Bias in Architecture: Fact or Fiction Charlie Butterwick September 2016 Article The brain is a complex place full of an indistinguishable mix of facts and fictions “People don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their truths destroyed.” Friedrich Nietzsche Bias ˈbʌɪəs’ (noun) “The support of or opposition to a particular person or thing in an unfair way, due to the influence of personal opinions on one’s judgment” Cambridge English Dictionary Is it possible to separate bias and action? Identities are constructed through the internal assimilation of data received from our external environment, be it sensory, experiential, mnemonic, memetic or spiritual. Our perception is our reality. We are a product of our nurture filtered through our nature. Identities are tied up with where you come from, who you know, what we’ve done, how it made us feel, individual genetics, whether we are supported and or possibly cut down. As Alistair McIntyre put it, “We are never more (and sometimes less) than the co-authors of our own narratives.” The ways in which we are raised, grow and personally evolve become truths by which we guide our lives, they are the building blocks of our identities. Though this does not absolve any moral responsibility, it shows the relative powerlessness of our own truths and the inconsequentiality of our certainty in these personal definitions of right and wrong. It must point us to the inevitable fact that all actions are inevitably biased without recourse. Can we do anything about this? Without a magic button for infinite empathy for everyone all the time, being able to walk in another’s shoes is a rare gift that is totally incompatible with the challenging scale of designing cities. Despite many architects best intentions (or otherwise), we must accept that the only way to do architecture is together, using tactics that fuel the creative construction of identities that embrace the difference and heterogeneity between people through debate and dialogue.. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Bias in architecture has a crucial bearing on the type of city we are building for future generations. The neo-liberal city being constructed around us today fundamentally undermines our identity constructs and processes of relation. In 1967, Robert Park said “In making the city man has remade himself”. The city around us is one that I believe is biased, increasingly elitist and othering because the process and people by which it is being made are removed from the many thousands of people who endure it every day. As the last infrastructures of post-war social planning are eroded, communally anchoring institutions that once provided spaces of public dialogue, stability, ownership and identity are erased and not replaced. Personal truths, which were in part supported by roles undertaken within these structures, are cast adrift. Today,it is widely intuited that something has been lost that our parents had but that our children may not. We feel powerless to resist. As with many things, bias in city building has been privatised. How have our lives and our cities reached this point? And why do architects not embrace community engagement as a route to simply doing a decent job? Talk to an architect and what quickly emerges is that community engagement is seen as a hassle that further complicates the already complex process of designing buildings because of the divergent opinions between citizens themselves and between the public and paying clients. Not to play the world’s smallest violin for the profession but they find themselves in a challenging position between getting paid and fighting for a positive, socially relevant contribution to the built environment. Instead architects refer to guides and regulations, minimum standards and optimal arrangements, pedestrian and vehicular movement analyses, the whim of their clients and glossy subscription magazines. These are the standards by which the profession engages the outside world and judges success or failure. These convenient lies are told to allow them the freedom to be absolved of personal responsibility and remain insulated from the criticism of others. These new, double-thought truths are a key factor in the obfuscation of the actual effect of buildings on people in cities. Citizens are reduced to our lowest common denominator, bodies in space without agency, impulse of the need for identity. A list of biases is long but interesting reading. How many apply to you? In reference to Nietzsche’s opening quote I would only modify it to read that people don’t want to hear other’s truths because they don’t want their truths destroyed. The opposition of radically different truths, a phenomena that summarises 2016 in my opinion, can often feel like an assault not just on what we feel is good but on our very sense of self. To overcome this barrier we must do three things. Firstly, we must accept that there is no objectivity in the world, everyone and everything they do is biased. We must see that bias is only threatening when its hegemonic, but ultimately that bias only becomes scary when it ends a conversation. If we accept and understand each other’s biases then we may still remain biased but we have opened ourselves to change and true communally directed action. If we fail to do this then we are on a path to letting personal bias be the driving force for widely felt change. We must oppose this by devolving decision making especially in the making of large constructs such as buildings in cities. We must ask anyone affected about the consequences to them, not guess or analyse, and then accept the answers. We must ask broadly; we must ask as many people as possible by creating forums for these divergent identities, these truths, to be represented on a personal level. Secondly, we must convince those few who are already powerful decision makers that they are ruining us, the people, even killing us and our futures, by bettering themselves; a conflict of truths. We can only do this by being tireless, insistent, noisy and articulate. We must organise not to argue for change but to make changes. Start a community project, talk to your neighbours, find a group, become a person in someone else’s network, give your time for free, always ask questions especially when something sounds too good to be true, organise even in the smallest ways, ask for help if you need it but above all we must not stop. Finally, we need to design the processes by which decisions are implemented so that there is ongoing communal responsibility and ownership, because inevitably human beings will change their minds. Many will say that this is too great a challenge, that we can’t possibly override our human nature, that this isn’t how things are meant to be! To them I say, we’re a fucking clever species and when we recognise something is in our best interest we achieve it, against the odds and in spite of the challenges, so let’s get to work. To conclude, the title of this piece is only partly true and even then only my opinion though it’s stated as a fact. Bias is not just architecture, bias is everything. So, what’s my bias? What’s my investment? Put bluntly, I hope these words encourage you to call me and ask for my help in a project you and your neighbours are considering, not because you want to enact my truth but because you already have debated your own and you want to test it against reality. I hope that you’re looking for someone to question and to challenge, an invested neighbour, a co-conspirator, a technical skill set and a knowledge base to enable you to achieve your neighbourhood’s dreams. I look forward to hearing from you. 1/7

