reservoirs, telecoms, forestry and, to a lesser extent, in the railways. This was about the modernisation of Britain and was built on governmental structures and technologies that were products ofthe conflicts of the twentieth century.Landscape architecture as a profession was transformed immeasurably by such change. Landscape architects moved from designing enclosed spaces to being in control of entire fields of view, in and around the vast hard forms of concrete, tarmac and steel. Designers from all disciplines worked collaboratively, with usually the engineer or landscape architect as lead consultant. This was unusual and one result is that the architecture of infrastructure is often overlooked.Together we will explore the post-war period (1945-1980), the nationalisation of industry, the planning and legislative context and how design was advanced and informed by these conditions. We will ask you to historicise the design of infrastructural landscapes and to explore the novel ideas of the time that still have relevance today. This elective is associated with a research project directed by Prof. Richard Brook and Dr Luca Csepely-Knorr and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project is focused on the architecture and landscape of post-war British infrastructure, its design, cultural significance and its value. 20 Sept BA3 1400 - 1700 INTRODUCTION Introduction to the elective and each other. Lecture - Context Modelmaking and collaboration intro with Scott Miller 27 Sept BA3 1400 - 1700 PLANNING, POLICY + INSTITUTIONS Seminar 1 - Policy and Governance of Land[scape] Lecture - Institutions, Intuition and Implementation Lecture - Straight to the Curve: Design thinking in the M1 and M62 4 Oct BA3 1400 - 1700 MOTORWAYS Seminar 2 - The Landscapists Lead Guest lecture - Charlotte McLean Guest lecture - Katrina Navickas 11 Oct BA3 1400 - 1700 POWER STATIONS Seminar 3 - The Sense in Sinuous Lecture - CEGB The Landscape of Coal as Third Nature Guest lecture - Linda Ross 18 Oct BA3 1400 - 1700 RESERVOIRS + FORESTRY Seminar 4 - Field Object: The Aesthetics of Post-War Power Lecture - Of Moors and Vales: The Machining of Upland Britain Guest lecture - Andrew McTominey 25 Oct BA3 1400 - 1700 RAILWAYS Seminar 5 - Manufactured Landscapes Lecture - Axes and Lightning Bolts: The Chop and Change of British Railways after 1945. Guest lecture - Ewan Harrison |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | BA3 Humanities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | BA3 Humanities Elective - 24 students BRIEF In this elective you will learn about the historic and contemporary settings for design professionals working alongside engineers in the delivery of large-scale schemes. The historic context is the period between 1945 and 1980. During this time massive public investment was made in new motorways, power stations, reservoirs, telecoms, forestry and, to a lesser extent, in the railways. This was about the modernisation of Britain and was built on governmental structures and technologies that were products of the conflicts of the twentieth century. Landscape architecture as a profession was transformed immeasurably by such change. Landscape architects moved from designing enclosed spaces to being in control of entire fields of view, in and around the vast hard forms of concrete, tarmac and steel. Designers from all disciplines worked collaboratively, with usually the engineer or landscape architect as lead consultant. This was unusual and one result is that the architecture of infrastructure is often overlooked. Together we will explore the post-war period, the nationalisation of industry, the planning and legislative context and how design was advanced and informed by these conditions. We will ask you to historicise the design of infrastructural landscapes and to explore the novel ideas of the time that still have relevance today. This elective is associated with a research project directed by Dr Richard Brook and Dr Luca Csepely-Knorr and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project is focused on the architecture and landscape of post-war British infrastructure, its design, cultural significance and its value. You can find more information about the project and our ongoing research here: https://www.msa.ac.uk/postwarinfrastructure/ https://postwarinfrastructure.org https://landscapedecisions.org/the-landscapes-of-post-war-infrastructure/ PROGRAMME 21 Sept BA3 1400 -1700 INTRODUCTION Introduction to the elective and each other. Lecture - Context Games design Introduction to the method. 28 Sept BA3 1400 -1700 PLANNING, POLICY + INSTITUTIONS Seminar 1 - Policy and Governance of Land[scape] Lecture -Institutions, Intuition and Implementation Group tutorials on games design 5 Oct BA3 1400 -1700 MOTORWAYS Seminar 2 -The Landscapists Lead Lecture -Straight to the Curve: Design thinking in the M1 and M62 Talk from Henry Penner, Landscape Architect with Highways England. Open discussion of essay questions 12 Oct BA3 1400 -1700 POWERSTATIONS Seminar 3 -The Sense in Sinuous Lecture -CEGB The Landscape of Coal as Third Nature Talk by Colvin & Moggridge about 50 year project at Gale Common 19 Oct BA3 1400 -1700 RESERVOIRS + FORESTRY Seminar 4 -Field Object: The Aesthetics of Post-War Power Lecture -Of Moors and Vales: The Machining of Upland Britain Talk by Roger Worthington, Forestry England 26 Oct BA3 1400 -1700 RAILWAYS Seminar 5 -Manufactured LandscapesLecture -Axes and Lightning Bolts: The Chop and Change of British Railways after 1945. Talk by Network Rail Architect |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021 |
