Since the late 1980s Manchester has focussed on strategies of market-led and culturally orientated development. Manchester’s industrial heritage has been successfully interpreted and used as a basis for a new image of the city. The city centre has changed into a lively place, dominated by retail and entertainment facilities. New and outstanding residential and office developments (some of them making use of former industrial buildings) characterize Manchester’s approach towards the future.

At the same time, social exclusion and poverty are still acute problems. Derelict and abandoned high-rise and terraced housing beyond the city centre indicate these unresolved problems of spatial and social marginalization.

Building Initiative has explored its concept of Yellow Space to the Manchester context, specifically looking at social space, accessibility, the role of urban design and the treatment of public space. We focused critically on the material outcome of recent planning and building in the context of the city’s development strategies, strategies that attempted to overcome the negative legacies of the city’s industrial past through the development of a city fit for the 21st century.

Building Initiative uses a ‘phenomenological’ approach and attempts to get people involved. The exhibition space is understood as a place of collected information, but the real issue is the city itself. Thus, the aim is to encourage people to go into their city and look at it in a different way. Building Initiative wants to propose a critical interpretation of what is happening.