096 Dean Drive Remodel 1/7 Client Private Client Location Bowden, South Manchester Budget £250k Collaborators ING Engineering - Ian Grindley, Trend Design and Build Downloads ​ Adding Character Value Our client for this project approached us to add vibrancy to her "very ordinary" (her words!) detached house in Bowdon. We proposed a major extension and internal reconfiguration of this mid-late 20th century two-storey property to create a modern family home with character and fun. The project’s core aim is to give this house a wow factor currently sorely missed. The internal arrangement are of a typical late 90's character, with the design we have sought to bring height, light and beauty and bring this home into the 21st century. Following a deep dig design process it was decided that a subtle contemporary form was to be developed, one that that reflects the features of the existing house, but seeks to also elevate it. The plan form references the elevational profile of the prominent half-hipped roofs and creates a new terminus for the building that steps down to the garden level. The resulting set back at the first floor level allows the existing external wall line at the rear too flow round in scaled version of the ground floor and ties into the existing roof pitch. This leaves a very tall vaulted space internally which will make the perfect contemplative office space with its own east facing balcony to capture the morning sunlight through the trees. The materiality and window placement of the building echo the traditional architecture of the apse in a church in a modern style. The solid base, here in brick, contrasts with arched windows above over two levels which will be recessed in a timber clad finish with a traditional tile roof. An extensive attic conversion with a dormer is also proposed which creates two new large bedrooms and a music studio. The redevelopment of the first floor to rationalise the existing bedrooms, add a laundry room and refreshed master bedroom ensuite is also proposed. We're hoping to start on site in early April.

Home Life: Supported, Self-Built, Housing First Initiative Architecture Unknown April 2023 Article ​ Manchester, like many other cities around the world, has a significant homelessness problem. According to the latest figures, there are around 1,200 people sleeping rough in Greater Manchester on any given night, with many more living in temporary accommodation or sofa-surfing. There are a number of factors that contribute to homelessness in Manchester, including high housing costs, poverty, mental health issues, addiction, and family breakdown. In recent years, there has also been a rise in the number of people becoming homeless as a result of the UK government's welfare reform policies. There are a number of organizations and charities in Manchester that work to support homeless people and provide them with essential services, such as food, shelter, and healthcare. These include the Booth Centre, the Mustard Tree, Coffee4Craig and the umbrella organisation, Manchester Homeless Partnership, which includes all 10 boroughs under the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. However, despite the efforts of these wonderful organisations, there is still much work to be done to support those who are sleeping rough or living in precarious housing situations. ​ We at Architecture Unknown want to lend a hand and use our design expertise to directly enable homeless people to be involved in the design and construction of bespoke homes as part of a unique Housing First strategy. Through the concept of self-build homes, we want to offer opportunities for skill advancement, construction site training, exposure to contractor employers, personalised support and ongoing assessment. This would address social isolation within the homeless community whilst creating vibrant housing developments within existing neighbourhoods that positively impacts their surroundings. By using placemaking we can enable homeless resident led-briefing, leading to participatory design processes and finally community-led construction, promoting engagement at every level. We at AU are ready to take action- all we need is you! 1/3

