Lan Plan: Central Lancashire New Town (1965-86)

From 1965 Lancashire, in the North West of England, became the focus of a major renewal scheme: the creation of a new ‘super-city’. The last and largest New Town designated under the 1965 Act, the proposed city, called Central Lancashire New Town (CLNT), differed from other New Towns. Although influenced by the ideals and example of Garden City model, its master plan was based on the region’s existing urban polycentricity that had evolved during the Industrial Revolution. By unifying and supplementing existing townships it aimed to generate prosperity on a sub-regional scale using the New Towns Act, rather than creating a single new urban development. Although only part-realised the scheme became a focus for Lancashire’s industrial and urban revival, rejuvenating many existing communities and providing multiple municipal modern city-scale civic buildings in Lancashire’s towns. The paper will outline the origins, intentions and achievements of CLNT including examples of its modern and often brutalist architectural legacy. As urban design precedent, it is pertinent to the Town and Country Planning Association’s current national campaign to continue the work of the Garden City movement as well as regional debates concerning Lancashire’s future urban redevelopment, particularly Preston (the proposed sub-regional centre of CLNT), which was granted City status in 2002

Central Lancashire New Town: the hidden polycentric supercity

Abstract. From 1962 Lancashire, in England, became the focus of a major renewal scheme: the creation of a ‘super-city’ for 500,000 people. The last and largest New Town designated under the 1965 Act, Central Lancashire New Town (CLNT) differed from other New Towns. Although influenced by the ideals and example of Garden City model, its master plan followed new and proposed infrastructure to connect the sub-region’s poly-centricity. By unifying and expanding existing towns and settlements it aimed to generate prosperity on a sub-regional scale using the New Towns Act, rather than creating a single new self-sufficient urban development. CLNT’s scale, poly-centricity and theoretical growth made it unique compared to other new town typologies and, although not realised, its planning can be traced across Lancashire’s urban and rural landscape by communication networks and city-scale public and civic buildings. With reference to diagrams for the British New Towns of Hook, Milton Keynes and Civilia, this paper will contextualize and evaluate CLNT’s theoretical layout and its proposed expansion based on interdependent townships, districts and ‘localities’. The paper will conclude by comparing CLNT’s theoretical diagram with its proposed application and adaptation to the sub-region’s topographical physical setting

Events // A Decade of Student Led Collaborative Projects

Now in its 10th year, the Manchester School of Architecture’s annual ‘Events’ programme has completed over 200 diverse live projects across the city and beyond. Collaboration drives each project’s delivery, content and resolution. Now an annual focus, this fuels the programme’s success by requiring students to step outside the protected environment of the School to engage in outreach projects. In this respect ‘Events’ sits between academia and professional practice providing students with different design-team experiences as they progress through their architectural education. For two weeks each year approximately 400 students from 3 different levels of architectural education unite through 20 simultaneous projects to work with local and international communities from beyond academia, architectural practices, arts organisations and research groups. Working with a collaborator, the brief for each ‘Event’ is prepared by groups of three or four students in the postgraduate March course and delivered to groups of approximately 16 undergraduate students from the BA (Hons) course in Architecture Years 01 and 02. Activities during Events are researched, designed, planned and taught by MArch students who are then assessed on their project management and delivery. Although the programme’s delivery has evolved over its lifespan, each year it has consistently provided a ‘seed bed’: an opportunity to explore, exchange and promote ideas across trans-disciplinary networks. Whilst doing so, this creates an opportunity for students to foster new contacts, demonstrate their professionalism and their ability to manage creative enterprises from conception to completion. Through a series of case studies, this paper will introduce ‘Events’ and outline how the School coordinates and supports multiple student-led collaborative projects on an annual basis and at a mass scale. A pedagogic evaluation will be presented focusing on student experience, diversity, problem-based learning and reflective practice. This will be demonstrated though a discussion of the programme's evolution over ten years through three distinct phases and will illustrate the transition from staff to student-led activities, the encouragement of student reflection through digital media, the students’ selection of collaborators and an emphasis on employability and job running. It is intended that films and case studies submitted for the exhibition will cross-reference with this paper

Circulating Pneumolysin Is a Potent Inducer of Cardiac Injury during Pneumococcal Infection

Streptococcus pneumoniae accounts for more deaths worldwide than any other single pathogen through diverse disease manifestations including pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis. Life-threatening acute cardiac complications are more common in pneumococcal infection compared to other bacterial infections. Distinctively, these arise despite effective antibiotic therapy. Here, we describe a novel mechanism of myocardial injury, which is triggered and sustained by circulating pneumolysin (PLY). Using a mouse model of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), we demonstrate that wild type PLY-expressing pneumococci but not PLY-deficient mutants induced elevation of circulating cardiac troponins (cTns), well-recognized biomarkers of cardiac injury. Furthermore, elevated cTn levels linearly correlated with pneumococcal blood counts (r=0.688, p=0.001) and levels were significantly higher in non-surviving than in surviving mice. These cTn levels were significantly reduced by administration of PLY-sequestering liposomes. Intravenous injection of purified PLY, but not a non-pore forming mutant (PdB), induced substantial increase in cardiac troponins to suggest that the pore-forming activity of circulating PLY is essential for myocardial injury in vivo. Purified PLY and PLY-expressing pneumococci also caused myocardial inflammatory changes but apoptosis was not detected. Exposure of cultured cardiomyocytes to PLY-expressing pneumococci caused dose-dependent cardiomyocyte contractile dysfunction and death, which was exacerbated by further PLY release following antibiotic treatment. We found that high PLY doses induced extensive cardiomyocyte lysis, but more interestingly, sub-lytic PLY concentrations triggered profound calcium influx and overload with subsequent membrane depolarization and progressive reduction in intracellular calcium transient amplitude, a key determinant of contractile force. This was coupled to activation of signalling pathways commonly associated with cardiac dysfunction in clinical and experimental sepsis and ultimately resulted in depressed cardiomyocyte contractile performance along with rhythm disturbance. Our study proposes a detailed molecular mechanism of pneumococcal toxin-induced cardiac injury and highlights the major translational potential of targeting circulating PLY to protect against cardiac complications during pneumococcal infections

Constructing the metropolitan homeland: the literatures of the white settler societies of New Zealand and Australia

This article examines the responses articulated in white settler writing from New Zealand and Australia to the location and status of these nations as postcolonial diasporas. Beginning with the early colonial sense of estrangement from and idealisation of the metropolitan homeland of Great Britain it traces a pattern of literary engagement with the European source of ethnic origin through to the present day. The article notes changing attitudes towards home and homelands due to the greater fluidity and complexity of migratory and travel paths as the binaries of home and abroad, empire and colony, metropolitan centre and provincial periphery begin to break down towards the end of the twentieth centur