Manchester Futures

A Sustainable Post-Carbon City District

The Manchester Futures Design Research program began in 2010 as a joint project of The University of Calgary Faculty of Environmental Design (now School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape) and Sustainable Calgary Society. The purpose of this research program is to develop concrete strategies for creating the sustainable low carbon districts of the future with a focus on inner city brown fields – a ubiquitous form in North American cities. The design research approach is inspired by the concepts of industrial ecology, circular cities, and sustainability.

browse Sustainable Calgary work in Manchester

Projects

Oct 22, 2019

Co-Design: A 6-step process

Oct 22, 2019

Local citizens and professional designers team up to co-create healthier neighbourhoods.

Oct 22, 2019

Oct 19, 2019

Manchester

Oct 19, 2019

Co-design with the future in mind. How can Manchester meet the needs of local residents and businesses while aiming for a zero-waste, net-zero-energy circular economy?

Oct 19, 2019

Oct 18, 2019

Urban Design Invitational

Oct 18, 2019

An annual professional workshop that turns community feedback into design schemes. Step 3 of our co-design process.

Oct 18, 2019

Publications

Oct 6, 2020

Streets as Playful Places

Oct 6, 2020

Feb 15, 2020

Manchester Design Schemes

Feb 15, 2020

Sep 28, 2018

City of Calgary Budget Consultation, September 2018

Sep 28, 2018

Blog

Jan 7, 2019

Cost benefit analysis and active transportation funding in Calgary's Barley Belt

Jan 7, 2019

Aug 24, 2018

Policy Precedents: How Research Identified Strange Bedfellows

Aug 24, 2018

cost benefit analysis and the role it plays with funding active transportation in Calgary’s Barley Belt and Manchester community

Aug 24, 2018

Manchester is one of Calgary’s original industrial districts - a 500 hectare low intensity, predominantly light-industrial inner city district with a current population of approximately 500 people, located 2 kilometres from the City Centre.

The research design brief proposes a triple-mixed-use city district of 100,000 residents and 30-40,000 jobs. The design strategy is to explore the feasibility of scale up and integration of successful precedents throughout the world – whether it be technology, or architectural, planning and urban design. District and neighbourhood design precedents include, Arabianranta, Helsinki; Western Harbour, Malmo, Swede; Hammerby Sjostad and Royal Seaport, Stockholm, Sweden; Nordhavn, Copenhagen; Freiburg, Germany; Pearl District, Portland; Olympic Village, Vancouver; and Blatchford, Edmonton.

The Future Manchester 100% renewable energy strategy begins with a determination of energy demand (electricity, heat, light and motive power) and its internal provision via insolation, wind, biomass and industrial waste and waste heat. The backbone of the transit system will be a wind-powered streetcar, the Light Rail Transit systems and a ‘Neighbourhood Active Transportation Network’. A net zero water approach, begins by optimizing the harvest of local water flows first determining how much water demand can be met through the deployment of aggressive rainwater capture and recycling and then supplementing with sources from beyond the district. The future Manchester will achieve zero waste to landfill by diversion of solid waste to industrial processes (energy production and materials) or to reuse and recycling. Organic waste will be eliminated through a comprehensive composting program. Industrial activity will be managed through a public or cooperatively operated industrial logistics and management facility. Its role will be to create an industrial ecology integrating reproduction (residential), consumption (retail/commercial) and production (industrial) activity.

The district will be supported by a centrally-located research, development, teaching and learning centre (R&D – TLC) - a joint venture between the municipality, industry, and Calgary’s post-secondary research institutions. The purpose of the Centre is to solve the technology, planning and design problems that arise in designed and construction of the district.

The research employs a backcasting approach – imagine a future condition and explore the barriers to its manifestation. Through an initial stakeholder workshop in 2013, we identified a series of barriers - path dependent planning processes, financing, resistance to elimination or marginalization of the private automobile and the capitalist, private-profit and economic growth-oriented ethos that remains the foundation of projects to re-imagine cities.

The concept also addresses an Achilles heel of most sustainable city concepts – affordability and equity – through the exploration of non-market housing opportunities including Community Land Trusts, Co-housing and Cooperative housing.

To discover more about the Manchester Futures concept view the Manchester Futures Powerpoint presentation.

This site contains research and design work carried out by

Undergraduate students of urban planning;
Masters students in the School of Architecture Planning and Landscape Architecture;
Post-doctoral fellows with the Manchester Futures Research Project.

Also featured is work by research partners Spectacle: Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism

Much of this work has been carried out in collaboration with the community of residents and businesses in Manchester district through Sustainable Calgary’s ‘codesign’ approach.

Partners in this program have included The City of Calgary, Enmax, and Spectacle: Architecture and Urban Design, and the community of Manchester.