| Description | Exhibition - Paintings by Jen Orpin - Silent Cursors. Punctuated Journeys |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Curated Exhibition - the paintings of Jen Orpin, Silent Cursors. Punctuated Journeys. Tuesday 13th of April 2021 - Saturday 26th June. The Modernist Society Gallery and Shop, 58 Port Street, Manchester M1 2EQ With Jen and The Modernist Society, we curated selection of her recent paintings concerning a landscape of empty roads and bridges. Jen's work draws attention to the invisible presence of the highway and its nature as a ubiquitous constant. In so doing, it asks all sorts of questions about landmarks, thresholds, nostalgias and is particularly poignant right now when our movement is so heavily restricted. Jen was previosuly in conversation with author Gareth Rees, chaired by Dr David Cooper, in January 2021 and their conversation helped to form the critical views of the show. In Jen's words: "These paintings are part of a series of work exploring the relationships we have to the journeys made to and from the places that hold significance in our lives. The subject matter of motorway bridges and the open road form a major role in sparking memories and nostalgia connected to these journeys. Some of them have been part of the landscape for many years, landmarks that provide a familiar and constant in the journey and a visual reminder of where you are. Some are huge feats of construction, facilitating roads or railway lines above and some are small slithers of concrete wide enough only for a walkway. Each though, has an equal significance to the visual landscape of the journey, punctuating and often reminding us of where we're up too and how much further we have to go." The show raised Jen's profile and also brought attention to the landscapes of infrastructure and the cultural value of these oft ingnored spaces. Over 300 people visited the exhibition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://modernist-society.org/events/2020/12/19/jen-oprin |
| Description | MArch1 - Research Methods Course |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Masters of Architecture & Masters of Landscape Architecture: Research Methods Module - 36 students UK/EU/INT. CONTEXT During the period following WWII, large-scale construction and modernisation projects were manifested across the globe, in both post-war and decolonialization contexts. These were developed according to prevailing cultures, societal demand, economic and political circumstances. The resultant physically engineered landscapes signposted rapid socio-economic and technological development which hold the capacity to reveal much about the society in which they were produced. The scale and impact of infrastructure warranted serious discourse in the post-war period. The landscape profession in particular addressed the field-object and disruptive qualities of infrastructure in ways that have not been considered since, underpinned by books and exhibitions, such as Sylvia Crowe's 'The Landscape of Power' (1958) and 'The Landscape of Roads' (1960) and the exhibitions such as 'Industry and Landscape' (1964). In the face of updating and restructuring contemporary infrastructural networks, Historic England have noted that the 'current Government focus on infrastructure, and the high levels of public and private investment envisaged' highlight an urgent need for understanding major infrastructural development. This, together with the continued decommissioning and demolition of power stations, makes the documentation of these buildings and their landscapes a timely intervention and reinforces the potential application of historical research to contemporary design. POST-WAR INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH NETWORK This unit is part of the AHRC funded live research projects 'Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure: Culture, Amenity, Heritage and Industry' and 'Cooling Down' led by Richard Brook and Luca Csepely-Knorr. The project works with a variety of research partners and community groups to uncover and understand the various values attached to the landscapes of post-war infrastructure. The outcomes of this research methods unit will feature in an exhibition in Yorkshire in January 2021, and will directly feed into work to be presented at the Bluedot Festival in 2021. METHODOLOGY AND SPACES OF INVESTIGATION This unit will introduce you to core historical research sources and apply design-based analytical methods. It will take a case study approach allowing to undertake detailed analysis of a specific case. This year the focus will be on various landscapes and infrastructures of the Yorkshire coal industry- an interconnected landscape of extraction, power production and environmental amelioration. The sites to be examined are the Aire Valley power stations of Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge; the Selby coal field including Gascoigne Wood Mine and Kellingley Colliery; and the Gale Common ash disposal site. The production of the case studies will enable and instruct a variety of research approaches relevant to architecture, urbanism and landscape architecture. Field and archival research will be complemented by oral history interviews and desk top study analyses. The unit