Friday 10 March — Friday 28 April 2017

Re-Imagine the Harris

An exhibition of proposals for the entrance sequence and engagement with the urban environment in and around the Harris Museum in Preston.

Continuity in Architecture at Manchester School of Architecture is a post-graduate atelier that runs programmes for the design of new buildings, public spaces and the re-modelling of existing situations within the historic urban environment. The emphasis is on the importance of place and the idea that design of architecture and interiors can be influenced by the experience and analysis of particular locations. This interpretation of place can provide a contemporary layer of meaning within the continuity of the evolving city.

This project looked specifically at the entrance to the Harris Museum in Preston. The students were asked to make architectural proposals that provided the museum with more inviting entrance sequence. This sequence included the areas immediately surrounding the building: that is the Flag Market opposite, the streets that run to the sides and the major Lancaster Road to the back as well as the rooms and spaces within the building itself. Thus this is an Urban Design and Interior Design project.

The project was deliberately devised to provide alternative solutions to the one created by Manchester based architects: Buttress. Their proposal was to cut a large hole in the facade of the magnificent victorian museum. Continuity in Architecture felt that this was a mistake, and so have demonstrated that it is possible to change the perceived situation without irretrievably altering the building.

Projects were undertaken at a series of scales, making strategies for the urban environment, designing collections of new structures and in some cases adding to the existing building to accommodate a new use. The intensions are to adhere not just of the agenda of the new users, but also the intentions of the original place. This act of modification is part of the evolution of the site, it as another layer in the archaeology of the situation.

Continuity in Architecture is led by  Sally Stone, with John Lee, Laura Sanderson, Tim Groom, Natalie Dossor.

Please check the Harris Museum web site for opening times.