044 Mass Customised Community Homes 1/9 Client Digital Woodoo Location Ulverston, Cumbria Budget ​ Collaborators Clayton Prest - Architecture 00, WikiHouse Trust - www.architecture00.net Power to Change - Funders - www.powertochange.org.uk Downloads Full Report - www.bit.ly/3gbbBaw Researching Community Led Housing A serious piece of research requires a serious introduction! We were asked to collaborate with Architecture 00 to plot the future course of micro-manufacturing and distribution of WikiHouses in the UK for up-and-coming manufacturing startup, Digital Woodoo. Our remit was to examine the construction industry as a landscape ripe for disruption, show how the tide might be turned in favour of communities and community owned businesses and propose a business model for Digital Woodoo. We showed how: The current provision of housing is failing even the more basic standards of provision and that the strangle hold that big developers have over the majority of housing is both unsustainable and highly disruptable. The values of community-led housing groups and innovative small-to-medium sized contractors can be aligned to the mutual advantage of both using WikiHouse. A design process based on clear communication, managed expectations and mutual respect could be forged through the adoption of a three staged information exchange standard, the Design Code, Design Guide and Design Passport giving cost certainty but also freedom to these potential partnerships. This hypothesis might work in action as we designed ten unique homes that respond to the individual desires of a simulation group of users and the theoretical constraints of both the Design Code and Design Guide. We modelled these people living in their homes over time and showed how each home might be adapted to meet the requirements of many different types of key life changes demonstrating both the flexibility of the WikiHouse system and meeting the requirements for a lifetime home. Out of all this we showed how Digitial Woodoo could find a niche as both an advocate of Mass Customised Community Housing and a manufacturer/erector of WikiHouses, championing the causes of communities across the North-West.

048 Manor Road Extension 1/7 Client Private Client Location Stretford, Manchester Budget £250k Collaborators ​ Downloads ​ House of Juxtapositions This tricky brief for a house was to combine private with public and original with modern and conflate widely varying occupancy requirements which changed from week to week. Though seemingly a simple double storey extension with 2 new bedrooms at first floor and additional ground floor accommodation what we were actually asked to do was turn a 3 bedroom house into a flexible 7 bedroom house which must be able to to transform operationally depending on whether your usage is public or private. Wrapping all this within a modern form to contrast with the traditional semi-detached existing made this an interesting challenge. Our proposal creates a new entrance and hall with a convertible W/C/utility space and walk through larder separated from the main hall by a sliding door under the stairs. The expanded modern kitchen has two entrances from the public and private halls and has sneaky storage and tuck away desks to convert if from family kitchen/learning room into an entertainment space. The ground floor office is will be fitted out to contain fold down beds and can operate as a bedroom at a moment's notice. With the addition of an external guest suite in the garden, an additional two large double beds upstairs and significant improvements to the Master Bedroom, this house has the ability to be a chameleon and adapt to its ever changing environment.

010 Home:Life 1/4 Client ​ Location ​ Budget ​ Collaborators ​ Downloads Full Report - www.bit.ly/2Yf5An8 Homelessness Strategy Our self-published strategy was designed to enable a Housing First strategy in Manchester that created the conditions to tackle homelessness not only in its aims but its process as well. Through the use of WikiHouse this report envisaged the creation of houses by and for the homeless people who would come to live in them. For us the purpose of architecture is also aligned to its process. We always aim to achieve the final aims of the project from the moment we put pen to paper.

