One aspect of communicating the new qualities of the city is through thematic walking trails that mirror the city’s identity. Tourist trails within the inner city, for example, have to some extent been made possible by the transformation of the city centre under the current planning agenda.

By contrast, other trails use more critical concepts of walking, as mainly conceived by artists in the legacy of Dadaism and the Situationist International, try to open the walkers’ view on the city in non-commercial and playful ways, communicating spatial and atmospheric qualities beyond the agenda of established and commercially orientated planning.

Building Initiative took the current boom of walks as a methodological starting point. A selection of walks were mapped to learn about the forms of representations of Manchester. Afterwards, Building Initiative walked the city with a certain focus on non-represented areas encircling the city centre. Based on this experience, Yellow Trail was created, a critical walking trail that searches for the social potential of spaces beyond fixed images and concepts.

The Yellow Trail is not intended to present a fixed narrative of places and stories; rather it is a tool that helps in the perception of potentials and deficits in Manchester’s current development, as well as in the legacy of its built structures. The trail tries to encourage people to explore the role of the built environment in enabling and constructing different forms of social life. Through critical perception at specific locations, the trail aims to encourage the viewer to think about alternative strategies of planning culture.

Click here to download Yellow Trail Manchester!