In the shadow of one of Greater Manchester's most famous landmarks, a new neighbourhood is being built
“You don’t want to compete with the nice old buildings, you want to do something that’s a statement on the era we are in,” says Tim Heatley, co-founder of ‘social impact developer’ Capital & Centric.
But for Capital & Centric it was imperative to avoid being ‘too bland’ - and taking a ‘ballsy’ approach to making ‘beautiful new buildings’ that fit along the historic mill. One of the project’s maxims is “If it looks old it stays’ .and there is an ‘industrial aesthetic’ running through the entire vision.
“The builders hate us for it, but this is how we designed it. It drives them mad but it has got to feel different. It can’t just feel like a plain white box.” The site will also boast a public square overlooking the River Mersey, while ‘new life’ is to be breathed into the West Shed, ‘creating an awesome indoor space with exposed brick, vaulted arches and cast iron columns’.
“Right the way through to even as late as the 80s and 90s they were still adjusting it, adding to it.You think, ‘hang on a second, whenever they’ve moved a cast iron column or removed a beam they haven’t replaced them with anything - and that’s a problem. The condition of the ‘stunning’ brickwork has also really surprised the team here, with the level of remediation required nowhere near what was expected.
Tim recalls that when he first visited the Weir Mill site he was greeted by a junk-strewn landscape of scrap metal, ‘random white goods’ and collapsing buildings. But Tim believes it’s the sheer scale of the project - perhaps the centrepiece of the town centre’s ongoing £1b regeneration - that will make it work.
And he remains unconcerned about ‘unsettling the balance’ of the town centre. “I just don’t think that is going to be the case,” he says. Tim believes Weir Mill will ultimately change people’s opinions of the west of the town centre and create a ‘genuinely positive legacy’.
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