079 Brogden Grove 1/5 Client Private Client Location Sale, Manchester Budget £100k+ Collaborators Andrew Coop - AKW Engineers Ltd Downloads ​ Conservation Area Action Internal renovation and rear extension to Edwardian end of terrace house to open up and extend the ground floor. The aim is to provide a spacious elegant open plan kitchen, dining and living room at ground floor that is light filled and embraces the courtyard to the rear. The project’s core aim is to make this house fit for modern living and a possible future family home. The layout is currently cramped and lacks any type of pleasing flow or connection between spaces. There is a need for updating the decoration, modernising the kitchen while an increase of natural light and courtyard interaction are required. The proposal seeks to rationalise the available space, maximise natural light and make this house fit for modern living by adding a minimal extension to the rear of the house. This changes the existing confined space into a generous open plan kitchen-living-dining that would bring the family together during their every day activities. The design creates a modern but understated one storey extension with a wide, open kitchen which flows into both the sunken living room and dining space. The dining space and living are naturally lit, with a glazed elevation to the garden and a rooflight over the dining area. The space to the rear is enclosed with a polished concrete plinth that provides structural support to the walls but also helps define the lower seating area while it can also double up as seating, space for plants or pieces of art. At the basement level, the floor and stairs will be upgraded to comply with current building regulations and the void space at the rear of the house will be turned into a utility room. The existing stairs connecting the basement to the ground floor will be excavated and replaced with new concrete stairs, finished with oak steps.

AI + Architecture - Does design have a future? Architecture Unknown May 2020 Podcast Connectivity rules the day but does it spell the end to the humble architect? Is the future of AI an over-hyped factor in future assessments of construction or is it likely to disrupt the fundamental rhythms of design consultancy today? Are architects going to be replaced by intelligent robots? Find out in this episode of our vlog. What if we get too complacent? Do we know how this story ends! In the news we will be touching on Chelsea FC's new stadium, Altrincham market and former RIBA president Jane Duncan with our hot/not architecture of the week is The Playhouse Design Competition and "container-ism" design respectively. 1/13

132 Glenview Extension 1/4 Client Private Client Location Egerton, Bolton Budget £150k Collaborators ​ Downloads ​ A House fit for the Glen An enhancement to a semi-detached family home by making it more spacious and open, while blending modern and traditional elements. The plan includes an infill extension for the dining room, refurbishment of living spaces, alterations to an existing garden office, and an upper side extension to create a master suite with a balcony and a view of the glen. One of the main goals is to increase the footprint of the existing side extension to create a new hub for the home that will connect the kitchen, dining room, and garden. Perfect for Christmas and entertaining, this new side extension will be of importance as it will circulate through the hub of the home. For example, the kids will be able to freely come in and out of the garden whilst mum and dad are having a cup of brew in the dining room. Knocking down existing walls will ensure appropriate levels of comfort that Glenview has been longing for. All of the extensions would share a similar architectural language whilst maintaining views to the glen. The design options offer bold choices for both internal layout and external aesthetics. Ultimately, the goal is to create a light-filled, comfortable haven for the family that takes advantage of the natural surroundings

011 Astley Walk 1/5 Client Hometown Plus Location Newcastle-under-Lyme Budget ​ Collaborators Rebel Rooms Comprehensive Building Consultancy Ltd Downloads ​ "Communifying" Commodification A shopping centre refurbishment with a difference! We were engaged to consult with users and management of the York Place shopping centre and draw up a concept package for the general refurbishment of the building's facade. The existing building is a typical 60s "retail destination" and required innovative solutions to not just upgrade the fabric but reinvent the brand of this place to attract a new and more diverse customer base. Tenants were keen to show the individuality of the town and reconfigure the centre towards the new influx of university students that would be arriving due to expansion plans. Our scheme takes the best of "Shoreditch-inspired" community-led low cost improvements and mixes with the historic legacy of Newcastle.

059 Naked Build Garden Spaces 1/13 Client naked build co. Location UK Budget ​ Collaborators Digital Woodoo Downloads ​ Build your own Wikipod Democratising architecture is one of our key goals as a company, what better place to start this than your own back garden! We have been asked by new start up, the Naked Build Company, to turn our attention to the uses of WikiHouse for the construction of garden pods by their owners. These products have the potential to be shipped to you completely flat packed with an installation manual for those looking for an adventure or in the future erected for you by one of the Naked Build Company's specialist teams.