will provide you with archival and exhibition workshops and talks, and these, together with the oral history interviews will be offering first-hand experience of core research methods and the opportunity to engage with external partners in a professional working context. We will be working with the Historic England's Archives at Swindon and the Landscape Institute Archives at the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading and will be visiting these resources, where you will receive the advice and support of archive staff on archival research and curating exhibitions. Analysis will take creative forms and you are encouraged to use your skills as designers to represent the findings of your research in the form of diagrams, models, maps and drawings. Dissemination is a core part of research and throughout the unit we will be engaging with a range of social media platforms to publish interim findings and understanding the uses and limitations of internet resources in research. We will also be presenting the work at a number of venues in the UK, working in collaboration with libraries, community groups and events organisations to establish the best ways of communicating research of this type to a wide audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021 |
| Description | One day public exhibition at Pontefract Library |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We took a series of case study drawings and models concerning the networks of the Yorkshire Coal Field to Pontefract Library 29 January 2022. Over the course of the day we engaged c.40 local people in discussions about the changing landscapes of coal with reference to the mine closures and the decommissioning of power stations. Many of the visitors had worked on the power stations and shared their experiences and memories of so doing. We made contact with the former Director of Drax Power Station and will interview him for inclusion in our film that will be used to disseminate the research in events during 2022. One particularly engaged visitor was a child being home schooled who spent over an hour with us and the material. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Play test event at St. Peter's RC High School, Belle Vue |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A board game - New Town Power - has been made into physical form after two further rounds of development by the original designers and, then, by another Masters student. New Town Power is set in the post-war period and imagines the development of New Towns as requiring connections of roads and power to enable their development. Between 2 and 4 players take turns and play cards to connect their New Town to existing cities and new power infrastructure. New Town Power has now been play tested at two events, the first with university students and the second with school children at St Peter's RC High School in Belle Vue. The second playtest, which involved 18 pupils drawn from years 7, 8 and 9, saw the game in front of its intended audience for the first time. The pupils we met were brilliant to work with - not only were they incredibly knowledgeable about the environment but they were also keen game-players, the ideal group to play and comment on the game. Their feedback will make a huge difference to the next stage of the game's development. Of the two playtests this event was the most significant in terms of forward planning. Beyond identifying a number of areas for improvement in the game's next iteration, the engagement with this group of young people suggested that presenting our games as works in progress rather than as finished products is a productive way to engage future participants. Rather than presenting research as 'finished' this approach allows us to invite critique and to recognise the knowledge, experience and expertise held by children and young people and going some way to dismantling the perceived hierarchy of expert/non-expert. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://mmgamecentre.org/blog/2022/1/15/playing-with-the-environment-games-about-climate-infrastruct... |
| Description | Playing with the Environment: Games about Climate, Infrastructure and Society 29 November 2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Building infrastructure in the twentieth century - including motorways, power stations and reservoirs - had a more significant effect on the UK's landscapes than any other previous development. However, parallel to the unprecedented building works, investment in green infrastructure and amenity landscapes was equally important. These landscapes are now key in our fight against Climate Change and the Biodiversity Emergency. As part of the Festival of Social Science, we invited the public to play two new tabletop board games that challenge players to think about building and developing nation-wide infrastructures and their wide-ranging impacts. The games, designed and developed by Manchester School of Architecture students, were developed as part of ongoing research projects that question the delicate links between climate and infrastructure, and the challenges and opportunities these structures play in our current response to the climate crisis. We had 20 players who reported a change in thinking after the event and their feedback helped us to further refine the game for a second play test at a local school. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/detail/?id=17299 |