Northern Quarter Homeless Pavilion

 

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Homelessness is an issue that has affected societies across the world throughout time. With increasing homelessness we now face the possibility of a new homeless population emerging as a new social class. This project aims to bridge the gap between this new homeless population in Manchester and the rest of society. The proposal allows the homeless to live their life as their own, giving them the opportunity to improve their living condition and strengthen their social ties with other homeless people as a community, but also to wider society. 

 

The key concept is ‘sharing’; with homeless people helping each other to live in a better environment on their own initiative. The response is a homeless pavilion based on the Barcelona pavilion by Mies Van Der Rohe and the New Babylon model by Constant Nieuwenhuys adapted to provide an architecture of high spatial quality which facilitates the emergence of this community, and its integration with wider society. Situated in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, this project explores the polemic between the ‘high architecture’ of the Barcelona pavilion and the adaptability of the homeless shelter, utilising the ambiguous, unused spaces of the pavilion to provide living spaces with function and vibrancy for this emerging society.