The Mayfield Imaginarium: Redefining a Lost District Architecture Unknown November 2016 News AU's artistic reinvention of Mayfield Train Depot based on the responses to our community consultation, planning games, workshops and talks undertaken as part of the Mayfield Imaginarium The Mayfield Station and surrounding infrastructure was an integral cog in the transport heart of Manchester, but since its closure in the 60's became an abandoned ruin. Rebirth With its imminent rebirth by developers U+I in sight, volunteers from the Mayfield Imaginarium Collective sought to open the question of Mayfield’s future out to the people of Manchester. Over the course of two days of intense conversation focused on six fantastic community engagement workshops, data was gathered on Mancunians’ attitudes towards development and Mayfield’s place in that ongoing story. By asking creative questions we elicited creative answers that ranged from reusing the abandoned railway tracks as Manchester’s very own Highline Park, to redeveloping the existing station as an arts hub. The two day event was a huge success with other popular games/exercises that ran in the background all day complimenting the workshops including a cool wall to rate Manchester’s buildings and an importance wheel to gauge the relative priority of functions ranging from healthcare and offices to tourism. This fed into discussions surrounding the future forms and uses of these functions. We asked people to imagine how culture/tourism, housing, offices, green space and community infrastructure would change and successfully work for Manchester’s future citizens in 50 years and how we could prepare for these shifts. Think big, bold and hopefully was the overarching theme of the two days on that was captured and expressed by each of the six scintillating workshops that peppered the two days... Participants modelling a new vision for Mayfield in plasticine Day 1 The event started with Reece Singleton (Architectural Consultant) leading us on a journey through the Cognitive Mapping of Manchester. By challenging our memorised perceptual reading of Manchester, the workshop focused on analysing the urban signifiers on our routes into the city centre. By assessing the strength of the mnemonic imprint left by the city Reece drew a causal line to the need to make a readable city, one where way-finding was easy and defined by a strong cityscape. It was proposed that, as a hugely visible gateway site in Manchester, Mayfield Station had a responsibility to embody the highest quality design. The critical importance of city planning for Mayfield Station was underscored by Mark Hammil (award winning Town Planner and Urbanist) with Transforming Cities. This workshop was a fun exercise to imagine priorities for Mayfield by analysing the successes and failures of other parts of Manchester. From this discussion we created a list of key requirements for the site to send to Manchester City Council and U+I. In the late afternoon the plasticine and craft paper came out for Ghost Stations with David Chandler (Urbanist & Architectural Artist) who got the assembled people to explore the history of Mayfield Station and how its essential memory could be preserved and memorialised. People recreated their favourite artefact of the station and creatively reimagined the space in the future to place it within an as yet unbuilt urban landscape. The team and participants rounded off the first day with a drink and a celebration of the inspiring first half of the engagement programme Day 2 Kicking off Sunday was artist Ash Van Dyke’s Creative Spaces Dreams and a lively debate on the future use of the derelict station building itself and how we could enable this vision. Following a PESTLE:V scorecard (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental and Value) participants explored the the realms of possibility that the site provides creating proposals that remained grounded in analytical reality. There was a real sense of hope at the end of the workshop that with the right vision and drive Mayfield Station had a bright civic future. The ever present and never ending supply of plasticine and card reemerged for Vicky Payne’s Mayfield Masterplanning workshop. As a planner at URBED, Vicky used her experience to guide everyone through a typical URBED city planning engagement exercise where everyone got stuck in to reimagining the 24 hectare Mayfield Site as a newly completed piece of the city. Not letting the traditional pastel colours of the plasticine distract us the results were spectacular including a new 25-30 storey office tower next to Piccadilly Station, a new Manchester Music Pioneers Museum and strong connections to the nearby Piccadilly Basin development area. Rounding out an unparalleled two days of fun and excitement was Sally Titterington of Living in Future Ecologies Research (LiFE), showcasing some of the fantastic work done at Manchester Metropolitan University titled Opiso Visions. Opiso, an Ancient Greek word, described the state of walking backwards into the future, reliant only on past knowledge for information. Transposing this concept to Mayfield asked questions of us, not only about where we are headed as a city and a society, but also about what we will need to get there and why. There couldn’t have been a more fitting description to summarise everything the Mayfield Imaginarium sought to question and our hopes for a more inclusive process to this critical development. Everyone has a future, we are all heading somewhere, shouldn’t we have the right to say what we’ll need along the way? Read more on our Mayfield Imaginarium project page and download the FULL REPORT 1/6