T


he Manchester Metropolitan University School of Digital Arts (SODA), opened in November 2021, with a promise of a genuinely new kind of art school in the UK. Covering a range of disciplines – but with an overriding focus on the design of screen-based activities – it has been designed to relate closely to the existing School of Art and Design next door. Also designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios), the latter was nominated for the Stirling Prize in 2014. The £35m project, says Steve Wilby, associate at FCBStudios, finds the practice taking its strong existing relationship with this client up a notch,


reflecting the uniqueness of this scheme. The building covers “everything to do with the screen from apps to feature films” and relates to digital devices large and small, he says. This includes refining the design of screens to enhance how we interact with them – which in turn influenced this project. “The design is lean, and industrial, but as with the junction between your phone casing and its screen, the transitions help create a unified, seamless whole.” Here, this transition was between a giant digital screen and SODA’s protective, pleated cladding. FCBStudios won a design competition run by the university in 2016. This is the sixth commission the practice have


ADF OCTOBER 2022


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